Fourth-year education students were tasked with working on a couple projects to help local students and teachers during the pandemic.-SUBMITTED PHOTO
mcranker@medicinehatnews.com@mocranker
With K-12 schools being closed in March, it was looking like an early end to practicums for Medicine Hat College education students.
Facing uncertain times and closed classrooms, graduating students from MHC began helping teachers gather resources to send to parents.
Students in the education program also worked with their mentor teachers to spend time with individual students virtually in one-on-one sessions.
“Our students were in a 12-week, full-time practicum where they were working their way to teaching 100 per cent of the teacher load,” said education co-ordinator and instructor Lorelei Boschman. “A lot of the students were seven weeks in when schools closed and we wanted to make sure they contributed to the transition that was happening for their mentor teachers.
“We started by getting the students to develop Google Slides, and on each one was an activity the teacher could use or send out to the parents to do with their children.
“We were hoping to help save the teachers a bit of time.”
More than 30 education students dug through websites to find good places for teachers, students and parents to learn.
“The list the students created was a great resources for the teachers,” said Boschman.
College students were then able to work with students to continue teaching them in a one-on-one environment.
Recent graduate Donna Franz says working with kids virtually was a great experience.
“I was able to work with one of the students that I had already built a relationship with,” she said. “I helped her once every week to work on her reading and math, and on the skills needed for those subjects.
“It was a lot of fun and I felt it was quite productive.”
Franz says finishing out the school year this way was important to a lot of the graduates.
“You have these relationships with students, teachers and your classmates – to have that all end with a news announcement was really difficult,” she said. “The kids need that consistency and it enhances their learning when they know that someone is in their corner.
“Having that all end just didn’t feel right and it didn’t feel fair. Volunteering with the kids was a great way of seeing the year through.”
