Meghan Stover ’20 is in her last semester of time at Thomas College, which as an education major means a semester of full-time student teaching. Although the semester as student teacher for 4th graders at Williams Elementary School in Oakland isn’t going quite as planned, Meghan is thankful to still being getting an experience that will prepare her for a future career in education.
“The transition to remote learning has been fairly upsetting, but my mentor teacher and all of the RSU18 staff has made it as smooth as it can be.”
Before the school was officially closed, she helped her mentor teacher prepare for remote learning and create work packets for students to take home. Once schools were officially closed, her mentor teacher created a Facebook page and added all of the students’ parents to the page; this is where students get a daily schedule for tasks and work they can complete at home – things like math, writing, gym, lunch, chores, and zoom calls.
“The students love to be able to comment and post pictures of the work that they completed, chores they did around the house, or anything else they are proud of,” said Meghan. “Every once in a while, we will do a class Zoom. We don’t do lessons on there, but we use it so the students can catch up with us and each other, ask questions they may have or just talk about their day. It is so much fun to get on Zoom and see their smiling faces always so excited to see us all.”
Meghan said the Thomas College class that has helped the most during this process is one called Computers Across the Curriculum. The course, which is completely online, taught her so many tricks, programs and ideas strictly used for technology that has been a big help with this transition.
“Thomas has always pushed education students to think outside the box and to grow on or expand our knowledge. You never know what is going to happen in the world of education, and you have to be prepared for anything,” said Meghan. “It could be as simple as gaining a new student last minute or having to change what you’re teaching in the middle of a lesson to something as big as exactly what we are going through now. We have to stay on our toes and be prepared for whatever life throws at us– and the Education Program at Thomas has taught me to adapt to and overcome any circumstances that may be thrown our way.”