#149: Continuing Student Learning 2.0 Y
esterday saw the start of the second week of our full-time Continuing Student Learning programme. It feels like a month - no doubt the same for parents and carers at home, struggling to balance work-life and learning. Our household is the same. For the first few days my wife and I were at work and learning for our three boys was challenging. With current restrictions in place we are now working from home, settling into a more stable routine, as I hope you are too. When you flip the entire school upside down, turning homes into virtual classrooms, it is inevitable that some things will fall. As a school we learnt a lot about the capabilities of our systems. We continue to have frustrations with self-registering systems of our Secondary students and the numbers of concurrent users accessing our parent portal. But we are learning. Learning from our mistakes. Learning is an organic, complex, curious process. We all make mistakes, in fact, I would go as far to say that we are in the business of making mistakes, learning from them, adapting, iterating, improving. Learning how to get into contact with other and check-in with our students and each other. Learning that it is the connections between each other, the social fabric of the school, that is the most important to keep intact. At the core of everything we do is well-being. During these stressful, changing, challenging times, it is the mental health of ourselves, colleagues and our family that needs nurturing. The longer this period of uncertainty continues, the more important this aspect will become. My mindset has changed over the past two weeks: it is not school closure, it’s “Campus is closed to students” – school is open, learning is happening. One of the platforms we are using to support learning and well-being is Microsoft Teams. Many students have been self-organising and connecting with each other via the platform organically. However, as we begin to use of the platform more, there will be the inevitable increase in screen time and digital distraction, what we refer to as digital ‘noise’. Multi-tasking is a myth. We simply cannot focus on many things at the same time. We may think we can, but the depth of concentration on one task is shallow when other things are going on at the same time. Constant task switching increases cognitive load, our brain tires more quickly. To reduce the digital noise in our lives we need to switch off notifications when we are learning. Please watch the video on how to reduce the distractions in Microsoft Teams – it will help. It has been said that the health of a community can be measured by the way in which it cares for its weakest and most vulnerable. I would like to take this opportunity to thank all of you for what you are doing to bring, in this most vulnerable of times, gentleness, hope, caring, support and direction to one another and our learning community. Stay safe. Brian Taylor Assistant Principal, Campus Curriculum Technology Integration
27/03/2020
Bangkok Patana School News
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