With the 2020-2021 academic year set to reopen later this month, several schools that have decided to begin online classes due to the COVID-19 pandemic have asked parents to fill in surveys to get feedback on how they can plan their academic activities in a day.
Based on the feedback received from parents and students, schools are tweaking their online classes for the convenience of students and to make the learning more effective.
Nooraine Fazal, founding managing trustee and CEO, Inventure Academy, said they have conducted surveys for online classes that they ran at the end of the last academic year and for the summer camp which included art, yoga and dance. They have asked students and parents how their ideal day would be and feedback on the online tools and the classes that they liked.
Ms. Fazal said they used the feedback and increased the breaks between classes for grades 1, 2 and KG. She also said that feedback from parents, teachers students, and the school staff have helped design the online school, learning outcomes and lesson plans.
Keeping in mind the technological challenges, schools have decided to conduct synchronous (face to face) online classes for senior school and asynchronous sessions for primary school.
Schools are also trying to devise ways to reduce the amount of screen time for students. A school in Yelahanka New Town has sought feedback from parents on technological gadgets that the child will have access to and the duration he/she can use it. “As it is not recommended for younger students to have prolonged screen time, the assignments can be done asynchronously. The rest of the time, we will be engaged in remote learning. This involves teachers preparing lessons and assigning tasks to students,” the email from the school management stated.
Schools are also training teachers to prepare for online classes. They are conducting webinars to figure out how to make learning more engaging.
Parents are happy that the schools are asking for feedback. Swati S., whose daughters study in classes 5 and 9 in a CBSE affiliated school said: “We have requested the school to conduct online classes in a staggered manner as we have only one laptop. This was the feedback by most parents and the school has agreed.”
