Navigating the Seas of Educating Online

As I write this, I am reminded of the fable I read as a child.

A father and son duo walk a new donkey home from the market. At first the people nearby comment that they are not making use of the donkey by allowing it to walk bare-backed and free. So, the son gets on the donkey. Soon the bystanders note how cruel he is to make his aged father hobble along. After that, they switch places and the father rides the animal instead. Soon the villagers begin to pity the young boy made to trudge on in the sun by his cruel father. In response to the remarks, the pair both sit on the animal’s back and go on their way. Alas, this happiness is short-lived as people turn their attention to the overworked donkey. Finally, in frustration, they tie the donkey’s legs, and carry it between the both of them. Lo and behold, people point out what fools they are for carrying the beast of burden instead of using it.  

In the recent months, teaching and learning has seen tremendous shift. In the wake of the health pandemic, very abruptly, educators were forced to take teaching and learning wholly online. While we grappled with certain aspects of organisation in the beginning of the COVID-19 season, year 2021 saw us a little more prepared.

Schools devised timetables for online learning. New students were registered online and sorted into their classes. All information, speeches, introductory content had to be disseminated online via social media and communication apps like WhatsApp and Telegram. Teachers created groups or platforms for their subjects. These were separate from official Class Groups. Teachers were told that teaching had to be online and accessible by all students. We were ready.

Immediately, Google Meets or Zoom classes were scheduled. Three weeks in, and the attendance started to dwindle. There were complaints that Google Meet was difficult because there were not enough devices at home for all children to join at the same time. Understandable. A video conferencing session also took up a lot of data. Many homes did not have strong enough Wi-Fi connections, if at all, to cope with the demands of these live sessions. Yes, we know.

To cater to this, we reduced Google Meet sessions and added other forms of learning like quizzes and online worksheets with links that could be completed at any time. “Gamification” of learning is a buzzword of 21^st century learning. Students who completed quizzes and tasks scored points and topped leader boards. We are on the right track now, we thought.

This was soon criticised as a lazy form of teaching. In a scathing Facebook post, a user opined that schoolteachers were taking the easy way out. “Students cannot depend on links and quizzes half the time. Where is the teaching?” The sharing, that garnered a lot of online attention, urged teachers to take a leaf out of lecturers’ books and record video lessons to be shared with students instead. This, the writer stressed, was the best method of reaching all students and had been the practice of many in tertiary education.

Again, many teachers then scrambled to appease in response. Society was the judge with a gavel in its hands.

Deep down it bothered us that this “non-interactive, lecturing style” was recommended to educate school children. In university, mass lectures were the norm. However, this practice was heavily frowned upon in schools, where questions, re-explanations and two-way communication were encouraged instead. But we kept pandering. Lessons were recorded on platforms like YouTube. Videos were accompanied by slides from PowerPoint teaching grammatical structures and vocabulary.

Alas, parents soon began to grumble about the “lack of teacher guidance.” It seemed that this university-approved method was also deemed a short cut to actual teaching. “How can my child learn and ask questions to a video? Then, you expect her to do homework. Where is the teaching?” Concerned parents took to the class groups to share their frustrations.

Judge’s verdict: STILL GUILTY

If you feel slightly burnt out by February, you are not alone. Parallels to the father-son-donkey fable seem quite apparent now.

At the end of the day, I believe it is important to stand by the saying “there is no pleasing everyone.” As educators the best we can do is try to tailor our teaching to the students’ needs. While some may mix up their methods, others might prefer to utilise only one or two if their students can manage them. Taking into consideration different students' backgrounds and accessibility to the Internet, we may wish to decide what is best to get the lessons across. 

THOUGHTS: 

We were always headed in the direction of online technology in education, business, and many other sectors, but this pandemic has indeed accelerated that shift. Adapting is vital to moving forward.