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Forming a Strong Distance Community

While Oakcrest’s building might be closed, faculty and staff continue to communicate the  vibrant, personal Oakcrest experience to students. The Oakcrest distance learning program provides order, support and structure for teachers and students as they work together to continue the learning process and advance to the next level of study.

Using OakcrestConnect, recorded lectures, live webinars, and conference call office hours, the school is providing both flexibility and opportunities for essential “live” conversations among teachers and students. 

Distance learning hasn’t stopped science teacher Angela Fortunato from helping her students find creative ways to continue scientific inquiry. She gave her seventh grade Life Science class a research journal project in which students collected their personal healthy lifestyle data for ten days and sent it to her. After compiling and cleaning the data and creating graphs to analyze it, she invited her class to join her in a live zoom session to look at the data together. Students were asked to develop at least one of their own testable questions, a graph and conclusion, either using the class data or new data that they collected about any living thing at home. 

In Upper School, history teacher Christine Nussio recorded a series of video lectures outlining the different causes attributed to WWI for her sophomore class to watch. Students then read primary sources from the diplomatic history of European nations in WWI, and from these sources debated about the primary cause of the war. “I was impressed by the results since we didn't have our usual ‘class time’ to discuss the essay topic or outline it together,” Ms. Nussio says. “[Students] have asked really great questions on the Discussion Boards of our class pages and I've been able to share articles with them on topics that they ask about.” 

Mrs. Jennifer Kilmer invited an architect to give a video presentation about her career to the ninth grade geometry class. Students learned about the architect’s current projects and how useful math is in her field. The video presentation was followed by a live conference call for a question and answer session with the class. 

The College Counseling team continues to prepare students for the college application process. On April 8th, the department hosted a Virtual College Essay Writing Workshop for juniors. Students were introduced to the WoW Method for writing a great college essay, and time was spent helping them brainstorm ideas for their essays, which they will write over the summer. Director of College Counseling Mary Ann Thompson created an online resource board for sophomores, juniors and seniors that includes virtual summer opportunities such as courses and research. She is also providing a Virtual Tour of the Day, which lets juniors and sophomores take virtual tours of universities.  

Students, faculty, staff and parents have joined forces to find creative ways to share fun, friendship, and encouragement as well. Student Life has created an All School Board with fun features such as Oakie-Gram, which lets students share creative projects and inspiring or interesting things they’ve done or seen with the whole Oakcrest community. The Executive Student Council launched the first episode of the StuCo Show, a weekly series that features students covering a variety of topics from self-care to fitness to managing distance learning. Music Master teacher Anne Miller worked with the Oakcrest Sound Bites Club to organize a community-wide Zoom concert, which featured performances on the harp, flute, fiddle, concertina, and vocal performances from students and faculty members. Finally, Head of School Mary T. Ortiz recently held her first Virtual Coffee with parents, with a large majority of families participating.

Freshman class officers Rima Al-Mosawy and Teri Crnkovich see this time as an opportunity to build greater class unity, and recently held their first virtual Motivational Day. “We started this year and are hoping to continue the tradition throughout our years of high school,” Rima, the class president, explains. “During this meeting we share ways to inspire others to continue their hard work, and discuss events and activities that would be a source of motivation. I decided to continue having motivational days online because I believe it would be a great use to all of us, especially during this difficult period. Motivational days will now serve a two-fold purpose. They will continue to motivate everyone to do their best work, as well as allow everyone to communicate with each other even as we are isolated.” 

Visit Oakcrest’s Distance Learning page for a variety of resources including organizational tools, tips from our Learning Specialist, and examples of distance learning in action. 
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    • History teacher Christine Nussio

    • Sophomore Natalya C. works on an assignment in her home study space.

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