How a small school in Sierra Leone uses remote learning to offer secondary education

Key points:

The American International School of Freetown in Sierra Leone (AISF) has 90 students ages three to 19, seven teachers and a principal, an integral administrative role that is common in small international schools in Africa.

AISF does not have a certified high school, but has 11 high school age students who have no other options for an international education in the city. So, our school has been offering them courses VHS Learning in grades 9 and 10. We provide on-site support while students take their courses online. It is a good option to prepare students who plan to move to an in-person high school at the end of grade 10.

For grades 11 and 12, we enroll students in Massachusetts Mayflower Academy (MMA), an accredited online high school that uses online provider courses. AISF still provides on-site support and resources to our students, but they will graduate with an MMA diploma. For AISF students, this is a good option to graduate with an accredited American high school diploma in Freetown, Sierra Leone.

What struck me when considering online courses was that students were asked to think broadly and were asked meaningful questions. It is attractive and authentic learning. I had a good group of ninth graders and they are in the second week of courses. As they discussed one of the essential questions for world history, which most of them were asking, the question was, “What is the role of art and religion in society?” We talked about what art does and the children were able to discover it. Then we move on to the second part. What is the role of religion in society? I thought it was a meaningful question. And it was an introduction to the Renaissance. They were looking at the Renaissance Reformation, Renaissance art and religion.

Another benefit of these courses is that students can also have office hours with their professors, which are not available through other online options, which only offer email. And perhaps most importantly, they become part of a virtual classroom where they can meet classmates across the United States and around the world.

Having engaging learning is extremely important. Taking a full virtual course is difficult and motivation is sometimes a challenge. Even if there are adults there physically supervising the students and asking them questions, it is difficult to maintain that motivation and keep the learning going. The more engaging it can be, the more human contact (virtual or otherwise) a school can provide, the better it will be for students and that's what we found with our online partner.

For a school like the American International School of Freetown, it's important to look at where students plan to go next; both VHS learning and Massachusetts Mayflower Academy They are going to attract post-secondary schools that are broadly American in character.

In my dream of dreaming of a small school, I would have a mix. If our school got a little bigger, I would like to have a couple of high school teachers who could directly teach some of the courses and then build on that, because there is no way a small school like ours could have a physics teacher , a chemistry teacher and a biology teacher. In fact, creating a combination would be my dream for a modest-sized international school, and I think it may be a dream that transcends our size as we get a little bigger in the future.