A pandemic pedagogy to overcome COVID

Context: Covid-19 has caused unprecedented disruptions in education system, but also presents higher education institutions an opportunity to adopt an alternative pedagogy of using technological tools to facilitate academic activities in the virtual world.

Disruptions in education system

• Around 1.3 billion learners will not be able to attend school or university according to UNICEF.
• Fear of the coronavirus infection prompted an exodus of students and stalled the academic calendar.

Pandemic Pedagogy

• To minimize Covid-induced academic disruptions, Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) are adapting to alternative pedagogy in a “Teach-From-Home-Students-At-Home" situation.

Advantages

• Flexibility of teaching and learning anywhere and anytime and ensure virtual-teaching delivery system.

• Information and Communication Technology (ICT): Integrating ICT solutions that can conserve their lectures for future references.
• Virtual Expertise Engagement: Pandemic pedagogy provides opportunity for experts to virtually engage with students.
• Mutual Support: Opportunity for teachers and students to reach out, share their fears and anxieties to perform well in the new academic set-up.

Challenges

• Institutional Capacity: In absence of institutional capacities, HEI’s are not able to make a swift transition from traditional teaching methodology to virtual classroom teaching.
• Digital Divide: Presents the issue of accessibility because of limited internet network marked by a digital divide.
• Online Teaching in Informal setup: it brings huge challenges for both students and teachers as it is extremely stressful for the student and teacher in an lockdown and home quarantined setup.

Way Forward:

• Adopt multiple mediums to communicate to speed up the transition and ensure flexibility by identifying absolute essential learning outcomes of the course and plan to deliver lectures on them. 
• Teaching flexibility should be the new mantra with a minimal set of essential learning outcomes and maximum virtual outreach.