Virtual classrooms require superhuman tendencies – Miss Noreema

Education Month 2020

By Lakhram Bhagirat

Teachers, like many others, are parents and have school-age children as well. With the COVID-19 pandemic forcing them to reimagine ways of engaging their students, many have turned to virtual means such as Edmodo, Google Classroom, Google Meet and Zoom to deliver lessons.
There are many challenges those teachers face in delivering education via virtual means where there is no infrastructure to support it. Doing so requires a herculean effort from those teachers, but they are making it work.
One such teacher making it work is Noreema Azaad-Ledra, who have been turning to technology to deliver materials to her students at the St Rose’s High School.
For Azaad-Ledra, the last time she was in a physical classroom before her students was on March 13 before the Education Ministry announced the closure of schools owing to the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Honestly, I miss being at school; miss having face-to-face interactions with the students – talk stories and laugh at jokes with the children; enjoy dramatic presentations and classroom activities. Through these interactions, bonds are formed and students develop friendships with their peers and form connections with teachers. These are things that we cannot truly establish via online teaching,” she said.
Now she uses various online mediums to engage her students. However, prior to March 2020, Azaad-Ledra had never used any of these online forums. Also, there was no formal training on how to utilise these new platforms to engage students rather it was each teacher’s responsibility to learn how to manoeuvre on these platforms so that they can be equipped to help the nation’s children.
Additionally, educational YouTube videos have played a major role in the dissemination of concepts. As one may know, it is extremely difficult to sit and read for long periods from a device so teachers are now forced to explore different options to help the process and keeping their students interested.
When Azaad-Ledra’s school commenced classes online, there was no fixed timetable, and students were encouraged to create schedules to be organised and not be frazzled. For this term, they now have a timetable that allows for better organisation of teaching time and less overlapping of classes.
However, as no single platform was designed by the Ministry for schools to utilise, each teacher has no choice but to use whatever means he/she is comfortable with.
“I personally have been using Edmodo and Google Classroom to post handouts, videos, audios, worksheets, etc. Then, I use Zoom for discussions/interactions with the students. WhatsApp has been used mostly for immediate communication and notification purposes. It definitely takes a bit of organisation and patience to monitor the online classrooms and to respond readily, not only to students but parents also,” Azaad-Ledra related.
Like many teachers, she is aware that not every student will be in a position to access the various online mediums of learning so there are systems developed to address those needs. For now, they would print handouts for parents to pick up at schools and are trying to accommodate those students who are encountering difficulties.
Also, some of the students have committed to going to Internet cafes once per week to acquire notes or feedback on work sent. The names of those students have also been collected by the school in an effort to provide tangible support for them so that they can access classes as their fellow students.
The challenges are many for the teachers and include faulty Internet access. In Azaad-Ledra’s case, she has been forced to change her Internet Service Provider which has been costly. In addition, she has a faulty laptop.
“Managing family life and work simultaneously have been tedious. Many teachers have school-age children that require the use of said technological devices, therefore, sacrifices have to be made to share the devices in the home. Us mothers have also been juggling household chores, cooking, caring for children, helping them with their own school work, all the while completing our online engagements with the students. Sometimes, it feels like we need to be super humans.
“One recurrent challenge is that some students are not joining live sessions. There are those students who need that extra push and if parents are possibly at work, there is no one there to monitor them. In situations like these, there is very little that a teacher can do. Parents are informed as teachers cannot do it alone. We are in a time where students need to be responsible for their own learning. There is no room for spoon-feeding as everything is virtual,” the teacher noted.
Many days, one can become frustrated, but she has not given up on her students and try to do everything to keep them engaged.
When asked about her suggestions for an improvement to the online delivery of education, Azaad-Ledra said: “If a single online platform is created where each teacher and student can log in and join the various subject rooms and be monitored at the same time, this would be less confusing and there would be more accountability in the process. There are private schools that have done this; however, as a public school, we required Ministry of Education’s input in creating such a platform.
“It would be nice if teachers could be equipped with the necessary devices to be able to better complete tasks. The laptops that were given to teachers previously, many were faulty and were of little to no use. Therefore, if considerations are given to teachers in this regard, we would truly be grateful.”