Our Course Managers in Oxford are there to answer any questions you may have, and are ready to enrol your students for courses starting September 2010. You can contact a Course Manager in a number of ways: by eMail, by phone or by using one of the Expression of Interest forms on this website.

Course Managers are part of our academic administration team, reporting to our Principal. While they share our entire team’s enthusiasm for what we do, you can expect their guidance and support, not a “hard sell”. It is in the interest of students, schools and Pamoja Education to ensure that there is an optimal match between students and the courses they will be taking online.

A successful and rewarding online course experience requires close cooperation and communication between the student, the Pamoja Education teacher and the student’s school.

Pamoja Education teachers are experienced IB teachers, who have received special training in online pedagogy. They understand the unique opportunities, but also the inherent challenges (e.g. student self-discipline and personal organisation) presented by the online online environment, and they work with students to develop the necessary personal, organisational and academic skills. In addition to leading and moderating classroom discussions and activities, teachers interact frequently with their students on a 1:1 basis, through real-time online discussions. They also conduct regular office hours, during which they can communicate with students, individually or in groups, through VoIP or videoconference.

Pamoja Education teachers provide regular and detailed feedback to IB World Schools regarding the performance of their students. Grades are reported, to the student and the school, every two weeks.

There will be occasional situations in which an online teacher requires the support and guidance of a responsible adult in a student’s IB World School.  This might be the case when a student isn’t logging in to the course regularly, or is logging in but performing poorly, and the online teacher is uncertain about the reasons. Similarly, there may be situations where a student feels overwhelmed or in some way dissatisfied with his or her course or course performance.  In such cases, the Site-Based-Coordinator (“SBC”) can help us to get things back on track.

An SBC may be a teacher (in any subject), a school administrator, a guidance counsellor, librarian,  technology specialist, or another person able to provide the necessary support and guidance. The SBC role, is to facilitate communication between the online teacher, the student and (where necessary) the student’s parents or guardians. Pamoja provides SBCs with comprehensive online training, using many of the same tools students will be using in their coursework. For schools choosing one of our School Partnership Options (and thereby enrolling a minimum of five students), we will provide an annual stipend of $1000 to the SBC. Our Course Managers would be happy to discuss SBC qualifications and training with you in more detail.