Embracing new learning platforms
In the month of March 2020, the world came to a grinding halt owing to the wide spread of the novel coronavirus disease. The schools worldwide were shut down and billions of children could not go to school. This pandemic was a point of curve for quick innovation.
With the government in Singapore suspending education at the school and tertiary levels during the circuit-breaker period, MDIS was also nudged and pushed to make a swift and decisive action. All of the Schools at MDIS, including MDIS’ overseas campuses, MDIS Tashkent and Kolej MDIS Malaysia, moved to educating their students online using Zoom.
This temporary ‘home-based’ learning, certainly caused a tremendous degree of inconvenience, and schools had to pivot online at very short notice. A move had to be made from the centuries-old, lecture-based approaches of face-to-face classroom teaching and learning, being replaced with new learning modalities – using YouTube, Kahoot and virtual classrooms.
Three levels of classes were conducted by the MDIS School of Languages and Education, and to build resilience in educating students virtually, lecturers used the Zoom platform. Students from different countries zoomed in as early as 8.00am until 3.00pm. Lecturers encouraged decision making and creativity through the clever integration of games into the regular syllabus. Our learners have shown greater engagement and more motivation in learning via livestreaming. For those unable to attend the livestreaming lessons, the video recordings are saved on Cloud for ease of use and reference. Students have been leveraging on online learning by submitting their homework either on Zoom chat or via emails.
Although it might be too early to gauge the effects of online teaching on education worldwide, there are visible signs suggesting that, it might have a significant bearing on the trajectory of learning, innovation and digitisation. Virtual learning may well become a routine part of our lives and have a life-changing impact on the way we learn in the future.
Sources: adapted from www.weforum.org › agenda › 2020/04 › coronavirus-education-glob…
