YOLA pioneers in offering online classes to help students ensure academic progress in the midst of the coronavirus epidemic

February 19, 2020 - 16:25

Seventeen years after the SARS pandemic, the world is now facing a potential new pandemic caused by a new strain of coronavirus. The number of infections is increasing not only in China but in many countries around the world. How will this affect the Vietnamese market? Facing such a complication, what measures do we need to take to respond to the outbreak to curb any drastic changes made in our everyday life?

Seventeen years after the SARS pandemic, the world is now facing a potential new pandemic caused by a new strain of coronavirus. The number of infections is increasing not only in China but in many countries around the world. How will this affect the Vietnamese market? Facing such a complication, what measures do we need to take to respond to the outbreak to curb any drastic changes made in our everyday life?

Deserted streets in Ho Chi Minh City due to the coronavirus outbreak  - Source: YOLA

The epidemic is still quite complicated, and until now no country has found a way to control the spread of the disease, let alone find a cure, the number of people infected with the disease has increased rapidly in recent days. The outbreak has led the WHO to officially announce the coronavirus outbreak to be “a global health emergency”. To ensure the safety of our students, even with thorough preparation of medical equipment, school hygiene, masks, hand sanitizers, hand washing stations, and detailed instructions on how to prevent the disease, last week most English language centres and extracurricular learning centres cancelled classes due to the coronavirus outbreak.

For the parents of students, in addition to arranging plans for someone to look after their children during the school suspension, the assurance of knowledge as well as academic progress and exam reviews has been a concern over the past two weeks.

YOLA - a pioneer in bringing online teaching to help students ensure their academic progress

Immediately after receiving instructions from the Department of Education and Training on the decision to keep children and students absent from school, Yola educational institution quickly provided 260 online classes starting on February 3. The online classes are instructed and taught by the same teachers in charge of the class with close supervision and monitoring of academic progress. The content of teaching follows the curriculum; knowledge is guaranteed to be fully communicated and students have the time and opportunity to apply learned knowledge with simple interactions on the modern and user-friendly online classroom platform. Class activities are organised with a wide range of variety and diversity. Students have maximum concentration in the online classes while the amount of knowledge transferred and fully absorbed is the same as in the traditional classroom at the centre.

After only 24 hours, there were nearly 3000 students enrolled in the online classes and Yola has reached more than 6,000 students after just one week, with almost 80 percent of student registration from Yola’s regular classes. More than 60 percent of parents have responded positively to this form of online learning and teaching.

Master Chung Pham Ngoc Hien - Academic Director at YOLA Education Organization shared

“This new form of online learning has been adopted during the pandemic season and has received very positive, encouraging and supportive feedback from parents and students. The convenience and time saved from parents' transportation, and especially tackling the top concern to ensure the children’s health and the public health while maintaining academic efficiency is the biggest plus point of this online teaching and learning method.

"This is a form of online education that has been applied by developed countries such as the US, UK and Australia and put into teaching for a long time. We are happy to have always been proactive and a pioneer in technological applications in teaching, constantly improving and improving our service to bring our students diverse experiences ensuring quality and efficiency even in the most difficult times.” 

Images simulating the interface of online classrooms for YOLA students - Source: YOLA

Yola’s system is purpose-built for education and it is specifically designed to teach many students at the same time just like a normal, traditional class. Yola has been developing its online learning capability since the day it was founded; in fact, the original YOLA name stands for “Your Online Learning Assistant” so educating with technology is at the very core of what we do. It is because of our extensive experience with online learning, that your child will receive the best learning experience compared to anywhere else because the Yola Smart Learning is designed to be student-centric, not for meetings or chatting.

We haven’t just “created” or “made up” a platform because of the current coronavirus situation. We have had online learning capability for many years particularly for our Junior Secondary and Test Prep students who already access and learn with our customized materials on Yola’s Learning Management System.

Yola SMART Learning allows students to complete Individual, Team, and Group Activities designed by us. Combining all three types of tasks allows our teachers to evaluate students individually while Team and Group Activities give the students the opportunity to cooperate with their classmates and teachers. Chat or video conferencing software such as Zoom or Skype can not do this and can not create a collaborative learning environment.

Opportunities for businesses post-epidemic?

A YOLA representative shared that the online classes opened during this period aimed at coping with the Covid-19 disease and for students currently attending YOLA. However, because Online Class meets the criteria of Fast - Convenient - Effective parallel with offline classes, YOLA will officially bring the online form into the curriculum for students across the country so they can easily register and study, helping to bring English to many different regions in the nation.

In 2020, YOLA plans to open more centres in provinces and cities outside Ho Chi Minh City with a view to improving English skills for students in places without good educational conditions like Ho Chi Minh City.

All of Yola’s online lessons are video-recorded and stored on secured servers to ensure student privacy and teacher quality control.

Our system is built with key teacher-specific tools such as:

a.    Our system can cater for 1 to 1, small classes or very large classes with multiple teachers in the virtual classroom at the same time

b.    The ability to save all lesson notes for students and teachers with our virtual whiteboard

c.    Multi-screen sharing with the whole classroom and also private virtual whiteboards for individual students to work from

d.    Classroom management tools to check student behavior and participation

e.    Student test/quiz tools

f.     A rewards system for all students

 

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