Need to reskill teachers to adapt to new normal
With school closed for an elongated due to the Covid-19 pandemic, teachers across the country are forced to adopt digital and conduct classes online. Schools are investing in equipping themselves with necessary digital tools and platforms to enable the new trend. The profession of teaching has undergone a massive shift and there are challenges and shortcomings that will need to be addressed on priority.
Teacher re-skilling has emerged to be a pressing and immediate need as an overnight shift from face-to-face teaching to pure online mode of teaching caused immense challenges to teachers. Forced to adopt digital tools and technology platforms most teachers would be challenged to use the platforms effectively. Creating a simple Powerpoint presentation or a short explanatory video would still be a major challenge for a majority of the teachers and this is what needs to be remedied. Gone are the days when conducting assessments over Whatsapp serve as the benchmark for adoption of technology in education and teachers need to update themselves to the latest technologies.
Imparting new knowledge and honing skill sets to empower teachers on how the
powers of technology can be most effectively harnessed is the need of the hour.
Under the new normal the nature of classrooms and how information is consumed by the students has evolved. The traditional and modern has come together to redefine learning and reskilling teacher with the necessary skill set will help them effectively pass on years of accumulated knowledge and experience to their students.
Teachers training is an on-going process. Without hands on experience, new skills will be forgotten in a matter of hours or a couple of days. Schools therefore must strive to provide an ecosystem for teachers to assimilate their new learnings. Along with physical or infrastructural
investments, schools must allocate dedicated resources and adopt the train the trainer approach to make the learning lasting. Teacher’s competency can be evaluated at school level and reskilling needs identified as every teacher will have his/her core competencies.
The NEP has rightly focussed on teacher training both in pedagogy and technical aspects of teaching which will help in the reskilling efforts. The policy also laid emphasis on the train the trainer approach and in order to overcome infrastructural limitations goes one step further by proposing the creation of community or a hub where several adjoining schools can come together and share infrastructure of a better equipped schools.
Few teacher’s since qualifying and entering the teaching profession will have benefitted from any reskilling or capacity building programs. This at a time when significant advancements are being made in subjects like science and mathematics and inroads made by technology as an aid to learning. Though the basic concepts of a subject may remain the same, the methodology of teaching and explaining to students have evolved. Teachers training and reorientation programs will go a long way in bridging the gap and keeping teachers updated on the latest developments.
Another important aspect that can be addressed through reskilling is equipping teachers to address the mental well-being of students. Being forced to stay mostly indoors and the lack of peer-to-peer interaction will have a major impact on a child’s mental state.
Once the pandemic is under control and schools re-open, teachers will have the onerous task of blending the traditional with modern teaching methods and also in ensuring that the students are able to cope with the new normal. For this, teachers will need all the help they can to prepare themselves to operate under the changed circumstance.