Embracing Challenge, Driving Change: Online Learning Exploration

Online Learning

Recently, Online Learning has been a popular topic among the society. As an International school, Boston International School has students and teachers being in different countries and time zones, which makes Online Learning more challenging.

Yet it turns out that our Online Learning Program is running successfully and we have received positive feedbacks from our students and parents. None of this could happen without the devotion of our management team, the tireless efforts of our teachers and staff members, as well as the cooperation from our students and parents.

As our Motto said: Embracing Challenge, Driving Change. We embrace this challenge and are willing to take on the new teaching approach as a change in our teaching methodology. We hope everyone in BIS community can work with us and support each other!

 

Management Team

• Senior Executive Team 

SET team holds a weekly video conference.

• Principal Meeting 

Executive Principal Mr. Rob Stewart, Academic Principal Mr. Brian Rotunno and Secondary Principal Dr. Ann Wagner hold video conference calls three times a week.

• Divisional Meeting 

Academic Principal, Divisional Principal and all relating divisional staff hold meetings at least once a week to map out the teaching strategy, plan and related materials.

• Coordinators Meeting 

Coordinators then hold countless meeting with teachers individually or as a group for academic planning, students engagement and so on to ensure a successful learning process.

 

Teachers & Contents

• All teachers are preparing Online Learning Program according to the academic schedule of the second semester and IB Curriculum.

• Online courses are recorded as videos. To overcome challenges of time zone, we are using various online platforms to deliver these videos.

Take PYP as an example, during the past week, PYP teachers made over 90 videos contents which were uploaded to YouTube and Youku to ensure access from inside and outside China.

• Teachers are contacting students individually and follow up their studies.

• Every teacher is providing at least two hours available everyday for phone calls to ensure connection with students.

• Professional Developments about Online Learning and technology were organized to make sure teachers can deliver their contents smoothly.

• Most teachers are working over 10 hours a day.

• Admin team is also providing support to teachers and students with technology and academics.

 

From PYP Coordinator

To provide a more specific view, our PYP Coordinator, Mr. David Bremner gives his perspective on Online Learning Program:

Online Learning in Elementary School has been a new challenge for all of us. That’s ok though. Challenge is good. We are not teachers because it is easy. We are teachers because we love helping students to learn.

We have overcome challenges like internet speeds, childcare issues, being abroad, lack of access to equipment, lack of travel options, cancelled flights; largely similar challenges that we know our students and their families are facing too.

I am very relieved to see that we are able to overcome these challenges and continue our learning and our interactions with students.

Teachers and students in Grades 4 and 5 are using Microsoft Teams to great effect to collaborate and share their learning online.

Seeing one another via video chat for meetings is becoming quite normal.

 

Some of the challenges we have faced have been around the technology involved in online learning. Video chat over slower internet connections has been an issue, as well as having teachers and students both inside and outside China. One solution we have had is to take advantage of video streaming services. We have uploaded lesson content and story readings to both Youku and Youtube. This allows students in China and outside China to access our video content as best they can. Teachers have had to learn how to record themselves in PowerPoint with audio, and with video, then how to compress videos to share them at a reasonable speed. We have successfully completed online professional development activities with our teachers to upskill them with the technology they are using and to give them opportunities to discuss learning strategies.

We have done individual and group check-ins with all our students we have been able to connect with. These will continue each week so that students and teachers can still connect and have opportunities to talk about learning and about their challenges. Our specialist teachers have tried to create tasks for students from a broad range of experience and ability. We have our ELL team working closely with students who require intensive English input.

If I can take this opportunity to highlight two different cases of how our teams are working. In Grade 2, Amy Darden and Zoe Fitzsimmons are separated by 8 time zones. They collaborate online, creating documents and video-calling for planning meetings, deciding who will deliver what content for their students. They always give thought to which students might need something harder, or need instructions broken down a bit. They have really shown they care about all their students and want to do the best job they can. Between them they produce two versions of their home learning menu a week. One is aimed at parents, and one is very student friendly, particularly designed to be very visual with simple wording for any student who needs the language support.

Another great example is in how all our teachers are using videos to deliver teaching content. This varies class to class, and teacher to teacher, but one staff member who has been central to the success of this is Brian Wallace from Grade 4. Brian, as well as all the rest of the work he has done, has been our go-to guy for getting video lessons to work. He has solved a lot of the technical issues people have had. I’d like to share one of his videos with you as he records “The Rainbow Fish” for his Grade 4 class.

Click to watch the full version on YouTube.

点击在YouTube上浏览完整视频。

 

Although we are not able to see each other on campus as we are still waiting for the official announcement regarding school reopen date, please remember that all our teachers are willing and ready to help students.

Hope to see you soon on our beautiful campus!