A lot has been said about the future of education and what it will not look like. The future is a lot of things, not just digital. Learning as a process has never been a singular exercise and never did it rely on one or two elements. Learner today has a lot more expectations from a course, programme, university and its faculty. We can never restrict only knowledge transfer from a course learning outcome. And no learning is complete until it is holistic in the true sense.
Career centers, physical and mental wellbeing are all catered for in an inclusive way,and that is the complete learning experience and ethos. But because of the new normal we had to huddle online and try and give our learners an enriching experience.
The way we deliver teaching and learning has changed. Education was and is a team sport. We are now more dependent on the digitization teams complete with graphic designers, instructional designers, videographers and so many more. Having to engage students has been one of the biggest challenges. We have seen many online teaching fails where teachers have struggled to keep the student engaged through out classes, low attendance and lack of motivation amongst students attending online classes. Keeping in view these challenges we have also not helped our teachers to move into the new digital shift. There is no dearth of support available online; creative learning is the new paradigm shift. It is not the future but the present. Teaching and Learning is the only renewable source that will cost less if given the freedom and skill support to excel. Our teachers require more support from us in the higher education ethos than ever before. From simple things like encouraging them to invest in themselves for better digital skills to investing in resources that will only aid and strengthen their teaching, in the new normal where the student is on the other side of the screen, engagement has become even more challenging and the traditionalists even the present teachers are finding it difficult to be more creative in their online classrooms. From buying simple USB mics, better lights, a black screen; because presence in a digital setting is most important. You can also invest in two cameras to have more dynamism. Recently attended a training in Adventires of Synchronous Teaching and Learning by the Centre of Distance Education and DrMark d’Inverno and Matthew Yee-King taught us how to use the OBS (open broadcast software) Free to video stream for faculty. We can always make use of digital tools available like, Socrative, Scratch, Prezi, SelfCAD, Quizlet etc. is imperative.
It is not the future but the present. Teaching and Learning is the only renewable source that will cost less if given the freedom and skill support to excel
Creating digital content has become ever more important and necessary it is also called asynchronous online teaching, more like courses recorded like coursera, khan academy etc; to synchronous online teaching taking place in real time in the form of online classes, webinars etc. And none of this is impossible. Not even for teachers teaching in any part of our country and on any level of academics. With the help of just being technology friendly and microsoftlearning platforms to google itself and youtube teaching us how to do what each step of the way. We can help ourselves help our students. Like we said Education is a team sport, all of this comes together to help our students learn. Takes a village really. And all it takes is the will to be technology friendly and to help ourselves to be better and not disadvantage our learners.
KholahYaruq Malik is a Dean of Academics and Internationalisationat TMUC.