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Experts: Online education adversely affected students in pandemic year
According to teachers and experts, online education throughout the year has adversely affected students’ abilities to learn and grasp various things
According to teachers and experts, online education throughout the year has adversely affected students’ abilities to learn and grasp various things.
The lack of understanding among students about various topics and subjects came to fore during various assessment exercises for class X and XII. This has led to worries among teachers and parents at a time when final exams are approaching.
Speaking about the performance of his child, a city-based parent Manoj Tangadpalliwar said that there was no way of clearing the doubts of the child this time.
“My son is in class 12 and it is not prepared for the upcoming examination at all. He has not done even a single offline practical this time, and many concepts of Physics, Chemistry and Mathematics are not clear to him as the classes were completely online this time,” said Tangadpalliwar.
He added that during online classes, not all children could clarify their doubts.
“Now, that the examination is just three weeks away, the students are asked to complete the practical journals. They have not performed even one practical even after the schools started offline classes briefly. During the offline classes, teachers focused on other syllabus completion and then immediately the schools were shut due to a surge of Covid-19 cases,” said Tangadpalliwar.
Talking about how online education has been ineffective, Hearmb Kulkarni, director, strategy and education technology, Council for Creative Education (CCE), Finland who works actively in the field of education said that last year when online classes started, the teachers were not ready to start online education.
“There has been no training for teachers as to how to teach online. Their teaching is restricted to using different platforms and teaching through presentations, but this is not sufficient to keep the students interested in online education. The focus of teachers should have been on skill-based teaching last year,” said Kulkarni.
He added that his team did a small survey among teachers last year.
“Many teachers noted that students do not pay attention during class. They mute the teachers or browse through internet while the teacher is teaching. All of this happens due to the teaching technique being only theory based,” said Kulkarni.
He emphasized that students should be taught in asynchronous teaching process so that they get a clear understanding of the concepts.
“75 percent teaching should be asynchronous, that is concepts should be taught by easy experiments that students can do at home. As students participate, all of this becomes easy for them to understand,” said Kulkarni.
Medha Sinnarkar, principal of Apte Prashala said that though online education was a challenge, the focus of the teachers was to clarify doubts of the child.
“As the schools started offline, more students participated. We immediately started revising important topics. Our teachers also clarified doubts as per examination pattern. We started taking writing practices, the revision helped from offline classes,” said Sinnarkar.
