“Redefining Education: Achieving Excellence in the Virtual School Experience”

The world of education shrouded by a cloud of uncertainty was rapidly transformed and revamped to align itself to the virtual world and negate the challenges presented by an era of accelerated technological progress. The advent of VSE, initially looked at sceptically, has offered a new frontier of learning and has dramatically redefined the landscape of education using determinants that guarantee success. Achieving academic excellence in the context of VSE has been challenging if not completely unattainable. An interest in the long term viability of the program by recalibrating all parameters and revising key strategies to meet new expectations has ensured its effectiveness. Let’s take a look at a few pivotal components that have driven VSE to the avenue of excellence.

Rethinking teaching-learning strategies Redesigning the curriculum specifically for online instruction and devising teaching and learning strategies to suit the need of VSE is imperative. The expert curriculum designers must get rid of unnecessary content, focus on what’s essential and take necessary measures on improving student engagement in virtual classrooms. Without the right strategies, it will be difficult to generate the same level of interest and participation one might get to witness in a traditional classroom. Here are a few effective ways to boost student engagement Create an active learning environment within virtual classrooms by holding group discussions and encouraging students to interact and reflect on what they are learning. If you want students to actively contribute to your sessions, you have to make students emotionally invested in the educational material as well as their learning outcomes. Another element that plays a key role here is to ensure that students are getting some element of a social experience out of it too. In the current scenario, teachers are making the virtual school experience memorable for students by creating opportunities for collaboration and breaking the learning group down into smaller groups to hold discussions. Having the need to cater to a diverse learning community, educators have gone every length of the way to procure, access and tailor-fit a number of tools to facilitate active student interaction and make the classes as enjoyable as possible.

Proper training for the faculty to design virtual lessons Schools must actively focus on continuous professional development around online teaching and learning practices. For teachers, skill development is a must to promote a flexible, responsive approach and gather technological capabilities to drive the VSE. The teaching community is making the best of this situation by exploring new methods of teaching and assessment. Increased collaboration, adopting mechanisms to bolster the culture of shared best practices among educators and providing opportunities for up-skilling to raise the technical competence of instructors is likely to make VSE not only effective but also enduring.

Reinventing VSE by integrating new edtech tools The edtech tools are slowly and steadily gaining ground and being absorbed into school curriculums as they have been designed to solve a number of issues that teachers, parents and students have encountered during the initial transition to VSE and to deliver better teaching and learning experiences that result in higher learning outcomes. Integrating edtech tools will not only enable teachers to provide customized learning for students but will also change the way students approach learning. Building an effective partnership Excellence in VSE is also a product of an effective alliance between all stakeholders. Encouraging parent-teacher collaboration in the context of VSE through several virtual events and a system of clear and consistent communication is vital and is sure to build a potent relationship between the school and the parent community. A platform should be given to the parents to make them feel supported and informed at all times.

Excellence in VSE is bound to the selective blend of these intrinsic factors. This academic year too schools have made a comeback with VSE but there is a certain sense of solidity and uniqueness that has strengthened and enriched the program.