COVID – 19 has changed every working system, including our social life, the schools, and colleges. People worldwide are forced to stay at home to avoid the spread of COVID – 19. It has changed the way of living and even we can see the new normal in education as well.
It’s a new beginning, a fresh start to our lives, not to stop, keep going- no matter what, this is what makes us going. It has set whole new challenges, especially in education. However, with the new emerging technologies, we can cope up with the situations.
Technology-enabled online teaching is something which we are looking for in future, but will it be easy to overcome all the problems ? Will it be helpful to the challenges that teachers and students are facing ? e-Learning will answer all of these questions and will be the new normal in education.
Yes, you heard it right. In the new normal era, all the schools and colleges will have to adopt the practice of online teaching. The training and teaching platforms will be available for both the students and teachers.
Challenges of New Normal in Education
Semester Completion Task
As neither of us wasn’t aware of nor ready for the sudden lockdown, it has become more difficult for both the teachers and students to carry their schedule as per the plans.
- Semester completion was one of the major tasks that the government had to take.
- The emphasis developed a robust strategy to complete semesters and ensure degree completion of final year students.
- The academic plans have to be modified, such as changing both the teaching and assessment methods, to match current situations.
- Switching from offline to online teaching and studying has to be encouraged – building the technology infrastructure to deliver content, content platforms such as swayam, promotions, innovative teaching, and learning platforms.
- In short, the solution to allow course completion through swayam within universities can address the crisis.
- The online learning will help and ensure personalized teaching – learning in classrooms and reducing the workloads of teachers.
- Since the ed-tech models pose a huge scalability challenge, giving limited internet penetration.
Internship and Job Opportunities
Though some companies are offering internships and job opportunities after the outbreak of COVID–19. Even junior students are suffering hard in finding internships, specifically foreign research opportunities.
New project opportunities within government institutions and by universities must be floated. Setting up more innovation and incubation centers, grants/fellowship to pursue start-up ideas, and flexible policies for the deferred placement for start-up enthusiasts.
Psychological Disturbance
Due to the sudden lockdown, many people worldwide are mentally disturbed, as they cannot see and meet their family members, friends, and loved ones. The lockdown has made everyone stay at homes with doors shut.
It is very natural for anyone in such situations to undergo stress and sometimes anxiety with uncertainty. Thus, any time a proper psychological support system has to be established, that supports and maintains the students’ mental health.
Reduced Income
This is a time and situation where people around the globe are experiencing financial difficulties. Business trap, lost job, no traveling all referring to low income or no income. Those who are suffering majorly are the middle-class family students and the public school students, as it has become more challenging to provide smartphones to each of their children for online studying.
New loans and scholarships must be opened, enabling students to complete their high education, pursue their dreams, and repay the loans—needs motivating research across engineering, medical, and management that brings innovative ideas with better outcomes.
The government and the education bodies must have been working together to set up disaster management research centers. All universities must conduct a mandatory course on disaster management to make everyone ready for any crisis so as to ensure minimal damage in all sectors.
Grades
Student’s grading is the controversial topic during this pandemic. What kind of assessment should be used for online classes?
How much parents involvement is required so as to ensure that young students can adopt online learning easily.
The assessments and grades are reviewed for the new normal in education, so they continue to be relevant to students. Schools and colleges have deeply thought about their purposes and priorities in designing assessments and grades. Students must be encouraged for online learning despite of continuing them to call for remote learning.
Educators agree that rates must reflect a student’s knowledge of how much he learned and what he can do. At this new normal in education, the grades may cause anxiety, specifically in students.
Top Priorities in Sudden Crisis
Being safe, privacy, security, and digital well being are the top priorities in this pandemic crisis. A large number of educational and technological bodies stepped up to help connect the teachers and students. The surge in the video-conferencing platforms and the learning management systems show how the educators got quick solutions in this pandemic.
In the new normal, both the students and teachers are exposed to internet for some particular period, both should consider each other’s privacy, security, safety, and digital wellbeing. Students and school staff both should be trained to safeguard their personal information online. One thing that COVID-19 has taught us is the skill to adapt new technologies.
Final Verdict
Changes in the lifestyle and the way of learning seems to be the only way to get in flow with the new normal. But if we properly follow the new proposed ways, we can easily get aligned with the new normal in education.
One of the best tool for online classrooms is Google Classrooms. We have an exclusive article on “Google Classroom Tutorials with its Quick Start Guide, Features and its Uses“.
