Locked in an office -Teaching In NZ during COVID 19 pandemic 2020

 

Lonely days ...locked in an office

Term 2- Week 4

This week I find that I am resenting going to my office, fortunately - I am able to escape and shoot away down to Amberley village to go grab a takeaway coffee and a muffin, during my tea break. Since changing to Level 3 there is some more cafes open - Fantastic!

I have tried to stick ridgley to routines,  but this week i chuck it in! I work with more flexibility. I enjoy  being able to work more with my own rhythms. I now have the finalised planner. 

Its great knowing that I have a whole day- Monday is a planning day, to get all the work set up for the students. I consider this time to be my 'work run' time. Over the weekend I am thinking of ideas, refining them and then on Monday I crack on to create the learning tasks for the week - assigning some time each morning for the classes.

I am constantly thinking ahead and adapting tasks to make them user friendly. When i ask students for feedback they are saying that they are happy with the amount of work and difficulty.

This week I also received praise from a colleague in my unofficial learning team 'Ladies who lunch' We have all helped each other so much and it's great to be in a self selected team - rather than in a subject specific group. It meant such a lot though to have praise and acknowledgement.        Working in isolation from our homes seems like everything is very invisible. This is one reason why I have chipped away at building my own Learning site to add resources too. The fact that we have helped each other so much has lead to enhanced feelings of collegiality. It's good knowing that we are all doing the best we can do. My productivity has been good this week. 

Sharing resources; Many of the resources can be shared and adapted by colleagues. I am sharing all task with Nicola Cam - Hospo teacher at Taipa Area School, and i am putting task into the department shared drive. 

I am working collaboratively with other teachers to do the 'cooking at home resources'. Students are able to evidence the practical cookery tasks at home during lockdown- it makes sense to have a formal way of recording this. 

Haidee and i are making Baking information slide decks with cooking demonstrations attached as videos for the Y12 classes.  Students can select to do baking at home for a range of recipe ideas. This will be used as evidence, toward cookery Unit Standards, when we return to school. Some lovely work is being submitted by the classes.

I also have time scheduled for checking work - On friday we are given info on a next level tool - MOTE - this voice message recording tool is a chrome extension that is great as it  simplifies the feedback and task setting. 

Reflecting on the week..

At this stage it looking likely that we will return to school to resume ordinary teaching within the next few weeks, I have grown a lot from this experience. Having been fortunate to have not had dependents or distractions in my home, I have made some real headway with creating online rewindable lessons. It's pretty cool! In a funny way - I kind of like the life as a 'remote' teacher. 
I am also concerned by the lack of engagement at all by some students, actually hard to believe that some have not been able to do anything!

A few Gems... 
Students submitting pictures and evidence of wonderful cookery - and the neat comments that their parents type!😀
Having the company of my Little dog Jack russell terrior Jill - who fall asleep in her bed on the floor in my office...she even snores sometimes!🐱‍👤
Feeling on to it! and getting praised by colleagues!💐
Discovery of MOTE - so quick and easy to record and do feedback or quick tips! Cool😜