How To Track Your Child’s Learning As Working Parents?
“MR. Sharma, why don’t you see what your child is doing when he is at home? Why don’t you ensure that he is doing his homework?, Why don’t you track your child’s learning?” It is hard to forget when my teacher of class 6th asked this question to my father when, by chance, he was the only one attending the parents-teacher meeting.
It was then that he realized that I was not keeping up with my class and that he knew nothing about it. I saw and still do remember the disappointment on his face, which wasn’t because of me not studying, as he didn’t scold me at all, but maybe it was due to his unawareness.
The answer to that question was quite obvious, as he was a businessman and had a lot to do in his business, which didn’t allow him time to check if I was studying well. But, it was still his responsibility to keep track, something he very well accepted.
When we were back home, my father discussed the situation with my mother (a housewife). He then asked her to check my homework daily and update him once he returned from work each night. The process happened as planned, and he checked daily whether I did my homework. They never got a complaint from my school.
All that was possible as I had a non-working parent, my mother, to take care of my studies daily. But what if my mother had been working too? And was it enough to check if I did my homework? Maybe not, as I still had many learning gaps reflected in my exam scores.
The task of Child Rearing
Child rearing is challenging for any parent, but it can be especially challenging for working parents. Balancing the demands of a job or business and a family together can be overwhelming, and it can be challenging to stay on top of your child’s education while at it.
Then how do you keep track? How does a household with a school-going child ensure that their child is enjoying their learning journey? Also, that they are learning to the best of their potential? There is a simple way to do it effectively in three easy steps.
How to effectively keep track of your child’s learning journey?
Step 1-Let them decide for themselves
One of the biggest mistakes parents make when they plan to keep track of their child’s learning journey is that they try to decide everything their child will do in terms of learning. What’s even worse? They start controlling their kids.
They decide when they are going to go for tuition and for how long. These parents decide how many hours they’ll study at home. They decide how much they’ll learn, as in the number of chapters or topics they’ll cover daily or in a given amount of time. They decide what kind of content they’ll consume for learning, like video content, books, practice, notes, etc.
This has a high chance of killing the learner’s creativity and restricting the potential they would have unlocked if they were the ones who made this decision. If parents make these decisions, learners may stick to it and achieve something considerable, but it will just be an outcome of obedience and not an outcome of interest and joy, which learning should be.
As we have discussed in our other articles, every child is unique, and so are their learning levels, abilities, and habits. So deciding something for them will only be justified if it fits well with these three.
So what exactly to do?
Parents should leave it to their children to figure out what way of learning suits them best. Whether it’s videos, books, notes, or practice, young learners should be able to choose which types of content best fit their learning levels, habits, and skills, and they should also be able to use them in the way that works best for them.
Also, they should be able to decide over their learning time and daily consumption of learning.
One task that parents have here is to ensure the availability of these options for content categories with all required resources.
Step 2-Hold them accountable
Giving them the power to make decisions for themselves will be a great way to show your child that you believe in them and will boost their confidence too. But one thing is still missing: a “sense of responsibility”.
When giving them the power to decide independently, you also need to ensure that they know they are responsible for their learning outcome. They should get to learn how they want, how much they want, and when they want, but the result should be their responsibility now too.
This has a high chance of motivating them to work hard to prove themselves and never lose the decision-making freedom they are getting.
Delegating this responsibility at a young age will ensure that these young learners grow up responsible and accountable. It will better prepare them for whatever the future holds for them.
Step 3-Find a way to track their consumption of the learning content
Letting your child decide their learning process and holding them accountable is a perfect chance to ensure effective learning. But we can’t forget that they are still kids. There is still no complete certainty that they will crack it.
They may have trouble making these decisions we are asking them to make. They may set a very slow pace for themselves, making completing the syllabus difficult. Or they may put a too-fast face that can make it difficult to register all the learning properly in their minds in a way that can last long.
Now how can we take care of it? You can quickly resolve it if you, as a parent, can keep track of your child’s learning-related consumption. If you have a good idea of what they are learning, how they are learning, what way they are learning, and when they are learning, you can intervene when things go off-track.
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These three simple steps ensure that working parents can push their kids towards effective learning and keep sound track of it. But how is that possible?
How can parents provide their kids with so many different learning content categories? Won’t those be too expensive? How are they going to hold their kids accountable for their learning? Also, how can parents keep track of their children’s studies without actually being around when they are learning?
The answer to that is our one-stop learning solution; The iPrep Learning App for Classes 1 to 12 in all subjects and streams. How can iPrep be of help here? Let’s have a closer look at that in our next section.
How can iPrep help?
Some features in the iPrep app can very well help parents in each of the steps mentioned above. What are those features, and how are they helpful in these cases? Let’s have a look.
Several categories of delightful content
The iPrep app is loaded with multiple highly enjoyable and engaging content categories to deliver learning to our learners. We have enjoyable, engaging Animated Video Lessons with real-life connections, Course Books, Topic-Wise Practice Sets, Chapter-Wise Tests, and Class Notes that cover all subjects and all topics within. A learner can use them all or choose what suits them best and consume learning using them without any limits.
We also have a digital book library having story books, inspirational stories, books on arts and history, books of science, etc., to ensure that a child learns and grows holistically. Furthermore, we have practical and project videos that have fun DIY projects for kids. They also have animated videos of lab experiments to prepare kids from classes 9 to 12 for their practical sessions.
We don’t have any rules, limits, or procedures set in stone that say what a child can learn from our platform and how much they can learn from it.
So, the task of making various options within content categories available to learners is resolved.
My Reports Feature
The iPrep app also has a My Reports feature. It is a detailed reporting dashboard that keeps a detailed and easy-to-interpret track of a learner’s content consumption on our platform. It will show you all the content categories your child consumed, how much content they consumed, for what duration, and the level of mastery they achieved.
This will give you two critical ideas that will help you keep track of your child’s learning journey. Those include-
The idea of your child’s interest
The kind of content they consume, subjects they explore the most, the sort of books they read the most—data regarding that will give you an obvious idea of your child’s interests. You can help them build on those interests and avoid pushing them in other directions beyond the minimum required.
The idea of your child’s learning levels
With the idea of what content the learners are consuming and the mastery level they can achieve, you can very easily figure out their learning levels. If you see a gap there, intervene and help them fix those gaps as soon as possible.
Don’t worry at all if the gaps you see are due to their historical learning gaps. The iPrep app provides access to all the content of all your classes in one single subscription. That too with a very easy and quick class change feature. So, in the case of historical learning gaps, learners can easily switch to a junior class, clear all their historical gaps, and then come back and learn what is currently in the curriculum.
This effectively covers steps 2 and 3, as when learners know their actions are being recorded, they’ll be much more responsible and accountable. And how better to track your child’s learning progress than a detailed and easy-to-interpret progress-tracking feature like the one present in the iPrep Learning App?
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Conclusion
In conclusion, we would like to go through all the points we covered in this article.
> It is essential for all parents to keep track of their children’s learning journeys. Especially for those who are working and aren’t home with them when they are learning.
> There are a few steps these working parents need to follow to ensure effective learning and keep a sound track of it.
> The iPrep learning app can help parents with all these steps. It includes high-quality content in multiple categories and progress tracking with the My reports feature.
So what are you waiting for? Go ahead and download the iPrep learning app and let your children enjoy a compelling learning journey.
