Impact of Ask a Teacher Feature on Learning Outcomes

Peter BarakaEdtech Posts, Education in Kenya, Eneza's response to COVID-19, Teachers making a difference with Eneza, Testimonials, Working With TeachersLeave a Comment

Despite schools being closed and students not being able to physically interact with teachers, here at Eneza we have been  able to facilitate virtual student-teacher interaction via our Ask a Teacher feature.

The service enables students to send any questions via SMS and get a comprehensive response from a live teacher in 5 minutes. This may however increase if the number of questions shoot up.  After we opened up our platform for free in April, there was a huge increase in the questions from students. This has led to our teachers working overtime and we also hired extra teachers to help handle the huge traffic.

Given that students are not only asking academic questions, we talked to our teachers to find out if the Ask a Teacher platform can help to positively influence learning outcomes especially now that schools will be reopening in January 2021 and learners are set to repeat classes.

The teachers noted that students are more comfortable and confident asking any questions on the platform. This usually doesn’t always happen in a normal classroom setting. Some students fear asking questions for the fear of being ridiculed by other students if the question is deemed “stupid.”

“The Ask a Teacher platform bridges the gap that exists between learners and teachers in a classroom situation by inculcating confidence in the learners to ask any type of questions in the hope of getting answers.” said Beldine Achieng, one of the Ask a Teacher responders on the platform.

For Sarah Ndungi she has noticed that learners are now not just asking questions on academics but on current affairs and issues that are affecting them. 

“I have realised that students’ questions mostly are based on current affairs. For example when the first case of COVID-19 was reported in Kenya questions related to that flooded the platform. Right now from what is going on on teenage pregnancy there are so many questions related to signs of pregnancy and pregnancy experiences.”

With schools set to be closed down until January 2021, it is likely that some students may have lost interest in their learning since there is no classroom experience. We believe that having a platform such as Ask a Teacher will go a long way in assisting students get answers to their questions from a teacher and also get motivation to learn as they prepare to resume classes in 2021.

 

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