Project Context
École Saint Élie des Pères Carmes is located in an area of Tripoli where many children come from challenging and impoverished backgrounds.
The school team reconnected with its community after a strong focus on the economic deterioration due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Together, they identified a problem with students’ interest and success rates at math which they consider essential skills for their future work. They chose to tackle the issue by getting to the core of the problem: traditional, out-dated techniques.
The school’s objective was for their students to be able to interact comfortably with technology. For some schools this may be normal, but for École Saint Élie des Pères Carmes Tripoli, this is a big deal. They want their students, regardless of socioeconomic challenges, to find technology familiar and accessible through their lab.
Project Description
École Saint Élie des Pères Carmes Tripoli worked with Lebanese Alternative Learning (LAL) to develop a digitized, student-centered pedagogical approach.
Their methodology includes access to Tabshoura, a digital platform based on active learning and discovery-based learning. Through this partnership, they were able to implement a curriculum in both English and French, contextualize the software’s curriculum based on the school’s needs, provide workshops to the project coordinators who would later teach their colleagues, and test their lab’s readiness, improving it accordingly.
The computer lab turned from a space hardly used and full of loose wires to a hub of activity for students and teachers alike.
This approach was successfully piloted with the Grade 6 class. The school plans to scale these efforts across age groups and subject areas.
Achievements to Date
- Over 95% of students were more interested in learning mathematics than before.
- 70% improvement in students’ grades
- Integration of student-centered approach throughout the school across other subjects
- Greater comfort in teachers’ use of digital tools
The Human Heartbeat
Five out of the six school team members had submitted their resignations during the year, many for reasons pertaining to the economic decline affecting their cost of living and ability to commute to school. The school’s principal, Rita Salameh, and coordinator, Jihane Joulaimi, did an amazing job of integrating new teachers into the team and nafda, ensuring the livelihood, growth and sustainability of their efforts.