Nghe An considers online teaching on television for final year students

Students learn directly online

This week, students across Nam Dan district had to stay home from school to prevent the Covid-19 epidemic, including high school students. For schools, the stay home from school will cause many difficulties, especially when the school schedule for high school students in the whole province is still going on as usual.

At Kim Lien High School, although school has been closed for the past 2 days, teachers' teaching hours have been held as usual. The only difference is that teachers who previously taught in class have now been transferred to the conference room. Students who previously studied in person have now switched to online learning. Accompanying the teachers on the podium are teachers in the subject group and a camera.

An online Literature class at Kim Lien High School (Nam Dan). Photo: My Ha

The first Literature class of teacher Pham Thi Hang started this morning. Although she was quite nervous in front of the camera for the first time, she had prepared carefully from the image to the lesson content. The teachers in the subject group also agreed that when they went up to the podium, they would all wear Ao Dai to both honor the image of Vietnam and create a closer relationship with the students. As for the students, with the careful preparation of the teacher, they were more aware and attended class regularly.

In this morning's class, teacher Hang also extended the class from 45 minutes to 120 minutes with the lesson "Reviewing reading comprehension skills in the National High School Exam" - a very practical lesson for final year students. During the entire lesson, although it was online, the interaction between teachers and students was quite favorable. Teacher Hang was also very happy when some students praised her for teaching in an easy-to-understand and interesting way, and when on camera, she "spoke slower than usual".

Teachers in the subject group participate in monitoring online lessons. Photo: My Ha

Sharing more about her teaching hours, Ms. Hang said: Online teaching is very passive for teachers and schools. Therefore, before implementing, we thought a lot about what to teach and how to teach. To implement effectively, our professional team had to discuss, agree very carefully and select the content that students have learned to consolidate and enrich their knowledge to help them review well and prepare for the National High School Exam. When preparing lesson plans, we also had to worry about how to have a lesson that is suitable for all students and easy for them to understand and absorb.

Up to now, Kim Lien High School is the first school to organize online teaching and live broadcasting in a fairly systematic way with the technical support of specialized cameras. Teachers, during the teaching process, use microphones, so the recording is quite clear and students can easily absorb as when listening to lectures in class. At Nguyen Cam My's house - class 12C1, with just an iPad and a private classroom, she can concentrate on studying and closely follow the teacher's lectures. The 12th grade female student who is preparing to enroll in Foreign Trade University also said: Currently, there are many channels on the internet that organize online teaching for students. However, if you are taught directly by your teachers, it will be more effective and the teaching content will also be closer to the students' wishes.

Students' interactive comments delight teachers. Photo: My Ha

To organize online teaching with the support of professional cameras, Kim Lien High School also had to allocate quite a lot of funds. Of which, the source was from the school and a part of the support from parents. However, when broadcasting the programs, it was quite easy because the school only needed to broadcast live through the school's Facebook page and all students could easily follow.

Teacher Duong Van Son - Principal of the school also shared: Teaching online will be more difficult and requires a lot of investment in both effort and money. But in the current context, this is necessary, because compared to other schools in the province, we have had to study the program behind schedule. In the immediate future, we will prioritize reviewing for final year students with 4 periods/week (Literature, Math, English) and 2 periods/week (History, Chemistry, Biology, Physics, Geography). After 2 days of implementation, about 70% of students participated and the school will have solutions to provide additional tutoring for students who do not have the conditions to study online.

Replicating the online teaching model

In recent times, due to the impact of the Covid-19 epidemic, in Nghe An province, online teaching has been implemented by many schools in many different forms such as through messaging applications Facebook, Zalo... In addition, some schools have also worked hard to record lectures and replay them on a number of information technology applications.

Online learning taught by teachers in the school helps students absorb lessons easily. Photo: My Ha

After more than a month of implementation, online teaching has received mixed opinions. Parent Nguyen Thi Thanh Hue, whose child is in primary school, said: I think that teachers giving students assignments via text messages and letting them do it themselves and check the answers is just a temporary solution. The effectiveness is still unknown because teachers cannot check all of the students' homework, or even not check at all. If there is a long break from school, the school should organize online teaching, with teachers giving lectures so that the students will understand the lessons better and not forget the old lessons in class.

At this time, most high school students in the province are still studying normally. However, primary school, secondary school and high school students in some localities are still out of school and if the epidemic develops complicatedly, the risk of long-term school breaks may still occur.

Online class at Vinh University. Photo: My Ha

Currently, some provinces and cities across the country such as Hanoi and Dong Nai have also conducted online teaching on television. In Nghe An, through discussion, Mr. Thai Van Thanh - Director of the Department of Education and Training also said: The Department is also considering online teaching on television. However, if implemented, it will initially only be able to review for final year students of grades 9 and 12.