Student and faculty engagement when schools reopen

As the world is emerging from a global crisis – COVID-19 pandemic, the future awaits. It is not going to be the same anymore. Currently, around 1.3–1.5 billion students and youth are affected worldwide by school and university closures. Other country-specific localized closures have impacted millions of additional learners. Governments are trying to mitigate this impact by facilitating continuity of education through remote learning. Online learning is the future of education.

As the transition from Classroom to Zoom is panning out, much has changed. Academic schedules have been disrupted, many students have limited computer and internet access, conducting virtual classes is stressful for teachers not used to technology. However, the education industry is trying to adjust and adapt to the new normal. Many new learnings, trends, and perspectives will emerge as we move forward for school reopening:

• Fewer kids will attend school
• Lesser kids will go out of town or overseas to study
• With social distancing, little or no sports
• Multiple shifts in schools
• Social distancing may lead to being ‘socially distant’
• Teaching will be tech-savvy
• Distance learning courses may not be considered inferior
• Blended learning and personalized education
• Examination and grading will change
• Augmented Reality (AR) will make visualization and storytelling better
• Digital teaching may kill books, the skill of handwriting

We cannot go back to the pre-pandemic time. We will have to adjust to the new normal. We will have to relearn the expected order of classroom teaching, rethink contact hours, revisit the notion of everyone doing the same thing at the same time, re-examine assignments that invite cheating, recalibrate control and authority and correct perceptions about students’ access to technology and teacher’s relationship with it. Content creation will play a more important role in the new situation.

Ways of the new ‘normal’

When schools reopen, here is how faculty and students can engage, interact, and collaborate:

• Blended Learning: Face-to-face (F2F) learning is much better than total online training. A blended approach may inculcate the best of both worlds and create a better learning experience. Teachers can experiment with various online tools and customize them as per their requirements.
• Teacher collaboration will improve learning: Teachers will need to collaborate and initiate solutions to facilitate the new methods of teaching and assessments. They can share experiences, learn from each other, and form online communities to make things easier and standardized.

• Quality teaching and learning material will change: Teachers will need to redesign their teaching formats and learning materials. They can search for various high-quality online learning tools. Software such as Moodle or Blackboard that teachers use to upload materials and videos for sharing, allow students to upload assignments, and enable the management of student records are useful.

• The building of real-time virtual classrooms: Online teaching is evolving into real-time synchronous virtual classrooms. With various conferencing software such as Microsoft Teams, Zoom and Google Hangouts Meet real-time video interactions are possible. Also, interactions through text or voice through live ‘chat rooms’ are possible, enabling student engagement. There are built-in video recording options for teachers to record lectures, for after-class viewing by students. Teachers can also set up online tutoring groups.

• Change in teaching methodology: As academic schedules change, teachers will have to revisit their subject teaching plans, assessment details, teaching materials, and determine new ways to interact with students. Teachers will have to adapt to video-teaching and in time, an integrative new technology. Simulating human interactions in a classroom will need to be done for video-teaching.

• Handling student issues: Teachers will need to address new issues and challenges carefully, such as students’ privacy, their home environment, Wi-Fi access, network speed and stability, cybersecurity, and time differences for students from different regions.

• Need for self-discipline: Students will need to be more self-disciplined to adapt to the new teaching modalities. They must study and complete assignments with full integrity, attend online classes regularly, participate in real-time class discussions at home, according to their class schedules. Students can also take up self-learning and creative pursuits. They will need to be connected with their teachers for support.

• Innovative ways of thinking: Teachers will need to come up with new ways to motivate students, encourage them to be proactive during real-time class discussions, how to implement innovative teaching concepts more effectively, how to maintain care and guidance for students who need it and how to integrate and share online teaching experiences with others.

• Better preparation: Students can watch the relevant teaching materials before the live online class. This way they are more prepared for the class and teachers can make better use of class hours to address particular issues and have more meaningful discussions. So, classes can be more interactive and learning deeper.

•  More personalized approach: The most important aspect of this new real-time interactive teaching and learning is that it can accommodate scale and personalized approach simultaneously. With interactive polling functions through video teaching software, teachers can get an in-depth analysis of how each student has performed and the specific areas of improvement for them. Based on real-time data, teachers can understand students’ responses, assist them faster and provide learning accuracy.

With the large shift from the traditional F2F experience, a ‘phigital‘ experience will offer students the convenience and personalization they seek. Simultaneously schools will get opportunities to understand and enhance student experience and improve operational efficiencies.

Conclusion

Tomorrow will be a new beginning. Change is desirable, inevitable. How we leverage this situation is entirely up to us. Whether we use this opportunity to our advantage or let it pass is up to us. Whether we are shocked by the new realities or create shock-absorbers is entirely upon us – a journey to a new tomorrow.