Thoughts on how to improve E-learning in IB with one 4 page document
A recent NY Times article stated;
“Online learning is ineffective for most school children and special-needs children, the panel of scientists and educators concluded.”
it is important to appreciate that learning is never done in a vacuum, and that the purpose of school is mostly subjective but is generally considered to be primarily about the transfer of knowledge and understanding from the place of learning (school) to the place of knowing (wider community)
This leads me to think backward from the ephemeral place of knowing through the technological platforms we are using back to the place of learning. I have considered the overlap between the information, knowledge, academic, practical and intellectual needs of my students and the limitations and features of the existing technological tools that we are utilising.
Effectively, in simpler language, how can I use what I have available to help my IB student learn what they need to?
With teachers and students alike having limited training and experience on the technological tools they were abruptly forced to use, the learning curve has been steep and largely unsupported. So it is not surprising that the current methods of e-learning utilised by academic institutions are considered by many educational professionals to be ‘ineffective’. With my current IB students they are not always sufficiently extrinsically motivated to learn without the social and physical triggers that are present within a classroom learning environment. That is not to say they are incapable of learning but that they are experiencing emotional, social, and physical separation from friends and the rigid timetable structures imposed upon them by the school.
Dr. Beers said. “Adolescence is a period of time in life when you are to be exploring your own sense of self and developing your identity,” he said. “It’s difficult to do that if you are at home with your parents all the time.”
I felt that it was important to utilise the enforced period of isolation to restructure the whole IB course into an easily accessible and utilised format, so that students were able to access all of the resources they would normally access over the course of two years with minimal effort. In other words, they don’t have to search for what they need.
I looked at google sites which for my purposes was too clunky and slow, the setting up of an external website required a substantial amount of time and potential financial investment, that I was simply not prepared for. I then realised that a simple document linked to my google drive and all of the associated resources the students would need to utilise would be the simplest and most effective manner in which to ensure they would consistently be able to access the entire course with limited hassle.
This document contains 10 years of constantly edited, reformatted and modified PowerPoints, revision documents, textbooks, past paper questions, and course companion work booklets, all linked in an easily accessible 4-page format, and the beauty of this is that I can edit it whenever required and those changes are immediately available to students.