Ability to engage students and encourage participation
Having the students learn from home for an extended period of time
without constant contact with the teacher posed a challenge of
effectively engaging the students and urging them to participate in the
project. It was difficult for the agricultural science coordinator to
monitor whether the students where completing the required schoolwork
from home because they were not able to communicate with the students
regularly. It was imperative that the students where self-motivated to
undertake the project and/or had someone available in their home to
assist or enforce them to undertake the project. However, if the
students lacked that motivation or someone in their home didn’t have the
skills or time to assist the student with their work, then this could
result in a reduced number of students participating.
To resolve this problem, the agricultural science coordinator contacted
the student’s parents/guardians via email if these activities had not
been ‘opened’ online to assist and encourage the student to complete the
project activities. It was expected that the students would complete the
activity as part of their on-line lessons but because there was no way
of enforcing participation, the activity was not assessed.