It is a pleasure for me to welcome you students to another lesson in the Open School on Instructional Time. The school is open to parents, guardians, teachers, students and mem-bers of the public. This is the fifth in a series of lessons which is done in the Open school every two weeks. It is my hope that students will acquire knowledge and skills which will enable them or their children to be meaningfully engaged in instructional time.
At the end of the lesson, students will be able to (a) explain, in a simple sentence, the meaning of instructional Time (b) students will be able to list four ways in which parents, guardians and teachers could help children to be meaningfully engaged in Instructional Time.
At the end of the lesson, we will reflect on how much we have learnt through a simple evalua-tion.
During an interview with two budding young leaders on Choice Television this week Mr. Al-lens Plante revealed that during an online lesson from one of our schools in St. Lucia which was being done by a teacher, a student was asked to respond to a question. The student’s mother stated: “He went to the shop to get that for me, he’ll soon be back.”
Now the World Health Organization (WHO), has lamented the fact that many students around the world have lost a lot of Instructional time and that schools and teachers would have to find creative ways to enable students to make up for the many lost hours of instruction.
But what is Instructional Time? Instructional time is the amount of time during which learners receive instruction from a classroom teacher or virtually, meaning online.
The Ministry of Education by regulations, has allotted the time that needs to be spent in school on the various subjects, on the timetable, during the school day.
I trust that we have understood the problems created by COVID-19 in education, which af-fects teaching and learning. In this regard, schools have had to use the Distributed Learning Ap-proach which includes online teaching and learning to enable students to cover the course of study for their Grade.
Now online teaching and learning require that students or learners be available at home or some convenient place for instruction.
Teachers have complained that many students are absent when they should be participating in the lessons prepared for them by their classroom teachers. And in the case of the student who went to the shop for his mother when in fact he should have been attending the lesson, is a typi-cal example of what happens when students should be participating in the teaching and learning processes. virtually or online.
Student engagement is necessary for learning to take place. By student engagement I mean the amount of attention, curiosity and interest that students show when they are learning or being taught.
Now student engagement is necessary to acquire the knowledge and skills necessary for their educational and social well-being.
Now what are the many ways in which teachers and parents could help students to be engaged in learning.
It would be useful for teachers and parents to help children or learners make connection be-tween what they are learning and the real world around them. Having made the connection, stu-dents could become more excited about learning and make themselves available whether they must go to the classroom or remain at home, in the case of online teaching and learning.
Children, students or learners should be given the tools necessary, or which would facilitate engaging the students or learners in a lesson. By tools I mean textbooks, laptops and other learn-ing devices.
Students should be encouraged to attend classes regularly whether in the classroom or online. And parents as well as teachers should develop ways of monitoring school attendance or partici-pation
Teachers should encourage ‘small group’ activities. Many students are more encouraged to par-ticipate or speak up in a small group rather than the whole or large group situation. They attend better and produce more.
Anther strategy would be to encourage students to present their work regularly and to share information with other students.
There are many more ways in which teachers and parents could encourage students to be en-gaged in the teaching and learning processes.
Now coming back to the learning devices which would engage students. The government of St. Lucia is making every effort to ensure that students have laptops to engage them in learning par-ticularly at this time when much virtual or online learning is taking place.
As I write, the Ministry of Education has taken the decision to reopen school or get students back into the classroom to allow students to have ‘Face to Face’ engagement as of Monday, 7th February.
Indeed, this is a sure way of ensuring those students are engaged in learning. Teachers or the facilitators of learning would have the opportunity to interact with students and to provide time-ly feedback.
In conclusion, I have some questions for you. (a) In a simple sentence, what is Instructional Time? (b) List two ways in which students could be engaged in learning?
Join me again in two weeks’ time for another lesson in the Open School.