Year 7’s come to grips with REAL classes in the time of COVID

By Cathy Chen

In transitioning to secondary, Year 7 RCHK students have started to attend Renaissance Engages in Authentic/Applied/Active Learning (REAL) classes once a week as part of the secondary curriculum. Year 7 REAL is conducted together with Year 8, allowing students in both years to connect with like-minded people in doing their projects with similar interests in topics they chose for themselves.

The respective topics of this Year 7 REAL classes are diverse. They include: Changing Spaces Affecting Places, Magic Circle, Aaaand…scene!, Mission EV3, Conscious Craft, Calm and Connected, Lingnan (Cantonese) Culture, Research Institute, Passion for Architecture, Picture book creation, RDC Student press, Storytelling for Social Change, and Strive to Thrive. Students choose a REAL that they are interested in, and they are committed to, for the whole academic year. 

The general feedback about the class has been positive. Nethulya Perera of 7.5 states, “I think it’s a great subject because you get to choose what you do inside that subject and so you will enjoy what you have, which means that you can do a good job on whatever you [are] doing.” Perera further elaborated, “My REAL is Changing Spaces Affecting Places. I like my REAL specifically because it’s really interesting to learn about both architecture and interior design.” 

Luciana Guo in 7.1 commented: “My REAL class is Magic Circles. In our REAL, we played with micro bits last unit, and now we are working on circuits.” 

In addition, many have echoed the sentiment of one student, that, they “like REAL because it is a subject that has no homework nor assessments.” Gwen Wong of 7.5, says, “My REAL is Storytelling for Social Change, it is fun because I get to work with my friend and the teacher is cool too.”

With COVID cases on the rise, students and teachers have had to adjust back to online learning, and REAL courses have had to change accordingly. Perera said, “It’s hard to do what the original plan for each lesson was. We were learning about building structures and designing them back in school for my REAL. Now, going back online, we changed to learning about market research and creating surveys.”

However, Guo finished on a more optimistic note, “We’re doing circuitry using copper tape and led lights and batteries to make a card [after going back online]. We are also making pop-up cards at home.” Wong also stated, “[REAL going online] doesn’t make a huge difference because our project is also online.”

Nonetheless, most students would agree in the hope to get back to school earlier and continue with the more exciting things in REAL face-to-face, which they have enjoyed and anticipated in coming into secondary.

A student creates a pop-up model in REAL.