COVID-19 appeared out of the blue and struck humanity without warning. It left all educational institutions, from the best school to the N.L. Dalmia Institute Mumbai struggling to respond to emergencies. It also led to a need for creativity in dealing with unforeseen situations like this catastrophic pandemic.
These things happen once in a century, and only a few of them manage to redefine the word “normal.” The entire education industry deserves more praise than they are getting for the swift responses they made to the pandemic amid lockdown restrictions. Their promptness resulted in the popularity of e-learning.
It’s Not So Easy
Indeed, it would be too simplistic to sit back and relax thinking that educational institutions are doing their best. Institutions are facing several challenges in terms of quality and effectiveness when it comes to online education. These challenges remain unaddressed due to self-congratulatory and feel-good sentiments. Will the heads of educational institutions choose to think out of the box and recognize, understand, and address these problems?
The Challenges
When you compare face-to-face learning with online learning, it highlights multiple issues in the latter that are quite significant. These setbacks are minor, but they do arise due to the lack of human connection, the absence of opportunities for collaborative learning, supervision of teachers, etc. After all, every subject is difficult in one way or another, and some are more challenging than others. Additionally, the rush in hosting online classes forced several vital teaching practices to take the backseat.
Bringing Back Quality
It does seem at times that “quality” is the only thing that doesn’t seem to be wholly present in online education. So, how can these institutions bring it back? What does the word “quality” mean in education anyway? The definition of “quality education” underwent a metamorphosis in the online mode. Currently, it includes ICT components that help overcome all challenges that resulted due to the physical distance between the teacher and the student. ICT is powerful and has the potential to help users overcome challenges and add value to online learning.
Planning Active Learning
The schools don’t just organize lectures in online classrooms. They lay the foundation for an active learning curriculum for MBA course in Mumbai. As they are physically absent from the classroom, faculties often go into long, winding explanations of a concept in a web-based class. The best way to avoid it is to create a well-planned sequence of activities for “active engagement” that will let learners interact with the teacher and fellow students in a hands-on, experiential learning environment.
Using IT Resources
According to renowned teachers and educators, four primary learning necessities form the base of all major educational theories spanning social cognition, constructivism, behaviorism, etc. These are arousal, self-determination, competence, and relatedness. Via gamification and technology, faculties can meet those necessities in an online class successfully. Technology is exceptionally powerful, and educators can use it to customize learning to a learner’s level, interest, academic, and social requirements.
Giving A Choice
Faculties control everything in a conventional class. They make the decisions regarding things to do, the right moment to do them, the best ways to do them, and everything else. On the other hand, faculties can enhance the motivation, interest, and involvement of a learner by allowing him/her to choose “how to learn.” They can pick from a massive range of activities, including audio/video podcasts, investigatory projects, presentations, surveys, gamification, quizzes, reports with illustrations and graphics, news-reporting, producing radio/TV shows, etc.
Collaborative learning
Irrespective of age, everyone learns through observing and imitating others. It’s entirely possible to create unique learning opportunities that can fulfill the four principles of social learning. Online peer-collaboration and peer-assessment could potentially fill the gap created by social distancing norms due to the outbreak of COVID-19.
Final considerations
As you can see, many educational institutes are providing education during troubled times like these, but only a few are providing quality education. N. L. Dalmia Institute of Management Studies and Research is one of those establishments that are doing their best to integrate “quality” with e-learning.