In the event “Distance learning oriented to meet the needs of students”, organised by Kaunas Teacher Qualification Centre and Kaunas Petrašiūnai Pro-Gymnasium, Kaunas Petrašiūnai Pro-Gymnasium managers and teachers shared good practice with teachers from Kaunas city and the Republic of Lithuania.
Antanina Džiugienė, Director of Kaunas Petrašiūnai Pro-Gymnasium, stressed the importance of focused teamwork, quality of work of class teachers, feedback, alignment of values and adherence to them, sharing of experience and support for the ultimate goal of maximising the student’s success during the period of distance education.
Rūta Būtautė, Deputy Head of Education, presented the basic principles of the system of providing support to students and teachers, the challenges faced by the school when organising distance education, the proven forms of work of educational support specialists, methods, presented the results of the survey, and was pleased that 82% of the students and teachers received support from the school. Parents of pupils rate the quality of distance education provided by the school as good or very good.
Ligita Minkauskienė, a mathematics teacher, presented the mobile application “SMART APP”, developed in the Erasmus+ Strategic Partnerships KA2 project “Smart Mathematics Teacher” for mathematics teachers and students of 5-6 grade (it presents tasks of different complexity, develops creativity and critical thinking, and is applicable for cumulative assessment). She shared Microsoft PowerPoint’s Office Mix tool, which she uses to demonstrate problem solving through voice-overs and pen and ink on slides. Demonstrated experience of using Jambord, Google Drawings tools, areas where they are particularly effective, enabling a variety of learning strategies, personalising education and helping students to succeed.
Dangira Mikalauskiene, a Russian language teacher, presented digital tools that are important for the effectiveness of the distance learning lesson and for the students’ learning success: quizlet.com (for familiarising with new vocabulary by selecting tasks according to the students’ abilities, repeating the tasks in the time of their choice), quizizz.com (easy to create tests to test your knowledge), learningapps.org, wordwall.net (allowing teachers and students to create a wide variety of tasks of varying complexity, to check them and to get information on students’ progress). The wordclouds.com app is suitable for developing students’ creativity, while app.genial.ly guides students to complete tasks in escape rooms.
Rolandas Jakušovas, a teacher of Religious Studies, presented Office 365 applications “Photos”, “Microsoft Sway”, “Microsoft Lens”, which help teachers to visualise and interactively present teaching content with minimal time consumption. The easy-to-use controls of these applications allow students to achieve the desired result more quickly by creating interactive visual messages. For creative learning activities, they used the Hacking Stem online portal to create ready-made projects for students to try out and put their knowledge into practice.
Ričardas Gasiulis, Senior Teacher of Information Technology, presented the non-traditional teaching methods used, the possibilities to reveal students’ abilities and interests by creating websites, three-dimensional objects of selected design, the application of the learning-by-teaching method by creating interactive crossword puzzles, tests to test knowledge of chemistry and physics, the process of gamification in the virtual “escape rooms” created by the teacher, as well as by creating games for the students. He shared his experience in using tools for interactive content creation: software Wix, Crossword Labs, Google Forms, Scratch, Kodu Game Lab, Paint 3D, Thinglink, H5P. He pointed out that assessing the different needs of learners often determines the success of learning, and that distance learning gives the learner the freedom and time to think, search and discover, and share the knowledge they have gained.
Saulė Eimutienė, a primary education teacher, presented the possibilities of creating worksheets and interactive digital tasks on the Liveworkseets platform. Practical examples demonstrated the use of wordart.com, quivervision.com and the Google Jamboard digital interactive whiteboard in distance learning. He shared his experience of participating in the e-Twinning project “My City in the European Union” and the benefits for students.
Social Educator Vilija Ramonienė and Senior Teacher of Physical Education Greta Šiūšienė presented the most interesting integrated lessons, social-preventive and health promotion projects “Without bullying”, “Healthiada”, “Health all year round”, “Healthy me, healthy you – healthy community – I’m great”. They shared their experience on how to organise fun activities to keep students physically active, exercise and understand the importance of a healthy lifestyle.
Kristina Gagienė, a methodological art teacher, shared her experience on how to successfully mobilise the classroom community, presented the experience of mentoring student self-government and the changes that have taken place in the organisation of student self-government events during the distance learning period. They shared ideas for non-traditional art lessons, creative results of integrated lessons, and discoveries on how to use distance learning to meet students’ individual creative needs. The teacher believes that by creating a supportive educational context, all students can succeed in artistic, social and project activities.
Rūta Būtautė, Deputy Director of Kaunas Petrašiūnai Progymnasium
