As far as my experience is concerned, I still favor face-to-face classes.
Being an international student, I came with high hopes to learn in a multicultural environment, to learn from people from other nations. Now, to sit inside and study has ruined my expectations a bit. I won’t deny that I am not getting it at all. However, remote learning can not superimpose or replace conventional methods. In regular classes, we used to learn from every response made by others but now this has limited to two or three. I believe, ideally, it is not possible to go through and read all the responses made by all classmates which limits the opportunities of learning more. Moreover, sometimes many of the learners are not comfortable in making spontaneous queries and when they try to do it in the form of text, they couldn’t convey or ask questions properly.
Not only the learners but also there are many people whose life has turned topsy-turvy due to the feelings of helplessness and the loss of a fundamental sense of safety, security, financial stability, and the ability to envision a brighter future. Among these, isolation is the biggest evil. However, researchers while examining resilience and coping, hold the opinion that masses will struggle through this challenging time and would evolve even stronger. Moreover, people’s character virtues such as gratitude, hope, kindness, leadership, love, spirituality, teamwork would prove great healers and this can be possible via modern technology and social media by hewing to the “rules” of social distancing (Polizzi, Lynn, & Perry, 2020).
On the flip side, the technological exposure this pandemic has brought to everyone’s life cannot be ignored. It has introduced educators and learners with countless educational tools that have shaped the entire education system. I believe that time is not far away when the curriculum would be reformed entirely to align with this changed methodology.
Polizzi, C., Lynn, S. J., & Perry, A. (2020). STRESS AND COPING IN THE TIME OF COVID-19: PATHWAYS TO RESILIENCE AND RECOVERY. Clinical Neuropsychiatry, 17(2).
hello Rajman,
I totally agree with your point of view. No doubt it is really hard to being isolated. On the other side, due to technology we are able to achieve our target on time. we are not in a stress of lacking one or two semester behind.Yes, of course this new global norm would help to change in methodology in future and many people learn many new tools and applications and become more comfortable than before.
Hi Rajman, I agree with you that isolation is the biggest evil which brings by this pandemic time to everyone life as myself feel isolated from the people and feel caged at home. But no doubt we experienced the technology in learning in its fullest form. I explored new app and learning tools which I never heard before .