Author: Benedict Cruz

1. Stay Connected with Schoolmates & Instructors

Thanks to the internet, staying connected is easier than ever. Try scheduling a quick video call with your classmates weekly for continuing learning. It’s easier to touch base when you’re talking “face-to-face.”

● Before sending a video call invite, identify the objectives first and the expected output. That way, you won’t lose track of the matter at hand.

● Create a shared live document so everyone in the call can contribute and follow along.

● Keep the videos open when you can. This will help you see the expressions of your classmates so you know you’re on the same page.

● Don’t forget to check up on each other. If someone has been consistently absent, it’s better to ask them why directly and see if you can do anything to help.

2. Stay Organized

With the unrest happening around, it’s difficult not to feel the pressure and stress of school even when you’re at home. Organizing activities for the day helps you stay on top of what needs to be done, and ensures that you have time for your studies. But before anything else, you might want to keep track and get clarity on the following items for each class:

1. Is there going to be an online class?
2. What is the schedule of the lecture and can you watch it anytime?
3. Will there be any assignments? When is the due date?
4. Will there be online quizzes? If so, when?
5. Is the lecturer or professor offering virtual office hours? What is their schedule?
6. Is there going to be an online forum for questions?

3. Stay on Schedule

You may find your school, social, and personal schedule cleared up after weeks into the Enhanced Community Quarantine. This allows you to establish a daily schedule for yourself that can help maintain structure to keep you motivated. Try following this simple format below for proper organization, and don’t forget to include time for exercise, breaks, and self-care.

4. Stay on Track

When schoolwork is starting to pile up, it might be tempting to multitask, especially when you have no clear daily schedule. However, multitasking is not an effective solution, contrary to popular belief. The constant back and forth between tasks has a lot of downsides: assignments can take longer to finish, you’re more likely to make mistakes, and you’ll remember less because your brain is divided and fatigued.

Instead of multitasking, you can learn the wonders of the Pomodoro Technique, which is a popular time management method that has been proven to help continuing learning.

• List down your tasks for the day according to priority.
• Set the timer or the “Pomodoro” for 30 minutes and begin doing your first task.
• Immerse yourself in your task and keep distractions out of reach.
• When the timer rings, tick-off the finished task on your list.
• Take a quick 5-10 minute break.
• Repeat the process. Ideally, you can take longer breaks for every four completed tasks.

For what it’s worth, where learning happens is as important as how it happens. For a young learner to receive the best possible learning experience, it is essential that every aspect of the learning process is taken into consideration. As stakeholders of learning, teachers, parents, and the communities supporting young learners all play a vital role in shaping their future and nurturing them to become healthy, challenged, engaged, supported, and safe. Programs designed empower and enable learning professionals, everyone from teachers and administrators to school staff, are integral to the well-being of every young learner, and any effort at improving the support they provide to learners benefits the whole school as a community.

Holistic education pertains to the total development of a learner’s intellectual, social, physical, emotional, artistic, and creative capacities, shaping them into responsible individuals, whole persons who understand their role in helping build the nation forward and face the challenges of an ever-changing world. As a philosophy, holistic learning involves helping a young learner find meaning and purpose in life through connections, from the classroom to the community, with nature, with society at large. With guiding values like compassion and peace, holistic education brings forward a shared passion for learning that aims to uplift everyone and help transform the experience of education into something that one can cherish for a lifetime. This is done by implementing fresh strategies that help emphasize hands-on experiences, letting young learners learn by doing and challenge their capacity for critical thinking and develop their problem-solving skills. Setups that enhance learning from group work and encourage social interaction to collaborate on solutions are intentionally designed. With this approach, both understanding and action are prioritized over rote knowledge, hence facilitating and emphasizing cooperation rather than mere competition. This also means that throughout the learning process, the assessment and evaluation of a young learner’s progress is dynamic, and every aspect of the curriculum designed to help create life-long learners.

With the campaign for progressive education through the Whole Child initiative, holistic child development has become one of the primary goals of schools. With this kind of learning philosophy, young learners are provided with personalized support, safe and secure environments, sound health, and learning opportunities tailored for their unique, individual skills and talents. Through this approach, both the traditional academic aspects of learning and the non-traditional side are nurtured, enhanced, and supported. This means that not only learning professionals are involved in creating a holistic learning environment, everyone is: parents, industries, and local communities. All play an important role in ensuring that every child grows up to become a Whole Child, supported, equipped, and ready to face the challenges of the 21st century.

In the amidst of the pandemic, we know that some of you take online learning as pain in their asses. However, we take this opportunity to offer you a wide range of self-service learning that will be helpful for you in terms of online learning.

We understand your struggles and we have our ways to help you survive on the online learning set up. As we move to the new normal set-up for learning, we take advantage of the latest curriculum updates to offer you great learning experience. With the help of books, e-books, modules, e-worksheets, journals, and articles on the site, we will give you the support that you need for this new set-up.