Challenges You Face When Learning/Teaching Online

Isolation

Learning at home may be isolating. It's no surprise that without the bustle of the classroom and the companionship of their friends, some kids might develop a strong sense of isolation, which steadily erodes their motivation to study.

Regardless of what they say, many children will miss school when the alternative is being cooped up at home at a desk.

Many of the educational tactics that we take for granted in our classrooms might be harmed by isolation. If we aren't cautious, group work, class discussion, and collaborative activity can vanish totally from the curriculum, along with the related levels of student engagement and rich learning that such experiences give.

Thankfully, there are a few things you can do in a digital setting to retain the classroom dynamic and make things personable. Here are a few examples:

Use chats, discussion boards, or cloud applications to coordinate virtual group activities.

Lack of motivation in online learners

As difficult as distance teaching is for us, it is likely to be considerably more difficult for our pupils. They've moved from classrooms where learning is expressly encouraged to bedrooms and kitchen tables where distractions abound and expert assistance isn't always available. It's understandable that some people may be tempted to opt out.

The best source of motivation is a set of clear, quantifiable objectives. Set them up on a regular basis to give kids something to focus on. Instead of giving them an open-ended assignment and leaving them to it — as is tempting when you aren't in the same room — make it clear:

• The amount of time students should devote to the job

• A tangible or measurable result ('each participant must discover five things about x')

• A method of accountability ('they must be uploaded on our shared platform so that everyone can view them')

• A deadline

• Consider gamified applications and games.

Technical difficulties with online teaching tools

Distance teaching has become a lot less intimidating as a result of advances in EdTech over the last decade, but there are still certain concerns to be aware of.

Before you begin, be sure your kids have dependable access to technology. There will not always be a good internet connection or a gadget accessible for pupils to utilize in every home. Parents will be able to report these difficulties in an initial email, message, or text, allowing you to plan ahead of time to accommodate such pupils.

It's also crucial to remember that, despite all the rhetoric about our children being "digital natives," many of them aren't very good at confronting novel software or using it responsibly. As a result, an initial 'onboarding' event for kids is an excellent idea, and you might consider sending a quick orientation to parents through email as well.

Whatever mechanisms you have in place, make sure there is a clear "hotline" for students to report technological concerns. That's not to imply you'll take up a full-time IT support job – you won't be able to solve everything – but it will at the very least alert you to kids who may require special accommodations.

Take a look at our guide on setting up an online classroom if you need some extra assistance.

Time-consuming resources

When you can no longer teach simply by standing in front of a class, you must rely on resources to perform the work for you. And it takes time to make those.

Even your vocal directions will need to be written down in a way that all kids can comprehend. It's a little like organizing a relief lesson for a day off: you spend so much time planning content for someone else to give that you believe it would be easier to just take the class yourself.

One approach to avoid the inconvenience is to record your own lesson and upload it online (like in a flipped classroom), but keep in mind that the technical aspects of this take time as well.

If you don't want to have to grind out a ten-page instruction manual plus an interactive movie for a single lesson's worth of information, you should look into EdTech solutions. They soon pay for themselves in terms of time saved thanks to built-in resources and instructional content.

Setting and forgetting online learning activities

In a distant education situation, students aren't the only ones who may experience a lack of accountability. It might be difficult for teachers as well.

When we're not surrounded by the face-to-face interactions and classroom surroundings that shape so much of our work, it's tempting to fall back into' set and forget' mode, assigning work online and hoping for the best.

However, in the face of such huge upheaval, our commitment to high-quality education cannot be put on hold. It’s a time when our students need us more than ever before, and it is the perfect opportunity to innovate and try something new.

What can you do now that we were not able to do a year ago❓❔❓

Everything is changing and actually no one is having control over the challenges that are being faced by teachers, students, and the whole educational system as well. What was done in the previous year, personally I can tell its just like a portion where I am this year. Many things changed, skills were developed, self confidence was gained, new technological and teaching strategies I was able to implement, and new teaching experience as well!

The previous year was my first teaching year, and I can tell that it was really hard, where I wasn’t able to use any online programs or applications which made my journey very complicated. I got trained by my coordinators and lead teachers, however they weren’t enough to receive the skills that I should have.

Although I used to teach online in the previous year, but I wasn’t professional like now. Actually, I’ve got a huge repertoire of teaching methods, strategies, and how to grab students’ attention. Plus, when I was enrolled as a teaching diploma student it helped a lot.

For this year, nothing changed in terms of situation, however I can see noticeable changes in myself as a teacher, I can see myself growing, and a multi-tasker. Now I can know what is meant by students’ learning styles and how to work on them to have my students engaged in the learning process. I changed in terms of planning as well, I used to plan in an inorganized manner, however today I can plan my own lesson and know what can really be beneficial for my students and how to implement my strategies to gain their attendance and participation as well.

Water Sanitation

 

The overall purpose to ensure water supply, irrigation, and sanitation services in Majdal Anjar at best level of services that are compatible to environmental, social, and economic availabilities.

Despite the fact that that Lebanon receive a lot of water precipitation, and plenty of natural resources , it still suffers from water use practice that cannot be afforded .Poor waste  management and poor water treatment will be discussed in this proposal (USAID Water and Development Country Plan for Lebanon,2016).

 Our product of this proposal can be divided into two branches:

·         Completing potable network infrastructure gaps.

·          Capacity building for the WEs in Majdal Anjar.

Lebanon is rich in water and has plenty of water sources, but suffering of Lebanon every year 283 million m3 water defect in 2017 expected to increase to 410 million m3 by 2025. This deficiency is due to many problems such as increasing the population size, random expansions of populations, climate change and also the influx of Syrian refuges. In addition to all of these factors , when water is served it is served contaminated with many aquatic microorganisms ,mixed with wastewater and even mixed with sand and other wastes .Consequently ,we must be sure that our water is sanitized  and its hygiene is maintained.

Body section 1:

Our water is contaminated with lots of microbes, and the water supply has been lacked even while the request continues.

High levels of rain fall and natural water resources have been found in Majdal Anjar, our village become miserable of the unreasonable way of using water, insufficient sewage monitors, which in its turn limit the presence of cleaned water. Majdal Anjar is one of the Lebanon villages that are still invalidated to supply dependable resource of water.

This conflict was reached after many causes that lead to a lot of side effects. First because of the unavailability of winter, and the over use of water especially for growth of the crops, this  lead to the water pollution for the source of water, second adding chlorine to the water in order to sanitize it will carry extra substances that changes the taste and structure of drinking water also in some cases it can cause poisons, and last the calcium based rocks are the collector of drinking water thus it will arrive from Chamssine  rich in Calcium that first left white precipitate behind it, and concerning human health calcium causes serious problems in kidneys ,and a slight increase of calcium in blood end with an immediate death .

 

Fighting pollution of Chamssine water which is the main resource in our village by studying and restricting the origin of pollution and planning for a corrective project to sanitize the water was our goal. This can be reached by concentrating on the management agenda, destruction of hard waste, grouping and treatment of internal and commercial uncleaned water, and limit farming overflow.

Three primary aims were intended by our proposal, which we will report them deeply as three primary branched components in the following:

 

Component 1: Improved water service delivery

The municipality of Majdal Anjar correlate with the MoEW to construct Majdal Anjar water project, which will build up the ministerial and working tasks of water service, in addition to the develop of the understructure to satisfy the water service delivery. For the additional refuges pressure, we will suggest a solution to survive with this overweight on water resources   , this will need a balance between the understructure work and the equity capital with the involved labor force .This will be continued with the prediction of a solution which limit the drainage of water and store it within reservoirs in a wide areas. In fact this project success is hanged by the   high   interaction of Majdal Anjar population with the project of water management.

 

 Component 2: Public outreach and civic advocacy

The implantation of the reconstruction of the water sector will be done by pushing the decision makers by the action of Majdal Anjar society which is stimulated by Majdal Anjar water project. The last will also increase the awareness of the village population regarding water utilization in addition to improve their function in the preservation of water cleanness.

 

Component 3: Private sector engagement and water sector financing

This step comes after the improving of infrastructure used to deliver water is to maintain the hygiene of water itself. nowadays the most frequent chemical used is the chlorine, but as mentioned before the high doses of chlorine lead to several unfavorable consequences .Chlorine Dioxide can be used as the new disinfectant for several factors, this chemical to become active need to be broken down through chemical reactions and it’s very important to know the amount of the products released .Fortunately, these compounds formed can be measured by simple cheap mechanisms and not toxic for humans.

 

Expected results: The interactions between the local Majdal Anjar water project and MoEW are supposed to end with an excellent dependable entry for a hygiene water and sewage water for all the village Lebanese citizens, thus the productivity of Majdal Anjar population water service can be achieved by upgrade water, wastewater, and soaking activities, and solving the conflicts that are suspended with the presence of Syrian refuges .the shown consequences happened directly after the suggestion of our proposal, but, our goal will become wider in the following years.

 

Qualifications:

 In October 19,2016 USAID funded a project called ”Water project of Lebanon “ including the municipalities in central Bekaa of Bwarej , Majdal Anjar, Marj , Kab Elias ,and Meksii, this project expected to complete for 5 years .After the meeting was done each village know what techniques and stratigies  are used to increase the access of  clean , reliable source of drinking water for Lebanon citizens.

Through this proposal, today we are able to improve the water quality in a very effective way and with the least costs. Water managing will be more under focus, what chemicals must be used, and what techniques to follow so that we get the cleaned water.

 

Budget and Costs:

With the help of MoEW our municipality will be able to ensure the responsible compounds to build a new infrastructure, a high number of architectures for working, the number of machines that are need to have full hyiegened water, and the amount of chemicals that is need for our water resource. To have potable and high quantity of water our project costs one hundred million $ per year in 2019   which will decrease to 500 thousand $ in 2020 thus if we divide the money per month it will cost 41.6 thousand $ which is going for a two- year period.

By our proposal Majdal Anjar village will be able to have a complete developed map of potable and preserved water, and the number of healthy people wills come over diseases thus less water causing death.

Now we have the power to save lives, to drink fresh water, and to conserve our God’s favor. Help Us Create The Change Today! Help preserve water. In support of One Drop.  Accessible water to all. Make A Difference. Give Access To Safe Water. Social art. These Moms Need You. Help our village Majdal Anjar.

Thanks to MoEW of my country Lebanon with its big heart ,to our mayor of Majdal Anjar Saaed Yassin and his efforts with us , and to every single person that help in the success of this proposal.

Please of you have any question or inquiry about our proposal don’t hesitate to contact us in our office: street 5, Majdal Anjar, Bekaa  , Lebanon. Or you can call on :+96179140315,+96171546124.

How To Be A Digital Citizen

What Is A Digital Citizen:

“A digital citizen is defined as a person who regularly uses the internet and embraces all that information technology has to offer,” said Karen Demmler, a career coach at Temple University’s Career Center. Demmler works with students to advance their careers and thinks social media is a key component of a job search. She shared that students often go to the Career Center at Temple for help with navigating social media platforms professionally, such as Linkedin.

“A good digital citizen is someone who is mindful of their interactions and all that they post and say online,” Sherri Culver, a media studies and production faculty member and director of the Center for Media and Information Literacy (CMIL), said. Through CMIL, Culver and others work to encourage thoughtful online behavior through various projects, including a television show produced for TUTV called Media Inside Out.

Here Their Are 5 Tips For Good Digital Citizenship:

1. Remember the Golden Rule

I remember my junior high school Assistant Principal always saying “Treat people the way you want to be treated or have a member of your family treated!” In this digital age, we have to start teaching our children that this applies not only to face-to-face conversations but also to the conversation and interactions that we have online.

 

2. Keep Private Information Private

In this day and age, it can be hard to keep information private. Be careful on who and how you give way information. Information that is shared not only has effects on the person it’s about but also their family, friends, and yourself.

 

3. Think About The Future

EVERYTHING IS SAVED ON THE INTERNET! Just because you deleted something off of Facebook and Snapchat doesn’t mean it’s been erased from the internet. Picture it like this: every time you go to a different website, the internet makes a little tattoo of everything you do while on it. And that leads into our next point…

 

4. Be Mindful of Your “Brand”

When we think about brands, we think about clothing. And sometimes, clothing companies have issues or concerns that they are truly passionate about. But the way they reach their audience is by having a clear, well-delivered message. You too are a brand. Whenever engaging anyone in conversation on the internet, be it a quick chat with your Aunt living in Arizona or having a debate with a fellow classmate, always be mindful of what you say so that it doesn’t hurt your reputation (aka brand).

 

5. Be Yourself

At the end of the day, the only thing we can be is ourselves. If you’re into posting funny videos as I am, keep in mind that you do have an audience much bigger than what you thought. Even though we are taught as children not to judge a book by its cover, friends, family and even future employers will look at it because the world wide web isn’t just an open source of information, it also makes your life an open book.

Philosophy Of Education

Existentialism Philosophy in Education

Existentialism is a philosophy of existence appeared in the 20th century; it can be defined as philosophic stand point which prioritize existence over essence. The existentialist uses existence to attribute especially to human existence and believed that only materialistic things can exist. He also suggests that to be an existent one you should be capable of being conscious, where the main interest about existentialism is the possibility of man’s self-realization.

Existentialism and education:

 

Applying existential philosophy in education is not possible. The issues discussed in existential philosophy reveals that education philosophy is a theoretical study and believes it should give more attention to the individual of student, and allow them to realize their true value, and how to be responsible to their quality of life. Existentialists consider that the existent moment appears when public awareness is spread between the people in the world as a self, and this mainly happen at puberty. Its characteristics are the person’s recognition to his presence among other things and the development of the knowledge and insights around his own responsibility towards their actions. Existentialist education starts at the school years and continue through high school and college. Here the aim of education is to find the individual’s consciousness. Elements of experience are supposed to be subjective, emotional, and personal which rise questions about good, evil, wrong and right.

Existentialists stated that they prefer to philosophize about the human conditions instead of creating a philosophical system where classification, standardization, and injustice which reduced personal choice and individual recognition are known as obstacle. These trends are not consistent with providing chances for creativity of genuine people. There is another social source that limits the individual’s identity, is the socio-economic pressures that played a major role in changing the teaching and learning. Existentialists believe that education should drive students to awareness and this means that students must be able to select their choices freely, wisely, an independently.

 

 Existentialist teacher and learning method

An existentialist teacher must be democratic and uses technology and different methods in his teaching without imposing his goals to students. The teacher’s major role is to guide students. Socratic dialogue method is a suitable one for existentialists, it do not neglect the relationship between me and you, it employs dialogue approach, in which any type of question can be answered only in the sense of student’s performance. The teacher promotes students and provides opportunities so they can be able to express their minds.

In existential teaching, a teacher must encourage, facilitate learning, and recognize the individual in the broad sense of the world. According to existentialist, the teacher should not define students according to their age, status, race…etc.

The first principle of Sartre’s philosophy in existentialism is that the man is not a subject, but he is what he chooses and creates for himself who make him more responsible.

 

Curriculum in existentialism

The curriculum includes skills and subjects that show social facts like human sciences that tell about human selection, there are various topics like history, language, math, science… are indisputable as fields of knowledge. Although the existentialist can choose several methods in his duty, however he is not allowed to harm any of these methods among (I-you) relationship that occur between the teacher and the student, so from here we can say that no lesson is more important than the other. Training is essential to help the person have the self-realization and awareness of the world.

Webinar

 

A Webinar on Effective Feedback

Practicing effective comments can increase student progress by up to an additional eight months throughout the year. However, implementing comments effectively requires schools to invest a lot of time in research and and external professional learning. To save schools this time and effort, they have developed a set of commenting resources for schools. These resources provide practical support in applying effective class feedback practice to enhance student learning outcomes.

 

In this webinar, participants will learn how to use the comment resources in their school. What exactly are the most effective ways to use feedback in educational environments?

 

 

      The presenters discussed several ways to provide     students with effective feedback.

 

• Be as specific as possible: For example, feedback like “Great job!” does not tell the learner what he did correctly, and likewise a statement like "not done yet" does not give her any insight into what she said and did wrong, and how she could do better next time.

 

• The sooner the better: many studies indicate that feedback is most effective when presented immediately, rather than few days, weeks, or months. Researchers found that participants who received immediate feedback, showed a significantly greater increase in performance than those who received late reactions.

 

• Address the learner's advancement toward a goal: effective comments are often directed at a specific achievement students are (or should be) achieving. When giving feedback, it should be clear to students how the information they receive will help them progress toward their ultimate goal.

 

• Present feedback carefully: The way feedback is presented, can have an impact on how they are received, which means that sometimes even goodwill feedback and comments can come in the right way and reduce the learner's motivation. 

 

• Involve learners in the process: the importance of engaging learners in performance-based data collection and analysis cannot be underestimated. Pennebaker says,"Students should be given access to information about their performance.... On a broader level, students need to know whether they actually master the material or not. It could be giving them information about the ways they study, read, search for, or he answers invaluable questions."

 

• The role of the feedback has always been very essential: "When people try to learn new skills, they must get some information that tells them whether they are doing right or no. Classroom learning has no exception. Both, mastering the concept, and most importantly mastering how to think requires learning through trial and error.

How to Face Online Challenges?

As online learning/teaching is proceeding, many challenges are facing the teachers and students as well. Multiple solutions have been suggested to avoid or reduce the percentages of problems and conflicts as well. Although its truly hard to have 100% control over everything in the learning/teaching process, however its still doable to decrease the chance of having conflicts that may lead to rote learning.

Below are some steps that can be taken into consideration to have a fruitful and successful teaching/learning process.

 1. Help students develop new routines and strategies.

 

Many students who learn and think differently struggle with changes in routine and loss of structure. Help them use this time as an opportunity to develop new strategies to help with focus and learning.

 Depending on the grade you teach, you might also help your students create new routines and schedules that match their strengths. You could even design a lesson around this as a research project or an essay.

 Older students might want to come up with their own strategies to try. Younger students might need more help coming up with strategies and learning how to use them. Have students start by choosing two to three strategies to try. After a week or two, have them evaluate which ones helped and which strategies they want to try next. Possible strategies include:

 Schedule work times and break times.

Set a timer and keep working until it goes off.

Set a goal. For example: I will write one paragraph before I take a break.

Create a checklist.

Work on the hardest or easiest thing first (choose one).

Put your phone in a different room or in your backpack.

Find a quiet space or use headphones to block out noise.

2. Keep the easy part easy

 What might seem like a minor stressor to you can be the difference between whether a student finishes a lesson or not. Adults have more coping strategies than kids do to persist through challenges. Kids and teens are still developing this resiliency.

 Students who learn and think differently have an added layer of difficulty. A student with dyslexia might struggle to understand complex directions. Students with ADHD or executive function issues might find it difficult to break assignments down into manageable chunks. These challenges can cause more frustration and stress that can interrupt the learning process.

 You can help reduce these barriers to learning by using best practices for designing online assignments:

• simplify directions.
• Be consistent in how class materials are organized and presented.

3. Find new ways to meet students' needs.

 For example, accommodations that help with focus in the classroom -- like being seated in the front of the class -- may need to be adjusted for distance learning. Work with students and their families to find creative solutions. Does the student need a daily check-in? Can the student learn how to use self-management strategies like a timer or a goal tracker?

 For online classes, teachers also need to ensure their lessons are accessible. Make sure that materials can be read by a screen reader and that students who use text-to-speech technology know how to use it. Some video-streaming apps like Google Hangouts offer live captioning. Using best practices for online learning like these can help you make sure your lessons are accessible.

 Is your school providing distance learning through printed packets? You may need to be even more creative in how you provide accommodations. For example, if you have a student with dyslexia who needs materials read out loud, you might consider scheduling a call with that student or providing a recording. Brainstorm ideas with your school, the student, and their family to figure out how to meet individual needs.

 

Make sure students understand lessons.

Find out whether students have what they need to do their classwork.

Help students develop learning strategies.

Talk about student accommodations and support.

Better understand students' social-emotional well-being.

Teachers will need to work with their school district and families to figure out the best platform and format for checking in. Keep in mind that families might have a lot going on right now and be unable to respond.