SJU Junior Discusses Return to In-Person Classes

A Saint Joseph’s University Junior shares their experience of returning to in person classes, and how they have had to adjust their approach to in classroom instruction to allow for new learning methods after spending the previous academic year on zoom. They also explore their experience as a student teacher at local schools, and reflect upon the similarities and differences between the experiences of their own students, and themselves while adjusting to the new classroom environment.

 

More videos like this one can be found at http://transition.starttalkingsju.com. You can also see our prior campaigns: Living in Fear, Striving for Hope, Attacked, Belonging, and Mental Health.

 

This video was co-created with the person depicted who reviewed and signed a consent form granting permission to share this story online. 

 

If you are experiencing any personal or social effects due to COVID and/or a return to campus life, the university has resources that can help, including:

 

• The Office of Student Outreach and Support
• the SJU COVID website; 
• HawkHub, if you are experiencing food insecurity;
• The Bias Activity Review Group, which connects to Public Safety; 
• Counseling and Psychological Support (CAPS; 610-660-1090)
• TitleIX titleIX@sju.edu
• REPP (*confidential support) 610-733-9650 (24 hr. Peer Helpline)
• SJU Public Safety 610-660-1111.

 

A complete transcript of the video reads as follows:

I personally don’t assign students work in field or student teaching

But I’ve seen a lot of teachers when they’ve been giving students work

They like, have a clear reason for doing it

A lot of the students right now in my fields are really really behind

Both behaviorally and academically, because they lost a year to COVID

They really didn’t learn much in zoom, developmentally, like behaviorally 

It forces me to be a lot more patient with the students,

Because I know where they should be at, and where they’re not at, yet

Academically, I think it just has to be a lot of repetition 

So I work one on one with a student in fourth grade on Tuesdays

And I asked him what a fraction was, and he had no idea what a fraction was, when I asked him that,

But he should be working with mixed numbers now

And things a little bit more advanced than “a fraction is a part of something.”

So its a lot of retracing steps, and slowly building students back up to where they should be or where other students are at.

In the classroom, at Saint Joe’s, I think I’ve modified what I do, so that when a teacher is talking or something I have my computer shut,

Because I know the minute I have my computer open,

I’m online shopping, or playing 2048, or doing something other than paying attention to the teacher. 

I actually have to close my laptop, and look at the board, and look at the teacher when they’re talking.

I used to be able to simultaneously listen and take notes, but I’m not taking notes on my computer, I’m doing something else.