Real Time Learning

The schools are closed in almost 138 countries of the world affecting the 15 billion children and youth throughout. The UNESCO REPORT has been published on site with a date wise animation on closure of schools.

          

                  

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            

Now each and every country is taking policies measures to reduce the impact. In India the impact would be little less as compared to some of the other countries. When the closure was announced by the policy makers, the schools were going with the annual assessment process to promote the students to the next year. A session break followed by the summer vacations will consume much of the period under threat of coronavirus. How ever it will definitely have an impact on higher education as the competitive exams dates will be revised as we are not done with the senior secondary board exams on time. Very few of schools have started their online classes in time. But I will discuss only about the opportunities to explore the learning more in a different ways from the teacher's as well as student's end. 

As we all believe that the developments and all major inventions are the results of natural or manmade calamities whether it were world wars/mechanic failures or global warming/pandemics. After each and every disaster the mankind has stood up with the new capabilities. The same is going to happen at the end of this Corona period. 

Going ahead with the above mentioned efficiency of human being to come out of problem with the new techniques and theories. The students also learn well when introduced with a problem. They are more creative when relevancy of the subject is there. This is the time to involve them in problem based learning method. Hence we will discuss how Corona time is relevant to learn some complex topics also. 

We are being frequently presented now a days with some terms like PANDEMIC, COMMUNICATIVE DISEASE, LOCK DOWN, PRECAUTIONS, HOARDING, BIOLOGICAL WEAPONS, SOCIAL DISTANCING, HEALTH SERVICES, CHARITY, ESSENTIAL SERVICES, FINANCIAL BREAK DOWN, SANITIZING, LIFE SPAN OF VIRUS, IMMUNITY and many more is coming to us from various media. Even the elders who are illiterates are also discussing about this. Suppose someone has not studied the microorganism but still he knows about virus and bacteria as of now. When the information comes from various channels, it has an impact on us positive or negative it depends on the source and objectives of these sources.    

The shift from traditional classrooms to online delivery modal, provides the students with an opportunity to engage in Real Time Classroom with a proper relevancy of things but if all the stakeholders i.e students, teachers, parents and school leaders are on the same page. Suppose the schools have asked the student to do a project on 'Social Change', in that case it should be started with, 'The impact of lockdown on Family members in their day to day tasks'. The topic is directly linked with a lesson My Family EVS. Now the parents will be able to help the students as the topic has relevancy and already it is introduced through media.

Hence the stimulus need to be changed. The condition to have a maximum output is, the teachers should be more creative and sensible enough to catch the idea of new stimulus. And of course it's not a difficult task. I believe that a teacher who is teaching the same content from 3-4 years, is quite experienced and creative enough to do the same. I believe that a student from 5th grade can easily pen down the 'Benefits of using sanitizers'. 

Usually, in a classroom our contents goes from general to specific like, we study satellites in solar system but in situation like today we will have to go from specific to general. We may start with a task, 'Draw the Shapes of Moon On Every Alternate Night'. The topic will end up, after following more activities, with the completion of chapter 'Solar System'.

The students love to work when given freedom to do. Their enthusiasm is doubled when they are asked to lead and explore. Due to coronavirus threat, they are put on learning from home mechanism and this will be an opportunity for them to be engaged in genuine and self disciplined learning environment full of fun, which ends up with a sense of achievement. They are more creative as creativity is more when things around you less structured.

To sum up, the edworld is also taking it as an opportunity. People are experimenting technology due to limits of social distancing. Microsoft and Google are the topmost companies have come with the technology help to the schools. Google G suite for education and Google Classroom are available free for schools. It contains all tutorials and training available on line.

Hope this phase of threat will be over soon and the world will be more beautiful with all its capabilities developed due to this time period.