Madison Messenger - April 5th, 2020

www.madisonmessengernews.com April 5, 2020 - MADISON MESSENGER - Page 13
South Charleston
Finding new and remote ways to teach and learn
By Kristy Zurbrick
Madison Editor
With schools closed since mid-March and
Gov. Mike DeWine’s recent announcement
that they will remain closed through May 1,
teachers are working to find more and more
ways to educate and engage their students
from afar.
For many, like A.J. Woods, fifth-grade
math teacher and high school head football
coach at Southeastern Local Schools, that
means delving into new territory.
“I’m not technically savvy. I’m learning
everything on the fly,” Woods said from his
home, where he has been keeping in touch
with students primarily through Google
Classroom.
The free web service allows teachers to
create, distribute and grade assignments
digitally. Students log in using their school
email addresses. For the first 10 school closure
days, Woods used Google Classroom in
conjunction with paper copies of lessons he
sent home with his students prior to the closure.
“Every day, I post notes and examples for
the students that relate to their hard
copies,” Woods said.
Starting April 6, he’s going all digital.
“I will post videos of myself and also post
links I find online that relate to what the
kiddos will be working on,” he said, adding
that he will be broadcasting from his
garage.
Another resource Woods has found to be
helpful is an online curriculum called IXL.
Students log in, he refers them to a specific
course, and then he watches how well they
do. They earn or lose “smart points” based
on how well they answer questions and
solve problems. The program shows students
how to correct their mistakes, and
Woods chimes in, too.
“If a kid is struggling or the whole class
is struggling with something, I can see it on
my end, and I can send a video or email out
to help them,” Woods said.
To preserve a sense of routine and give
students a chance to let loose a little, Woods
HISTORY
Continued from page 12
nah Peirce was the most widely known
woman in South Charleston at the time of
her death in 1918 and why Abigail Paist,
wife of Charles Paist for whom South
Charleston is named, made the history
books in her own right.
Mattinson said the research for this talk
has been both fascinating and challenging.
Resource books from 100 years ago generally
don’t offer much detail about women’s
lives beyond their relationships to other people
as daughters, wives and mothers.
hopes to continue to set aside time each Friday
for fun. “Prodigy,” a game in which students
travel through a virtual world,
earning points and rewards for solving
math problems, tops the fun list.
“Kids really like it. If they had a choice,
that’s the one they would do every day,”
Woods said.
As for the coaching side of his job, Woods
is embracing technology there, too. This is
his first year as head football coach. Using
Google Classroom, he sent his players a
video in which his fellow coaches introduce
themselves. He also uses the service to post
suggestions for players’ daily schedule, covering
everything from workouts and nutrition
to school work and helping around the
house.
When DeWine announced the extension
of school closures to May 1, Woods split his
team into seven groups of five, with a senior
in charge of each group. It’s up to the seniors
to text or email their classmates to see
how they are doing and make sure they are
keeping up with their routines.
And of course, there are good old fashioned
phone calls.
“I’m calling kids daily, on the school side
and on the football side. Seems like I’m on
the phone all the time, but these are different
times,” Woods said.
Like his fellow teachers and coaches,
Woods is on the lookout for other inside- and
outside-the-box solutions to keeping students
and athletes engaged and in touch
with each other.
“I’m open to ideas,” he said.
David Shea, Southeastern Schools superintendent,
said staff members are utilizing
a wide variety of resources to do their jobs.
ClassTag, a free online tool for parentteacher
communication, is getting a lot of
use. Many staffers are using Zoom, a popular
video conferencing service, as well.
“We just have to keep learning about
new distance learning opportunities,” Shea
said.
All of the district’s high school students
have school-issued computer. Several students
in grades K-8 signed out Chrome-
“I want to know what they were doing.
Yes, they were having babies and keeping
house, but some of them were doing more,”
she said.
Mattinson welcomes input from others
who have stories, letters, family histories or
other documentation about interesting
women living in South Charleston in the
years leading up to the 19th Amendment
passage in 1920. She hopes to give her talk
sometime this fall.
To share stories and information, contact
Sue Mattinson at hccofscoh@gmail.com or
(937) 503-2492.
Siblings Morgen Watson (fifth grade), Maddison Watson (seventh grade), and Lyvi Bonifay
(fifth grade) are in full-on distance learning mode, connecting with their teachers
and lessons online through laptops at home.
books to use at home while the schools are
closed. The majority of the district’s students
have Internet service at home. Shea
noted that Wi-Fi is available in the high
school’s main parking lot; no password is
needed.