Problems and issues of online teaching during Covid pandemic – A teacher’s perspective

Problems and issues of online teaching during Covid pandemic – A teacher’s perspective

Kavita Khanna, PRT junior wing, DPS Mathura Road

“A global pandemic can affect our mental and physical health – and that’s without even catching the virus!” —Mahatma Gandhi

This motivational quote reminds us that strength is an exercise of the mind, not just the body.

Allow me to take you few months back.

One fine day when a busy classroom was about to wrap up it’s ongoing session, there was a news of WHO declaring a global pandemic Covid19. At the first instance people thought it will be a matter of few days and we will be back to school. But the sudden increase in cases and seeing what was happening worldwide, we all understood that science would take time to come up with a vaccine. The schools remained physically closed. But education and learning continued. The teachers promptly shifted to online platform, underwent online training and helped each other face the new challenges.

The teachers turned into student themselves and transformed content resources from written text available  to online text and made power point presentations. As soon as online content was made (borrowed from reliable resources), due credit was given to all its sources. They learnt and then taught netiquettes to the children.

The teachers had another issue waiting for them — the internet connectivity issues. Trainings on how to tackle internet issues as well as how to use smartphone, whatsapp pen and Microsoft applications came to the rescue of the teachers. The teachers learned to tackle them.

This was followed by how online teaching will help students? How will the students be able to concentrate that much, as the hours to be spent using screen was about to increase? Also how will the teachers assess learning outcomes?

Since Covid19 has hit our nation badly, many people lost their jobs. So the question on fees was also raised; which was tackled well by the Government authorities. All these issues were handled by concerned authorities all over the country in  a positive way. As we all know — together we stand divided we fall. Soon, a balance was struck .The students managed to learn in a new way, played online quizzes, helped their friends on whatsapp, enthusiastically participated in live assessments for co-curricular subjects and sent classwork on MS teams or whatsapp for assessment as well as appeared for online examinations through Microsoft quizzes. Both the teachers and students sailed through the tough times and happily adapted to the new platforms.

Learning should never stop. Our children should continue to master the skills and learn to adapt to new life situations. Last but not the least health is wealth. Studying not only the content but rather learning about life, surroundings, hygiene plays an important role in one’s life. Soon we will be out of Pandemic and will be back to SCHOOL. All the best!