How online learning is turning Northbridge students into skilled problem solvers

How online learning is turning Northbridge students into skilled problem solvers There is no doubt that Covid-19 has changed education forever, including at Northbridge International School Cambodia. The enforced arrival of online learning has meant that students and teachers have had to adapt quickly to a changing environment. While we all hope for a return to face-to-face teaching, we can inevitably learn several lessons from the current situation.

There is no doubt that Covid-19 has changed education forever, including at Northbridge International School Cambodia. The enforced arrival of online learning has meant that students and teachers have had to adapt quickly to a changing environment. While we all hope for a return to face-to-face teaching, we can inevitably learn several lessons from the current situation.

Last year during online learning, I was interested to see how my students began assisting each other with ICT problems using our class messaging system.

Many of our students turned out to be skilled troubleshooters and our message board developed into a knowledge hub with children asking each other questions about tasks that had been set, solving each other's hardware issues, and being sociable once they had completed work.

Once the students no longer had teachers to ask about issues, they began to solve more and more themselves or asked their peers for assistance. I am sure that teachers will seek to focus on this knowledge and independence once we return to school.

Here at Northbridge, we integrate ICT into our lessons rather than teaching it as a separate subject. This allows teachers and students to recognise the context in which different tools can be effectively used.

The students at Northbridge will have learned a range of skills by the time they reach secondary school and it allows them to be creative in the way they approach problems and tasks. Students have agency to approach activities in different ways.

As a teacher, it is always pleasing to see videos, presentations and animations used differently by students to present information and solutions for the same task. It is quite clear that the ability to think creatively is a skill that is prized in today’s competitive world.

We dearly hope for a return to teaching and learning in school soon. However, I hope that the new skills that we have learned as teachers and students do not have to be packed up and put away. We just need to adapt them. It may improve our teaching and learning even further!