We recently interviewed Kuhle Tyembile, Head of Information and Technology at St John’s Preparatory School. St John’s has been onboard and teaching Inspire Africa’s programmes since 2019 and we asked Kuhle about how he implemented our courses into his teaching and some of the outcomes he experienced.
Q1: Name some of the changes implemented or benefits of using Inspire Africa’s products or curriculum, within your classroom.
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- Having used products, such as the Inspire Africa system together with Droneblocks, I have come to see the students engaged in a more critical way with the product and immersed themselves within a learning space. This marks a great change, having used the Inspire Africa Curriculum.
Q2: Please provide us with some feedback on your experience in using our Inspire Campus (Inspire Africa’s Learner Management System) to access the curriculum.
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- It was easily accessible and the curriculum was seemingly easy to navigate as well as to execute lessons in a manner that allowed for learner engagement, feedback and critical thinking skills.
Q3: How would you best describe the way you use our content in your class? For example, projecting the lesson, reviewing the lesson and then teaching it etc.
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- The content had a great deal of subject gratification in which learners were able to understand various topic themes and development while integrating technology with subjects such as Geography and Mathematics.
Q4: What was your greatest fear before using the curriculum and has that changed since being able to access the Inspire Campus?
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- I feared that the learners would not be engaged with the content and technology. However, my fears were subsided when I witnessed the easy flow and navigation of the content and curriculum.
Q5: What surprised you about our curriculum and has it made teaching the content easier?
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- There were no great surprises, however I did find that from the beginning of the first lesson I was pleasantly surprised as to how engaged and involved the students were in the lesson itself.
Q6: Were there any unexpected outcomes or results expressed by your students?
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- In a 55 minute lesson, we used drones for an activity and many of them noted with surprise as to how fast the lesson went due to engaging with the drones. It was with great interest that I noted how the students were so easily engaged and used mathematical and geographical equations to involve themselves with an activity based on working out the size of a farm.
Q7: Are there any words of inspiration or advice you could provide to educators who will be using Inspire Africa’s curriculum and products?
Technology is now so part of our lives that it is almost impossible to imagine a world without it. However, the world is changing and adapting as technology evolves alongside it. This is critically important as students change and adapt each year, we must ensure that we adapt with them. This is why I firmly believe that this curriculum has great potential in finding a lasting and meaningful impact in the classroom and beyond. Indeed, as the world changes and adapts, businesses and employment will also change alongside it. Jobs such as a drone pilot, app developer and website creator are all jobs that did not exist a few decades ago but have now become industries that are important to our ever changing world.