Roles and responsibilities of parents during covid-19
Schools are compelled to shut in an exertion to reduce the spread of Covid-19. The pandemic saw many parents/ guardians juggling careers while simultaneously supervising and observing their child’s learning from home. Out of those long months of disruption, both teachers and parents have the opportunity to appreciate more completely the significance of a strong home/ school organization built on trust. But the increase in parental involvement in children’s learning ought to provide them relatively more of a say in choices that directly influence them.
Parents can empathize with the reality that children are feeling justifiably apprehensive and stressed about COVID-19. Comfort your children that the illness due to COVID-19 is for the most part gentle, particularly for children and young adults. Make them understand that the symptoms of COVID-19 and the disease itself can be treated. From that, parents can remind them that there are numerous compelling things they can do to keep themselves and others secure and to feel in way better control of the circumstances by frequently washing their hands, by not touching their faces and by following social distancing.
Parents can offer in-person playdates through the internet. Parents can set their children up on video conferencing, like Skype or Zoom, so they can keep in contact with their friends or colleagues. If everybody is at home with each other all the time, having one on one time with each child could be a great way to create a closer bond.
Each parent must develop a habit of keeping constant communication with the teachers. With online learning, it has become much less demanding for families to have one on one contact with teachers either through their work emails or work phone numbers. Parents can utilize this time to plan a virtual meeting with the educator to catch up with your child’s progress.
Parents should set regular meal times to maintain a strategic distance from all-day grazing. Parents should serve 3 suppers and 1 to 2 planned snacks each day. When it's time to eat, they should have their children sit at the table and not in front of a screen. This way, children are centered on the food and less likely to overeat. Parents should encourage their children to be active for at least 30 minutes each day. Parents should also let their children go outside to play.
A planned and concerted effort will help all to tide over these times more easily and meaningfully.
- School Editorial Team
‘Online Learning vs Classroom Learning’
‘E-learning tips for parents helping their children at home.’
STEAM vs STEM education: What's best for our child’s future in the digital age?
STEM is an abbreviation for Science, Technology, Engineering, and Maths. “STEAM” includes STEM plus the Arts – humanities, language arts, dance, drama, music, visual arts, design, and new media.
The main difference between STEM and STEAM is STEM explicitly concentrates on scientific concepts. STEAM investigates the same concepts but does this through inquiry and problem-based education methods used in the creative process.
'STEAM' education in schools provides students with the opportunities to learn creatively, practicing 21st-century skills such as problem-solving. These extensive capabilities are crucial to growing a future-ready workforce that understands the potential of “what if” when resolving problems that occur in real life.
So the idea of “what if?” is not dependent on the purchase of STEAM-specific technologies or even classroom or the maker space design. It’s more dependent on the creativity and curiosity of the teachers collaborating with their students.
We at The Orbis Schools strongly believe that the purpose of education is not the ability to ace some tests and beat your peers. That is not real success. It is rather the nurturing and development of one’s creative brainpower and essential talents, enhanced by the breadth of knowledge gained from ALL subjects. There is as much creativity in engineering, science, and mathematics as there is in the arts, by the way. It requires an enormously creative and expanded brain to comprehend quantum physics for example!
The schools and universities must redefine how and what they teach to remain relevant to the industry. Education should give fair value to all subjects and how these subjects relate to solving current and future real-world problems, whilst embracing the use of technology and how to develop the world with technology. Digital disruption is affecting the whole industry and our kids need to be ready for this. STEM is important, but so is the broader thinking outside of STEM subjects. STEAM should be the future.
- School Editorial Team
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How to Make Online Teaching-Learning More Efficient
As we are entering into a new era where social isolation has become the norm, the disruption to our lives has been sudden and drastic. The education sector has witnessed a dramatic change too, moving from real-world classrooms to a virtual setting. As schools rapidly scramble to adjust to the digital classroom, we explore how online learning can be made truly powerful.
Ensuring Real Learning
Online teaching can be used as a way to re-craft mainstream teaching. A mix of synchronous and asynchronous modes of teaching can be instituted. Notably, the time is ripe for the teacher to play the role of a facilitator in a largely student-led model.
We, at The Orbis School- one of the best CBSE schools in Pune ensure that all elements of a school’s timetable should ideally be addressed, but in cognizance of the fact that online lessons would have a different format. For efficient transaction and immersion, it is a good idea for the student to be assigned pre-class work.
Keeping the focus on formative, rather than summative, assessment is also a hallmark of online teaching. The test or assignment should not offer judgments; it should rather inform teaching processes. Focusing on developing deep learning, the test should be a tool for the teacher to assess how far each student has progressed and where a student needs help.
Moreover, assigning students relevant and engaging tasks as a part of a unit plan that focus on concept-based learning is key to student success. These plans encourage and support self-paced learning that is more personalized.
Finally, for a student to be engaged in class, appropriate guidelines should be in place. For example, simple “class rules” such as raising one’s hand and allowing the teacher’s acknowledgement before unmuting and other basic tenets can go a long way in ensuring decorum in the online class. Such rules can also be in place to facilitate peer-to-peer communication.
Taking Care of Holistic Learning
We believe that the holistic approach to student development must also be addressed by the online model. It is thus important to timetable, not just scholastic engagement, but equally importantly, co-scholastic and pastoral engagements as well. Especially in the current context, engaging students in art and movement is the need of the hour not just to enhance and enrich the student’s academic performance.
The current situation may be embraced as an opportunity to re-assess how learning is facilitated in traditional schools. At The Orbis School - Top CBSE schools in Pune, weaving technology in curriculum delivery has remained a pillar in the traditional school. While the current jump to online instruction may be temporary, the school will continue to use technology, as it always has, in the teaching and learning processes.
- Editorial Team
The Orbis Schools
