Webinar Review: "Effective Teaching Strategies" by Stone Hedge Learners Inc.

Last year, we experienced major changes as traditional schooling moved into the home setting, turning parents into teachers seemingly overnight, without so much as a seminar or training session. One can’t help but wonder, “Am I doing it right? Am I doing enough?”

But come to think of it, this learning-at-home set-up isn’t completely new. Some parents have done homeschooling and there’s a lot we can learn from those who were able to do it successfully for a long time.

Lucky for us, someone made it her mission/advocacy to study and teach this topic.

In a free one-hour webinar offered by Stone Hedge Learners, titled, Effective Teaching Strategies for Parents Teaching their Children at Home, Teacher Karen Lorenzana Reyes opens with the story of her fascination with parents who were homeschooling their children.

She had this burning question in her mind:

How were these parents with no professional education training able to teach their children effectively?

“Bakit ako, antagal ko nang nag-aaral at nagtuturo,” she shared, “from my own experience, mahirap magturo, but there are parents who are very successful. Kung bakit ako nag-Grad School, iyon lang - para masagot ang tanong na ito.”

In this webinar she shared some recommendations for parents, taking from her 160-page research and distilling important points into 20 slides.

Delivered with simplicity and clarity, and summarized creatively, I was left at the end thinking, “ang galing!”.

Her teachings are grounded in educational psychology. I love how she illustrated the effective vs. ineffective beliefs that she tested in her research. For example, parents are more likely to stop homeschooling if their goal is based on an external standard (higher grades). On the other hand, they are more likely to continue homeschooling if they set their goal based on their own standards (such as “to support my child’s growth”).

I find this to be a crucial reminder in this time. We may become so concerned and busy with all the WHAT that needs to be done, that we forget WHY we are doing them in the first place – ultimately, it’s about the learning and development of the child.

And regarding our feelings of, “I’m not a teacher”, I learned that while we may not be the expert in certain knowledge fields, we are in the best position to be the expert of our child. When it comes to his growth and learning, the roles are actually reversed: the child is the teacher and the parent is the learner. The child is our guide. This way, we can tailor-fit his learning in a way that is developmentally appropriate and responsive to his needs and interests.

A child feels empowered when you meet him from where he is; if you speak his language.

It’s true! Because I know I felt empowered after listening to this presentation, specifically made for parents (she gives different presentations depending on the audience or institution).

Teacher Karen did an excellent job sharing nuggets of wisdom from her findings. I highly recommend her webinars to parents who may be looking for a starting point, or needing some guidance on how to approach the parent/teacher-child relationship, or looking for practical tools to support their child’s learning. It was truly a value-filled hour. Afterwards, they even emailed additional helpful references. Yay!

So… when is the next webinar?

We really appreciated the learnings from teacher Karen, so much that we wanted MORE!

We wanted to offer something similar to our community so we decided to reach out to her.

If you want to learn some additional tools and resources to help you deal with home learning of your young children, come join us in our very FIRST MOMspired Webinar on February 27, Saturday 10am (via Zoom).

It’s free!

You may register here:

http://bit.ly/MOMspiredSeriesRegistration

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About Teacher Karen Lorenzana Reyes

Teacher Karen holds degrees in MA Education, Educational Psychology with cognates in curriculum studies from UP Diliman (summa cum laude), and BS Family Life and Child Development degree from the same institution.

She is a licensed teacher with 11 years of experience in Early Childhood Education, Montessori Adolescent Education, developing and implementing home-based curriculum programs, and a certified Family & kids Yoga instructor.

Her projects include TV guesting in educational channels, has contributed to publications such as Smart Parenting Magazine, was the Technical Project Coordinator in UNESCO preschool training programs. She is currently the Director and Playgroup Teacher of 1 to 5-year olds in SHL.

About Stone Hedge Learners, Inc.

Stone Hedge Learners, Inc. is a private corporation founded by parents and teachers who aim to break boundaries and bridge the gaps in Early Childhood Education and Special Needs Services.

Facebook: stonehedgelearners

Instagram: @stonehedgelearnersinc

Twitter: @stonehedgelearn

Website: https://stonehedgelearners.com/