Art Of Teaching

Online classes pose its own set of challenges.

One being: the constraint in communication between the teacher and the pupil,
comparing face-to-face learning with online learning brings forward noteworthy deficiencies in the online mode such as lack of human bond, absence of opportunities of mutual learning, teacher control and the most glaring being lack of opportunities for hands-on learning in compound subjects such as science and mathematics. Besides, in the middle of the dash of hosting online classes the best teaching practices such as addressing learners Multiples Intelligences, Learning Styles and providing a differentiated learning experience have been relegated to the backburner.

Here, Then Comes The Role Of A Good School Head…

How does the head of a school deal with the challenges of value education in online mode and is it possible to strap up expertise to provide a rich, immersive, and holistic learning experience to the students?

Or is her main duty only to see to portion completion without checking the understanding level of students? A good Head will always try to find the pros and cons of the students and teachers and try her level best to remove the cons and not blindly follow the dictates of the Management and parents.

The major off-putting of shifting courses online has been the absence of face-to-face contact with students and their cutting off from the school environment. Many students often do not have access to online facilities, especially the underprivileged ones who live in places with poor connectivity.

Also one has to understand that portion has to be minimized for the teacher and student so that there is better understanding and evaluation of portion taught.

The Teachers…

In the middle of this digital change, teachers also face the added stress of converting all teaching material to digital formats, making worksheets, taking classes on platforms like Zoom and Google Classroom, checking WhatsApp images of home works, and reporting all of this information to both parents and School Heads. This is all the more difficult for female teachers who need to do all of this and still manage their households. Plus they have to be very careful as whatever they are teaching is subject to parents’ scrutiny and they may have to answer for lapses if any. Also, a good teacher will not get any satisfaction without face to face evaluation of the chapter taught.

The teachers are totally exposed in front of the parents who judge them and security issues may crop up where other people can log in using false names thereby using unethical means to get into the virtual space. This makes the teachers tense and leads to slack in their teaching standards and overall classroom discipline.

The Tiny Tots…

Schools are “where the children run around, play and laugh and argue with each other. They need to return to that sort of a healthy normality as soon as possible.

Children Are Totally Confused…

Online Schools have started in the midst of COVID 19. Every day they have to sit for online teaching. Though the timings are reduced, the way these online studies are being conducted it is highly objectionable and debatable.

 I agree that people will say this is the future new. But please remember they are small children. It is so difficult for adults like us to accept the changes. Think of how difficult it must be for the children, without their school mates to sit in front of a mobile phone or computer screen.

The teachers would be completing their portion lesson by lesson in their own way without any interactive teaching.

Who Will Check The Grasping & The Understanding Of The Students???

The options “MUTE EVERYBODY”, “UN-MUTE EVERYBODY” must be creating havoc in the child’s mind and by the time the child realizes he has a doubt, the teacher would have already gone ahead with her topic.

The Head needs to log into the teacher’s lesson for observation and give detailed feedback for better lesson planning.

A Personal Find…

I also got to learn from a teacher that she was astonished that all C Grade children were getting Full marks in the quiz conducted by her after every lesson, till she ultimately came to know that the children were going on “Video off Mode” and parents were helping them with the Quiz.

What a joke….. The rat race for position sans understanding continues here too.

Conclusion:

Whatever is happening today is stressful for the children as well as parents. It will lead to the students developing hatred towards the concept of school.

Everybody should remember that things like Physical Education, Drawing, and especially Mathematics are very difficult to grasp online.

In this, the “Overall Picture” stands that whether education is reaching to the children is not important.

It is important for Management of schools to start online classes as they are collecting fees.

It is necessary for teachers because they have to get their salary and complete their portion in time.

 It is necessary for the parents as they have paid fees and demand education for their children in return.

But what about the poor child?? Did anybody ask him/her what he/she wants??

All stakeholders are running a factory of education lacking any kind of human touch. These needs to stop…

Our aim as teachers is not only to provide education, but understand each and every child’s uniqueness, which is possible only in a classroom situation.

Indian students are not trained to be taught online. Many don’t own a smart phone, especially those from economically poor backgrounds. Buying an Internet pack is a common irritant.

Moreover, these students often struggle to get a proper Internet connection. Even teachers are not used to teaching online. They are skilled to teach in classroom situations using the blackboard and getting a first-hand response of understanding from students.

Teaching on a mobile phone gets very complicated as how to hold the phone. It becomes a problem to deliberate on the topic they are trying to teach.

Ultimately the scene is really very bad. But as many will say learners, teachers and parents are at the heart of everything. The school therefore is committed to help children get positive learning experiences, whether online or in school.

While online learning isn’t new for many teachers at a digitally savvy school, but it takes some time and adjustment when it suddenly runs in a full-time way to teach and learn. The catch here is the access of teachers to online visual materials and learning resources for better understanding, instead of the lecture method. Teaching with impact and testing through teach and re-teach is the need of the hour and developing meaningful teacher-student connections.

The Management…

If this is the Future New the Management needs to help the teachers get creative and use more and more content tools for cognitive understanding and agree to reduce the syllabus to an extent that it does not hamper understanding at the next level. At the same time allow teachers to go at their own pace without pressurizing them to complete the syllabus but concentrate more on application and evaluation.

The Management needs to get regular feedback from the Head, the parents, and teachers about difficulties faced and try to reduce the same to the bare minimum. While most agree closing schools was the right thing to do, there is a growing concern about a drop off in learning and the effectiveness of online teaching.

Think-Tank…

All need to address the educational disruption in their own unique ways because the problems of the students are region-specific, town- specific, environment-specific, and cannot be generalized at all.

The crisis has altered the teaching calendar. Alternatives need to be devised to accommodate for missed understanding.

These are challenging times and there is a need to provide flexibility and creativity to teachers.

Some examples:

• Warming up activities before class
• Onsite activities during class
• Closure activities after Class
• Hands-on activities

The principles of ( U – Learning ) Mobile ubiquitous learning like mobility, adaptability, accessibility, interactivity, interoperability, immediacy, permanency, pervasiveness, and content awareness needs to be developed.

I end by saying that it is very easy to dish out orders by the concerned authorities but they are very poor in providing an enabling environment to carry out the orders. Moreover, the teachers are not economically empowered enough to handle the technicalities of the trend like virtual workshops, peer feedback, etc.

This is a major setback to the process of online teaching.