Miracles in Family and Consumer Sciences

I know we've had Family and Consumer Sciences miracles during this pandemic. Take, for example, the fact that our director worked tirelessly over the last 2 years (as a brand new director) to get many of our classes developed for BYU Online. My class, our consumerism class, and 2 clothing classes that I know of are online. It was a pretty seamless transition for me to take my face to face students to remote learning since I've been teaching 49 students remotely all semester. 

I will be teaching a new prep, SFL 340, starting spring. Now all instruction at BYU this spring will also be done remotely. Guess what class had already been approved to be developed for BYU Online? Yep, 340. So, as I prepare to teach, I'm working with the instructional designer and we're getting it done at break neck speed. It will be refined during the fall for a better run in the winter.

Our student teachers and interns have a HUGE project they must complete to certify. It's called the Teacher Work Sample. The project relies heavily upon student data, student work samples, and basically a regular classroom setting. This winter, for some reason, our director felt impressed to really push our students to get this assignment done by early March, even though it's wasn't technically due in the BYU system until the end of March. It would have been nearly impossible for the interns and student teachers to complete that assignment once the public schools in which they're working closed. Even the director of BYU's Education Preparation Program said how lucky our students are that we pushed them to get it done. 

Finally, our majors all take Instructional Psychology and Technology classes that they feel are a waste of time. In those classes, they learn how to set up a class for online learning, what methods work well with online learning, and how to use a learning management system. Well, our students have been an invaluable resource to their mentor teachers (many of whom are a bit older and not familiar with technology). They've been putting content online and teaching their mentor teachers how to do it. It's been amazing to watch.

Pictured here are our student teachers and their university supervisors. What a way to end the semester.

I think Natalie's name should possibly be changed to Esther.