FULL TRANSCRIPT (with timecode)
File Name: Voices E23 Matt Delp.mp3
File Length: 00:08:54
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Introduction: Welcome to Voices, a Podcast brought to you by the Seneca Valley School District.
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Jeff Krakoff: I'm Jeff Krakoff off today. I'm with Matt Delp, who's principal at Seneca Valley Intermediate High School. Welcome. Thanks for joining us today.
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Matt Delp: Thank you for having me.
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Jeff Krakoff: So, you know, most of the topics we get into have something to do with the new situation we all find ourselves in with COVID-19. Right?
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Jeff Krakoff: Schools everywhere go in and out of remote versus traditional learning from your perspective as principal at the intermediate high school, what are you seeing as the major big picture differences between the two?
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Matt Delp: These are certainly challenging times and we are quickly pivoting from that traditional classroom to the remote learning, and we're catching up, trying to maintain the integrity of what we do in the classroom. All of those best practices that we have come to build, the collaboration, the cooperation, the communication between students and students and students and teachers, and to be able to help them in real time. And then we've gone shifted quickly to remote learning and encountered a whole new series of obstacles with what we know to be good, effective teaching practices and where the technology is catching up to our demand and our needs.
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Matt Delp: And so we had to overcome those technological barriers and and potholes. And now we're trying to do what's best educationally. So that's been the greatest challenge right now is trying to have our remote learning experience mirror what we do traditionally.
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Jeff Krakoff: OK, so what are you seeing and what are you hearing from teachers at your school? What are the biggest challenges people are having with this new remote learning environment?
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Matt Delp: One of the biggest challenges is student engagement, making sure that students are engaged in the teaching and the learning process that may be physically coming to every one of their classes, that may be participating in class, that's probably one of the biggest things we're seeing, especially at the whole group level, when all of the students are present at the same time having them ask questions. There is a comfort level. There is this new norm of how do I interact in a digital environment versus how I might have interacted in a traditional environment.
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Matt Delp: And another large one is assessment. How do we test students and be able to accurately measure what they've learned? And so our instructional practices are being challenged, but so are our social and emotional pieces of the educational puzzle. And we're trying to fit the needs of the kids as well in this disconnected how do we connect in a disconnected physically environment.
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Jeff Krakoff: And it's a whole new world for all of us having cameras and screens. You know, I think any adult knows that when they're on a Zoom meeting, there's always people that are uncomfortable turning their cameras on, right?
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Matt Delp: Absolutely.
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Jeff Krakoff: Or the sound; things are on mute. But from an education standpoint, let's let's talk about how why it's important for everybody to have their cameras turned on. I do know that there are mental health benefits, there are academic benefits. Let's focus on the mental health benefits first.
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Matt Delp: Absolutely. From a mental health standpoint, we're looking at connectedness. We're looking at students not feeling isolated when given the opportunity some students may may select or elect to withdraw from, whether it's education or whether it's their peers. They may want to withdraw and we want to bring them back into the educational fold. We really want them to be present. We want to make sure they're OK and we want them to have that social opportunity with one another and see that they're not alone.
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Matt Delp: That's the biggest thing through this process. It can be it can feel very isolated to be in your house all day learning and being online and be able to see that we are all in this together and we want that connection. We want students to be connected to us and we want students to be connected to one another.
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Jeff Krakoff: Right. So mental health benefits to instructors and and students for sure. How about academically? What are the benefits of that connection of actually seeing each other through this experience?
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Matt Delp: Yeah, being seen it inherently brings up the accountability. It inherently brings up the mental connectedness and the engagement to what's occurring, what you're learning. You know, I know it's odd seeing yourself almost looking at a mirror in a mirror the entire day when you're online, when you're seeing your video up there. And I know that's a different way of existing educationally, but there is that opportunity also for the teacher to be able to see those nonverbal cues. Are students getting what we hope them to get? We could we could tell that.
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Matt Delp: And our master teachers have been able to see that for years. When you scan a classroom, who's getting it, who's engaged, who's not? And when the camera's off, we can't do that accurately and efficiently. And so from an educational standpoint, it's really important to see how students are reacting to the learning process.
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Jeff Krakoff: OK, great.
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Jeff Krakoff: Now, when we're talking children and young adults and minors, we're talking cameras and sound and sometimes recordings.
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Jeff Krakoff: What are the issues that you think about in terms of student privacy, confidentiality, equity, all these things that that that come up in this remote situation?
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Matt Delp: They are certainly at the forefront of our minds. We don't want students. We know we've used the term Maslow's hierarchy of needs before Bloom's taxonomy. You know, we can't get deeper into the content if students are feeling uncomfortable, if they're feeling hesitant, if they're feeling critiqued. And we know having a camera on can do all of that. And so it is definitely we're in this together. We're all trying to experience this together. And so we want to make sure that wherever the student is learning from is an area of comfort, is an area that is they're going to feel confident.
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Matt Delp: And and we know that there are circumstances. So we want to be able to use the microphone selectively so that they can feel comfortable. Whatever's happening in the background. You know, I have three kids of my own, so I know that you can have a lot of chaos behind you as you're trying to learn. And so we want to help them through that and be able to provide strategies on how to. To engage in the camera and and also not keep them visually online for seven consecutive hours, we all need breaks and we all know that life is going to happen while they're trying to learn at home.
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Matt Delp: So we're very conscious, very much conscientious of that. And which is why, you know, we want students to elect in versus being forced in. We want to create that environment where students feel comfortable engaging with their cameras on. And we don't want to have it seen as an invasion of privacy. So if they're feeling that if there are moments, you know, we are empathetic and sympathetic to those moments.
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Jeff Krakoff: Great. Great. OK, so if I'm a student or a parent at the intermediate high school, what are my main takeaway when we're talking about remote learning and and the importance of of having the cameras on and having that two way visual communication?
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Matt Delp: Definitely, you know, this is a very challenging time.
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Matt Delp: And I think the biggest takeaways are, is we want to do this together. We want to be a community of learners together. And having that camera on allows that visual representation of that community. And that allows students to be not only engaged more in the learning process, it allows us to be supportive in a way that we can't do when the cameras are off. And we also want to address their mental health and their mental well-being and realizing the socialization and being able to interact with their peers and see each other while they're isolated, to be able to just simply see each other is a recognition that they're not alone and we are here for them and here for the community.
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Jeff Krakoff: Sounds good. Well, thank you so much for joining us. Have a great rest of your day.
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Matt Delp: Thank you so much. It's been an honor. Thank you.
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Jeff Krakoff: Take care.
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Matt Delp: Take care.