DAY 23 – DAS CIRCUIT BREAKER NEWS – ONLINE LEARNING WORKING FOR PRESCHOOLERS #CircuitBreakerSG
By Suthasha Kelly Bijay
DAS Preschool Educational Manager
Specialised Educational Services
ONLINE LEARNING IS WORKING FOR PRESCHOOL STUDENTS!
Technology complements our preschool teaching, and certain student profiles benefit more than others to this style of teaching, but for a full preschool lesson to be online is unthinkable. Online learning has brought about a series of challenges for the Preschool team. Therefore, our team is pushing boundaries to make things happen for our students and since there really is just this one option available, we will make it work!
Surprisingly, we must agree that in the middle of this crisis and uncertainty, there are some pupils who are thriving with online learning.
MY STUDENT, KEVIN* (*Not his real name)
Which leads me to my student, Kevin. His first day at preschool he had a full-blown meltdown in the classroom. He hates writing, he hated his own hands for not being able to write and was extremely frustrated that he could not do what his classmates could. On his first day of class, he screamed and cried then took a pencil and started to stab his hands.
As he was hurting himself, he said he hated his hands for not being able to write.
I had to take away the pencil and was shocked to see that he hurt himself, there was a tiny puncture mark which oozed blood in his palm. I quickly applied pressure to stop the bleeding with a tissue and later put a plaster on it.
I was traumatised by this first lesson with him, I remember coming out of the class that day, a little shaken and with an increased heart rate. I managed classes with him after that, better prepared of course, as I significantly reduced writing tasks in the classroom.
To make matters worse, just 4 weeks later, lessons went online, and I was so nervous to see him online, but I planned the best lesson my creativity could think of, especially for him. It has been 6 weeks now, and I assure you that the computer screen has not at all cracked! He is my best online student. He is fully engaged for one hour and 15 minutes and I believe he can go for longer. I know this because, at the end of each online lesson, he always asks me to read another storybook or stay longer while he completes his offline work.
He has improved from not being able to blend at all to blending 3 letter words, he can spell 3-letter words now. He is also able to write for longer than before. This is indeed surprising, and I think this is all because he focuses and learns better with technology.
