After the pandemic, almost every profession has had to recalibrate itself to meet the changed circumstances and new demands. Teachers too had to rehaul their teaching methods, catch up with technology and find solutions to newer problems that have emerged in the classrooms. Accordingly, training programmes needed by teachers have also changed.
One big challenge flagged by many teachers is dealing with a classroom where students are of different learning levels. While some teachers have figured out ways of dealing with it on the go, many feel that more practical training is necessary to tackle this problem.
Different opportunities
“After the pandemic, we don’t see a normal bell curve like before, as different children got different opportunities during the pandemic. While some students went two grades below their current classes in terms of learning, some others went down to the foundation levels where they even forgot simple arithmetic and grammar,” explained Rishikesh B.S., faculty member, Azim Premji University.
It has been estimated by various studies and surveys that learning outcomes have dropped by 50% even in elite private schools.
In government schools, there emerged four different groups of students in every classroom, categorised based on their learning abilities.
More preparation
“The situation now is such that for a 40-minute class, the teachers would have to prepare for 48 hours. It is not possible anymore to make all the students understand lessons in the same way. With the responsibility of building a healthy society, teachers now have to carry four bundles of material to classrooms to make learning easier for each group of students,” said Chikkadevegowda, Headmaster, Government High School, Agara.
With the one-size-fits-all approach not working, Mr. Rishikesh said that capacity-building exercises were now being conducted for teachers.
“A teacher must put out a bouquet of things now. The exercises help them develop strategies for a multi-level classroom and help them understand how to do specific things for specific groups. We also have a voluntary teachers’ forum where teachers can come and discuss the problems they face and also figure out solutions for those problems.”
Mr. Chikkadevegowda pointed out that there is a need for the Education Department itself to change the way it trains teachers.
“With these new challenges, what is lacking is practical training for teachers. There should be live demonstrations in classes by resource persons to help teachers understand how to teach specific groups. The teaching ability itself should be strengthened by the department and the process of teaching should become more activity-based,” he said.
AI-enabled teaching
Immediately after the pandemic struck, teachers were forced to take to technology in order to reach their students. While it was easier for the younger lot to adapt, the older-generation teachers struggled.
Today, there are even AI-enabled teaching robots, but teachers are not lagging when it comes to technology.
“Around 90% of teachers are now well-versed with technology,“ said Sumangala. V., Director, Department of State Educational Research and Training (DSERT).
She added that most of the training programmes have gone online now so that the teachers have the option to take the training at their leisure without hampering classroom hours.
“We are teaching them to make use of all the new technology like AI and we create user manuals and live demos. We also give them hands-off training with interactive boards and any new electronic gadgets introduced in schools,” Ms. Sumangala added.
Developing content
She also said teachers were being trained in content creation now so that they could make videos that could reach more students.
“While they can develop their own content, they can access videos available on our portal according to their needs. We are also trying to help them pick content which would be most useful to them.”
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