Teaching and Learning under Distress
Impact of Covid-19 on students
Once, there was a joyful time for us to chitchat with the neighboring bosom friends at school. Once, we were thrilled to share, and even mutually grab food during our lunch break. Although rarely played truant, we were the students who learned the academic subjects out of enthusiasm. Teachers were teaching fast, yet smoothly, and we were absorbing at our best, until every one of us were halted by a devilish, microscopic agent known as ‘SARS CoV-2’. A new era has arrived, and we as students, do really miss the ‘salubrious’ proximate learning environment at the non-virtual classroom. A glimpse of the associated scientific aspects on this crisis unravels along the following lines.
A Quick Shift from Physical to Digital Learning
The global outbreak of Covid-19 has forced the human society to practise social distancing, as a preventive measure of acquiring the disease and a means of isolating the contaminated from the rest of the community. Therefore, almost every country commenced a lockdown in operation, making all the schools, colleges, and other educational institutions closed. School term tests, university examinations, and professional entrance exams were cancelled indefinitely, and even the release of the results of already held exams were delayed. Therefore, this closure imposed a dreadful effect on the education industry, which is a vital part of the future economic prospects of a country. Meanwhile, a demand for a quick shift from physical to digital learning has emerged to retain the momentum of education (Kapasia et al., 2020).
Inadvertent troubles…
However, earlier meta-analyses have implicated that the efficacy of electronic learning on digital arenas is better than nothing when compared to a conventional classroom (Cook, 2009). Students’ academic lives have been distracted and interrupted by a decrease in family income, restricted access to digital online platforms, and expensive internet data packages, and the most agonized are the students from financially less privileged social backgrounds. Furthermore, the requirement for both students and teachers to possess the competency to formally utilize digital resources is notable. (Aucejo et al. 2020). Moreover, not only the education of students, but also their social life and mental health are adversely affected due to the interconnected facts such as sedentary learning process, travel restrictions, irregular sleeping patterns, poor social interactions and the spread of Covid-19 (Odriozola-gonzález et al., 2020). Psychological health conditions such as depression, solitude, anxiety and stress have been identified in youngsters, especially due to the absence of co-studying company. The impact generated among peer classmates, which mutually motivates students to engage in their studies more competitively and coherently is lost, too (Elmer, 2020). Therefore, to upgrade the learning experience of the distressed students, responsible authorities should identify the challenges that arose as a result of the abrupt switch to online learning from the traditional physically-present education, and direct students to be prepared for any similar future instances.
Some constructive suggestions
Some research studies have proven that educational institutes should modify their syllabi, and develop content appropriately for habitual online learning practices (Adnan & Anwar, 2020). Moreover, there is a dire need to enlighten people on the significance of minimizing overall digital screen exposure, and using comforting screen viewing practices. In order to mitigate the epidemic of eye strain, officials should aim to shorten the duration of online classes for students (Ganne et al., 2020). Investing more on the electronic infrastructure, and proper training of teaching parties would further enable the strengthening of the student-teacher relationship. Many survey-based studies have implied that most of these unfavorable circumstances on studentship would be cleared off by introducing novel platforms, efficacious concepts and health guidelines in terms of teaching and learning, since a huge gap has been observed between the government policies and the ongoing real scenario (Chaturvedi et al., 2021).
References
1. Adnan, M. and Anwar, K., 2020. Online Learning amid the COVID-19 Pandemic: Students’ Perspectives. Online Submission, 2(1), pp.45–51.
2. Aucejo, E.M., French, J., Araya, M.P.U. and Zafar, B., 2020. The impact of COVID-19 on student experiences and expectations: Evidence from a survey. Journal of public economics, 191, p.104271.
3. Chaturvedi, K., Vishwakarma, D.K. and Singh, N., 2021. COVID-19 and its impact on education, social life and mental health of students: A survey. Children and youth services review, 121, p.105866.
4. Cook, D.A., 2009. The failure of e-learning research to inform educational practice, and what we can do about it. Medical teacher, 31(2), pp.158–162.
5. Elmer, T., Mepham, K. and Stadtfeld, C., 2020. Students under lockdown: Comparisons of students’ social networks and mental health before and during the COVID-19 crisis in Switzerland. Plos one, 15(7), p.e0236337.
6. Ganne, P., Najeeb, S., Chaitanya, G., Sharma, A. and Krishnappa, N.C., 2020. Digital Eye Strain Epidemic amid COVID-19 Pandemic–A Cross-sectional Survey. Ophthalmic epidemiology, pp.1–8.
7. Kapasia, N., Paul, P., Roy, A., Saha, J., Zaveri, A., Mallick, R., Barman, B., Das, P. and Chouhan, P., 2020. Impact of lockdown on learning status of undergraduate and postgraduate students during COVID-19 pandemic in West Bengal, India. Children and Youth Services Review, 116, p.105194.
8. Odriozola-González, P., Planchuelo-Gómez, Á., Irurtia, M.J. and de Luis-García, R., 2020. Psychological effects of the COVID-19 outbreak and lockdown among students and workers of a Spanish university. Psychiatry research, 290, p.113108.
