The future of education; virtual classrooms in Dawson County

Board of Education, Dawson County High School, News

“We’ve had to start looking at how classrooms are going to look different in the future.”

Superintendent Damon Gibbs said the upcoming years of teaching is already on Dawson County’s radar.

Being technologically prepared is a main pDawson County Board of Education discussing future of educationriority. At the Nov. 10 Dawson Board of Education meeting, education on a virtual level was a main topic of discussion.

Online learning has become the preferred, precautionary learning method of education due to COVID-19.

Lori Grant, teacher at College and Career Academy, teaches three different education pathway levels at Dawson County High School. The pathway presented at the board meeting was pathway level three.

According to the Dawson County School website, the level three course provides “in-depth study of early brain development” for early learning with use of appropriate technology and parenting as well as child guidance trends.

Throughout the school year, classrooms are normally observed. By in-person observation, this allows one to get a clear performance on the effectiveness of each classroom. Since the pandemic, this has not been possible.

“We can’t really go into classrooms and see what a good classroom setup looks like,” Grant said.

Grant transformed the idea of observing a classroom by creating a virtual one for students to explore.

Grant recently had training to take on the idea of presenting virtual classrooms to keep students engaged – she had students design their ideal “dream classroom” while also effectively integrating essential learning elements into their desired layouts.

Students Sadie Pruitt and Lily McCracken both presented at the BOE meeting. Each discussed their model classroom, as well as provided educational links for their grade level throughout the slides presented.

Gibbs said the students’ presentations were timely in relation to the amount of virtual learning this school year. The meeting closed once Gibbs announced the graduation rate for the state of Georgia, with Dawson County at 96%.

“It’s a great effort of K-12 in Dawson County and that does not come easily,” Gibbs said. “There’s a lot of issues that our students face on a daily basis and to have a staff that motivates those kids to come to school and do their best and succeed and to finish the drill when it comes to their high school education…I am just very proud of that work that we do as a team.”

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