The challenges
Despite his profound task, Jo’s first challenge is pronouncing the name of the software right – “is it Aha-Slides or A-haSlides?”
After that, his real challenge was a familiar one to so many teachers – how to keep students engaged online when it’s so easy for them to tune out. How can you inspire kids to lead when they’re not inspired to listen?
As per the 3 pillars of the Archbishops’ Young Leaders Award, each student needed not only to listen, but to learn to express leadership, faith and character.
- To freely lead students in a hybrid learning environment.
- To create a fun, engaging experience in which students actually want to contribute to the discourse.
- To help students to feel like their voices and ideas are being heard.
The results
Jo’s students really took advantage of their lessons through AhaSlides. They were so enthusiastic about replying that Jo had to lock submissions after his word cloud reached an enormous 2000 responses!
- Some of the best, most unique responses are put forward by the quieter students, who feel empowered to join the conversation on AhaSlides.
- Students flood open-ended questions with insightful responses, all of which are read by Jo and the team.
- Students pay more attention to lesson content because they know there'll be an AhaSlides question about it later.
- The virtual learning environment proved to be barrier-free; students had eyes on the screen the whole time.
