Key factors:
- On-line studying is crucial for connecting college students to alternatives
- The place does blended studying slot in post-pandemic lecture rooms?
- 5 tricks to maintain on-line college students motivated
- For extra information on on-line studying, go to eSN’s Digital Studying hub
The American Worldwide Faculty of Freetown in Sierra Leone (AISF) has 90 college students between the ages of three and 19, seven academics and a director–an all-encompassing administrative function that’s frequent in small worldwide faculties in Africa.
AISF doesn’t have a licensed highschool however does have 11 excessive school-aged college students who haven’t any different choices for a world training on the town. So, our college has been providing them programs from VHS Studying in grades 9 and 10. We offer onsite assist as college students take their programs on-line. It’s a good choice to organize college students who plan to maneuver on the finish of grade 10 to an in-person highschool.
For grades 11 and 12, we enroll college students into Massachusetts Mayflower Academy (MMA), an accredited on-line highschool that makes use of the web supplier’s programs. AISF nonetheless gives onsite assist and sources to our college students, however they are going to graduate with a diploma from MMA. For AISF college students, it is a good choice to graduate with an accredited American highschool diploma in Freetown, Sierra Leone.
What grabbed my curiosity when contemplating the web programs was that the scholars had been being requested to do big-picture pondering, and so they had been requested significant questions. It’s partaking, genuine studying. I had fairly a gaggle of ninth grade college students, and so they’re of their second week of the programs. As they checked out one of many important questions for world historical past, which most of them had been doing, the query was: “What’s the function of artwork and faith in society?” We talked about what artwork does, and the children had been capable of tease that one out. Then, we pivoted to the second half. What’s the function of faith in society? I believed it was a significant query. And it was a lead-in to the Renaissance. They had been trying on the Renaissance Reformation, the artwork and faith of Renaissance.
One other profit of those programs is that the scholars are additionally capable of have workplace hours with their academics, which aren’t out there by way of another on-line choices, which solely provide e mail. And maybe even extra importantly, they grow to be a part of a digital classroom the place they’ll meet classmates throughout the US and world wide.
Having partaking studying is extraordinarily vital. Doing a full digital course load is difficult and motivation is typically difficult. Even when you have adults there bodily supervising the scholars and asking them questions, it’s difficult to maintain that motivation and to maintain the educational occurring. The extra partaking it may be, the extra human contact–digital and in any other case–{that a} faculty can present, the higher it’s going to be for the scholars and that’s what we discovered with our on-line companion.
For a faculty just like the American Worldwide Faculty of Freetown, it is very important take a look at the place the scholars are planning to go subsequent; each VHS Studying and Massachusetts Mayflower Academy are going to enchantment to postsecondary faculties which might be broadly American of their character.
In my dream of goals for a small faculty, I might have a mix. If our college grew to become a bit of bit greater, I want to have a few highschool academics who might immediately train a few of the programs, after which, flesh that out, as a result of there’s no manner a small faculty like ours goes to have the ability to have a physics instructor, a chemistry instructor, and a biology instructor. To really create a mix can be my dream for a modest dimension worldwide faculty, and I feel it could be a dream that transcends our dimension as we grow to be a bit bigger sooner or later.
