During an interview with Susan Griffis, a middle school teacher at Scarborough Middle School, for special education students and specializing in a math resources class, spoke about the benefits and troubles of teaching during a pandemic.
Between the challenges of learning new technology and not being able to regularly see her students, Griffis has found the silver lining by looking for fun technology to integrate into her learning. This new technology means that future students will always be able to access technology and resources regardless of snow days or missed classes.
Griffis also comments on the struggles that have been presented from a hybrid learning from not being able to see students every week or even over video, since many of them don’t turn on their cameras. Not being able to see her students means she's missing the student-teacher relationships that she normally has with her students. She can no longer tell when they do or don't understand concepts or problems that she's teaching them since she can't see their faces. This problem that she hadn’t anticipated, has been the hardest challenge of teaching for her.
Griffis stays positive by thinking of new ways to integrate the new technology into her every day lesson plans for this year, and upcoming years as well. This also means that she can now reach her students in any situation, a common problem for her in years past. Snow days before had meant missed learning and added days into the summer. However, she says now she can still teach remotely and ensure that her students are getting the best education they can have.
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