Following God's Lead
Dear Mater Dei Community,
The current crisis with this pandemic has forced us to consider as an apostolate, what scenarios we may be faced with in the future. There are many unknowns. How long will the current shut-down last? What happens if there is an outbreak of a new virus? Will national shut-downs be the new status quo? What does that mean for Catholic education?
Amid the uncertainty God is calling us to place our trust in Him as we move forward. He has guided our apostolate in a unique way from the start; leading us along unknown paths requiring innovation, boldness and complete confidence in His loving Providence. We will continue to follow His lead. In this newsletter we will share what we've been up to this past month and what we're working on for the future. May God bless you.
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Ad Jesum Per Mariam
Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam
Day-to-day at Mater Dei
Although we haven't been able to gather together for our monthly service projects, we have encouraged students to come up with creative ways to serve others on their own during these times. Some ideas have been donating to a food shelf, cleaning up litter from a stretch of the road, grocery shopping for an elderly neighbor or taking on extra yard work or chores around the house. One student has sacrificed his time (and his back) for Mater Dei by painting our education center. Thanks Anthony! We look forward to seeing students back in the freshly painted hallways soon.
Students were blessed to have a guest speaker for their Life Lessons elective course at the beginning of the month. Father Mike Schmitz took over as instructor for the class period, discussing the subject of suffering. A timely topic for our teenagers in this unprecedented crisis we're living through.
Mater Dei instructors have been exploring and utilizing the various tools available in our robust Learning Management System (LMS) to adapt their lessons to online format. We made the investment in this particular LMS at the beginning of the school year mainly for the live conferencing feature for one course that is taught remotely part-time. However, we are now utilizing the platform to it's full potential, including various built-in tools for assignments, quizzes and exams.
Our biology instructor is a professor at Lake Superior College who has experience teaching online courses. He is sharing his expertise about best practices on administering online quizzes and exams with efficiency and integrity. This has been such a blessing and has given us confidence in our approach moving forward.
Moving forward
In order to stay out in the forefront of the ever-changing educational landscape, we have decided to develop our current program to be fully online as an option for families. Beginning next year we will have our classrooms set up with the technology to be "virtual" classrooms. This means students will have the option to participate live, remotely, for each class period. In addition to our large monitor in the front of the room for teacher instruction, we will have a monitor on the back wall to project the webcams of students who are remote. We will use a high tech audio and video conferencing system in order to create the best possible hybrid learning environment for both instructors and students whether on-site or remote.
This new option will allow families to have the flexibility to participate remotely according to their own needs, abilities and desires. For example, if a student is ill or immunocompromised, they may wish to participate virtually. If a family lives further away from the education center, they may wish to come only one or two days per week and participate virtually the other days.
While we continue to develop this new option, we will always encourage in-person instruction as the preferred choice for students when it is safe to do so. Catholic education is fully realized when it is experienced sacramentally and in-person. As noted by the Pontifical Council for Social Communications in 2002:
“Virtual reality is no substitute for the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist, the sacramental reality of the other sacraments, and shared worship in a flesh-and-blood human community. There are no sacraments on the Internet; and even the religious experiences possible there by the grace of God are insufficient apart from real-world interaction with other persons of faith” (Pontifical Council for Social Communications - The Church and Internet, 9).
Although this is the ideal for us as Catholics and as humans, we want to be prepared for all scenarios at Mater Dei Apostolate. Implementation of our virtual classroom technology will provide us with stability in our program in the case of future pandemic situations or other reasons we may need to move online temporarily. Families need reliable access to Catholic education in all circumstances. We will do everything we can to make that happen.
Support MN nonprofits and schools
Please consider participating in this week-long virtual fundraising event for Minnesota nonprofits and schools during these challenging times. GiveMN is awarding $68,000 in grants over the course of this week (May 1-8) including one $250 prize every hour and one $2,500 prize every day. We are entered into the drawings every time a donation is made to our organization.
Our goal for this particular fundraiser is $6,000, which will cover the cost and installation of our new conferencing system at Mater Dei. Donations for this fundraiser need to be made at the GiveMN website in order for us to be eligible for the prize drawings:
https://www.givemn.org/story/Materdei
Be sure to browse for other Minnesota nonprofits and schools as well and show your support! Every amount helps, whether $5 or $5,000. May God bless you for your generosity.