As online charm wanes, teachers walk the extra mile to draw students

Closure of colleges and educational institutions have shifted lakhs of students to virtual classes with the help of technology. However, while the initial phase of migrating students to the online platform has been somehow done, there are several challenges that teaching staff are facing during the next stage of keeping students engaged in online sessions because of several hurdles including one-directional teaching methodology and lack of live interactive sessions.

Therefore, several teachers and professors are now spending at least three to four hours a day designing and developing teaching contents in various software tools to make the students attend the online classes.

For 56-year-old S Lakshmanan, who takes online Chemistry class for a college in the city, perhaps learning new software and online tools at this age was tough. "I am taking online classes for the first time. Initially, I was a bit tensed to face the students in virtual sessions. As I am not tech-savvy, my friends helped me how to use software tools effectively", he said.

"After doing minimum two hours of homework by learning through several online videos, I used to carry out a motivational session twice a week for the students to ensure that they understand the importance of studies and the time lost due to lockdown, which is not going to get back".

"Also, I do prepare edited recorded version of my class every day so that even if the students were missing out on certain concept due to poor internet connectivity, they will be able to go through the recorded version and catch up," he said and added the videos are being sent to all the students regularly.

According to Joint Action Council of College Teachers convenor R Dhamothran, who is also a Botany professor, initially, he had an online class strength of 20 students. "However, it suddenly reduced to seven a couple of months back. After the experts' advice, I started learning how to use PowerPoint presentations and Acrobat reader effectively to prepare classroom sessions," he said.

Stating that when the students and professors are physically present in the class it is quite easy to teach, he said: "During online sessions, there are chances of students getting disturbed. So I prepare the class session through different software tools by adding interesting pictures of scholars and eminent persons related to the subjects which yielded results".

S Parthiban, an acting principal of an institution in the city, said: "In addition to the classes, we have instructed our faculties that instead of focusing only on one-way communication, utilise the online time with them to facilitate student to reflect and make presentations on studies and activities on their own".