{"id":606,"date":"2023-08-14T00:21:26","date_gmt":"2023-08-14T04:21:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.horizon-research.com\/RAPID\/?p=606"},"modified":"2023-09-27T00:14:42","modified_gmt":"2023-09-27T04:14:42","slug":"life-lessons","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.horizon-research.com\/RAPID\/life-lessons\/","title":{"rendered":"Life Lessons"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ms. Williams has been a middle school science teacher for over 30 years in a suburban area of West Virginia. Similar to many other places in the country, her district went fully remote for most of the Spring 2020 semester due to the COVID pandemic. This was followed by a hybrid schedule of alternating groups of students during the 2020\u201321 school year before returning fully in person for the 2021\u201322 year.<\/p>\n

As she navigated science teaching during this time, Ms. Williams felt that it was very important to talk to her students about COVID. In the early stages, she allowed her students to ask questions about COVID, which often focused on the basics of viruses and transmission.<\/p>\n

There were Zoom meetings where they were asking questions. Of course, at that time, none of us knew the full extent, really, of anything. Even though that wasn\u2019t part of my curriculum per se, we talked about viruses and transmission and similar viruses to COVID-19. . . . I told them, \u201cYou\u2019ve got to just play it by ear because viruses, they have no rhyme or reason. They do what they want.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Additionally, she taught her students about the importance of consulting credible sources of COVID-related information. To this end, she provided them with information from sources such as the CDC and NIH, and together they would examine data related to COVID case numbers.<\/p>\n

We talked about where they would get their information from. I was like, \u201cSocial media is not it. That\u2019s not where you need to be looking. And don\u2019t look at just one source.\u201d So I would give them different sources. They really liked that, where it would show the worldwide data of where cases would be showing up and everything.<\/em><\/p>\n

As the pandemic continued to unfold, Ms. Williams drew on instructional materials that became available through organizations such as the Smithsonian and the CDC to focus on the importance of wearing masks.<\/p>\n

I used some lessons from the Smithsonian, some things from the CDC. I did lessons on viruses, and we went into a lot of depth because they had a lot of questions. And it\u2019s hard for them to grasp the concept that we\u2019re talking about something that\u2019s really not a living thing, but it can kill you. It was hard at first, but I had several different activities: the type of virus, how it was spread. We even did testing with masks, showed them several videos of slow-motion sneezes. That gross stuff is great.<\/em><\/p>\n

She also used the pandemic to stress the nature of science to her students. She presented them with what was known about COVID at the time while also emphasizing that the knowledge base would change as more information was discovered.<\/p>\n

So mostly [I taught] the structure of the virus, type of virus it is, how it was related to other SARS viruses that have been around, and what could be done to prevent it at the time. . . . But I always reminded them, \u201cThis could change. We may learn something new and different tomorrow.\u201d. . . They learned how science works. It\u2019s not that somebody wakes up one day and, poof, they know everything about something. There\u2019s a lot of trial and error and a lot of mistakes that can be made, but that\u2019s how science happens.<\/em><\/p>\n

Reflecting on her COVID-focused teaching throughout the pandemic, Ms. Williams hopes the scientifically accurate information she shared with students was able to provide them with a sense of comfort and reassurance during a worrisome time.<\/p>\n

The information and just having communication with them [was important] because COVID was really scary. . . . I hope I gave them some reassurance and comfort that they are going to understand this. They are going to figure it out. The sun will come up tomorrow. It\u2019s going to be okay.<\/em><\/p>\n

However, she also acknowledged that the pandemic provided her students with life lessons and skills that could not be taught in a science classroom.<\/p>\n

I told them, \u201cIf you\u2019ve gone through this, you\u2019ve learned more about how to deal with things in life than anything I could have taught you in science. You got more out of the lessons that you learned from dealing with COVID and how to be resilient and flexible and stick to things and know that it\u2019s going to work out.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n

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Ms. Williams has been a middle school science teacher for over 30 years in a suburban area of West Virginia. Similar to many other places in the country, her district went fully remote for most of the Spring 2020 semester due to the COVID pandemic. This was followed by a hybrid schedule of alternating groups […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":607,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-606","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-middle-school-teachers","has-post-title","has-post-date","has-post-category","has-post-tag","has-post-comment","has-post-author",""],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.horizon-research.com\/RAPID\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/606","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.horizon-research.com\/RAPID\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.horizon-research.com\/RAPID\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.horizon-research.com\/RAPID\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.horizon-research.com\/RAPID\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=606"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.horizon-research.com\/RAPID\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/606\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1324,"href":"https:\/\/www.horizon-research.com\/RAPID\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/606\/revisions\/1324"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.horizon-research.com\/RAPID\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/607"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.horizon-research.com\/RAPID\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=606"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.horizon-research.com\/RAPID\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=606"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.horizon-research.com\/RAPID\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=606"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}