How digital learning entices students to take up sciences

St Paul's Gekano Boys Secondary School students during a biology lesson on Tuesday. Digital learning in science subjects in the institution has boosted enrollment and performance. [Sammy Omingo, Standard]

Armed with a projector, a laptop and a laser pointer pen, Edwin Mogusu, a teacher of physics, is ready to start the day’s lesson.

It is a hot afternoon at St Paul’s Gekano Boys Secondary School in Nyamira County, and most students would easily doze off in the middle of a lesson. But Mr Mogusu is certain that he has the attention of all his students throughout the lesson.

“I always ensure lessons are as captivating and exciting as possible because the digital content is designed to arouse and sustain the interest of the learner in whatever subject that is being taught. No student will be left behind,” Mogusu says.

For example today, he is teaching magnetism to a Form One class.

Enhanced visuals and practical demos of the various aspects of magnetism make it interesting for the students to follow the lesson.

At one point, the teacher takes a break and delegates a student after another to take the rest of the class through the lesson.

“That is exactly what goes on in every science subject in this school. So far, we have seen an upward trajectory in subject enrollment as well as performance,” says school principal Albert Ombiro.

Mr Ombiro says digital learning is part of a strategy by the school management to resuscitate the fallen academic giant.

Already, the effort has started paying off, if the school’s performance in the recent past is anything to go by.

Misguided perceptions

In the 2019 Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE) examination, Gekano posted a positive improvement in all science, technology and mathematics (Stem) subjects.

In biology, the school improved from a mean score of 3.3 in 2018 to 4.8 in 2019. The same performance was replicated in physics, which improved from 4.6 in 2018 to 5.9 last year. Chemistry had a similar improvement.

The number of learners in physics, which is an optional subject, has also steadily increased.

“In the past, many learners have had misguided perceptions that physics is a tough subject. But this system of digital learning has played a big role in many of them taking it up,” Ombiro says.

For instance, in 2018 KCSE exams, the subject had an enrollment of 27 candidates. But this year, the number has risen to 40, with all 106 current Form Three class enrolling for the subject.

Joash Orori, the senior teacher, says digital learning has given the school community high hopes of the institution rising again.

In digital learning, Gekano is among 16 other secondary schools in Nyamira that are clustered as model schools in digital learning, a programme sponsored by the Africa Digital Schools Initiative but funded by MasterCard Foundation through the Global E-schools and Communities Initiative.