Reflection on the lesson during pandemic.

 

Reflection on online teaching.

March 6^th became the alarming sound where teaching and learning turned away from its usual class. The closing of school and letting the children at the mercy of their parents for learning during the COVID-19 pandemic is an emergency response to contain the spread of the corona-virus. Normal teaching shifted to virtual learning, where every one of us is new to system especially for primary classes. The primary aim is to quickly provide temporary, reliable access to instruction and support their learning during a crisis, not to re-create a robust educational ecosystem.  Although it’s not ideal to continue with online learning for the country like Bhutan but pandemic made us compulsory for such type of learning. With much deliberation during staff meeting and consultation with parents came to a conclusion of using We-chat for teaching and learning.

Simple survey verbally found We-chat, the means of communication for the parents. Things are much tougher with varied family background and literacy of parents. In the latter scenario, it's hard to measure how more than a small fraction of the students reacting to us, and also hard to manage a discussion. Students not having smart phones and affordability of data became a concern and above all parents’ guidance is a concern for a teacher like me. The pressure from ministry seems like a dictator’s order, wanting a child to get through but on the other hand, tracing the child is difficult for us. Once students are in group, constant change of phone made us hell like job.

 

Unlike the normal class room, Virtual Classroom is accessible for them 24 hours a day. Time efficiency is another strength brought by the online learning format for our children. Asynchronous communication through online conferencing programs allows the professional juggling work, family, and study schedules to participate in class discussions. There is no question about doing the work; just do it at the times that are more convenient. Students can access their courses at any time of day or night. Further, they have continuous access to lectures, course materials, and class discussions. This is particularly convenient for those students who may need to reread a lecture or take more time to reflect on some material before moving on with their assigned work. The students can have more control over their learning process in an online learning environment and time makes them more effective for learning.

 

With abundances of time and freedom, learning still becomes a question and authenticate of the work is still unknown. Every month we travel to every individual in a community for validation of the work and face to face interaction with students. The work that I have provided seems more like that of a copy past for most and for some there seems lot of learning taking place. The moment I interreact with some feels like teaching and assigning some additional questions.

 

Teaching thought videos and short clips didn’t work for most of the students, so the option left for me is through image and some description verbally. Effectiveness of video may be enormous however attributable to monetary and poor network in some places made us handicap.

 The moment we post our lesson online, we get hold of a spark off comments form a few students however anticipating days and a few to the extent of calling loses our interest too.

Nevertheless, the lesson that we have learnt during this pandemic is beyond our thoughts and imagination. I taught my students how to use gadgets in a smarter way for educational purpose and learning in the absent of teacher. An online instructor must be able to compensate for lack of physical presence by creating a supportive environment in the Virtual Classroom, wherein students feel comfortable participating and especially where students know that their instructor is accessible. Failure to do this can alienate the class both from each other and from the instructor. However, even if a teacher is competent enough to create a comfortable virtual environment in which the class can operate, nevertheless the shortage of physical presence at an organization can be a limitation for an online application. 

As we move from place to place, many a times we found that the correction that we did on online never have been effective. There are so many excuses of net problem, phone memory and parents at one station and child in another location. Nonetheless I am satisfied because I was able to monitor and do on time correction. Face to face feedback interaction is one of the satisfying works ever did in the last two months. The most and touching feedback from my students is lack of gadgets, where they have more than one child sharing phone with their parents. Many a times parents are out of station and even they are there, it is disturbing with calls. As an effective measure, door to door correction and feedback on the spot gradually improved a lot. Every child does their work on time and with integrity.