Learning From Home
Challenging times can lead to innovative changes that broaden and improve opportunities. All that has been learned through educating our students during this pandemic will lead to changes in the holistic education offered at Mount St. Joseph Girls’ College. The learnings from remote learning will inform deliberations in the extensive review with staff, students and parents/carers.
To capture the student experience, I share with you a reflection from the College Academic Captain, Pooja Chelimela.
"Mount St. Joseph Girls' College was one of many schools to bring their education home and take on a new challenge with online learning. To cope with the change, I deemed the experience of learning from home as “Zoom School”. Like many, I found the experience both enjoyable and taxing. The ability to walk over to the fridge as often as I wanted clashed with the abrupt change to learn and be educated outside of the classroom. Several benefits, along with the constant visit to the kitchen, paired with the ability to sleep in, play with my pets and spend more time with my family definitely eased the dissimilarity.
Learning from home was an eerie experience without other students surrounding me, teachers not teaching from the front of the classroom and the old, repetitive bell sounds becoming another story of the past. However, the support from the student leaders and teachers made the experience less challenging or stressful than I thought it would be. With the range of activities on offer and the establishment of ‘MSJ Connect’, I was able to engage with the MSJ community once again. The constant updates, features and emails from students allowed me to feel as though I am at school surrounded by energetic MSJ students once again.
I also found that the changes that the teachers applied to my learning really enhanced Zoom School. My teachers adapted their teaching method and workload to suit the out-of-school experience by utilising CANVAS and simplifying complex theories to be broken down into smaller subsections. It was very helpful to have a proper and specific timeline of events that was sent to us in the morning everyday. These emails dictated what we were doing in class and where this class fits with our learning."
