Tobago online classes start Monday

KINNESHA GEORGE-HARRY

STUDENTS sitting examinations in 2020 would be given priority, according to THA Chief Secretary and Secretary of Education Kelvin Charles who on Wednesday outlined some of the e-learning initiatives set to roll out. The Division of Education will be relaunching its website on Friday and online classes will begin on Monday.

Charles was addressing members of the media during the weekly post-Executive Council media briefing at the Anne Mitchell Gift Auditorium of the Scarborough Library.

With Education Minister Anthony Garcia hinting schools may not be reopened until September, Charles said the division has determined that the approach to be used until then, would be one of consolidation.

“The intent is not necessarily to promote or to introduce new content but to use the opportunity to provide support to both teachers and students as they seek to consolidate the curriculum,” he said.

The Chief Secretary said support would relate and be consistent with the issues of reinforcement, practice, enrichment, review and assessment, “so these are the main lessons or activities that would be rolled out over the period coming and in fact would continue to be rolled out in some instances.”

Clinical emphasis, he said would be given to students who were being prepared for exams.

“We have the SEA exam, the CSEC exam and the CAPE exams, that would be the main areas of emphasis and then we would roll the programme out to the other classes or the other forms.”

Concerning primary schools, he said the division would use the assessments coming out of the Tobago District Assessment strategy, introduced over the last couple years, as a basis for moving ahead.

“That assessment would be used to determine the weak areas that we need to revisit during this period.”

The approach to the secondary schools, according to Charles, would be explored in a similar manner with focus on the “high stake” exams.

“We would have video presentations and worksheets. We shall be relaunching our website thadeie.org this coming Friday and the website would be used as one of the mechanisms through which presentations would be uploaded and therefore, persons would have access to the website and they can then engage in the learning and teaching of certain activities."

Charles said there will be facilities to allow student-teacher interaction through a private learning space with learning sessions being uploaded and downloaded.

“We plan to engage another platform and that is the Moodle platform and that platform is one which allows some advantages, and these advantages include but are not limited to the availability of interactive work sessions. It means that the teachers or, in fact, the presenters can be interacting with the students at particular times.”

Charles said he has been advised that the site has excellent capacity and can accommodate, in the first instance, 2,500 students.

Charles said SEA students have not been neglected and teachers “who were in charge of the SEA classes, they distributed practice booklets because those students in standard five had begun to prepare for their exams and part of that preparation involved the review of these booklets as practice exercises to develop the necessary speed and accuracy that is involved.”

He added, “Teachers have also been engaging their students via WhatsApp and voice notes, via e-mails and via YouTube videos, Google classrooms and Zoom.

“We are aware that one of the unintended consequences of this unprecedented situation is that there are some students who may not have access to these electronic devices and in that regard, we are impressing upon our teachers to use the pick-up and drop off (of assignments) to facilitate continuation of the students education.”

VOLUNTEER TEACHERS TAPE LESSONS

School Supervisor III, Sherry-Ann Rollocks-Hackett, said the response of the education system to covid19 challenges has been driven at the school level, led by the principals, and at the division level.

She noted that at the level of the school, in collaboration with the teachers, other support staff and the parents, the principals have been leading in alignment with “effective school-based management protocols and principles.”

She said they have been seeking to produce the necessary content for the various subject areas in keeping with the requirements for the various examinations.

“We have a number of teachers who have volunteered to be videotaped delivering lessons, in keeping with their speciality areas. We have already taped approximately six lessons and our intent is to start airing of those lessons come Monday.”

She said the division is currently in discussions with Tobago Channel 5 to put the lessons on air and on Tobago Channel Five's Facebook live stream, as well as the division’s website.

Some of the volunteer teachers include "Mr Atwell in Mathematics; Mr Fredericks in Mathematics; Tomley Roberts in Visual Arts; Kimarie Richardson-Thomas, CAPE communication studies and CSEC English A; Mrs Cowie-Clarke in CSEC Biology; Jamilla Amin-Bacchus, CAPE Biology Unit 1 and 2; Abeni Taylor CSEC Spanish and Ginelle Dillon Shepherd, CSEC Principles of Business.

She said there are other teachers who are waiting to come on board.

In the meantime, she said the division is concretising plans for the Moodle platform.

“The potential of that particular platform is really extensive, and we really look forward to bringing that platform on stream to really launch our online programme. In addition to the videos, the expectation is that we would also have tutorials involving teachers from the various schools engaging with our students at all the levels.”

Rollocks-Hackett acknowledged not all the teachers have mastered the necessary skills required to engage online teaching and learning but they the Ministry of Education has invited them to online training sessions.

"In addition, as soon as we have our online platform up with Moodle, we at the division would also be providing training for our teachers so that they can do what is required," she said.