ABIS continues to offer learning opportunities online and we appreciate all of those of you who are supporting your children during this time. Our teachers have been collecting feedback from your children in an effort to give them some voice and choice over their learning, also known as Agency.
Teachers have enjoyed sharing their findings with each other and noticing common trends (or not!) I would like to share some of these findings with you:
Some students wanted to continue their learning experiences as if they were still at school. This includes continuing with their reading, writing, maths and units of inquiry.
Some students took hold of the opportunity to express their desires to learn something of high interest to themselves. I have loved hearing things like the following from some of our students.
I want to study more about Rocks because I want to be a Geologist when I grow up or I want to be an author so I want to know more about writing.
I want to be able to learn to juggle properly. Said teacher for this may offer online some more instructions on how to make this a reality.) I have also been trying to learn to juggle so could do with the extra help too!
Someone else wanted to learn about animals because they want to be a vet. One student even wants to learn to do a back flip so the teacher has offered to provide some information about how to prepare your body for such a daring feat!
Several students have said they love doing experiments, science and making stuff and another said they enjoy research and wanted to know how glass was made. Other students have enjoyed the hands on activities like cooking, making things, and art activities.
Challenges for students include learning in the iPad, not having my teacher there to ask when I do my work or learning away from my teachers and friends.
Some students have taken up the opportunity to learn to play a musical instrument and others have enjoyed meeting the sporting challenges set by various teachers, including how to do yoga. I hope some of you have managed to enjoy these challenges too.
When we talked about meeting online students are enjoying being able to connect with their classmates one saying that the class meetings “are important because the meeting lets me see others, so I feel that it’s school at home.” we also recognize the importance of these meetings to ensure connections with each other.
Some common themes coming through were that students were missing their friends and their teachers and missed learning at school. While some children said they don’t like learning online, others said they liked learning online because it meant they could spend more time with their families and they could learn whenever they wanted to. It also means siblings get to play together more often and it seems your children are enjoying this opportunity.
Hearing this feedback from students allows teachers to better plan to meet students needs and interests while continuing to deliver on approaches to learning skills. It is much easier to do this when we are in class but probably not as explicit.
For me, I have loved thinking about and putting together Wellness Wednesday activities and reading a story each week. I love even more, hearing and or seeing the students when they respond to either of these activities.
The resounding answer to the question “What would you like to do?” is ……. Go back to school! I expect this would be echoed by most parents and teachers too ?! We had a lovely request from a KG2 student to have a bit Welcome Back to ABIS party when we return to school. What a great idea and we will get to planning on that one!
While the Eid break is upon us teachers are wishing they had more time to do everything, but they will, many of them, spend this break writing reports. Whatever you are doing keep safe but do try to get off devices if you can.
Eid Mubarak.