Virtual Classes: 7 essentials to make them effective

With remote learning being the only choice for students during the COVID-19 pandemic, parents and teachers have been concerned about quite a few challenges that online education poses. Some of them include, lack of peer learning, inadequately trained teachers and increase screen time among many. Here are the essential elements that can make remote learning a success.  

Trained Teachers 
A pool of technologically equipped teachers is the pre-requisite for the success of remote learning modalities. But to impart knowledge successfully through the digital medium, teachers need more than just technical know-how. “In the absence of a physical classroom, it becomes challenging for teachers to make the same impact on students. So, in a virtual set-up teachers need to be more creative about their improvisation skills. Listening to great orators can help them engage the students in an effective way,” says Sharad Bhatia, Co-Founder and CEO, K8 School.  

Interaction with peers 
Peer learning is a crucial aspect of education. So, in a virtual class setting, it is essential to make provisions for children to interact with their peers online in order to ensure the best learning outcomes. “Options like a virtual gallery walk or a virtual breakaway room, where students can interact with each other, share what they are doing and exchange ideas under the supervision of a teacher can be a good option,” says Dr. Ameeta Mulla Wattal, Principal, Springdales School, Pusa Road and Kirti Nagar, Delhi.  

Close Monitoring 
“Schools should have a strong learning management system (LMS) to monitor students. An efficient LMS allows parents to check their kids’ learning activities at different timelines, the duration of log-in time, the pages they are logged on to, so on and so forth,” says Bhatia. “In a virtual class with a small batch of students, teachers are also able to pay more attention to each child which is not possible in a physical class with 30 students,” he adds.  

Balanced approach 
One of the major concerns that parents have about virtual mode of learning is increased screen time and lack of physical action. Teachers and parents need to maintain a balanced approach and weave in a lot of physical activities along with other assignments in the study plan.  

Constructive feedback 
Parents, like teachers, have now become equal stake holders in children’s education. So, they need to share constructive feedback with schools to improve learning outcomes. 

Good Studios 
Digital education includes a lot of audio-visual content. “To impart knowledge through the audio-visual medium, schools should have good studios which they currently lack. This should be part of their improvement plan,” says Bhatia.   

Integration of artificial intelligence (AI) 
Integration of AI in education, if done methodically can ensure best learning outcomes for students. “AI will help us make a predictive analysis of what kind of content is good for what age group of students, track their performances and learning patterns. All of these will help us make the best learning modules for students,” says Bhatia.