Online education should be continued even after the COVID-19 pandemic is over: Study

The research suggested that the curriculum for online teaching should be short and activity-based. Teachers need to be trained for online teaching and assessment.

Research conducted by a team of faculty at Indian Institute of Teacher Education Gandhinagar has shown that online education should be continued even after the pandemic is over. The study to assess the impact of online education in Gujarat school education was conducted by a team of 15, with two associate professors from the department of education as main researchers, over five months since July 2020.

“There were obvious issues such as internet connectivity but many cases, especially in pre-primary or lower primary classes, suggested that online education should be continued even after the Covid pandemic is over. In addition to students and parents, educationists too opined that there should be a mix of online and offline education,” said Prof Nishant Joshi from IITE’s department of education.

The study involved over 300 students, parents, teachers and educationists representing rural and urban areas, government, grant-in-aid and self-financed schools from pre-primary to secondary and higher secondary classes across the state.

“It is the reality of the ‘new normal’ situation and cannot be ignored. However, it is equally important to understand that the online education mode cannot be the alternative of face-to-face teaching, and it can always be supplementary. Considering the same, students, teachers, parents and schools need to adapt the online teaching process,” the report concluded.

Professor Joshi added that the study points out the need for cultivating discipline and changing the learning habits.

“From the feedback and analysis of data, it was revealed that the process of transformation from face-to-face teaching mode to online learning should be easy, natural, slow and progressive. Online learning can achieve the objective of transacting knowledge, but concentrated efforts are required to achieve other objectives,” he said. The analysis of data revealed that the majority of subjects have shared that online teaching facilitates students’ individual learning needs as it provides time flexibility for learning at personal ease.

They also suggested that the curriculum for online teaching should be short and activity-based. Teachers need to be trained for online teaching and assessment.

Similarly, teachers suggested that efforts are required to sensitise parents to take online teaching mode seriously, it concluded.

On the infrastructural glitches, Prof Sudhir Tandel, second main researcher of the study, said, “The success of online learning and preventing it from being a cause for social disparity depends entirely on setting up necessary infrastructure at the schools level and providing basic facilities such as tablets and mobile phone, and internet connectivity. The study also pointed out the need to create an environment like interactive classroom.”

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