Kiddipedia
Katherine Ohlsen
“Every day counts and there is no ‘safe’ threshold for absences” – Hancock et al., 2013.
When teachers were first thrown into the pandemic, learning to adjust to the new way of educating our students was first and foremost our main concern. The time students were having away from face-to-face learning was crucial. Numerous studies have shown that everyday counts towards a child’s education not only academically but socially as well. As a teacher, trying to navigate our way through the pandemic has been an extension of our adaptability on a daily basis. Teachers are working hard to not only to upskill themselves with technology, but also plan engaging and differentiated online lessons, performing welfare checks for students, conducting zoom lessons, all whilst juggling their own families at the same time.
Teachers have had to adapt continuously during online learning to deliver a blended learning model to ensure students’ education can still occur during this critical time. As this is the second time, we have faced remote learning, from my experience, my Stage 3 students have adapted to full time online learning far better than the previous year, as they were more capable of navigating Google Classroom. We as teachers were far more comfortable with our delivery format for online learning also. With this experience, this lockdown has allowed us to refine our planning and try new methods to deliver content to engage our students as we would within the classroom. We consistently strive to differentiate our lessons for our students to ensure each individual child has access to the learning. Schools during the pandemic have provided families with computers, iPads, internet modems and learning packs to support students in the continuation of their learning while facing this difficult time.
Classrooms today encourage the values of collaboration and students becoming Assessment Capable Learners (John Hattie). Moving into the online classroom has made these values difficult to achieve on a daily basis. Thankfully, Matific has offered complimentary access to all schools to their digital Mathematics resource throughout Term 3 to assist with remote learning. This resource has proven to help increase student test results by 34%. Matific not only focuses on student achievement but also encourages students to develop mathematical confidence. Quite often, students have a fear of mathematical content as it is abstract and beyond their understanding. Matific combats this by providing a bank of resources all curriculum aligned for students to work through. As a teacher, I have been able to differentiate the material that I assign to my students to ensure they are receiving content that they can achieve success in, while also allowing me to extend my students beyond the grade level. Traditional maths platforms have a focus on correct and incorrect answers. Matific fosters an inquiry-based learning approach to give students the opportunity to make mistakes and learn from them via a guided lesson within the program. This in turn encourages users to become Assessment Capable Learners by learning from their mistakes. Not only can the students use the platform independently, but it has transformed my teaching by using the activities within my remote teaching. Matific activities have allowed me to introduce new content to my students in meaningful ways and with each activity generating new questions each time the limits of the program are endless. The journey to engaging my school with the program was seamless with the guidance and support of the Matific team. Within the first few weeks of using the platform our students had completed over 8000 activities.
Remembering during this pandemic to be kind to ourselves is paramount. Matific helped me to plan and effectively time manage to ensure that I still had time to be with my family. At the end of the day as teachers we are trying to do everything possible to replicate the classroom from home. It’s part of the job description we never knew existed, but we are paving the way for the blended learning of the future.
Katherine is a primary school teacher. Last year when having to teach her students remotely, her previous school registered for the complimentary license that was being offered by Matific. Upon moving to a new school and facing a Sydney lockdown, she noticed that the new school wasn’t utilising the platform. After seeing the complimentary Term 3 access was available again, Katherine reached out to Matific. Within a week of using the program over 1500 activities were completed by the children of the school.
