Pandemic Pedagogy Conference 🌿

 Hello everyone welcome back to my blog!

I attended all three sessions of the Pandemic Pedagogy Conference beginning Friday November 12th through Sunday November 14th. I attended Dr. Ebba Ossiannilsson 11/12, Dr. Nilay Yajnik 11/13, Joy Blake 11/13 , Jodie Fahey 11/13, Ramesh Sharma 11/14, Megan Jackson+Lindsay Byer 11/14, Sara Mursic 11/14, and Dr. Joshua Patterson's (both) 11/14 workshops. Throughout all these workshops I learned many different and new things that I can bring with me as a future educator into my own classroom. One speaker that really resonated with me was Joy Blake. Blake's presentation was titled, "42 F's: Motivating the Remote Student", and this title was used to describe the 42 students out of the 54 who received an F in her class. I thought that was very clever! This presentation really allowed me to gain an understanding of different techniques I can use in my own virtual classrooms to motivate the remote students. Blake focused on 5 main concepts that will help to motivate a remote student and they were: focus shift, forget the past, feel for the student, find what works, and forge a bond. During the workshop, we discussed how COVID has shifted the way we learn in an immense way, and we are now unable to do the things we used to do, like having everyone present in the classroom instead, now if the class is on a Zoom meet a student can forget about it or just sleep through class, which would not happen if we were completely in person. Before we were all used to going to school in person, but then we had to adjust to online learning. Everyone had to learn how to use technology tools such as Zoom or even something as simple as Nearpod, and some of us may have never even heard of these tools, I know I did not until online learning became our new "normal". Another thing discussed was how we should think like the student and take into account how they feel during online learning. For example, we all know technology is a hassle sometimes especially when trying to get a good internet connection to be able to join the class, and we have to try and resonate with the student and understand that things do happen, we are all human. Blake also discussed how we should forge a bond with our students. We want to keep students engaged with what we're teaching, and the best way to do that is to add things to our lessons that are enjoyed by the students. For example, we can make Fridays, "Fun Fridays" and have a day of fun activities that relate to the topic we are teaching. The lesson I learned during this workshop was to expect the unexpected. COVID happened unexpectedly and we all had to learn to adjust to this "new normal" by learning to use new technology tools or even something as simple as learning to create an interactive Google slides presentation. From this presentation moving forward I will definitely take a look at all the technology resources Joy provided us with to see what I like and learn to use it to incorporate it into my classroom someday. Hopefully in the future learning is not the way it is now, but we have to expect the unexpected and just always be prepared for what's next. Joy Blake did an amazing job getting her message across to me. This Pandemic Pedagogy Conference was really a great way to hear insights from people all around the world and I enjoyed it!

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