COVID-19 has delivered negative and drastic impacts on practically every area of our lives. One of the most impacted areas of society that’s been hit hard by the pandemic is education and learning. Not only have schools and educational systems around the world been forced to shift to alternative forms of learning, but many schools have shut down.
With the number of cases leveling and health officials gaining a higher understanding of the virus and its effects. Students will soon return to school in the upcoming fall. But what will education look like during this time? How different will teaching and education be amid the Coronavirus pandemic?
Here are some tips on how to better prepare your classroom for COVID-19 standards. Whether you’re a returning teacher, professor. Or simply involved in the educational services, invoking these guidelines will help to ensure that you’re following the CDC’s recommendations while also catering to the health and safety of the students, the staff, and their families.
Become Familiar with Students’ Experiences
The first thing that you’ll want to make sure to do when your students return is to make them feel as comfortable as possible in your classroom. And one of the best ways to doing that is to educate yourself and become more understanding of the experiences that each of the students is likely going through.
As a teacher or professional in the education industry. You’ll have to understand that these students have gone through and continue to go through hardships at home as a result of the Coronavirus. They’ve likely experienced trauma, either from the school closing itself or from their at-home situations with job loss, health issues, and family problems.
Aside from that, you should also understand that students have likely experienced many negative effects as a result of the lack of enrichment activities. For instance, many children looked forward to having school not only because of the educational opportunities but also for social groups, face-to-face interaction, field trips, and much more.
Lastly, it’s important that you understand many students have had limited access to education throughout the months without school. Not only have many students faced negative impacts of having no education at all. But the access to educational resources over their time off from school was likely limited.
Understand Recommendations and Be Open to New Guidelines
With the constantly-changing numbers associated with the Coronavirus. Recommendations and guidelines for schools and educational systems are constantly changing as well. From this, it’s important that you and your school remain flexible in adapting new strategies to best decrease the negative effects of the virus throughout the educational system.
You can best do this by infiltrating strategies that can be easily changed or updated with regard to new information. Even more, you’ll want to make sure that you, along with other staff and authority figures at your school. Remain in close contact with both the state, local as well as the health authorities in general.
Infiltrate Physical Distancing Measures
One of the best ways to limit the spread of COVID-19 is to practice social distancing. That being said, it’s vital that you maintain social distancing measures in your classroom. This can be done through a variety of different means, including distancing the desks at least six feet apart and discouraging larger student groups.
Increase Sanitation Measures
In addition to encouraging physical distancing, you’ll also want to encourage your students to practice frequent sanitation. This includes requiring every student to wear a mask while walking around as well as encouraging the use of hand sanitizer. You may even want to consider putting various hand sanitation stations around your classroom so that students have easier access to clean hands.
Cater Best to Your Students
It seems that people of all ages may be affected differently by the virus. So you should consider the health and the well-being of your students in particular. Not all kids in every age group and in every instance will as easily adapt and benefit from the new guidelines.
That’s why you should consider special accommodations for the diversity of all the students in your classroom. This is especially important for students who are medically fragile, living in poverty, have developmental issues or those that are more vulnerable in general.
You may even want to consider incorporating certain activities that cater best to the students in your classroom. This may include decorating masks or placing school name labels on supplies. You can create your own decoration activities by providing kids with the supplies needed to be creative. And you can browse some name labels for schools on the market.
Overall, it’s extremely important that you infiltrate the recommended guidelines and new information regarding COVID-19 in your classroom. These are trying times for everyone, especially students that have constant pressures from trying to balance life at home, social life and now adhering to school guidelines as well.
You should be open about your plans in the classroom and communicate your goals well to students. Other staff as well as students’ families. Speaking your intentions and plans will not only help to put families at ease, but it will help your students feel more comfortable around you and in your classroom.
