While no students can return to campus, the school has transition to using Zoom. Now, students can learn from home with this online learning tool. Technology teacher Carey Pohanka described the shift to this new learning experience.
by Parker Cullinan'22
Ms. Carey Pohanka could not have a full relaxing spring break like most of St. Christopher’s. Ever since Wednesday, March 11, Ms. Pohanka has been preparing teachers and students of all divisions at St. Christopher’s and St. Catherine’s for this odd transition into Distance Learning. With experience with online teaching, Ms. Pohanka in fact, said, “this is the moment I have trained for, distance learning is my manifesto”.
The second half of Ms. Pohanka’s break was spent on hour-long zoom meetings, sleepless nights, and tons of stress. “It took a lot of people putting in a ridiculous amount of hard work,” Ms. Pohanka said. “Things we do at school usually take a year to plan in this sort of craziness, but we did it in a week and a half.” Ms. Pohanka’s role in Distance Learning is centered on resources. She specifically worked on the “Distance Learning Teacher’s Toolbox”, technological help for faculty and students, and found backups for synchronous and asynchronous learning if certain applications were to fail. Ms. Pohanka still wants us to appreciate the help of everyone associated with the technology side of
both schools. Mr. Hiram Cuevas was also a huge help.
A lot of technological ideas at St. Christopher’s take much more time to plan than this sudden change. Most of the technological implementations are designed over large periods to ensure they are “fool-proof”. However, Distance Learning is a work in progress. “We see this as an iterative process,” Ms. Pohanka said. “We’re going in finding little things and changing them as we go.” “Our teachers stepped up,” Ms. Pohanka said. “I feel if though we made this decision three months in advance, it would be much more stressful.”
Feedback of the program would be very helpful for the school. Ms. Pohanka said to be on the lookout for emails and surveys asking for feedback on how to improve this situation as a whole. The school will also be using feedback from other schools, some of which in China itself to gather information on ways to improve the situation.