Let’s openly admit that, at the moment, our education system is not ready for the transition to remote learning. This fairy tale wouldn’t necessarily end with a happy ending for all characters. Looking at how everything happens in many schools, I found a number of problems with this system.
Little practice
All students assimilate information differently. Thus, research shows that most children are kinesthetic learners who learn about the world through practical experience. And online practice often does not exist – only data that needs to be somehow altered and assimilated. And if something is not clear and there is no way to ask the teacher again, not every student will go to research the topic himself or herself. Hence the educational gaps.
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Poor technical equipment of schools and people
Not all teachers and students have the proper equipment to organize a high-quality learning process. The computers may be old, and there are no webcams, no microphones, no headsets, plus internet speed is low, etc. You have to buy everything yourself, or beg your parents to do it.
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Life did not prepare us for a total transition to remote learning. Not all teachers and students have this equipment and a stable internet connection at home. And not all teachers, in principle, can work from home: some have children yelling, some have one computer for three people, and so on.
Everything keeps getting stuck
Some electronic platforms were not ready for such an influx of users. As a result, everything keeps getting stuck and fails. As a result, everyone has problems: both parents and students.
High physical activity
Not everyone will be able to sit at the monitor for several hours in a row. In class, you can at least walk, go from class to class, enjoy physical activity, and have at least some variety. And with remote learning, you should sit and that’s all, and then you need to do homework at the monitor as well.
Unwillingness of teachers
Most of the teachers are elderly people; they are both morally and physically unprepared for distance learning. Many of them have a low level of knowledge of information/digital technologies. Everything is at the level of an extremely insecure user. Even simple browser setup processes are difficult, not to mention installing software, say, for video conferencing.
Nobody argues that switching to a new style of work is anxious and exhausting. Especially if there are no uniform instructions, and you need to figure everything out quickly.
Lack of personal communication
Many people learn from childhood mutually. That is, they grow up in society, together with their peers. This is an extremely important component of becoming for adolescents. In everyday life, students learn teamwork, conflict resolution, and effective interaction. And online students seem to be deprived of this.
For a teacher who is accustomed to keeping all the students in sight during the lesson, the “home” lesson can be a difficult challenge. After all, with distance learning, it is difficult to control all the students. Video conferencing, where the teacher can communicate with students and work on group projects in Google Docs, is not always able to solve this problem.
Life gadgetization
Usually, lessons at school last according to the strict schedule, and then the students have sports sections, other activities, or rest. But quarantine forced students to sit in front of monitors all day, and this negatively affects vision. Ophthalmologists generally do not advise children to be at screens for more than two hours a day.
In addition, after training, students often switch to entertaining content in gadgets, which is even more harmful. There are also many distractions at home, such as access to TV and consoles, so it is difficult for students to organize themselves.
Parents are control freaks
Many modern parents try to control every step of the child. And in quarantine, moms and dads can even check in what sequence the student completes the task and immediately check everything.
The need to work with student motivation
The modern teacher’s job is not to read a textbook aloud. The task is to motivate and inspire students, to keep them interested in the subject, to encourage curiosity and initiative. There is no computer system that can take over these functions. And now, as never before, the teacher needs to show all these talents. Educators may need to pay much more attention to those students who have problems with motivation and organization: such students may decide that learning is no longer necessary at all. Therefore, teachers will have to invent new forms of control over these students.
Absence of a border between working and free time
This problem is familiar to anyone working remotely. When working from home, a person can hardly tell exactly when his or her working day ends. Therefore, people often overwork. On the other hand, it can be difficult for family members of a teacher who works remotely to realize that he or she is not just “sitting at home all day.” Your relatives will probably interrupt you. Therefore, it is so important to find a corner for work and agree with family members: while you are sitting in this corner, you are the same as in a school classroom, albeit a virtual one.
During these hours, no one should distract you and turn to you. And to maintain a healthy balance of work and rest, set an alarm clock that will remind you to get up from the table every hour and do a warm-up, and after your work is done, you should generally turn off your computer and get some rest.
As you can see, remote learning is quite problematic for both learners and teachers. But the reality is that everyone will have to adapt, since distance learning is something that will accompany us for a long time. We hope that you are not faced with these problems and only enjoy the learning process.