With Covid-19 having impacted all aspects of life including education and virtual classrooms becoming the new normal, there is a need to look for new technology and methodology to adapt to the demand of the situation, Prof Damodar Acharya, eminent educationist, has said.
“The traditional ‘chalk and talk’ method of classroom teaching is being missed today as also the eye contact, body language and physical presence of the teacher as Covid-19 has brought the challenges of online teaching to the fore,” Prof Acharya, former Chairman of the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) and former Director of IIT, Kharagpur, said while delivering the 4th SOA Fortnightly Academic Lecture. Prof Acharya, presently Chairman of the Board of Advisors of Siksha ‘O’ Anusandhan, said that though the ‘chalk and talk’ method has its own shortcomings, the teacher derives a lot of satisfaction and joy after interacting with the students for an hour.
Referring to research findings at the Stanford University, he said a virtual class of one hour needs to be broken into many parts consisting of eight minutes each followed by a break of Q-A sessions of two minutes in the form of quiz, reflection or opinion poll. “It is because focus on the same topic on virtual platform attenuates after eight minutes,” the finding said.“We have to find new technology and methodology to actually replace the physical class so that issues of attendance, routine, time table of fixed hours, feedback, examination pattern and laboratory work could be effectively sorted out,” Prof Acharya said. The feedback on virtual teaching is positive and encouraging as attendance rose by 19 per cent compared to the physical class while malpractices got reduced considerably, he said, adding,
“We have to uninterruptedly rely on students’ feedbacks, Artificial Intelligence for facial recognition and other features and use other technological innovations to reap the benefits of online teaching without depriving the teacher of the sense of fulfilment he gets in a physical class.” He said Prof Dilip Kumar Pratihar of mechanical engineering at IIT, Kharagpur, has been honoured internationally for his expertise in virtual teaching.