Stress and Joy of Online Learning
(Corona’s Gift)
Corona
- the Chinese Virus, a tornado of disease, deaths, corpses, crawling and
gasping for oxygen patients, weeping relatives, dearth of medicines, hospital
beds, oxygen cylinders, ambulances, compulsions and restrictions gave mankind
untold miseries that will perhaps continue for many more years to come may be at
diminished scale and pace. A few days would be written as, “Black Days”, in the
history of mankind when corpses were everywhere and cremation grounds were
working twenty four hours a day and seven days a week. It is difficult to
predict the future of this virus and its mutations; how many where and when.
In
addition, Corona-the pandemic, changed the way of life in number of ways some
permanently others temporarily and still others intermittently. Many of the
changes are unknown at present would surface many years after. Education is one such important field.
Schools,
colleges, universities and other educational institutions were closed to avoid
spread of this infectious disease, they were the first and easy target of the
planners responsible for the control of Corona. How to carry on the studies without
disturbance that was the big question for the Governments all over. Nobody knew
how to start. Parents were worried and so the teachers, students, however those
in lower classes enjoyed the break without having home work to do.
Slowly
schools prepared assignments, some sent to the students by post or asked
students have collected and others by mobile phone WhatsApp. Some institutions
asked students to return these assignments after doing the home work and others
did not bother. Preparing assignments alone was not the end of the tunnel; practicals
and demos were also waiting their turn. Everything was haphazard: while little
ones’ were enjoying the most as they were not aware as to what had happened.
However it was a determined effort to make a start.
Slowly
the technology, as has always been, came to the rescue of the education system
and teaching staff, relieving some stress of the students, teachers and
parents. Initially system started online teaching, using Zoom Meeting technology available on
the internet: it had its own advantages and disadvantages: children were not
happy with the system as they were required to glue down to the chair during
the whole period of Zoom meeting and their absence was immediately visible to
the instructor. Continuity of the system was another big issue but its
advantage was that it was possible to carry on both on mobile phone as well as
computer with internet connection. Many students were not having even one of
them hence they had to take help of the owners of these resources.
It
took time to perfect the online teaching system, now only a computer linked to
internet is enough: both teachers and students have learnt the tricks of the
trade and Google Guru helped the system a lot. Initially, online teaching was
for an hour or so daily but now it has become almost the whole day affair, even
on holidays and odd hours too and all subjects programme. Education Boards and
Universities have also drawn up a system of taking examinations some online
with multi-choice questions with reduced syllabus others just assess students
on the basis of assignments submitted: every day new methods of assessment are
being invented: but practicals and demos are offline. In this process
narration, expression and merit has suffered. It is a boom for the students as
correctly envisaged by Dr. Marcus Specht much before the pandemic in his
following words:
“The students of the future will demand
the learning support that is appropriate for their situation or context.
Nothing more, nothing less. And they want it at the moment the need arises. Not
sooner, not later.
Dr. Marcus Specht,
Open University of
Netherlands.
Online
learning at school level lacks many good things of offline learning which
teaches life skills of getting up in the morning and be ready for the school in
time, taking breakfast, having neat and clean clothes and polished shoes, well
combed hair, collecting school satchel, saying bye bye to his mother, be safe
on the way to school and wishing the school teacher and hoo-ha of the class
room. In addition the discipline, respect, regards, obedience, playground,
morning-prayer, peer pressure, cooperation, sharing, time management, question-answers
sessions, discussions, debates, learning of listening skill, school recess a
wonderful period of experiencing sharing of what he did at home yesterday, all went off from the life of the students in
their formative years. This a big loss in the personality development of the
children and causing stress to parents, teachers and intelligentsia. It is
national loss irreparable although our education system wants schools and
colleges to open but they are not ready to take the responsibility to ensure
corona appropriate behavior by the students although a little more effort on
the part of the teaching community can certainly help to correct to the
situation at least to some extent. Another great disadvantage is that with
passage of time some students have now developed an attitude of avoiding
school. At professional level where majority of the students are hostellers,
managing studies is more difficult online as compared to school students
because here practicals, demonstrations, and experience sharing with experts
and CEOs of the companies are a more important aspect of the curriculum.
However,
on line learning can be used with advantage when we have grown up audience like
factory workers, office goers who learn to save their employment and make progress
in the career and also when we have large work force to train in a short period.
It can also be used with advantage when offline system returns full force to
cover up the left over syllabus, help students of the weaker sections of the
society and also to guide students when they face difficulties in their
assignments etc.
“Online learning is rapidly becoming
one of the most cost-effective ways to educate the world’s rapidly expanding
workforce.”
- Jack Messman
“In times where small instructor-led
classrooms tend to be the exception, electronic learning solutions can offer
more collaboration and interaction with experts and peers, as well as a higher
success rate than the live alternative.”
-
Keith Bachman
Teachers
and professionals on the other side of the Computer play an important role to
make teaching interesting for the learners. They should use every tool at their disposal
to make eLearning course interactive, fun, engaging, and exciting, so that students
can motivated to learn. Students are always interested to know which
real world benefits they can expect to receive, and how they can put the
information to good use when they step outside of the online classroom so the
professionals must know slightly more than required by the teaching assignment.
Talk to the people. Connect with them.
Make the e-learning sound like it’s a conversation between the people. Real
people not robots.
Cammy Bean
In
fact, Corona a great negativity, is a boom for introduction of online teaching
in the educational institutions which otherwise would have invited so many
difficulties, hardships and inertia from all the sections of the society
involved in teaching process.
Online
teaching is no substitute for schools, colleges, universities, coaching
institutes and research centers and had it been so books would substituted for
online teaching and also for offline teaching long back.
Human
lively interaction, mediocres insisting their so called silly questions that
have given the mankind best of the theories, inventions and innovations.
Creativity, quest to know more and deep is the essence of all teaching which is
more accomplished in class room teachings: hence class room would remain
supreme always and they have been so for time memorial.
Long Live my primary school where I
used to learn sitting on an empty jute bag 70+ years ago.
Education is what remains after one has
forgotten what one has learned in school.
Albert Einstein
No comments:
Post a Comment