By:  Jacob Groves

Ashley Thompson takes holistic approach to role as distance teacher

As instructors throughout the country are adjusting to the new normal of distance learning, the only constant is change. We at the Muhlenberg Job Corps Center are evaluating and refining different learning strategies to make distance learning better, more effective and more engaging for our students. Our staff has risen to the challenge of distance learning to ensure that students at Muhlenberg Job Corps continue to learn, even if they aren’t on center.

One staff member, Ashley Thompson, has excelled in ensuring her students are active in her Google Classroom, but also has gone beyond the remote classroom setting to make sure her students feel important and loved. Thompson teaches reading at Muhlenberg Job Corps. In explaining her approach to distance learning, Thompson said, “I communicate daily with my students. I try to act like a caring mother would. Instead of just communicating strictly about reading, I try to be personal with the students, to show solidarity that we’re all in this together.”

She even goes as far to communicate with students who are not enrolled in her class. She knows that many Muhlenberg Job Corps students come from vulnerable backgrounds, and anything she can say that is positive might make their situation better. Thompson considers her role in distance learning as far more than “just a job. I am involved in their personal lives if they have allowed me to be,” she says. “I have shared fishing stories and photos with a student on a weeknight at 8 p.m. I have replied to students late at night and early in the morning. They know I am available pretty much all day one way or another.”

Reminding students that we’re all in this together has seemed to make a difference. Thompson noted that several of her students are motivated to go beyond their required daily assignments. “I want the students to know that they aren’t just doing the things we ask them to do as busy work. I want them to know that I look at what they are doing and they know I want them to exercise their brain.”

Thompson admits dealing with the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, the temporary closing of the campus of Muhlenberg Job Corps and the transition to distance learning has been stressful for all staff and students. But she has enjoyed the experience and the challenge of distance learning, saying it has forced her to continue to learn new things. Most importantly, she believes, distance learning has sent the message to both students and staff that you don’t have to be in a classroom or sitting at a desk listening to a lecture to learn and gain something valuable.