Remote learning has not been the same across different schools and communities, with some teachers struggling to adapt to online lessons and poor internet connection disrupting the learning of many students across the country. However, are there some aspects of online learning that could be implemented to improve in-person lessons?
Although some students have found it difficult to maintain their focus due to the emphasis put on independent learning now that teacher interaction is more difficult, this may be a benefit to older secondary school students.
I spoke to a sixth form student, Sara Messaoudi, who told me that it gave her a great sense of flexibility, for example:
“Putting all the PowerPoints online on teams is useful, because if you didn’t get something in the lesson you can look through it again.”
In this way, having to be more self-reliant and take greater control over their individual learning gives students the skills they will need while studying at university or completing an apprenticeship.
Another advantage is that, while online resources are nothing new in education, this period of remote learning has allowed some teachers to discover alternative online resources they may not have taken advantage of before. It will be interesting to note whether teachers will continue to rely on some of these new resources in their lessons, now that schools across England are reopening on the 8th of March.
At the end of the day however, the overwhelming atmosphere among teachers and my classmates seems to be of relief to get back into classrooms.
As Jemima Miller, another sixth form student told me,
“Online learning isn’t as efficient with time as real-life learning, so more live lessons are needed to provide the full curriculum, which isn’t always possible so students end up learning less.”
I’m sure that many teachers will also be relieved to be able to hand out paper worksheets and have a discussion with their students without having to restart their whole computer.
