TheViewFromAsia

Reimagining education with online teaching as the future

Asia News Network commentators discuss the pandemic's implications on the education sector. Here are excerpts:

Change the way we educate

Chito Salazar

Philippine Daily Inquirer, The Philippines

During this pandemic, businesses and industries are busy remaking themselves. However, all the reimagining going on in education just isn't reimagining enough.

We are looking at only incremental changes given spatial limitations. We are essentially reinterpreting the wise man on a platform, delivering a lecture to students arranged in rows and columns, albeit now online.

The necessity to reimagine education was there long before this crisis.

Since this pandemic is forcing us to think about altering the way we do education, rather than merely adapting to accommodate physical distancing, we must use this opportunity to fit the system into the already different world of work.

Allow me to propose three ways.

On the role of teachers: The advent of the Internet has all but eliminated teachers as sources of content or wellsprings of wisdom.

Almost everything learnt in schools, students now have at their fingertips. Teachers must be facilitators of learning as opposed to providers of knowledge.

They must help students navigate the Web, search for and critically analyse information, and determine fact from fake. The responsibility for learning shifts to the shoulders of the learners as opposed to those of the teacher.

On content itself: What used to be lifelong careers have become multiple careers over a lifetime, while even these careers have fragmented into jobs and tasks.

Companies are looking for people to perform specific tasks for limited periods of time, while the young move from business to culinary arts to fine arts in just a few years.

Therefore, education should refocus to offer competency-based certifications, even micro degrees, as opposed to multi-year degrees.

It should also move towards an emphasis on general competencies that apply over a wide range of careers and jobs.

On time and linearity: The speed of technological change has created opportunities in the workplace sooner and required the constant updating of competencies.

This has blurred the edges between the worlds of schooling and work - where people jump from one to another depending on need and opportunity, or one's workplace is one's school and vice versa, and where one can take 10 to 15 years to obtain a degree.

Don't get me wrong. Traditional schooling should continue to exist, but it should do so amid a plethora of new modalities and alternatives.

We shouldn't waste this opportunity to recreate education not only for the pandemic, but also for a whole new world.

Build a solid infrastructure

Editorial

The Korea Herald, South Korea

For South Korean schools, this is the first time that classes are being held online. There are concerns about how well prepared schools are for this transition.

Considering regional inequalities and disparities in e-learning preparedness, online classes may also widen educational inequalities within the country.

The Ministry of Education offers three options for distance learning: interactive real-time education using Zoom, a videoconferencing program; pre-recorded lectures, including lessons broadcast on television channels; and giving assignments as an alternative to online classes.

The ministry seems to have tried to give schools flexibility in online education, but the quality of education may vary greatly, depending on which option schools choose.

Online classes are an inevitable response to the Covid-19 crisis, but attempts to devise innovative ways of teaching are meaningful.

It is important for the education authorities to ensure no learners are left behind in online classrooms.

The most important factor in distance learning is preventing technical errors. Continuous connection is the key to online education.

The coronavirus crisis may be prolonged. The ministry must turn it into a chance to innovate education, and build a solid infrastructure for online education.

Digital democratisation of education looms

Nicholas Klomp

The Jakarta Post, Indonesia

The Covid-19 pandemic and the seriousness of social distancing measures have set in motion an unstoppable wave of advancements in digital learning.

Consider the forces at play here: the necessity for universities to pivot rapidly to online delivery during lockdown; the commercial gold rush in developing new educational services and technologies; and the growing realisation that university education can thrive when delivered completely online.

Online distance education is a viable, cost-effective and rapidly improving way of empowering students regardless of their location, age, gender or social status.

Covid-19 will bring forward the inevitable digital democratisation of education by a full generation.

But before we get too excited by this notion of an unforeseen virus fast-tracking education for all via a digital revolution, we need a quick reality check.

First, it is unlikely the digital classroom will ever fully displace the traditional campus classroom.

Those who seek the conventional face-to-face university teaching experience will continue to find a market saturated with providers offering this experience.

Second, the traditional classroom has served humanity well, so it is understandable that our civic and business leaders might be sceptical towards technological disruptions to established practices.

Third, the inevitable digital democratisation of global university systems brought about by Covid-19 is unlikely to occur smoothly, evenly or equitably.

Making teaching great again

Shamsad Mortuza

The Daily Star, Bangladesh

Online teaching, at its best, can create a learning environment to ensure transference of knowledge.

However, I am not sure if technology and innovations have reached that point to replace the tribal needs of human interactions that define the complex teacher-student relationship in a physical classroom.

The students who will be joining our universities are all born in or around the millennium. Their exposure to digital technology is way more than the teachers'. To impress these kids with our newly learnt art is going to be a tough act.

In the process, we may end up losing face to our students.

The challenge for teachers is to reinvent themselves as educators. They need to have self-understanding, including of their self-esteem, job motivation and task perception.

Let me point out some other challenges teachers today must embrace.

First, they need to pitch the difficulty level of their lessons according to the students.

Second, the stress factors from the pressures of online teaching without the physical proximity of teachers and peers can cause psychological concerns.

Third, maintaining a positive relation with all students, keeping them enthused over the course materials and not leaving anyone out while teaching online are some of the major challenges that a teacher faces today.

And finally, a teacher must constantly negotiate with the external expectations of the class and the limitations under which he or she has to perform.

• The View From Asia is a compilation of articles from The Straits Times' media partner Asia News Network, a grouping of 24 news media titles.

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A version of this article appeared in the print edition of The Sunday Times on May 31, 2020, with the headline Reimagining education with online teaching as the future. Subscribe