Edification in Pandemic: Waves of Challenges

Shiela Marie F. Castillo

The outbreak of the COVID-19 to our country made a great impact to our education system. The traditional method of teaching which is face to face was suspended. They gave the department and the learners hard time on how to continue the education amidst the pandemic that is still occurring up to this date. The Department of Education needs to find a way suitable for both learners and teachers. There are lots of methods that were propose such as online learning, tv-based, radio-based and the most popular one the module-based. The modular distance learning is one of the urgent responses to continue the education for learners. We cannot stop learning. In modular method, the parents will go to the school to get the module of their children wherein they were given a week to answer them. After answering those modules the teacher will check them and assess the learner. Since classes were not able to conduct in the school, the parents will serve as a teacher, while they can as for teachers the assistance through chats, text or call. If the learners need remediation the teacher will do a home visitation to assess and teach the learner. The module learning emboldens the learners to be independent in studying. One of its benefits is it taught the learners to do self-study and they were able to improve their sense of responsibility in completing the task given to them. The other advantage of this modular learning is they taught the learners to be confident with their answers. Of course, there is also a good effect to teachers, wherein the teachers learn to adapt in the new normal and be flexible for the method. They also learn to adapt the learning materials to suit the learners and the situation. The negative impact of the modular learning is it required the learners to increase their self-discipline and motivate themselves more, which sometimes lead to pressure. It is also time-consuming and does not have a concrete reward system. A lot of resources are also needed. Some parents were not able to teach their learners because they themselves were not able to go to school before. There are lots of challenges in education, but as Filipino and as an educator we need to adapt and to learn new things. We cannot stop education, as we cannot stop learning. Changes are required and so as we.