University of Connecticut Athletics
Women’s Hockey Alumna Teaching Online Math on YouTube
5/12/2020 1:51:00 PM | Women's Ice Hockey
Everyone has had to make adjustments to their life and work during this coronavirus pandemic, and Shannon Connolly is no different.
Connolly, a fifth-grade teacher at the Mather School in Boston and a former UConn women's hockey player, has created a YouTube channel called "Ms. Connolly's Math at Home," which contains around 70 videos covering elementary school math topics from first to fifth grade.
Connolly said she started making the videos just for her own fifth-grade class when the quarantine started after attempting to get all her students on Zoom at the same didn't work out at all.
"I was battling a lot of different things like they didn't have the Internet, they had to go to the store with their parents," Connolly said. "It was a nightmare."
But at that point, everyone still thought they were coming back to school, and Connolly wanted to make sure her students were still prepared for the state exam called the MCAS.
"I was freaking out about that because we had come such a long way," Connolly said. "This group of students had come in. We had made so much progress, I was so excited for them. And then I was like, 'Oh no they're gonna lose everything that we learned!'"
So she started uploading videos on YouTube for her students to watch, and she shared them with her fellow fifth-grade teachers. She ended up making the channel public to everyone after she made some videos that were technically covering fourth-grade math concepts.
From there, she said it snowballed after seeing parents posting on social media about how difficult it was teaching their elementary school kids math at home. So Connolly continued to make more videos covering concepts for elementary school math of all grades. She has spent a lot of time creating the videos in a way she hopes that both kids and parents can understand.
"What's kind of unique and special about the videos that I'm doing is it's not just 'Hey this is how you solve it quick,'" Connolly said. "I'm trying to get at the understanding and that there's several strategies to solve the same problem. So I don't just teach any tricks or anything like that."
The videos have gotten pretty popular, as the Boston Public Schools website posted them for other teachers to use and the Boston Neighborhood Network TV station has been broadcasting them as well. The YouTube page now has almost 400 subscribers, and Connolly said she has gotten a lot of positive feedback from parents on social media.
"It's kind of exciting," Connolly said about the channel's popularity. "That was the point because I wanted to reach as many kids as possible."
Connolly played hockey for UConn as a center from 2001 to 2005, and her best memory is making it to the Hockey East Championship in her senior year.
Initially, she didn't know what she wanted to do, but while at UConn, she realized she wanted to be a teacher after visiting her older sister's classroom. She ended up graduating from UConn's Neag School of Education with a graduate degree in 2007. She has been working in Boston Public Schools ever since. She taught both second and fourth grade prior to moving to fifth grade, and her background in teaching multiple grades has helped her with the YouTube channel.
Connolly said being a student-athlete at UConn certainly helped shape her into the person she is today.
"I think the UConn athletic community always had a big emphasis on giving back to the community and doing things for people," Connolly said. "I also think the people that UConn recruits as athletes, they look for a certain character and leadership. I think being around those types of people for four years just makes you want to be a better person."
You can check out Connolly's page here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7B3tM9n3_tQy87mVNoq_kw/featured
If you or someone you know needs help teaching math to elementary school kids, subscribe to the channel and share it with others so Connolly's hard work can reach an even larger audience.
