Maple Leaf Kingsley International School recognizes the unique educational needs of each child, a concern shared by every parent. While prior research indicates that e-learning and traditional face-to-face teaching methods can be equally effective, their impact varies across different age groups. At ML Kingsley, there’s a keen awareness that younger students, from Nursery through Level 3, require more guidance and a structured learning environment. To address this, the curriculum was adapted to include blended learning, starting with physical learning before gradually integrating virtual activities. This approach, enhanced by technology, has sparked excitement and interest among children. Many students are more engaged, motivated, and performing beyond their usual capabilities. The school has observed an uptick in learning, higher-order thinking, and the emergence of a self-motivated learning style, driven by the students’ natural curiosity.
With collaborative learning in mind, all teachers agreed that Problem Based Learning (PBL) projects or questions be aggressively used towards targeted learning and to see how much content knowledge can be achieved during online teaching. Additional learning materials were also updated on social media to encourage self-directed and critical thinking to take place. In classes such as Creative Arts, children took up their activities and even participated in individual class’ competitions using a range of mediums in their works. The teachers were able to see self-encouragements through their art pieces and when praised for their achievements, we were able to see positive growth in self-esteem, which showed that more can be achieved even during remote teaching.
In the area such as Performing Arts, children were asked to create scenes according to the thematic curriculum that were reworked. Here, children dressed and acted out their roles accordingly. They self-recorded their own performances which were then connected to the other individual recordings received by the teachers. YouTube has played an important role here as all recordings were then uploaded and every child was able to see their contributions.
Majority of ML KIS teachers found that they were able to reach out more efficiently and effectively through video meets such as zooming, chat groups and notes sharing. They also noted that different types of students were now able to venture out more to break out of their comfort zones and participate more. Observing the teaching sessions in the secondary levels, one would be surprised to note that students are now contributing more in a 40-minute class, and if not all, the majority of the students are now taking to the floor by storm!
With ML KIS’s vision in mind to create students who must be ready to face challenges in life and be successful entrepreneurs, the school is breaking free from the normal academic teaching mode and rote learning. Skills important for their future must include critical thinking and adaptability to an ever changing world where technologies are increasingly responsible for disseminating information and knowledge globally swiftly.
Though teaching and learning have moved to a new normal of being conducted online, it is always our concern that some students will still face anxiety, while others would be affected through the lack of resources to own computers, laptopsorotherperipherals. InMLKIS,theschoolhasmadeitavailabletoreach out and help. The school has also made available the loan of equipment such as notebooks and all necessities for teaching and learning. Parents and guardians are constantly reached out by principals through social media or through the normal odd calls to inquire on theirs and their children’s wellbeing, and many parents are grateful to be remembered.
Through this we want all students to be fully committed to continue learning towards competent literacy and contribute towards building a successful future. Only through coming together with the cooperation from stakeholders, parents, and a team of dedicated teachers and administrators, Maple Leaf Kingsley continues to ensure its excellent Education system continues through excellence teaching in a safe, pollution free and bully-free environment.
