Bad Tidings
24 April 2020 Tuesday evening was supposed to be a time to relax after completing all work for the day. Well, at least it was till one of our tutors messaged us about an announcement on the news that all tuition and enrichment centres must close shop from 26 April 23:59 to 30 April to reduce the spread of COVID-19 in the community.
Our first reaction was disbelief. Was that fake news? We had to read the news article a few times to be sure we got the message right. It was not long before more messages poured in – some from concerned tutors and others from anxious parents. The die was cast. No doubt about it – we indeed had to close our doors as stipulated.
The Rush for Answers
We had been entertaining the thought of Singapore being locked down, as seen in many other countries and cities. We had even discussed about various possible responses but when the real fecal matter hit the fan, we realised that we should have talked less and acted more.
A flood of questions rushed through our heads and we had few answers. Some samples: “Do we need to close down for good? Is online teaching and learning doable? Is it acceptable to our clients? How do we implement it? What do we tell our clients? Why is it happening now? Why us?”
In the end, we only stopped our discussion near to 3a.m. and went to bed. Sleep was anything but peaceful.
Scrambling into Action
The next three days saw us in a hive of activity, from checking out the internet and contacting our associates to hammering out a rough plan of action. There were still many uncertainties e.g. how our tutors and clients would react to our recommendations, what sort of bandwidth we needed to accomplish our solutions. Certain steps could only be taken after we had a better idea of the responses from our stakeholders.
Even then, we had to make several educated guesses as we started drafting out notices to tutors and parents, informing them of our plans and other administrative matters. Our fingers never felt so sore being crossed for so long.
Face-to-Face before Closure
Nothing beats a good, old face-to-face meeting for proper communications. Though we would have loved to meet all our parents and students to explain to them our situation, the tight deadline and their sheer numbers make this impractical.
In the end, we did meet our tutors face-to-face to communicate about our responses and gather their feedback. The meeting was indeed fruitful through addressing their suggestions and questions, enabling the whole lot of us to be seated on the same page. Second but not least, the meeting served to revise all of us in the use of online teaching and learning which became a glaring inevitability by then.
Encouraging Words
We would like to particularly thank some of the parents for their patience and kind words in these trying times.
“We will support your tution center for sure as we are seeing results recently and our son has been singing amazing praises on how his science tuition teacher teaches, in a way that he enjoys and understands.”
“In this challenging time, thanks for hanging on there and do you best to help the students. Thank you 🙏”
Implementation
By that weekend, we started our first class of online lesson. Our online teaching and learning model is based on a two-prong approach. First, we use a learning management system (LMS) for announcements, learning materials and assignments for our students. Second, we make use of live video feed to maintain good interaction with our students as we go through the lesson.
Fingers still crossed, we expected problems e.g. student could not connect, someone got the wrong web address, slow server. As the lesson rolled on, our fears were mostly unfounded. Teething problems were present e.g. a student misread the instructions and did less homework than was required. However, there was nothing that could not be solved in the next lesson, if not, on the spot.
The Future of Teaching and Learning
COVID-19 apparently will not be going away anytime soon. Yet, neither will it stay with us forever. There will probably other challenges coming our way – some we have encountered before e.g. pandemic, haze, others unimaginable at this moment. Whatever the case, we foresee that online teaching and learning will become a part of education, whether supplementing or complementing face-to-face teaching and learning.
Please contact us for the latest fees and schedule of our tuition programmes.