FCL Staffroom Chat - One Year Later
March 13th 2020 will go down as a day that will always be remembered; where you were, what you were doing, how you finished your last week before COVID-19 became very real for Canadians.
At FCL, we launched into action, particularly our CEO and Co-founder, Martha Jez. She knew it was a time to rally around educators and provide any support and stability we could. Nobody knew what to expect or how to handle it. As a team, we felt we could use our network and expertise to answer questions along the way and provide a space for collaboration. That space became the FCL Staffroom Chat, an informal, daily discussion around the issues educators were dealing with in the face of such uncertainty.
The chat ran daily for a month and then turned into a regular Friday meet up, where we ‘opened’ the doors at 1:30 PM at the end of each week to reconnect, inspire and encourage one another. We were joined by leaders in education, industry and community organizations, under the cause of supporting educators in the new remote learning environment.
We had so many incredible discussions, from what culturally inclusive math looks like, to wellness practices; how to incorporate Indigenous perspectives into teaching, to software how-to’s for Teams and Flipgrid. The FCL staff room chat touched on assessment and pedagogical best practices as well as inclusivity and student voice.
We opened the virtual doors to our staff room 30 times, inviting hundreds of guest in from Canada, Africa and the United States. It became a community, and inspired us to carve out a space for more sharing.
Looking back, we are still so grateful for our guests candor, knowledge, vulnerability and humour. A year later the information we shared and discussed remains relevant, thought-provoking and didactic.
Below enjoy the student voice staff chat, featuring eight incredible students from around Canada who joined us to share what their remote learning experience looked like and what advice they'd share with teachers and parents.
The community established lives on - beyond our staff room chats, as the FCL Educator Community, an online destination with on-demand resources to support teaching and learning today.