Have you made yourself comfortable teaching at the comfort of your home or are you waiting to get back to classrooms? Either way, if schools reopen, we all have to expect certain changes in the education system. COVID has undoubtedly put education on the toss, gradually as we adopted the online mode things started getting better. What is your opinion?
This blog is written with the intention of making you aware of the things to expect after reopening and prepping you up for the same.
Things to expect after reopening
Irrespective of the problem faced in the education system, reopening schools come with even bigger risks. While you might think about how I am supposed to put masks throughout the teaching session, here is a list of few more things to expect after reopening:
Instructing students will be difficult
Teachers must expect changes in students’ way of grasping. It will be difficult to get the attention of students since they have spent more than a year opting for the easy way to learn. You must prepare yourself to be patient and tweak your teaching strategy. Focus on being interactive and engaging to get the attention of students. The attention time span of students has drastically decreased.
Number of students in a classroom will be reduced
It is not practically possible to have class strength similar to pre-COVID days. The safety of teachers and students is of utmost importance. Hence, you can expect to teach students in small groups and abide by COVD-19 safety guidelines.
Kids and younger students do not tend to stick to guidelines. The teacher should be strict with the guidelines. Especially, if you are teaching to students of K-7 grades.
You need to be extra cautious during lab work
Lab works require close attention, however, it varies from subject to subject. Consider, a biology lab, you should not encourage students to do experiments where saliva or scrapping cells are involved. Similar to physics lab, teaching students how to measure resistance would be fine, but, transferring equipment should be discouraged. However, conducting experiments where you can explain the concept by maintaining distance is good to go.
The necessity to adapt to new teaching methodology
Post Covid-19 this is the biggest change you should expect. Gone are the days where you used only markers and boards to teach students. Today, a lot of interactive technology has developed, teachers should find a good balance of teaching using technology and manually.
This is not only necessary for explaining things better but also important to acquaint students with the technology. Today, the world is running by technology, the faster students adapt to it the easier it will be for them to navigate the world when they grow up.
Teachers need to recognize the emotional stability of students
This is another most important thing to expect when classrooms reopen. Humans have gone through the turmoil of emotions during the pandemic. However, students are too small to deal with it in a mature way. It is the responsibility of teachers to be empathetic towards their emotional reactions.
You can allocate a specific time to talk to students who have been deeply adversely affected during a pandemic. Help them feel better and encourage them to study.
Isolated workplace
When you are not teaching, you need a place to relax or do other administrative works. Earlier, it used to be a room where multiple teachers were allocated their seats, but post COVID-19 you can expect this to change. Preferably, you will be allocated an isolated workplace.
You can also expect to have a desk in the same room but at considerable distances.
Physical meetings will be discouraged
You can expect classes that are mostly conducted inside classrooms. Meetings in the prayer hall or game room or meeting halls might be discouraged.
Students should not cluster in groups during recess or after school gets over. A system will be formulated to follow COVID-guidelines at each place in school.
Heavy dependency on technology
This is another huge thing you can expect post COVID-19 after school reopen. Technology has paved the way to make teaching a lot more interesting and easier. You do not have to worry about keeping track of student performance or checking MCQs. It can all be automated with the help of software. Learn to include technology in your teaching methodology as fast as possible.
Prepare yourself to be resilient and rigorous
Teachers can expect to be resilient in the teaching. You might get tired of all of this for a while but then get back to work soon. You have to push students to study as they have already missed a lot of courses.
Wrapping up:
We hope you got a crisp idea of things to expect when classrooms reopen. To date, we are unaware of how things will take shape post the pandemic. However, these ideas will help you to prep up for the most likely changes.
