Adapting the Pandemic Teaching Scenario to Include Synchronous Learning for 21st Century Skills
Author : Dr. A Tamilselvi
Abstract :
In view of the outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic, there have been no live classes all over the world. Instead of wasting time this academic year, as teachers we focused on strengthening various skills among the students.
Thus, we teachers voluntarily took up a project which was entitled as “The Connecting Classrooms”. The whole project was scheduled and guided by Mr. Vinayadhar Raju, SA English, ZPHS Jangapally, Ganneruvaram, Karimnagar District. This is a USIEF (The United States-India Educational Foundation) project in collaboration with Swechha foundation. As a part of this project, we were connected to other teachers, their classrooms, shared our thoughts and ideas with theirs. We worked in a low technology environment, even though students worked hard to carry out a good output. Students from rural backgrounds, different IQ levels, various cultures met on this platform. We worked in collaboration and brought about the desired change in our students. As teachers we have to be aware of both the positive and negative sides of every situation. Here, by working on this project, we faced many challenges and overcame all those obstacles successfully. It was a great experience to work with other teachers as well as students. Here are our experiences and perceptions about the project that how we CONNECTED to the teachers and students of different places during the period of pandemic, since the miasma brought the people together in which we experienced the togetherness.
Finally, after 8 weeks (two months), all the students from all the schools (different districts) presented their reports through a ZOOM meeting. All the students presented and performed effectively and impressively by overcoming all the technical glitches and connectivity problems. The work put in by the students is available for viewing by all and is of appreciable quality. Every week we used to have one or two Zoom meetings to give suggestions to the students. This success is not ascribed to the efforts of one teacher but the success is attributed to the whole team.
Keywords :
Connected classrooms, covid-19, Miasma, Moral values, Cartoons, Collaboration, 21st century skills, Technology
