How CYPHER engages students, teachers, and parents

The challenge

• Difficulty in finding a platform that could accommodate both synchronous and asynchronous learning experiences
• Challenge to engage students who are less inclined towards traditional textbooks
• Ensuring effective communication and involvement of parents in the learning process

Ali Jaffery, Curriculum Coordinator: The IB program is experiential in its nature. As management, we had some challenges in trying to figure out a way to maximize experiential learning in the classroom. The only way to do that at that point was to try and find a platform that would both fit synchronous and asynchronous learning.

Mashal Farrukh, integrated humanities teacher: We live in technology-oriented times, and students don’t really like opening books. Most of the students do not enjoy reading books, but with the new LMS, they really like navigating. I’ve observed the student’s response when I’m teaching the content and it has improved drastically.

The solution

Ali Jaffery, Curriculum Coordinator: The platform helped us tremendously in terms of replacing traditional textbooks and workbooks. It allowed us to do a lot of asynchronous assignments and that gave us more time for experienced-based activities.

The LMS platform has allowed a unique perspective on how to engage the parent community in our school. We were able to add a bit of teacher training into our parent program.

Mashal Farrukh, integrated humanities teacher: The software allowed us to keep track of student progress in a very smooth way. It has also allowed us to communicate with the students, they can drop us a message at any time of the day regarding any confusion they have and it’s very easy for us to answer those queries.

Features

• Ease of use: Everything that we learn in class is also written in our lessons in CYPHER. This makes it easier to study for the test or even for a normal revision. Our teachers can also tell us what we lack or what we can do to improve in the comment section of assignments - Hajra Usman, Student MYP1 (6th grade)
• Communication: One of the many things that I like about CYPHER is that we can send messages to our teachers and even our friends. This way, if I’m confused about an assignment, I can simply message my teacher without needing their number - Hajra Usman, Student MYP1 (6th grade)
• Navigation: I like how user-friendly it is. When I first joined LGSi, it did not take me long to get used to the platform and navigate through it. CYPHER allows for students and teachers to stay in contact, which helps us to better communicate and prepare for tasks, like presentations - Saad Salman, Student MYP 5 (10th grade)
• Accessibility: CYPHER has helped me a lot during online learning. For example, if I have missed an online class, our teachers record those meetings and upload them on CYPHER LMS so I can view them - Ayesha Butt, Student MYP1 (6th grade)
• Flexibility: All of our children were viewing the same materials at the same time. The lessons were available for everyone, students could talk about it at the same time, they could even read it at the same time. Those are emotional and social factors that all parents were concerned about, but they were addressed. My parent account on CYPHER has been of great benefit because all I need to do is log in and I’m able to access all the information: how my child is doing, how much he has learned, what is the progress, what is the percentage of the progress, and teacher’s remarks. Through my parent account, I can access the LMS anytime and I can check my child’s progress, assignments, connect to the teacher, and seek help or guidance - it makes it simple and easy - Mahnoor Kazmi, parent

The results

• With CYPHER Learning®, LGSI observed enhanced student response and performance
• CYPHER facilitated the replacement of traditional textbooks and workbooks, allowing for more asynchronous assignments and experiential activities
• Parents perceived the transition positively, appreciating the accessibility of learning materials, real-time progress tracking, and seamless communication

Mashal Farrukh, integrated humanities teacher: It’s definitely helped to improve student performance. It shifted a lot of responsibility from teachers to students.

Online learning brings many challenges. Motivation is an issue, just like how being organized is difficult for both teachers and students. CYPHER really made it easy, the online experience is very convenient especially for us. I’m sure that when we’ll return to in-person teaching that is going to be more efficient.

Rimsha Irfan, Science Teacher: I feel like parents have become more involved in the academics of their children as they are now able to track each and every assignment. They are able to track all the course materials and their child’s performance.

CYPHER has definitely made life easier. It has helped me become more organized as a teacher. It’s great to have everything in one place. This is easier for the teacher as well because you don’t have to use different software for assignments, different software to upload content, and so on. Having your assignments, attendance, content, and tests in one place is really great for the teacher, as well as the student.