The Learning Goes On
The School for Young Performers is joining thousands of schools across the country in transitioning to virtual learning due to the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak. We have been in close contact with our students, parents, and teachers while establishing the necessary infrastructure and protocols, and are writing to let our greater SYP community know what we’re doing to make sure the learning doesn’t just continue; rather, our commitment to creating personalized, meaningful, boundary-pushing educational experiences is stronger than ever during these uncertain times.
Here is a sampling of steps being taken for current SYP families:
We’ve transitioned all of our students and teachers to communicate and manage coursework via an online platform.
All in-person classroom hours are being conducted via live feed, so no face-to-face time is lost in the coming weeks.
For each course, we are focused on maximizing the virtual/live feed experience for SYP students. Whether it means students and teachers both completing a science experiment together over live feed, writing math equations and science formulas on each other’s screens, editing film projects on shared screens, exploring a virtual museum tour together, or adding physical supplies to the classroom to keep lessons multimodal, we’re determined to grow and adapt our curriculum in the coming weeks.
All teachers are being connected with dozens of free resources provided by partners to the educational community. SYP is grateful for these companies and their generosity!
But what does this mean? And what does this look like? Why isn’t SYP going all asynchronous or synchronous with regard to instruction? The School for Young Performers is deeply committed to a hybrid approach in order to make sure all of our students’ learning styles and academic needs are met and exceeded. This is an evolving task and as such a team effort between staff, teachers, students AND parents (I can attest to some superheroes amongst our parents at the moment!). With that in mind, Chris and I reached out to some of SYP’s fabulous educators for some feedback and photos from their virtual platforms.
Angela Vrettos (one of SYP’s Certified K-5 Special Education teachers):
“At first, I had concerns regarding my ability to foster the continued growth of my student. After embarking on this new journey, I quickly realized I am developing and strengthening their education using a multifaceted approach that manifests new skills every single day.”
Jacqueline Zimmer (SYP Upper School English & Humanities Teacher):
“In order to combat the wiggles, we incorporated fun and quick kinesthetic games to break up the long blocks of time. Favorites so far: Flyswatter, Charades, and Simon Says. We each take a turn, so the teacher gets a chance to be silly and move around, too!”
Ryun Yu (SYP Upper School Math & Science Educator and Computer/Film Expert):
“I've had to completely rethink how SYP conducts experiments. Through videoconferencing and pre-packaged lab materials of my design that are grade-level specific, I've found a safe and self-contained way to guide SYP students through some really thrilling science experiments.”
Click here to watch one of Ryun’s virtual science lab tutorials.
In our next post, we are going to check in one on one with one of our awesome SYP parents on how they’re navigating through these times.
Best,
Iris Even, Head of School, and Chris Goodwin, Assistant to the Head of School
The School for Young Performers