Discuss two negative effects of the covod 19 lockdown on teaching and learning
Answers
Sluggish cross-border movement of students
Universities in many countries such as Australia, UK, New Zealand, and Canada are highly dependent on the movement of students from China and India.
It is becoming more and more clear that this cross-border movement of students will take a beating at least for the next two to three years and will lead to a major financial risk for universities in these countries who are already under financial pressure.
2. Passive learning by students
The sudden shift to online learning without any planning -- especially in countries like India where the backbone for online learning was not ready and the curriculum was not designed for such a format -- has created the risk of most of our students becoming passive learners and they seem to be losing interest due to low levels of attention span.
Added to this is that we may be leaving a large proportion of the student population untouched due to the digital divide that is part of many developing nations including India.
We are now beginning to realize that online learning could be dull as it is creating a new set of passive learners which can pose new challenges.
3. Unprepared teachers for online education
Online learning is a special kind of methodology and not all teachers are good at it or at least not all of them were ready for this sudden transition from face to face learning to online learning.
Thus, most of the teachers are just conducting lectures on video platforms such as Zoom which may not be real online learning in the absence of a dedicated online platform specifically designed for the purpose.
There is a risk that in such a situation, learning outcomes may not be achieved and it may be only resulting in engaging the students.
4. Changing format of student recruitment
Universities and colleges worldwide are facing a major risk in the area of student recruitment and retention.
The risk of losing students is so high that they will need to re-look at their admission practices, admission criteria and the overall recruitment process itself which will include, new methods of outreach and application process itself.