Courtney Wehlage is a teacher at G.S. Lakie Middle School in Lethbridge, Canada. Since the pandemic hit, she has been teaching students ranging from grade 6 to 8 both online and in school. Her response to the Palette Magz’ Learning and Teaching during COVID survey illustrate how school life has evolved during this period.
These are some obstacles Courtney faced as a teacher during the pandemic:
“Student engagement was hard. Students would be in the class but would be unable to use their camera, mic, or couldn’t type in the chat fast enough. One-on-one support was tough as well.
It was difficult to do assignments and turn-ins for students that are only online for one week. Too much of a learning curve for such a short amount of time.
Students are unfamiliar with basic Microsoft applications (word, ppt) and struggled with formatting assignments.”
However, there were still some positives for Courtney during this time:
“I enjoyed the flexibility for students to work on their own.
The variety of assignments that I could give was nice. Having all students have access to the internet and computers allowed a different freedom of projects. The one-to-one availability of technology was so nice.”
Here are the technologies she used in her teaching:
“Laptops, YouTube and Microsoft Teams”
She feels there was also a huge impact of COVID-19 on her and students’ life outside of school:
“No extra curricular activities (or they’re done on zoom). This has been both a positive and a negative.
We have all learned new skills that we wouldn’t have had the opportunity for before this. For example, bread making, piano, and yoga.
The extra time without extracurriculars has allowed us to become more socially aware. Research into social justice movements and inequities around the world and in our own backyard has become a daily privilege. Without the time from freeing up space in sports and arts, we wouldn’t have been as aware as we are now.”
