Fostering Engagement & Wellbeing while Teaching Remotely

22nd April 2020

Name of Course/Programme/Seminar: Fostering Engagement & Wellbeing while Teaching Remotely

Provider/Presenter: Dale Sidebottom

If I was to summarise the key things I took away from this Professional Development what would they be and why?

The PEGG strategy helps to increase student engagement by allowing students to feel a sense of fun and to feel connected to others outside of their bubble. Just like our Hauora the different dimensions of PEGG (Play, Exercise, Gratitude & Giving) are all equally as important. The PEGG strategy can be treated like a challenge with each of the different areas needing to be ticked off and completed each and every day. Once students have been able to complete a task for each of these they are encouraged to reflect on these before being able to "peg" themselves - they can literally have a physical peg to help remind them. This is also a strategy that students can then share with their family to increase household engagement. Then as pictured in my notes above we were given multiple different ways that we can help foster and engage students in each of the different aspects of PEGG.

How has this professional development challenged my thinking?

With the lack of class discussions and group work in my distance learning classes at the moment, how can I help students to feel more connected to school and increase their engagement and sense of fun?

What aspects of my practice would I consider changing as a result of this professional development and why?

I would look at introducing a small task at the beginning of a lesson. This can help to differentiate lessons and make them a bit different. This could also be a task used at the start of the lesson which I have typically been using as the 'wait time' to ensure all members were there and that I could do the roll. These activities could be ideas from the different areas of PEGG i.e. an exercise challenge one day, a gratitude task the next.