Online classes have been the go to solution for education in the past one year. Ever since the COVID-19 pandemic, the education system and the stakeholders of said system are confused as to when, what and how the teaching should be done. While most colleges, schools and others educational institutions took the approach of online classes, there were some who did not have the privilege of access to internet and technology that can help them access classes.
Some people, in worry of getting affected themselves, went back home to their hometowns, most of which were villages where network reception was considerably poor.
My experience with online classes has been mixed due to a wide variety of reasons.
When online classes began for a new semester in my college, our teachers assured us that they would do their best to help in understanding different concepts and theories. The learning process in itself however, needs more than just passive listening. It requires active participation which at the time, I just did not have the energy to indulge in due to the long days of leave that we had gotten beforehand. I started to realise at this point that the whole purpose of us going physically to college was to set the mood and in a way it forced us to pay attention to what was being taught in class. For the first few weeks I would only listen and answer in classes that I had utmost interest in, Cost and Management Accounting due to its practical nature and the only one law subject which was Constitutional law.
Rest of the classes were more or less me logging in and then doing other chores at home and then signing out just after 50 minutes out of an hour lecture because that was the minimum criteria to get attendance. There were other assignments given on a daily basis which were not given in offline classes just to make us more engaged with what we study. Furthermore, there was a database created wherein we could access all the data we needed in terms of academics. The content was uploaded by teachers and this turned out to be the most effective tool for us as we could refer anything that was taught at any given point of time. My college also held weekly sessions with legal luminaries who would talk to us about various topics of law and about their experiences in different fields of the law.
A month and half later came the online internals. A situation where students would copy with no regulation to finish a one hour paper in 10 minutes because the question banks were given beforehand and we would write down perfect answers one night before and scan and send them at the last minute of deadline to seem unsuspicious. This is how the first internals were conducted, the second one was a little more regulated with proctoring methods in place. Our cameras were to be turned on and there would be one teacher per class to see if we were copying or not. Even after these measures, there was copying among people but the overall number of people copying reduced to some extent.
Online classes gave me the flexibility to do other things such as free online course and virtual internship for a law firm which I would not be able to do in normal offline class schedule.
Finally came the offline end semester exams where everyone realised that it was time to get serious with self-study. Since most of the class did not pay attention to classes, it was that much difficult to study but the online database helped in accessing material.
The pedagogy methods being used in online classes has evolved in a short time span. Teachers now teach in a better method and in a way we find it easy to understand with appropriate assignments. They also have come up with techniques to fix loopholes as mentioned earlier. The class timings has reduced and breaks are given after they received feedback from the students.
Therefore, my experience with online classes has been both good and bad because it forced me to do a lot of self-study and research through which I learnt a lot more than they actually taught in class. Online classes however also made me lazy and skip classes. I think it is up to the individual to make the best out of any situation and the same can be said about online classes. The flexibility of such classes can be used for a lot of personal development and family time which cannot be achieved in usual circumstances.
Aishwarya Says:
I have always been against Glorifying Over Work and therefore, in the year 2021, I have decided to launch this campaign “Balancing Life”and talk about this wrong practice, that we have been following since last few years. I will be talking to and interviewing around 1 lakh people in the coming 2021 and publish their interview regarding their opinion on glamourising Over Work.
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