Assessing student performance a challenge in the online mode: Experts

In early March this year, Sunita Kadam, a Class 8 teacher from a civic body school in Mumbai was busy drawing up a list of academically weak students

In early March this year, Sunita Kadam, a Class 8 teacher from a civic body school in Mumbai was busy drawing up a list of academically weak students.

HT Image

With her class being conducted online since March 2020, Kadam said that it was becoming a big challenge for the students. “Last year, all these students passed without proper assessments and this year too, the same will repeat. However, there are a few students who are lagging behind their other counterparts in terms of learning key concepts. We are now working on these students to bridge the learning gap that has been seen due to online learning,” said Kadam.

As schools and colleges remain online for more than a year now, understanding and evaluating the academic performance of students and taking corrective action is becoming one of the biggest challenges for teachers and schools.

In 2020, students from Classes 1 to 8 were promoted based on internal assessments conducted at the school level. Class 9 and 11 students underwent tests and exams online. Those who failed to clear these exams had to undergo another round of tests in the days to come. Students in colleges and universities had to undergo online multiple-choice questions (MCQ) to pass their semesters. This year, students of Class 1 to 12 barring Class 10 and 12 will be promoted to the next class without any exams.

‘Can have disastrous consequences’

Experts said that not being able to conduct assessments of students can have disastrous consequences on their overall learning outcomes of students. Sudam Kumbhar, former principal of Shailendra High School in Dahisar said that the consequences are particularly alarming for students from low-income households.

“In families with low economic means, the children have already suffered a lot due to the pandemic. There are anxieties about employment and overall existence. In online classes, nearly 50% of students are often absent because they are accompanying their parents to their workplaces or have no access to phones and gadgets. It thus becomes crucial to assess the learning levels of such students which will not happen systematically because there are no exams and assessments,” added Kumbhar.

Over the last year, a large number of students from colleges and universities who were previously struggling to get their backlogs cleared have managed to pass, said colleges. This is particularly a cause of concern because there is no way to know whether these students have merely passed the exams or have understood the subject during this time.

“Every year, some students in every class end up with ATKT (allowed to keep terms) which they carry forward to the next semester. In some cases, students carry forward their KTs for two years but all this changed with the MCQ format of exams. While students have passed the exam, we are doubting how much of the subject they’ve realistically understood,” said the principal of a suburban college. Gopakumaran Thampi, principal of Thadomal Shahani Engineering College in Bandra said, “Even though most students in our institute have scored very well, teachers are worried that students have not understood basic concepts and this will affect their ability to understand larger concepts in the future courses/subjects.”

Lack of learning continuity

In December 2020, Leadership for Equity, a Pune-based NGO that works closely with the state education department conducted a community survey to assess the impact of the pandemic on learning. The sample survey conducted across six districts in the state (Pune, Akola, Satara, Solapur, Ahmednagar, Nashik) revealed that one of the biggest repercussions of prolonged school closures was the lack of learning continuity among students. A large number of parents and teachers expressed concerns about learning losses as only about two of the 10 students surveyed, reported having access to a phone during their study time. In eight of the 10 households, more than one person was sharing a phone thus raising concerns about the reach of online learning.

Standard guidelines are important

Francis Joseph, a city-based educationist and the co-founder of SLN Global Network said that in the days to come, it is important to have consistency and universality in strategies used for bridging the learning gaps.

“Right now, each school is working on addressing issues arising out of online learning at its level as per its understanding. We need to understand that school leaders are not necessarily experts in pedagogy and thus boards need to come up with a set of standard guidelines for this. We need to understand that under the current circumstance, the entire schooling system needs to slow down a bit and rework its entire structure to make it easier on students for the coming 2-3 years. The repercussions of the losses during the pandemic will have to be dealt with even in the years to come,” he added.

Trial by error learning

The sudden change from regular classes to the virtual mode affected teaching as well as learning modules across higher education institutes. Several colleges started training teachers before starting regular lectures but for a large chunk of teachers, learning was trial by error.

“Most colleges were waiting for the University of Mumbai to announce the course of action, and once the announcement to start classes in the virtual mode came through, colleges were unprepared. Many of us understood the virtual classroom on our own by making many mistakes and learning from them,” said a senior professor from a suburban college.

While theory sessions were conducted smoothly by colleges, practical sessions were a challenge for many. “We used the best technology possible and recorded videos of practical sessions for students, which were shared regularly. In case some students did not understand the concept, we allowed them to physically report to the college and conducted practical sessions keeping social distancing in mind,” said Hemlata Bagla, principal of KC College, Churchgate. She added that students preferred depending on virtual classes as compared to physical classes as many were back in their hometowns and travelling would’ve been a problem.

Increase in learning inequalities

Educationists said while assessing the performance of students is a tough task without conducting periodic tests and exams, governments need to understand that learning losses due to the pandemic is a very critical concern. “Like always, it is going to increase learning inequalities. Those who can afford the best tutors and help will sail through. For families where retaining children in schools is a challenge, these learning losses would pose challenges in future as students have to compete for various exams,” added Kumbhar.

“For the poor, their marks are the only gateway to a good education and if learning is not equal, we cannot test students on the same levels for sure,” said a teacher.