The online classes, though flexible to attend, will never be able to compete with traditional classes: Yash, IIEBM

These are first-hand student accounts on how our young population is managing to keep their exam prep or college course work going from the confines of their homes. In case you want to share your lockdown study experience, write to us at publish@shiksha.com.

Online classes have found an immense place and popularity in the curriculum of education these days. The requirement of teaching students and making them gain knowledge along with some skills is not confined to four walls of the classrooms anymore. It has taken over streets, states and countries as well. The new online scenario has made it possible for students to learn and enhance their knowledge without being physically present in the classroom. There was a time when a student’s physical presence was observed and counted by the teacher to know whether they have understood the topic well or not. But the technology upgradation has created an evolution in the teaching methodologies of the institutes.

Sitting in your bedroom and taking online classes with a snacking bowl beside your chair and trying to keep the utmost attention on the screen, how often have you succeeded? Things might have worked for you once or twice but the urge to be questioned by the teacher constantly whether we are paying attention, listening to them, having any doubts might have popped up behind somewhere while you are keeping the eyes focused on the screen. This is the current situation the students have been facing while attending online classes.

It might seem to be temporary or initial intimidation but the fact is that the education sector will be impacted a lot in the long term when the student’s ability to be focused will vanish with the course of time.

Since this situation of lockdown needed a solution for the academics to be covered, institutes were left with no other option but to conduct online classes to complete their syllabus and keep the students engaged in their day to day lectures. The online classes, though flexible to attend, will never be able to compete with traditional classes. The real-time examples, on spot scenario presentations and attentiveness in the traditional classroom will always lack in online education. When it comes to situation post lockdown, the institutes will shift to traditional classes immediately as they are well aware of their student’s need of having face to face interactions with the faculty members. Teachers are very well aware of the student’s level of comprehension just by taking a look of their face.

The idea of having online education as a future practice does not seem sustainable. Even though it makes the education reach door to door through our e-devices, the need of having a real classroom will always be an element missing. Though it can be facilitated with few offline interventions to give a better approach for students, like giving them online modules to watch at night and have a discussion the day after in classes. Not only will this encourage them to attend the online sessions seriously but will also enhance their thinking capacity to be answerable in the classroom following their questions and queries. The idea of having online education as a sole practice would disrupt the system of traditional classrooms and would also make it difficult for the institutes to have a reach to the overall students.

When it comes to bringing some changes and putting add-ons in the existing online classes to flourish, there has to be a regular check on students if they have taken full benefit of the classes or not. Each student has their own inheriting and comprehension capacity which differs with subject to subject and unless this is well known by the faculty members, there will not be a positive outcome from students when any revision is conducted.

The inclusion of regular tests, interactions with faculty members, assignments, real-time examples would supplement the results for a better and improved version of online class.

Even though the online teaching practices lack physical classroom features, there can be implementations taken up by the teachers in order to ensure full attention of students. Instead of making pre-made videos available for students to study, there can be more of live interactive sessions with a few numbers of students which would make it possible for the teacher to observe and get proper feedback from them. Having empathy with the students, making them aware that the teacher is available to answer their queries, creating more engaging content and brief videos considering the capacities of the students, while mentioning their names once or twice creates a sense of attachment within the students and hence would be a supplement to make the online classes feel more as a physical classroom.

About the Author:

Yash Vasanta belongs to Bhopal (MP). He is pursuing PDGM in Marketing specialisation from Indus Business School to enhance his interest and knowledge in marketing.