Students and teachers returning to school at Liverpool Regional High School will be leaving their phones at the door.<\/p>\n
To reduce classroom disruption and improve learning outcomes students and staff are no longer permitted to use cell phones during class time.<\/p>\n
Beth Woodford-Collins, coordinator of programs for grades 7-12 at South Shore Regional Centre for Education says putting phones away allows students to be more engaged with their education and each other.<\/p>\n
\u201cProblem solving is one of our competencies that we are working on to ensure that students have when they graduate,\u201d said Woodford-Collins. \u201cCommunication, problem solving, critical thinking, technological fluency, all of these competencies are competencies that actually do involve direct communication and interaction and engagement in a more dynamic, in-person way.\u201d<\/p>\n
She says taking the cell phone off the table for an hour allows the students to get to know each other in a different way.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s not to say technology won\u2019t be used as every student has access to their own Chromebook.<\/p>\n
Woodford-Collins says providing students with same access to technology while in class produces another desired outcome, equity.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt really does remove that A) distraction and B) that disparity between student A and student B when everybody's got the same device, Chromebook,\u201d said Woodford-Collins.<\/p>\n
SSRCE Director of Programs and Student Service Denise Dodge-Baker says the strategy will be monitored and evaluated at regular intervals.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe school is going to continue to kind of look at it and get feedback and response in a survey, kind of a check in as time progresses to kinda say, how's it working? Is there an aspect of the strategy that we need to tighten or is there a part of this that\u2019s working well for people?\u201d said Dodge-Baker.<\/p>\n
According to a statement released by LRHS on its social media, 80 percent of office referrals come from conflict from using cell phones and misuse of social media.<\/p>\n
Dodge-Baker says the strategy was developed after discussions with other school districts around how they deal with mobile devices in class.<\/p>\n
If things pan out, she hopes the model being used at LRHS can be used in schools across the province.<\/p>\n