Will Shift to Online Teaching be good or bad for students? Will it change the way we educate?

Online teaching is the only form of teaching that has been adopted by all the educational institutions due to the global COVID -19 pandemic. It is the only prominent option that is left to conduct education smoothly. Students and teachers have already started incorporating online education to continue the teaching and to not let it affect the student’s career. While this approach has gained worldwide popularity now, many educational institutes have started implementing blended learning approaches before this. Even earlier, we can see almost every classroom making use of technologies to implement a better learning environment for the students. 

An example of this could be the presentations used while teaching. Also, many learners who were not able to take traditional education adopted distance learning. This gave them a benefit to attend the classes at their own timing while fulfilling other commitments. This is also because an online course is very cheap as compared to the traditional educational approach. Now the shift to online teaching is witnessed all over the world. This has bought online education in the limelight and both teachers and students are able to understand it’s importance. 

However, there are both upsides and downsides to the online approach. Let us discuss how online education has affected students and the way of teaching. 

1. Talking about the upsides, online learning has its benefits that the traditional approach cannot offer to an individual. The main benefit is that students can learn at their own pace. Online education is extremely flexible and offers students to learn at their own pace and time. Students can log in and start studying anytime without any pressure. There is also no particular time limit for when the students can complete their courses. 

Whereas, in a traditional approach, students have to attend the classroom and the teachers have to teach the same syllabus to a bunch of students. Each student has a different pace of learning which is mostly not taken into consideration when attending schools and colleges. Even if students do not understand anything, they have to go with the entire classroom as a fixed amount of time is given to the teachers to complete the syllabus. 

2. In an online approach, students get to learn a lot of new things out of their syllabus as well. Teachers can utilize various tools available and can make the whole session interesting and engaging. They get to use various eBooks, presentations, videos, etc to encourage students to participate more in the class. 

On the other hand, in a traditional approach, teachers cannot make the lectures more engaging as the approach itself does not offer any new methods of teaching. Teachers teach the same things over and over again that mainly includes reading books. 

3. Online education makes use of an online teaching platform. It is the main form of teaching that connects teachers and students. The platform offers many tools that encourage both teachers and students to conduct a hassle-free class. The platform allows good collaboration among both teachers and students. Along with this, it is also necessary that the platform should be easy to use so that there is no problem while teaching. This online teaching platform benefits teachers as they get to improve their technical knowledge. 

However, it is important to check the hardware and software requirements before getting started with this tool. Let’s face it not all students and teachers are experts when it comes to handling the technology. This is one of the downsides of online education. One solution that all the educational institutes can follow is that they can train their teachers. They can teach them how to use this online teaching software. 

4. While online learning has the majority of benefits, which we saw above, it also contains some downsides. 

Students can miss their physical teaching environment i.e. their teachers and friends. Every student is different and their need for learning can vary. While most of the students have adjusted with online learning, there are still some students who have difficulty in learning from an online environment. 

However, there is a solution to this problem i.e. teachers can make sure to be in touch with such students. They need to show them that they are always reachable and can guide them. Teachers need to be open to students and share their contact information in case any student is facing any issues in their studies. 

5. There are also many online courses/lectures that are pre-recorded. In such case, if any student has doubts regarding any study-related topic then teachers should be there to help them. An online environment sometimes becomes difficult and challenging as students have to keep themselves motivated. 

6. The last downside that online education has is the availability of resources. We know that the poverty rate in our country is high. Not all students can afford to buy a laptop/smartphone with an internet connection. There are many village areas where there is no electricity or proper networks. In this case, online learning becomes very difficult as these students do not have the access to such learning resources. The digital divide is witnessed based on location, gender, age, etc. This problem needs to be taken into consideration as still, the country is not ready to go fully digital and embrace online learning. 

Conclusion

the shift to online education is witnessed worldwide and it will form an important form of teaching in the future as well. It has definitely changed the way of teaching and affected students. While the majority of the students have adjusted to the fact of online learning, there are still many of them that are struggling for the same. Educational institutes can make use of the best online teaching platform for free to reduce the cost to them as well as the students and conduct a smooth collaboration between the two.