Due to COVID-19, teacher candidates in the 2019/20 Bachelor of Education program have had to quickly adapt their teaching and learning styles through the use of online platforms. We are showcasing some of the wonderful examples of projects created by them as part of the community field experience.
Ashlee Yoon
BEd Elementary & Middle Years (Education for Sustainability)
- What is the name of the community partner or group you are working with?
- Surrey Memorial Hospital
- What is your project’s subject area(s)?
- Art, career education and social studies
- Tell us about your project!
- When the schools closed, I wanted to help the kindergarteners of my practicum class to focus on what they could do at this time, rather than stay scared or worried about the situation. I decided to do a collaborative art project together to show our appreciation to the healthcare workers in the students’ local community. I thought of incorporating art because I wanted our gift to be as authentic as possible, and I knew that I would see a lot of parent involvement if I asked the students to write a letter instead.
I made an instruction video for students to watch and follow at home independently, and the students worked on their own parts of the art at home. When they were finished, I picked them up at their homes and assembled them together on a 24″x30″ canvas, and delivered the finished product to Surrey Memorial Hospital.
I have put together a video of the whole process, and now I am waiting for the hospital to send me a photo of the art in the hospital to include in the video. Once I receive it, I am going to send the video to all the families so they can see the process and celebrate the students’ participation together.
- Did you face any particular challenges in the planning, making or delivery of this project?
- Since I am not artistically trained (not at all!), I had to ask a lot of artists for help, including Marie-France, who was my cohort’s instructor for the art course. She guided me along the starting process and gave me a lot of advice on what I could do. I also received help from an artist friend when painting the canvas and assembling students’ art together. There were a lot of frustrated experiments during the finishing touches when I had to select a way to seal the whole canvas. I really wanted it to look nice as well since it was going to be a gift, which will be shared with many healthcare workers at the hospital!
I was also worried about student participation since I was told at the beginning of the online learning period that not a lot of the families were getting back to the emails that were being sent out from my school.
- How was the project received? Did anything surprise you about the outcome?
- However, in the end, I was able to collect the art pieces from 18 students (out of 20)! I think this was possible because I had called each parent to explain what I had in mind, and a lot of the families were excited about the idea. All of the students’ art were done so beautifully – totally exceeded my expectation!
I delivered the art to Surrey Memorial Foundation office. I had been in contact with them before starting this project to make sure that it was okay for me to bring in something like this into the hospital. When they saw the art, they seemed very pleased, and told me that they will send me a photo once they find a place to hang it in the hospital.
- Can you tell us about a highlight of creating this remote lesson plan?
- I think the highlight was when I got to drive around to students’ homes to pick up their art and being able to finally see them in person and say hi (while keeping social distance). I was able to say goodbye to a lot of students, and I was able to also leave with them a bubble wand each (outdoor activity, parental supervision not required) as a year-end gift.
- What media did you use to create your project?
- I used a video editing software (ACDSee Video Studio 4) to create the instruction video and the process video.
- Where can we view your project?
- I can provide the link to the video once I receive the photo from the hospital.