Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1231020
8 maltatoday | SUNDAY • 5 APRIL 2020 INTERVIEW PHOTO BY JAMES BIANCHI Recently you commented that 'teachers were never trained or prepared to teach online, and yet many of them (including LSEs, SMT and other education officials) adapted to the new modus operandi very quickly.' Can you outline what 'adapting to the new modus operandi' en- tails in this scenario? I must first qualify that claim. For a significant amount of years, teachers were exposed to technologies that can enhance their teaching, and they have been trained to endorse ped- agogies which integrate tech- nological tools and platforms. These include the use of the interactive whiteboard, tablets, mobile phone, robots, and dig- ital tools for coding, amongst others. Many teachers were also used to interacting with their stu- dents and/or parents remote- ly after non-contact hours, through their own blogs or through websites and virtual learning environments sup- ported by the school. After all, most students are learning through technology during their time outside schools – most of them have access to a tablet or a mobile phone and they play video games, read e-books and socialise online. I know many students who use chat rooms and platforms like Skype to do their homework with their peers. It's the reality. So schools and teachers must address the needs and the re- ality of the current generation. However, the current situa- tion, which forced the author- ities to shut down schools, was not foreseen by anyone; so teachers found themselves in a situation where they had to adapt, overnight, to support the learning of their students remotely. This is not the ideal scenario. As an educator, I have found online learning works best when it is supplement- ed by face-to-face experiences either through tutorials, lec- tures, seminars or even regular social events. Moreover, there are some subjects which lend themselves better than oth- ers to be taught online – it is more problematic to teach a PE lesson or a VET lesson, which requires hands-on experiences. The age of the students and what kind of access they have to technology can also play a huge difference, and whether these students require support and supervision to engage in online learning. For such reasons, we need to measure our expectations against these different scenar- ios. Online teaching can never replicate what a school can pro- vide – the physical social places where students meet, play and learn as a community of learn- ers. Students are not in the best frame of mind to engage in this new way of learning – many of them feel anxious because of the uncertainty this situation brings about, they miss their friends, they miss going out, they are not expending their energy in extra curricular activ- ities and they are distracted by situations found at home (like siblings and gadgets) which can be controlled better in the con- fines of a classroom. Many parents are now being expected to juggle between homeschooling and their job (for those who are working remotely) and not all house- holds contain adequate spaces for children to follow online lessons. These are the scenar- ios teachers have had to adapt to, besides the fact that many of them have children of their own, and thus have parent- ing responsibilities to tend to. Their modus operandi had to adapt to these challenges and overcome them. Teaching is known to be a stressful occupation at best of times. My understanding is that the changes necessitated by the crisis have radically in- creased the workload/stress involved. Is this true… and how are teachers coping? From what I can observe, dif- ferent teachers are doing dif- ferent things, even at higher education level like university. There was also an initial peri- od where some teachers had to consult with their schools and coordinate their work, and where some others exper- imented with a couple of learn- ing platforms before settling for that most suitable for their students. For those who are adapting their material and posting it online, communicating with students and parents, collect- ing and marking some of the work, and uploading recorded lessons or doing live stream- ing... yes, the workload has in- creased significantly. However, I can note a lot of teachers col- The COVID-19 pandemic has forced education out of schools, and into the home via online learning. But while digital technology has advantages of its own, Faculty of Education lecturer MICHELLE ATTARD-TONNA argues that online learning cannot fully replace the traditional school model There's no place like school… Raphael Vassallo rvassallo@mediatoday.com.mt Online teaching can never replicate what a school can provide – the physical social places where students meet, play and learn as a community of learners