BENEFITS OF STARFIRE’S VIRTUAL CLASSROOM

THRIVING IN STARFIRE’S VIRTUAL CLASSROOM!

Starfire students are unlocking new skills, making friends, and sparking a lifelong love of problem solving and STEAM learning, thanks to the powerful benefits of learning in the virtual classroom.

Collaboration

Learning in the virtual classroom puts a big emphasis on collaborative learning. Students screenshare and work together in breakout rooms. Students gain exposure to remote team work and gain the skills to succeed in the schools and workplaces of the future. The Starfire teachers have mobilized to share and implement the best new approaches to curriculum, curriculum delivery, and classroom management. Collaboration is a core value in the Starfire community! 

Ownership & Participation

Starfire students develop a more mature and responsible outlook on guiding their own classroom experience through their experiences learning in the virtual classroom. Students also participate more frequently, giving their teacher more valuable information about their comprehension and interests. Students learning in Starfire’s virtual classroom integrate their school and home life, opening them to the value of learning independently outside of their familiar school context. 

Digital Literacy

Young students are enthusiastic tech users, but that doesn’t mean that they know how to adapt to technology effectively and with a productive purpose. Education in our virtual classroom provides valuable lessons in how to adapt to new systems and software, and how to troubleshoot technical issues. Our students learn to use technology for productive purposes.

A Starfire coding teacher recounts, “Functional, actionable technology knowledge increases while using our learning platform. Features that are a part of the online platform are discovered in the process of teaching. I have so many students who get fascinated by Zoom as a platform and its many functionalities and ask good questions about software architecture.”

Class time

Class time is used for class! Standard distractions like early pick ups or requests to use the bathroom are streamlined. Class is spent safely at home with a guardian close at hand. Students spend their class time on fun activities, engaged and focused on their challenges.

Responsiveness

Small groups of students who share interests and knowledge levels are led by Starfire teachers who can provide a responsive, individually-tailored class experience to students. Students gain powerful social benefits from finding peers with similar interests.

Starfire teacher Adrian has expressed surprise and delight at the amazing quality of the work produced by his “Animation in Scratch” students who are all experienced coders and interested in digital arts: “They really accelerated the sophistication of their work and gladly took on challenging new material.”