TECHNOLOGY, TEACHING & LEARNING
called normal schooling, things seem to have reverted to ‘business as usual’. It even seems as if some schools have re-instituted the ban on the very same devices that were craved and sought after for schooling during the pandemic. “During the pandemic, we heard of students not learning because they had no devices. Now it seems like we are back to the position of students not learning in schools because they have devices.” W arrican added the school system in the Caribbean remains focused on exams, and there exists a culture of knowing rather than one of learning. “The system is driven by homework; schools still tend to give unreasonable amounts of homework, with the load increasing as students approach the grades in which high- stakes examinations are written. “With such a large volume of homework, it seems as if the onus is on parents to do the teaching; teachers complain if they perceive that parents are not helping their children with their homework,” he said.
Professor Frederick Ochieng-Odhiambo Dean, Faculty of Humanities and Education The UWI, Cave Hill Campus
Dr. Ramona Archer-Bradshaw Chief Education Officer, Barbados
Dean of the Faculty of Humanities and Education Professor Frederick Ochieng- Odhiambo also called on teachers to inspire creativity, reward critical thinking, and enable students to maximise the potential of their formal and informal learning experiences. “You as educators are not only expected to but obliged to seek and implement new ways of thinking about teaching and learning, if the needs of today’s learner as well as the changing needs are to be met. “As educators, we all recognise the inadequacy of traditional approaches to education, and now we must be brave and step out of our comfort zone to ensure that today’s students, who are tomorrow’s leaders, entrepreneurs and world citizens, are adequately prepared for life that is ahead of them,” Odhiambo said. The School of Education launched the Caribbean Educational Research Centre (CERC) in September 2021, through the Research Initiative for Supporting Education in the Caribbean (RISE Caribbean) . The primary goal of the centre is to address the lack of educational research in the subregion.
Barbados’s Chief Education Officer Dr. Ramona Archer- Bradshaw appealed to the regional educators to tailor their methods of delivery to suit the needs of the Caribbean. “Gone are the days when we have to rely on international best practices and what is done in the international context to inform wholly and solely what is done in the Caribbean. It is against this backdrop that I commend The University of the West Indies, and particularly the School of Education, for the research initiative, for supporting education because it provides that platform for us to come together and share ideas,” she said. “It is high time that we as a Caribbean people, we as a region … look around … and we borrow ideas, but we look to see what is best for us; we try to set our own course based on the information that is incoming from overseas and based on our own experiences,” Archer-Bradshaw stated. The meeting was held under the theme Innovation: Setting a Course to Success. l
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