Reflection for the month of October

I have set a timeline for the adaptive curriculum. In the first week of October I have to assess the literacy skill of my students in class one. Although it was difficult for young children to acquire phonemic awareness skills but, after the modification of my instructional methodology, they have at least acquired the basic phonemic awareness.

With the support and guidance from parents/guardians, all were shining star in two sounds (sh,  ch) but, most of the children had difficulty in sounding out (th-) sound. Two repeaters of class one really needed extra attention as they couldn’t even recognize alphabet and their letter formation were mostly incorrect.

Not only did the students find difficulty in learning sounds, even teaching sounds was equally challenging for teachers. Video lessons were prepared and links on sounds were attached in we chat yet students sounded out incorrectly. No one to blame it for, as online teaching for lower classes are not as simple and effective as we think.  Moreover, tracing students who are out of reach was one of the most difficult tasks. Despite numerous call and messages, some parents still seems to be ignorant. However I have managed to trace everyone and consistently reminded them about their child’s learning.

So, the next step I took to correct the sound of (th), really satisfied me and helped me achieve my goal. I made a separate video on (th) from sharing website, focusing on that particular sound. Nevertheless, with the consistent push and reminder, my teaching and learning methods and strategies stood out absolutely satisfying.

Support rendered to few disadvantages students who had no access to phone, uneducated parents and far flung home, were catered with necessary support like mobile teaching and in campus teaching for maintaining consistency in learning.

In a nutshell, students enjoyed the video lessons shared and it has a great beneficial impact on children.

 

                                                         Reflection

Due to the outbreak of Covid 19 pandemic the normal classroom teaching has been stopped. To keep the continuity of teaching learning process, the Ministry of Education initiated E-learning in our education system. It took some time to fully systematize the online teaching in our school. With constant follow up by the Education Officers, Principal and the teachers the online teaching using social media came into effect. Now, the parents and the children are well informed and understood about what is being taught in online. They cooperated well and are sending their assignments using any media that they are comfortable with.

For E-learning to be more effective our school chose WeChat forum for classes PP to III and google classroom for classes IV to VI. We followed prioritized curriculum Key Stage I for classes PP to III to disseminate the lesson. For every lesson, we sent the worksheet provided in the emergency curriculum with clear written and verbal instructions.

On 18^th September 2020 I delivered a lesson on the topic multiplication which was a new topic for class III students.  I downloaded a short video clip on multiplication and sent to the class group chat. I have also sent the explanation with the diagram taken out from the prioritized curriculum. After that, I provided clear verbal and written instructions on how to carry out the activities and when to submit. To my surprise, almost about 90% of the children were able to answer the questions.

After getting their task back I went through it and I was happy almost all the students could solve the problems correctly. Even the children who couldn’t open video clips due to some technical problems could also solve the problems by reading the instructions and description given to them before. Even though it was a new topic, my lesson went very well.

Finally, I would like to say that instead of keeping the children and teachers ideally at home during this very pandemic it is better to keep ourselves engaged in the online teaching learning process. It will facilitate children to inculcate using of mobile effectively in teaching learning instead of playing games. 

 

 

Activities from SIM(Self Instructional Materials)

Reflection on use of ICT in teaching and learning

 

After the closure of schools on 5th March, 2020 across the country; upon the directives from the ministry of education concern teachers were involved in looking for solution to complete the annual syllabus. We teacher took an active role in transformation of teaching from/in home “making the best use of InfoTech”. During the initial stage, all of us teachers, students and parents were confused as the classroom teaching were completely at halt, however few learning took place through electronic gadgets.

        Firstly, I aimed at involving all my students in online teaching through WeChat. All the procedure, process of teaching lesson and assignments, correction and feedback of their work, and how the students will be assessed and graded were explained to both students and parents and requested all them to join class Wechat group.

         On July 30^th 2020 I delivered a lesson on the topic polygon for class three students. I instructed the students to go through the short video clip which talks about polygons. Then the examples of polygon were given for them to read and understand. After that activity was send that was choosing the shapes and drawing in the correct column. I corrected and assessed their work which was send back through WeChat with appropriate feedback. However, some children had problem in sending the assignments on time as they lacked smart phones and parents support, computers or television at home. Overall the lesson went very well and I could achieve 90% of my objectives.

         To accept any sort of change is not easy however, it was learning for including students, teachers, parents and even the community. We got an opportunity to explore various strategies to teach online. Due to recent COVID-19 pandemic, the online teaching has brought radical changes in education system by making best use of Info Tech which is at par with developed countries. So far what we have learned a lesson from COVID-19 pandemic is it is going to remain and be part of us, nevertheless nothing will impede the mankind that with time everything is possible. And yes with the online teaching it has greatly enhanced teacher-parents-children relationship; and even our parents has become teacher-students with us and are actively involved in guiding our children with teaching lessons.

 

 

                                                              Video on polygon

 

                                               video on sending and receiving assignments

                                            Worksheet

                                                         Just a Thought

E-learning has implemented across Bhutan giving importance to the powerful weapon so called education in our day to day life during this pandemic situation.

Today’s learners need various mode to learn particular content. They learn through visual, audio and other different modes. This need is fulfilled with the online mode of teaching. When I reflect upon online teaching and learning of few months, I found some of the students could participate actively and learn fruitfully with the guidance of their parents, whereas some could not participate having no smart phones at home and illiterate parents.

Lesson input has been so light for teachers just preparing teaching learning materials and making videos to deliver the lesson. It reduced time and saved energy as compared to formal mode of teaching. It also helped learners to access the content an unlimited number of times to revise the lesson. Unlike classroom teaching, the assessment been a troublesome for teachers to assess huge number of students through digital mode.

For the e-learning currently practiced in education, we lack the use of 21^st pedagogy practices which has got many important skills in it. The communication skills, group work skills, different feedback strategies, glamorous cheers we use in the classroom and many more strategies of education.

Due to the partial set of benefits some students are benefited while some are demotivated towards learning as per my reflection until now.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/15r_k62dQ1FK1M9Z5aXtPwovxBl2ZUfu7/view?usp=sharing

Learning ICT

Learning ICT after 17 years in Paro College of Education was a challenging one but it was worth learning as I could understand the importance of integrating ICT in teaching and learning processes. I was having lots of questions before I attended this class,I thought using computer for typing sight words,browsing images and printing was enough  for me. Using ICT in my classes was to show some videos that was related with the topic and that was interesting for the children. Learning ICT and getting opportunity to learn was blessing in disguise for me.

Teacher

Being a teacher and teaching children for almost seventeen years in any school is the  most satisfied anyone would ever have.