Indrani Singh
Jamshedpur, Jan 8: The Covid-19 pandemic has made the role of web-based learning in education as crucial as it has ever been.
As schools close, millions of children have had to adapt to a new type of learning.
Over 1.3 billion students worldwide have been affected by school closures (UNESCO, 2020). Web-based platforms such as Zoom, Google Classroom, Moodle, and many others are rapidly gaining traction among schools to provide students with course work. (Moore, 2015; Fresen, 2006).
When the pandemic ends and the world transitions to a “new normal,” web based learning is likely to remain.
Since 1990, online learning has increased with higher education institutions investing considerable resources in electronic learning technologies (Deng & Tavares, 2013; Moore, 2013).
These technologies included Learning Management Systems (LMS) to facilitate online courses and online student collaboration as well as track students’ progress (Islam, 2012). Alternatively, there are also inherent challenges with web-based courses.
These include lack of infrastructure to support web-based teaching and learning, such as the professional development to necessary to develop virtual teaching skills; time constraints; cyber insecurity; achievement gaps exacerbated by unsupportive home environments; and ensuring the integrity of assessment and evaluation (Hilli, 2020; Moore, 2015).
As more teachers are using web-based platforms in the foreseeable future, there are several challenges the educational system faces, in addition to the noted lack of teacher training for using web-based technology.
These include scarcity of curricula that integrate with web-based technology, and teachers’ lack of technological skills (Menon 2020; Wang 2004).
Attrition rates of online courses for K-12 students exceed attrition rates of students attending traditional courses (de la Varre, 2014).
Student-teacher relationships were tested in the spring of 2020 when K-12 school-teachers were met with the challenges created by the COVID-19 virus responses.
K-12 teachers not only had to develop and present content strictly online, but they also had to continue to nurture relationships with students. In adapting to the new reality of online teaching, K-12 teachers are trying to ascertain the well-being of students’ physical and emotional states as they would in site-based education. The student-teacher relationship is an important factor influencing students’ success in online learning, since it requires students and teachers to use a set of skills.
Suddenly, the entire dynamic of the classroom was changed wherein relationships, learning, and perceptions are impacted.
A recent evaluation of in-service teacher training reported that as Internet use grows and expands in schools, there will be a growing need for flexible teacher training in the use of the technology, and quality training programs that allow the active involvement of teachers in their learning process.
(Indrani Singh is a Doctoral Candidate at University of Tennessee, Knoxville, United States of America and former principal of ADLS Sunshine, an ICSE school in Jamshedpur)
