The time to provide students with innovative learning opportunities is now.

Before you glance at what I’m about to share with you today, let me table

MY APOLOGIES:

Here is why you haven’t heard from me for close to a month now:

More than being an author and a freelance ghostwriter, I’m displaying the other side of me that laid dormant for close to eight months. Before I joined the American School of Douala as a distinguished science teacher, i had been out of the teaching arena for close to eight months.

But here is what is most important:

After a hectic week of delivering over ten hands-on and practical sessions to students across different grade levels and units, I settled for a moment of reflection over the weeks’ activities.

Then my heart bled.

Here is why:

20 years ago, when I was in secondary school (Form five, to be precise), our devoted science teachers taught us lots of theories and concepts in science to memorize for G.C.E.

The mindset to teach and to learn was captured under the unconscious headline:

“This is what you should note for GCE in June.”

 Rather than:

“This is the beauty and application of science in real life.”

For example, when we studied the mammalian eye , we listed parts like the iris, the retina, the lens; you name the rest.But we never saw, touched or experienced those parts in real life. We never dissected a sheep’s eye or built a 3D model of an eye. All of which are inexpensive and accessible.

The pressure to complete the syllabus before June was primordial than to explore, experiment, apply learned concepts in real life.

We copied notes for hours and memorized endless concepts, theories, laws and principles.

Practicals in science were reserved for Lower and Upper sixth science students. Even so, they were shallow and impractical in its actual sense.

Somehow, in 2021, this curriculum has not changed.

The same curriculum and the same way lessons were administered twenty years ago (if not four decades ago) is the same curriculum that is administered in most of our classrooms today.

I’m not insinuating that teachers are responsible for this status-quo. I made the same mistakes in my early teaching career.We taught students the way we were taught and the way the curriculum was structured.

Today, I’m convinced we can change our teaching strategies to reflect international standards with cheap and accessible resources even if our curriculum does not change.

In this global village, there are tons of resources online ( YouTube videos, published articles, educational blogs, teaching and learning forums, tons of free teaching apps and websites) to facilitate teaching and learning.

The time to provide your students with a great learning opportunity is now.

If you need more ideas on how to make your science lessons interesting and innovative with inexpensive and accessible resources, reach me @ www.sheijini.com.

#Innovative your science classroom.

Cheers,

Shei Jini.

Author: Jini, is a prolific author and founder of Teachersletters Publishing Services. As an award winning teacher with a Cambridge International School in Doaula, he has 13+ years of teaching experience in writing, student-centered learning, bible teachers training and educational leadership. He is consider as one of the best keynote speakers of his time.