By Mr. Rajeev Pargaien
Diploma Program Coordinator & Mathematics teacher – Genesis Global School, Noida
With around a decade of my association with the IB Diploma Programme, I have been observing the IB programmes being very flexible and very responsive to any change happening in the world trying to provide our children with the best possible learning that would prepare them to meet the requirements of the future world in the best possible way.
Being a very strongly visionary programme, we have seen DP providing students with all the required knowledge and most importantly the skills obtained during their 2 years of DP education for being successful not only at university but also in their future jobs.
We had the rooted understanding that the requirements of the Diploma programme are very harsh, the programme with all of its aspects is very rigorous and only being in class, using all the facilities of the school, all the resources available at school will our students be able to have appropriate learning and meet the objectives of the programme itself.
Has this belief been shattered in the Covid-19 context?
I believe it has! And to a wide extent …
Today preparing my graduating batch to leave the school with the May 21 exams being the only instance of their being on the school campus and having the rest of their two-year programme learning in the online mode, leaves me with the thought whether “Online DP programme is a myth or a possible reality”.
We tend to insist that physical school, face-to-face interaction, socialization are vital for real and meaningful learning to happen. And I do agree, these are important, and no one can ever doubt this. However, does this mean that with the online learning mode we fail to meet the main objectives of the Diploma Programme? – I greatly doubt!
The reason for these doubts is that not having a single day on campus and not even ever seeing most of the classmates and teachers in the real physical classroom mode, my students are now graduating the senior school with all of the Learner Profile attributes and ATL being at a very high level, being prepared for any developments in life as they figured out how to adjust to the unprecedented situation with Covid, they are more confident than the students of any of my previous batches, moreover, I feel they are the ones who would be making the change in the world having a much better understanding that the life and world are not only about bright colors, but it has many more dark and grey tones in it and knowing how to enlighten them is the key to life!
Coming back to my doubts about whether online learning hinders us from meeting the standards, I would like to think it does not, to some extent it even develops our students with more rigor and more responsibility being put on them making them the ones who are indeed the responsible side of their own learning.
