With the quarantine of Covid-19 locking us in our homes and keeping us away from public places, it is no surprise schools are shut down. Like much of our day to day routines, the school environment has completely changed. Students no longer walk past each other in the halls, learn in classrooms, or eat lunch with their friends. The entire platform of learning as well as teaching has completely changed overnight. The little warning provided from the rapidly growing virus did not provide much time for teachers to adjust to online programs. Thus the entire school was on a whole new frontier in which they would have to adapt and adapt quickly. Luckily, Dover has an amazing staff as well as administration that quickly adapted to the drastic changes, and for that, the community is thankful. The biggest question on everyone’s minds now, however, is “how are the students exactly going to learn without attending school?”
The answer is simpler than most think. Online resources are not new when it comes to education. Many teachers used programs such as Khan Academy and Google Classroom to operate certain tasks with their lessons\; however, the focus was never solely on these programs as it is now. The main platform for teaching is currently Google Classroom. Teachers can assign worksheets, quizzes, and problems in which the students can do and turn in. Communication on the program is very easy for all students, with them just having to text the teacher on an assignment if they have any questions. When these chats do not suffice, students can Google Meet or Zoom their teachers. Students can essentially facetime their teachers in order to ask questions which is very helpful when it comes to math. Some teachers even have assigned meetings where the whole class participates in a lecture. Students also communicate with their teachers via Google Mail.
For practice and the actual teaching of material, teachers either upload videos to google classroom or link videos from Khan Academy, a program where professors from prestigious teaching backgrounds teach everything from trigonometry to quantum theory. As students progress through Khan Academy, additional practice is provided. This allows students to master the subject at hand. After working through some practice problems, teachers test their students on Google Form quizzes. They post these quizzes in which they have made onto google classroom for their students to do. Once the student turns it in, all multiple choice questions are immediately graded allowing students to gauge what their grade will be.
Even though the shutting down of school was a massive change, our administration has adapted well. No matter what, school will proceed and students will continue to learn and apply their knowledge into their everyday lives.