Effective Principals 2020 |Ms. Ramani George, Senior Principal of Alpha Matriculation Hr. Sec. School
Distance learning strategies in response to COVID-19 school closures
The Coronavirus pandemic has changed the way of our life and work approach in the past few months. One such critical area, where the need for change has become inevitable, world over is Education. In a matter of weeks, Covid -19 has upended the life of students, parents and teachers around the world.
To control the spread of Covid -19 and maintain social-distancing, Government temporarily closed all educational institutions across the country until further notice. Almost overnight, Students, Teachers, and Parents had to adapt and move to the new Online Teaching & Learning Environment of school education without the formal school settings.
It has deconstructed the perception of the standard methodology of teaching while we continue to experiment and innovate new and different ways of teaching. Some of the Strategies followed: Relationship with technology/ Orientation: To ensure productive involvement of the learner’s, teachers had to learn and update themselves on various available platforms for online teaching.
Teachers, Students and parents had to be educated and trained on the platform used and instructed on the decorum to be followed during the classes. Educator Preparation and Reliability: An on time, cheerful and enthusiastic teacher can create interest in the students. The presence of the teacher and Class mates during online classes inthis lock down period seemed a great relief for everyone.
Well-designed Course Outline and Schedule: A pre-planned module outline helped the teachers and students prepare themselves well in advance for the class. Assessment and Interactive Tasks: Assessments could be done by quiz, multiple choice questions and individual questioning through platforms like Google classroom, Microsoft forms, etc.
Flexibility: Taking into account that both teachers and students had to use electronic gadgets plan the time table very carefully to avoid long tedious hours. Support and Empathy: Recorded classes can be sent to students who have technical problems, which helps them to be part of online learning even though they miss a class for genuine reasons.
In this time of crisis, a well-versed educational Practice is what is needed for the overall development of the Students and most importantly also ensure the health and well-being is taken care in the days to come. I conclude with a quote by M David Merrill, First Principles of Instruction “With the growing popularity in e-learning, it occurred to me that the e should mean more than electronic. If we are going to call it e-learning, shouldn’t it be effective, efficient, and engaging?”
Effective Principals 2020 |Ms. Ramani George, Senior Principal of Alpha Matriculation Hr. Sec. School
325,638 total views
