Challenges To Online Learning During Lockdown
The entire world right now is amid an extraordinary situation that has emerged out of this global pandemic. Coronavirus has struck without a warning. It has forced the countries to resort to an unprecedented lockdown. This has resulted in an abrupt halt on everything and the academic world is not an exception. For its containment, the government was forced to order the closure of schools, universities, colleges which has badly disrupted the entire education system.
Online learning during this hard time has emerged as the most effective option for students/teachers as well as college/university management. This is being achieved through digital classroom software or online assessment software. In addition, the pandemic has also given rise to the need to deal creatively with such an unforeseen and once-in-a-century catastrophic event.
But educational institutions have quickly responded to the pandemic during lockdown restrictions. For this school principals deserve nothing less than a pat on their backs. Because of their efforts, there has been a spate in online classes for learners in all the fields ranging from a toddler to a student pursuing his doctorate degree.
There is no doubt that online lessons have helped all educational institutions to beat the CoVID-19 lockdown to move ahead with the academic calendar. However, this trend has posed serious challenges to the efficiency of e-learning. The article today discusses these difficulties. It also provides tips to overcome the same thing.
CHALLENGES TO READ ONLINE
A contrast between face-to – face learning and online learning undoubtedly shows major shortcomings in the online style. This includes lack of human interaction, lack of opportunities for group learning, supervision of teachers, and lack of hands-on opportunities for teaching challenging subjects such as science and math. However, by reading the article below, the tips and tricks mentioned may overpower them.
Students Often Get Bored
In an online classroom set up, teachers often become overzealous and end up taking long lectures. They do it to overcome the lack of physical presence. This leaves the students both passive, bored and eventually distracted. They no longer have the motivation to attend the classes further. Thus, to ensure active engagement of students, the teachers should use the various features that an online classroom software offers.
They should always keep in mind that the students see virtual classes as edutainment and not education. With the help of the option of screen sharing, the teachers can bring life to the lessons. While teaching any subject, the instructors can easily take the students to the actual history of the place or in the real world by using YouTube.
Not only this, but teachers can also make PowerPoint presentations that have simple pointers which the children can keep in their minds. While imparting lessons, the teachers to instil a sense of motivation in the students, have the option of engaging the students by creating quizzes with quiz creator software. These quizzes also help the teachers to check the knowledge of students.
Students Never Revisit The Feedback Given To Them By Their Teachers
In online classes, the teachers cannot personally give feedback to children the way they used to during traditional mode of teaching. However, to make sure that the students are not devoid of this personal touch, they try their best by telling the learners on the ways they can improve their assignment.
The setback to this aspect of feedback is that once the students submit their tasks online, they hardly revisit them to check the suggestions and comments of teachers. To overcome this challenge, the teachers can always ask the students to upload their homework on online exam software.
The software lets the teachers send automated emails to the students who either haven’t completed their tasks or who haven’t logged in for some days. They can also make study groups to create a sense of accountability. The software easily helps the instructors to do follow-ups to check if the students have revisited the feedbacks given by their teachers or not.
Even if the students have any problem while completing the tasks assigned to them, they always have an option of contacting their teachers. They can contact them by using the chat option available in the online teaching app.
Connectivity Issues
Due to the lockdown, attending online classes has become the only feasible option for many students in India. However, being a developing country, there are still several areas where people do not have access to basic amenities such as electricity, let alone internet connectivity. Even in areas where electricity is available, there are network issues that pose a challenge to attending online classes. Although children living in villages often manage to purchase internet packs to attend classes, there are still instances where they are unable to attend the entire session.
This puts them behind their other classmates in terms of knowledge. The instructors can record the classes by using the record feature available in the online classes app to ensure that no attendee is left behind. They can share the same on YouTube or through WhatsApp.
With this those unlucky students who were unable to attend the live session due to low bandwidth have an option of watching them whenever they want to. Other students can also at their own pace revisit the recorded lessons as many times as they wish before attending another session.
Participants showed disrespect during online classes
Students are potentially destructive over online classes than constructive. The tech-savvy kids handle gizmos as well as double down on their usual classroom naughtiness even when they attend classes online. Teachers during virtual classes try to take control of these unruly kids and maintain discipline but often fail. However, while giving classes online, there are certain features available on the online teaching app that can help them to tackle this issue.
To control the naughty kids, the instructors have the option of turning off the screen sharing option. They can mute the participants to maintain decorum as well as remove them if in case they still do not understand despite warnings.
Security Breaches
Using unsecured apps for giving classes online puts the users at the risk of being prone to crimes committed through computers. Not only this but the exposure of the internet puts the children at the danger of being exploited by cybercriminals for online sexual exploitation.
To avoid the possibility, the educational institutions should prefer using an online classroom software that is protected with a secure socket layer. This layer provides an end to end encryption that prevents data hacking by unethical hackers. It also protects users from being victims of cybercrimes.
Teachers Are Not Aware Of The Student’s Progress
Due to the lockdown, several international and national boards have included in their syllabus topics that are difficult for teachers to teach and explain virtually. Moreover, even if educators make an effort to teach these complex subjects, they may not be fully aware of students’ progress in their online classes. Even if they conduct online assessments, they may still be unable to evaluate students’ communication, vocabulary, and critical thinking skills.
The authorities feel that these attributes are hard to assess when they test the students through a virtual model. However, for actually assessing each and every aspect of the students, the school or college authorities can take exams by using online examination software.
The software has the feature with the help of which the teachers get a true picture of the student’s understanding. As soon as the children complete the exam, an analysed report is displayed automatically. This detailed report gives the teachers an idea of the areas where each and every student lack. The software also has a feature of online proctoring. This option equipped with artificial intelligence enables the authorities to get a surety that the score of the students is real.
The Bottom line
From dealing with basic internet access and a chronically undependable supply of resources to systemic problems such as curriculum and teaching methods, educators who teach online have been under immense stress. One reason behind this is that they were never trained to deliver quality education virtually.
Though teaching online has its challenges as discussed above but still, they can be solved if the educational institutions use the right tools during this hard time that have explicit features. We at Pesofts are doing our bit for ensuring continuity in education by providing various types of online learning tools that are available at affordable rates.
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