Why There’s No Need to Fear the False Dichotomy of Online vs. Traditional

The Covid 19 pandemic has brought in a great deal of changes in our lives and has influenced every sector of human civilization including the teaching and learning process. The world is witnessing new and visible changes in the range of services and people’s behavior from shopping to traveling, working to education. The pandemic has pushed all of us to move towards digitization of business, education, and overall lifestyle a little faster. As we all know the outbreak of the pandemic has resulted in the shutting down of schools and colleges to deal with the threat of the deadly virus, online education has become the new norm.  

Learners all over the world have adopted the new learning methods and educators are trying their best to help the learners in their discourse of online education learning and the modern teaching method. With the wide acceptance of online teaching and learning system, where the schools and educational institutions have been running virtually for more than a year now, the question that has arisen time and again is if online education is the future of learning? Is it going to replace traditional classroom learning altogether?   

With all the efforts being made to fill the gap and cover the loss which students have faced due to the contagion, the possibility of online education replacing the traditional classrooms are far from happening. However, there have been two sets of opinions being posed against each other, where the technology advocates are convinced that the future of education is virtual and the second group of experts vouch for a return to the classrooms, but with some major changes and inclusion in the teaching and learning paradigm. Going by the trends in education currently and the methods which are expected to be added in the process here are some of the changes we can witness in the education system in the world as well as in India in the post-pandemic era.  

  • Blended learning approach  

The schools have been redesigning themselves ever since the breakdown of the pandemic, starting from the curriculum, pedagogy, the dispersal of classes, etc., it is most likely that the students in the post-pandemic timeline will get the options of attending the classes, physical as well as online as per their liking and comfort. In another case, they may require to attend physical classes on some days and online classes on the other. This will allow them to experience both the classroom as well as online coaching so that they can be free to study at their own pace. The blended learning approach will offer them adequate time to inculcate other co-curricular activities in their routine.    

  • Teacher’s roles and responsibilities are getting redefined  

With the pool of knowledge readily available over the internet, the role of the teachers is getting limited from knowledge providers to facilitators in the development of the child’s mental ability and overall personality. As mentioned above, online education has led to a lot of redesigning of the teaching process along with redefining the roles of the teachers. The educators are upgrading their styles and becoming more inclusive with the approach of teaching, at the same time they are trying establish easy communication channels for the students to approach them. The educators are come with more innovative methods of teaching and have started to look beyond the textbooks and blackboards.  

  • Teachers are getting comfortable with the technology  

We have witnesses how intelligently teachers have adopted themselves to new teaching methods with the use of technology through online classes, which came as the need during the pandemic. While it must have been difficult for them to except these changes, all of a sudden as they first need to understand the technology. The schools and educational institutions have also been instrumental in providing the necessary training and direction to the teachers to ease up the challenges and changes. For example, the CBSE schools in Bangalore like Edify have offered training to the teachers to adopt the new technology-supported approach of teaching and have been proactive to make the learning experience of the students better. 

  • The use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) will cater to the individual needs of the child  

Artificial intelligence made its entry in the educational sphere. With online teaching methods, students will have access to more graphic content such as video, audio, presentations, thereby increasing the ability to personalize learning. Schools and colleges now have started to vouch for personalized learning even more than before as every learner is unique and so are their needs, while efforts were made in the classrooms to cater to each child, the inclusion of AI in the future will boost the process. Just for instance Edify school, one of the CBSE schools in Bangalore has the reputation of delivering a personalized attention to the students to make the learning process compatible to their pace and need, efforts like this will achieve a greater height in the coming times supported by the technological inclusions.    

  Conclusion  

The outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic has severely disrupted all the aspects of human life including the education system. Educational institutions around the globe are closed and teaching-learning has moved online. In India, more than 30 crore students stopped moving schools/colleges and all educational/co-curricular activities came to an end. Despite of all these challenges, the educational institutions and teachers have reacted positively and managed to ensure that the students don’t face any major academic loss. All the schools have managed to continue teaching-learning virtually with the help of advanced tools and techniques.  

Due to the sudden adoption of online education many new modes of learning, new trends, and new perspectives have emerged and the same is expected to continue with new advancements as we go ahead to a new tomorrow. But there is no way to think that the traditional classrooms will be shut down and schools will be moved to a virtual space altogether. The post-pandemic era will witness the schools differently empowered and equipped to can deliver education impactfully.