Reflection for the month of October 2020

Reflection for the month of October 2020 It has been a while for both students and teachers interacting through online teaching and learning. Teaching and learning became more comfortable and used to with gadgets for all parents, teachers and students as well, though there are miles to go perfectly. Compare to the previous months, different strategies were being put into place to ensure the continued education to all students. Online learning has been moved beyond teaching rather exploring from net has made them more of fun, easier and faster for the learners to learn. Many a times the learning is behind the curtain and will of free expression made them clear their doubts without hesitation. This type of expression by our students made us relieved, thinking that they are learning something rather than none at all. After teaching online for sometimes, I felt a need to include three presence in my teaching for my learners to learn effectively. To infuse three presence, I have called each individual and their parents, briefed about the three presence. The presence includes cognitive presence, teaching presence and social presence. During my online teaching, first thing I tried was to make them trigger the events, Explore the lesson, integration of lesson and lastly come to a resolution. In a community of inquiry, they are made to reflect through collaboration and construct meaning out of that topic. Here my job is to trigger them with ways and means to let them think and ask questions. It was a good experience for me and a great learning for them. I tried with few topics and it worked well with those students who actively participated. Here, Learning is more or less like face to face teaching. Next step was teaching presence and here I presented my lesson, started the discussion and prompt in their discussions. The lesson went effectively with clear information and instructions on the topic and the activities as well. I could even see the shy students taking part in the discussion though it was mostly of verbal interaction with mixed language. At the end they came to a conclusion, which made them happy about their learning experience. Finally, it is about social presence where open communication take place, interview each other, provide practical options and facilitate field trip. I was happy to see my students having open communication with everybody in the group. I could do my task on time as many of my students were active online. During the discussion on that particular topic, there were lots of interaction such as clearing doubts and asking questions. The lesson went effectively and students enjoyed leading to in-depth learning. With these three presences, a new teaching strategy I was able to present my teaching with great interest and learning became fun for students as well. Parents too were overwhelmed after seeing the interaction we had during the lesson. Lesson taught was linked on life connection, where every individual has their share of interaction and learning. I made sure of the time frame for every lesson, so that they know and will be reminded of that particular time. Owing to those reasons, many students frequently talk about their next lesson. But towards the darker part of the lesson, students who fail to cope up with their friends fail to respond. Some smart phones lack space, few have blur screen and battery problem etc. Because of these problems some students were deprived from learning and for those students I had to make smaller group which is challenging as well. With different strategies in place I was able to capture around ninety five percent of the total students and rest five percent I called them in their locality to have equal education for every child. It was 100% successful because of great leaders, cooperative friends and above all caring parents. To sum up, remote teaching during this pandemic never failed as per my understanding and feedback given to our school administration by our caring parents of my wonderful students. I tried my best to improve every month, to reach every child for their learning and engagement as well. We the Sisina family has visited every house of all the students. As saying goes "no gain without pain" I, with lots of challenges, I am satisfied as I did not leave a child behind and the result was effective with outmost learning experiences for my students and teaching online experiences for myself as well. The video given will show the brief presentation of how the teaching learning activities was carried out. = Nima Tshering (06170412)

Reflection for the month of September

 

Reflection for the month of September

 

A new normal type of teaching and learning is gaining momentum, where every school adapted their own unique way of learning. However, the situation became far more complex, and the impact on online learning is very different during lockdown. As for my school, the teaching that we are used to it is through WeChat followed by field visit once a week. While we welcome this unique opportunity to teach in this fast changing world but lockdown added fuel in fire, we worry that the urgency of the situation may lead to hasty, panic and disturbing mind for child and as well as parents. As after action review (AAR) like military, our teaching faculty too had a reflection on turn out of the students work and found out that many students didn’t respond to our work. It is basically due to neophobia of lockdown. I have called each and every students of my class and reminded them of the fact that they should try their best without panic and hardship they face. The hardship they face during the lockdown and the workload I had is some kind of history to be express in our near future. Being Desuup need to work as frontline followed by daily report writing, as parents need to guide my children in studies and teaching online is no exception.

Teaching through WeChat became a new normal for me, as online learning for my students. I taught around eight lesson during the month of September, 2020 despite being in frontline for COVI-19. Amongst eight I will be writing my reflection on the lesson taught during the third week on isometric drawing and prime numbers. The lesson was taught through written explanations, followed by some images/teaching aids and later short video and voice message to cater to all. One lesson with multiple ways of teaching is just because in some areas there are net problem where video is not possible, some gadgets couldn’t support voice and there are lot more. So to cater to all the individual needs and aspiration, as mentioned by the parents during field visit I tried my best to fulfill all their dreams.

With varied teaching techniques even during the peak of lockdown yet out of 64 students in classes V and VI, only 15 has responded which made me worry and sometimes shameful to see such result. Owing to this horrible turnout I and my colleagues manage to visit all of them, after the lockdown with due permission from Dzongkhag, following all the safety measures. As we approach our children, we could hear their interest towards learning and wanting to be the part of learners. As a team, we could express our concern and their grievances as well. Yet there still lies some concern on their learning independence and the hardship they face to cope up with educated and well to do parents.  

After meeting with each one of them as part of mandatory teaching I taught my lesson on two topics as stated above but didn’t expect 100% turn out. I was glad to see all my students work on time which never happened before and above all, worst during the lockdown. The work they have submitted was attractive and with limited errors. I was eager to know what really made them to do their task on time and even shared my appreciation to some of them who never does work on time. It was all due to side visit by the teachers and accessibility of resources made them to do work on time.  They also said that with varied source of information like video, voice text, etc. made them to do their work easily. With pride and contented mind, I and may be friends too could submit our weekly report to the office. Effort put after the lockdown did not go into waste, instead I was proud that I could convince all my students and parents as well.

 

Reflection on the lesson during pandemic.

 

Reflection on online teaching.

March 6^th became the alarming sound where teaching and learning turned away from its usual class. The closing of school and letting the children at the mercy of their parents for learning during the COVID-19 pandemic is an emergency response to contain the spread of the corona-virus. Normal teaching shifted to virtual learning, where every one of us is new to system especially for primary classes. The primary aim is to quickly provide temporary, reliable access to instruction and support their learning during a crisis, not to re-create a robust educational ecosystem.  Although it’s not ideal to continue with online learning for the country like Bhutan but pandemic made us compulsory for such type of learning. With much deliberation during staff meeting and consultation with parents came to a conclusion of using We-chat for teaching and learning.

Simple survey verbally found We-chat, the means of communication for the parents. Things are much tougher with varied family background and literacy of parents. In the latter scenario, it's hard to measure how more than a small fraction of the students reacting to us, and also hard to manage a discussion. Students not having smart phones and affordability of data became a concern and above all parents’ guidance is a concern for a teacher like me. The pressure from ministry seems like a dictator’s order, wanting a child to get through but on the other hand, tracing the child is difficult for us. Once students are in group, constant change of phone made us hell like job.

 

Unlike the normal class room, Virtual Classroom is accessible for them 24 hours a day. Time efficiency is another strength brought by the online learning format for our children. Asynchronous communication through online conferencing programs allows the professional juggling work, family, and study schedules to participate in class discussions. There is no question about doing the work; just do it at the times that are more convenient. Students can access their courses at any time of day or night. Further, they have continuous access to lectures, course materials, and class discussions. This is particularly convenient for those students who may need to reread a lecture or take more time to reflect on some material before moving on with their assigned work. The students can have more control over their learning process in an online learning environment and time makes them more effective for learning.

 

With abundances of time and freedom, learning still becomes a question and authenticate of the work is still unknown. Every month we travel to every individual in a community for validation of the work and face to face interaction with students. The work that I have provided seems more like that of a copy past for most and for some there seems lot of learning taking place. The moment I interreact with some feels like teaching and assigning some additional questions.

 

Teaching thought videos and short clips didn’t work for most of the students, so the option left for me is through image and some description verbally. Effectiveness of video may be enormous however attributable to monetary and poor network in some places made us handicap.

 The moment we post our lesson online, we get hold of a spark off comments form a few students however anticipating days and a few to the extent of calling loses our interest too.

Nevertheless, the lesson that we have learnt during this pandemic is beyond our thoughts and imagination. I taught my students how to use gadgets in a smarter way for educational purpose and learning in the absent of teacher. An online instructor must be able to compensate for lack of physical presence by creating a supportive environment in the Virtual Classroom, wherein students feel comfortable participating and especially where students know that their instructor is accessible. Failure to do this can alienate the class both from each other and from the instructor. However, even if a teacher is competent enough to create a comfortable virtual environment in which the class can operate, nevertheless the shortage of physical presence at an organization can be a limitation for an online application. 

As we move from place to place, many a times we found that the correction that we did on online never have been effective. There are so many excuses of net problem, phone memory and parents at one station and child in another location. Nonetheless I am satisfied because I was able to monitor and do on time correction. Face to face feedback interaction is one of the satisfying works ever did in the last two months. The most and touching feedback from my students is lack of gadgets, where they have more than one child sharing phone with their parents. Many a times parents are out of station and even they are there, it is disturbing with calls. As an effective measure, door to door correction and feedback on the spot gradually improved a lot. Every child does their work on time and with integrity.

 

 

 

Education in emergency

 VIDEO for my lesson.Journey of my lock-down teaching.  

Motivation.

Motivation is a key factor in promoting effective learning. Even if the teaching and learning is design in the most attractive manner, effective learning will not take place if the learner is not motivated to learn. To teach ICT native students in this 21st century, we need to motivate using electronic gadgets. The gadgets are their mode of motivation and excitement for learning. Researchers indicated that learner's who are motivated to learn works independently and later grow to be a responsible citizen.   

History of our nation is one of the most amazing among the Nation.