Officials look back at one year of teaching during pandemic

Classrooms across the state have looked completely different over the last year trying to provide students with the best way of learning while staying safe. Lauderdale County School District Curriculum Director Sandy Reid says technology has been the way to go for the majority of the school year.

“Like everybody else, it was just totally new for us,” said Reid. “We had some technology in place, but we were planning on purchasing more technology. Now that we’re using it, we feel that it would be a great resource.”

Candice Maloney, a Chemistry and Physics teacher at Northeast High Schools has a total of 75 students, with 3 of them still learning virtually. She says performing hands on assignments was difficult in the beginning, but they are making due with COVID-19 protocols.

“We’ve done a lot of virtual labs when a lot of our students were in the A-B days, but we’re able to do some labs here as long as we don’t use shared materials and as long as we can keep them six feet apart while they work,” said Maloney.

Maloney says this year her students were pushed out of their comfort zone with new technology, but now it has become greatly beneficial.

“I think that some of them are welcome to changes,” said Maloney. “I think our students really enjoy having iPads and being able to submit work whenever-wherever and get that instant feedback as far as grading goes.”

Reed says through all the losses they have endured during the pandemic, they have developed many gains.

“Our teachers really embraced those challenges and our students just jumped in there,” said Reid. “It’s been a learning curve for everybody.”