The Pandemic, a Challenge for Students and Teachers

Starting with March 2020, the life of teachers has taken a derailing route. They have more or less learned to adapt so that they survive online, turning the abnormal into a normal with substrate. All teaching activities, including extracurricular ones, have begun to take place on platforms such as Google Meet or Zoom. The topics addressed were multiple: from the presentation of language and communication problems or the theoretical/practical part to physics, to the benefits of using the computer and its use for didactic purposes. The presentation of the themes had an interactive, attractive, playful and intuitive character, which benefited the students, who loved computer games anyway.

Today’s technology helps kids memorize things much faster than we did when we were trying to learn. It helps us to improve in the field only through research and follow-up. It gives us the information so quickly that we do not even bother to remember the sources from which we have learned because we will find them in the same place and at the next search.

With the help of technology we can help children learn much faster and much more efficiently and this will have an important impact in their development as an adult. Fun education, based on action and direct activity, has positive effects and shows us every day that we have much higher potential than we think and that we can develop much more in the future with the help of technology.

The application of modern technology in classrooms should be more often used. Gamified learning systems are great for increasing student motivation, but they don’t have to stop there.

These systems can provide data that can be perfected to provide analysis about the evolution of the learning process, to help teachers understand their students better in less time. It is about the teacher’s ability to see the child as he is. Technology gives you that possibility. The platforms give you the opportunity to personalize your educational path, to let students communicate naturally.

Teachers continued to bring children closer to the magic of online educational activities, to the feeling that they care about the community, their parents, the students and everyone next to them. With many emotions, fears and anxieties, he started each week of school. None of this has nullified their quality of being human and has not prevented them from continuing the school tradition of conducting school, extracurricular and extracurricular activities.

It is empathy that has helped them move forward. Although it was a challenge due to the pandemic, colleagues and children with faces covered by masks, hybrid scenario, disorientation, the fact that they found support and inspiration from people online mattered a lot to how they chose to carry out their mission.

Online learning led them to acquire digital skills that they did not have and to develop the ones they had, it taught them to make their work easier in the sense of accessing an impressive number of digital resources, they met people from all over the country and not only, they received help from colleagues through social networks, of the groups set up after completing the online education courses.

Thus, teachers remained role models for students!

What do students say about this period? „Pandemic taught us to appreciate our teachers, not to denigrate them, because their role is a major one and it’s not easy to have this job either in normal times or in the pandemic.”

This period taught us, the teachers, that online education has enough potential and that there is a lot to do in this field regarding the training of teachers for interactive methods, the provision of the necessary equipment for schools, the support of children from disadvantaged categories. Pandemic taught us that we need to start building a resilient education system that knows how to face challenges of any kind, with organization, procedures, roles and responsibilities assumed.

Pandemic taught us the power of „together” and that we need to listen to all the voices, those of students, parents, and teachers, and make decisions only after consulting them. Anyway, this year has taught us many lessons and we should relate to it when we leave the pandemic behind and schools reopen altogether.

Bibliography
1. Bart, M., (2011), ”Effective uses of video in the classroom, teaching with technology”, in Faculty Focus, 2011, August
2. Bennet, Sue; Corrin, Linda, (2016), ”From Digital Natives to Students Experiences With Technology”, Encyclopedia of Information Science and Technology, Fourth Edition
3. Desjarlais, M.; Willoughby, T., (2010), ”A longitudinal study of the relation between adolescent boys and girls’ computer use with friends and friendship quality: Support for the social compensation or the rich-get-richer hypothesis?”, in Computers in Human Behaviour, Vol. 26, Nr. 5
4. R., Gherghinescu, (2001), ”The seasons of empathy -cognitive social psychology”,  Atos Publishing House, Bucharest

 

prof. Luminița Melania Dîngă

Liceul Teoretic, Ghelari (Hunedoara) , România
Profil iTeach: iteach.ro/profesor/luminita.dinga

Articole asemănătoare