Teaching Creatively: Case Studies with Synchronous English, Mathematics and Music Learning in a Summer Programme

Abstract

With the rise of online schooling amid the COVID-19 pandemic since 2020, educators shift from face-to-face teaching to online learning environments. The teaching materials have been converted into an online format to support students’ home learning with diversified e-learning strategies creatively. During the class suspension period, attending after-school activities becomes a life of luxury to students, which may constitute non-academic barriers to learning, especially social needs and mental health. Thus, this article overviews a case study with the use of social media tools among primary teachers and students. Based on our multiple case analysis, this research analyzed the data collected from semi-structured interviews, online lesson observations, together with artefacts including lesson plans and teaching and learning materials, with 3 teachers from various disciplines such as language, mathematics and music from an extracurricular activity (ECA) project involving around thirty-nine P1-P3 low achievers for one summer. These teachers’ experience and perceptions towards transforming the ECA activities from offline to online are investigated. It is found that teachers have adopted diversified video-conferencing tools, gamification and cognitive annotation tools to build an online face-to-face environment. We suggest that these creative teaching practices in social media and other blended technologies in an informal setting have potential to help students strike a balance between their academic and non-academic life even after school resumption.