It is another crazy day for mathematics and social science teacher Raga Ravi after the school she works for reopened recently for hybrid learning – a mix of in-person and online instructions.
She has students divided into two batches coming to school on alternate days, besides some who have opted for the online mode.
“Managing my class V students is chaotic; many have forgotten class etiquette as they are attending physical classes after two long years,” she says. If they do not get her attention, they are fidgety and distract the class.
“I have disabled the mute option for students attending mathematics classes from home as it is difficult juggling in-person and online students,” says the middle school teacher who is racing against time to complete the syllabus.
As per the school rule, ‘chat’ is not open for students so those attending classes from home have to wait their turn patiently.
Her biggest challenge is giving adequate attention and support to both the groups. “If I start managing students in class then the online students get bored but we can not do much about it,” says Raga.
She says children in the classroom complain when videos are shown on the laptop. “We can’t be going to the projector room every time to ensure a video is viewed clearly by both the groups,” she says.
Network issues have been plaguing students of an ICSE school ever since teachers started taking classes from the school while students are parked online.
A mathematics class in progress for students of class IV is interrupted with the teacher adjusting the camera angle to ensure students get to view the geometry figures drawn on the blackboard. Adding to this is the constant chatter of children : ‘Maam, your voice is breaking’.
Parents of children who opted for online classes say with many students going to school, those attending from home are heard less and some are even feeling left out.
“My son was complaining that for a quiz conducted in class the teacher was only asking the students present in-person,” says Subha M, whose children studying in a private school in Mylapore have been pestering that they attend physical classes.
Initially, the loud voice of some teachers were a distraction for the children. “But I had to make them understand that it was to make sure everyone gets to listen to her,” says Subha.
Children, who are not in town because of their parents’ remote work say they have little choice from schools.
“Forget clarifying questions of students attending classes online, a few teachers don’t care to even switch on the smart board for us to view the class,” says Raksha (name changed), whose parents plan to send her only after she takes the vaccine.
Frustration with hybrid learning is increasing, especially in schools that have a huge classes to manage and are forced to offer both options.
“Teachers are exhausted in this format and we only hope such a method of teaching and learning does not continue in the long run. Either it has to be fully online or fully in-person,” says Purushothaman, founder and senior principal of Everwin Group of Schools.
At the school, teachers start their day with online classes from 8 a.m. to 8.45 p.m. after which physical classes begin for the staff. Students at home are sent educational videos and later in the evening teachers meet online for doubts-clearing classes.
“As we are in the fag end of the academic year, we can only motivate and incentivise teachers to carry on for some more time,” says Purushothaman, adding that teachers are required to rise to the occasion.
Agreeing that hybrid model is a challenge that teachers need to adapt to it, Sudha Mahesh, head of school, CampusK, a Cambridge International School, says schools have to have a different strategy for every class.
“For standards I and II, we started classes in a staggered manner calling them twice or thrice a week and the remain days they connect online,” says Sudha. The lesson plans are curated class-wise.
She agrees this has been possible as the class strength is between 20 and 25 students.
For classes III to VI, the school designed a common timetable for online and offline students to attend. “It took a while for teachers to figure out how to place the laptop or whether to use a Bluetooth and go around so that the voice is uninterrupted or sit in a manner that would ensure eye contact with all students,” says Sudha.
Being heard is a big concern for teachers. “Instead of watching a session in class, I would log in to Microsoft Teams to offer feedback to teachers. Some teachers needed to connect the speaker to the system or required a Bluetooth,” she says.
Sudha says technological support plays an important role and school managements must support teachers. “We, for instance, increased the bandwidth when classes had to be live-streamed,” she says.
The power of communication plays an important role in such a format.
“Beyond class III most parents are not with the children and they need to be told. We started ‘At Home Learning’ material where we would elaborate upon a list of items that a child needs to have when attending a class.
