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)