As I had said in an earlier post, my kids were due to start their online classes from 16th June. But, with just a day to go, it was postponed. Apparently due to technical reasons, whatever that meant. I do not know about the technical reasons, but I do want to believe that the delay was also partly because students’ health issues were being discussed.

Let me tell you what happened and you can decide for yourself.

Soon after the classes were announced, a group of parents, who are also doctors, went to meet Director Medical Services of Bokaro General Hospital. The parents’ concern was that 5 hours of online classes would adversely impact the health of students. Especially if parents are not available to supervise the classes.

Finally when the classes started, there were changes:

  • No online classes for the primary wing students. Only e-content is being sent to them everyday.
  • Three classes rather than the earlier 5 for students of classes 6 to 8.
  • Online classes for 2 to 5 were introduced 2 weeks later. One class every day.

Online classes for 2 to 5 were introduced 2 weeks later. One class every day.

I am happy that the number of hours children have to spend in front of screen has been reduced but other concerns remain in place.

Over the last week I have talked to a couple of my friends who are teachers and have been pushed to take online classes during the pandemic. The most frequent issue they raised was holding the attention of students and conducting assessment.

It is clear that they need training to cope with the changed scenario.

What school management is doing

I brought this up with Dr Arun Jee, Principal DPS Bathinda, and he told me what his school was doing to help teachers.

“We got them trained by a renowned expert named Prof M M Pant, the former province chancellor of IGNOU, just before the online classes were to begin. The theme was Flipped Classroom. He has been conducting Whatsapp workshops for principals, teachers, professors since 2016. It was a very fruitful session even for me. I started using certain features of Whatsapp that I had ignored earlier. Later we got the teachers trained by an online company.”

Dr. Arun Jee, Principal, DPS Bhatinds

I was not convinced that one session could be sufficient for the teachers and I asked him straight away. And he agreed with me. He said, “I think they are still not enough. They need constant training and hand holding to get the desired results.”

Teachers are the ones who are in the field.

As I mentioned earlier, over the past week I have been talking to many teachers. Barring one teacher, who said that he has been taking online classes for the past 3 years, all of them have started taking online classes over the past 3 to 4 months. They received some sort of online training but in hindsight they feel it was not sufficient to prepare them for the actual classes.

The training programs taught them how to use online platforms like Microsoft team, Zoom, Google Meet and Google Classrooms for conducting the classes. But they are still struggling to hold the students’ attention in the online class!! And to take assessments.

Shifting classrooms online. Lock, stock and barrel.

Truth be told, we are actually trying to shift the whole offline teaching online, as it is, without considering the differences between the two. In an offline class, the teacher can see all their students and vice versa. It is easier for them to gauge the mood of the students and see for themselves how they are responding. This allows them to make the necessary changes so that the attention of the students does not waver and class can be conducted smoothly.

But with online classes this is not so and this needs a paradigm shift in method of teaching. Whenever we adopt technology the key is always preparedness. And this preparedness is not only for having the necessary infrastructure in place but also sufficient training for the people who would be using them.

Some solutions.

Here is what the schools should actually be doing.

Use recorded videos for introducing concepts

Instead of each teachers teaching their own classes, some of the content can be recorded by a single teacher and shared in all the classes. Students can watch those videos on their own, more than once if they want. And then the teachers can take the online sessions where they discuss the problems faced by students. And the teacher can give additional inputs. The online sessions can be reinforcement of what the students have already learnt through the videos. This will be beneficial in more ways than one.

For one, technology would help reduce the burden of teachers not increased them, as it should. By distributing the topics among the teachers each teacher will have lesser workload. Second, the students will come to the class prepared and hence there can be more meaningful discussions, leading to a better learning by them.

Even in regular classroom it is ideal to have a freewheeling discussion after a new concept  has been introduced. It is not always feasible for various reasons, but technology can assist here. Plus, it will have a snowball effect too. Once a content has been recorded it can be used as long as the teachers feel it is still relevant. In fact, some content is already available, like the CBSE youtube channel, which can be used.

We all know that every teacher has their own strong points. Some are very good in explaining the concepts while others enjoy fielding questions from the students. The teachers who are good in explaining concepts can record these videos so that all the students get advantage of their excellence, something which is not exactly possible in a traditional classroom setting.

Need for change in attitude towards student assessment

Traditional assessment model will need to change in the new normal. And the teachers need to change their mindset. Any technology is as good or as bad as those who adopt it. Ideally, assessment should be just a tool to help the students understand better. But traditionally assessments have been used to compare the students and rank them according to their performance in those 30, 60 or 120 minutes.

This child has achieved full marks so they must be very bright, or this child received less marks so they do not pay attention in the class or are not interested in learning.

I often feel that open book assessment will give students another motivation to study. Can you imagine having a 250 pages book in front of you and trying to find the answer of a question in stipulated time?  Honestly, I cannot if I already do not have a fairly good idea of where to find that answer.

With Google available at every student’s fingertips at all times, is it really necessary for them to rote learn the concepts? No, it is more important to understand things and apply them to real life. Even the NCF 2005 talked of moving away from rote learning and assessments gradually. You can get a gist here on wikipedia or download the real thing from NCERT website here.

So assessments need to be designed to assess the ability of a student to understand new concepts not rote learn and regurgigate at the appropriate time.

What next

Use of technology in education was inevitable because we are gradually but definitely moving towards a completely digital world. COVID-19 pandemic has forced this transformation on us but this should be looked upon as an opportunity. Because I cannot fathom any scenario where such large scale transformation to online education could have been implemented.

Let us grab this opportunity and turn it into an advantage. This is possible only if all of us -parents, teachers, school management and the government work together to bring education at the doorstep of every child. Using technology in an innovative and fruitful way. The impact will automatically follow.always come later.