High school students will need remote learning skills long after they graduate

Learning these skills will help high school students long after they graduate, not only to get through uni but when they hit the workplace.

The skills needed to successfully learn from home will be needed long after the pandemic has passed.

Experts say school students who can learn without teacher supervision are more capable of performing routine study activities, such as homework and exam preparation.

They transition better to tertiary education, which embraces a more independent style of study, and can later effectively complete workplace learning, which is increasingly being offered online.

Griffith University education expert Dr Sarah Prestridge says remote learning will be a core skillset.

“In a classroom, the teacher regulates both the time and effort that a child attributes to a task,” she says.

“Students are not used to self-regulating but they can learn these important skills and to be able to learn online will help them learn beyond schools.’’

Scotch College Year 12 student Alicia Kroehn says remote learning has helped her develop strong time-management skills.

Following last year’s Covid lockdown of schools, Prestridge says many educators are moving to increase “learner independence’’ through initiatives that include students staying home from school one a day a week to study remotely.

She says while some students have embraced the move, others struggle with the misconception they cannot learn without the guidance of a teacher.

“(Remote learning) is a different way of learning but students can do it – they are quite capable,’’ she says.

“We have conditioned students to (believe they only) learn in a classroom.

“We need to condition (them to believe) something else.’’

Australian Catholic University Professor Dr John Munro says parents can help students learn from home by breaking tasks into small, manageable components.

“Before (a child) starts to read a text, ask: ‘What do you already know about this topic?’. Or stop five minutes in and ask: ‘What do we know now?’ and do the same thing in 10 minutes time,’’ Munro says.

“If you do that early in the piece, you are replacing a child’s negative self-talk that they don’t know what to do with positive self-talk that lets them see their brains are changing and they are building more knowledge.’’

Last year, Scotch College introduced ConnectED, an online education framework to support students during the pandemic.

While most children have since resumed face-to-face learning, deputy principal Dale Bennett expects the initiative to be expanded because of the benefits it brings.

“It’s about (promoting student) readiness for the next step (to more independent learning at a tertiary level) and we want our student to feel equipped for that and not to feel vulnerable,’’ he says.

Year 12 student Alicia Kroehn says remote learning has helped her develop strong time management skills, a key employability trait across all industries.

“It got me used to working by myself in an environment where there weren’t teachers constantly telling me to do the work – I learned if I didn’t do it now, I would still have to do it later,’’ she says.