Distance Learning
By Will San Jose '22
Due to the worldwide coronavirus outbreak, Greens Farms Academy faculty collaborated over spring break to establish a plan for the school’s online curriculum.
To develop the new protocol, faculty maintained contact with schools both in the U.S. and abroad who had experienced or were experiencing online schooling.
“We had the good fortune of not being first out of the gates, and we got to watch other schools that were very generous with their experiences, sharing with us what they were observing, what they were noticing, what adjustments they were making,” Head of Upper School Mr. Jones said. “In a way, the timing of when we had to close gave us the opportunity to spend some time together as a faculty working out some of the details [of distance learning].”
Faculty that had experience with Global Online Academy (GOA), the year-round online curriculum partnered with GFA, were also consulted in planning. Director of Special Programs Ms. Fellows coordinates with Global Online Academy and said that certain components of GFA’s distance learning program, such as online open gradebooks, were brought over from GOA’s model.
Greens Farms Academy was also advised by GOA and the schools it contacted to change its schedule for distance learning.
“Whereas a lot of schools were trying to mimic their exact schedule, we were quick to realize from their experience that you can’t be synchronous that long in a day,” Ms. Fellows said.
GFA therefore shortened its classes to 30 minutes for distance learning, shifting to 35 minutes after the third week of online school.
The online curriculum plan was also designed so student time devoted to each class could be comparable to the time devoted before distance learning began. Mr. Jones said more asynchronous work would result in the online curriculum because of the shorter classes.
The school has also planned days where there is no synchronous work, and students do not attend class through Zoom, as is the new routine. With the asynchronous work days, the school aims to maintain students’ spirits throughout distance learning.