Teaching the students of today, who belong to a generation which excels in the usage of gadgets and touch screens is not an easy job, however, owing to COVID-19 pandemic when the onus of teaching such learners through online platform fell upon a generation not very conversant with gizmos, it became a herculean task for them.
Teachers, since the days of gurukul culture, had never been short of pedagogical skills but the current pandemic that has suddenly mushroomed up like a stress test for the entire humanity and education system in specific has helped them to equip themselves with technological skills too, to be able to facilitate effective learning.
Coronavirus has changed the face of education forever. Who would have otherwise thought that schooling would take place over screens rather than classrooms and teachers would have to become learners first to acquire digital literacy to be able to deliver the sea of knowledge that they possess? But our committed teachers met the need of the hour by developing their digital pedagogical skills and adapted the lesson content that was designed to be delivered for an in-person class to an online format for remote students. And the task was definitely not an easy one. The teachers had to burn the midnight oil to identify the best teaching tactics to teach Gen Z, which is way ahead of them in handling digital platforms. The content that was earlier stored only in teachers’ brains has now to be uploaded on the school’s portal for the students to follow up during their self-study hours or in case they happen to miss some classes owing to network issues. Not only that, but the educators have also covered an extra mile and at times go out of their way to attend to the queries of the educatees over social media platforms much beyond school hours, which never was a case in the pre-COVID times. The teaching fraternity very enthusiastically took this challenge as an opportunity to acclimatise themselves with the changed scenario and upgrade its skills in these mercurial times and came out with flying colours.
From coping to improving to accelerating, they have come a long way and as a result of both teachers and students, working as a team, have now entered a new world of virtual lectures, assignments and tests during the lockdown.
This pandemic has proved to be a quintessential, adaptive and transformative challenge wherein this much-needed evolution for Gen X has come as a breakthrough and will surely prove to be a milestone in the times to come.