school reopening news: Talking Point: Is blended learning-teaching troublesome for teachers

With educational institutions reopening in a phased manner, the hybrid model of education has become a new normal, which could be a double-trouble for teachers

Teachers need to improve productivity

It becomes difficult for the teachers to manage their schedules in a blended model of education. More than technology, the problem is the multi-hybrid nature of this situation – a blend of online and offline classes, a mixture of on-campus and off-campus students, a combination of in-class and at-home teachers. The ongoing situation is creating challenges for institutions to follow a certain plan. It is best to embrace things as they are coming. Teachers will have to exponentially improve their productivity.

Ravinder Pal Singh, chief innovation and strategy officer, Rishihood University, Sonipat

Blended learning increases outreach


The blended model of teaching-learning has increased load on faculties as they have to manage two sets of students at one time. However, this format of education is a blessing in disguise as it increases outreach to those who are not able to afford costly on-campus education. Though, teachers and academic institutions need to be tech-savvy to adopt this new format. This will also be helpful to address the shortage of faculties in the institutions.

Priya Ranjan, professor, SRM University, Andhra Pradesh

Opportunity to evolve a new hybrid model


With the challenge of teaching online comes the opportunity to disrupt the traditional passive pedagogy of one-way communication from teacher to student. The dulling effects of passive pedagogy are amplified online, where students have the entire internet to distract themselves. The pandemic has compelled us to shift from passive to active learning methods in order to hold students’ attention. We have improved our ability to get students to speak, discuss, analyse, synthesise, critique, solve problems, collaborate, and express their creativity — methods that are more engaging and produce more enduring learning. By being forced online, we teachers also have sharpened the online skills that are second nature to our students. We now have an opportunity to transfer active learning methods from the virtual classroom to the physical classroom, thereby energising both. We can now evolve a new hybrid model that draws upon the best of both.

Jamshed Bharucha, founding vice chancellor, Sai University, Chennai

Hybrid model is new normal


Like in any other industry the pandemic posed challenges to the education sector too. Had it not been for resilient educators who not just rose to the challenge but emerged highly productive – it would have been a year of no education across the globe. As we inch towards resumption, our teams are now faced with the need for a hybrid teaching model. To take this head-on, teachers are well prepared with the requisite tools, strategies, and skills to deliver lessons both in-person and online. The school has worked on a blueprint that will clearly define what, how, when, and why of hybrid teaching if required. Not just the delivery of the content but we have also achieved the monitoring and evaluation of the delivery of lessons and the performance of the students effectively. As a team, we adapted to the situation by adopting effective methods of education to deliver our objectives. The hybrid model of education has started becoming a new normal and this would not be challenging from a delivery perspective for us as a leading school network.

Madhu Singh, principal, Billabong High International School, Mumbai

Juggling between online and offline is taxing


Although the teaching via online mode ensured that our operations continued unhindered even during the pandemic, there were several challenges endured by the teachers. During online teaching, it is very hard to gauge whether the students have understood their lessons or not. And to make sure that the students understand everything, involves a lot more effort. Also, no matter how advanced technology the teachers deployed for delivering their classes, some teething technical issues always hampered an otherwise smooth-flowing session. Furthermore, with the lockdown being called off and more schools open, juggling between online and offline teaching modes has been very taxing for a teacher and monitoring students through this hybrid mode is something that is not proving to be easy.

Archana Vishwanath, director, Jain Heritage School, Bangalore