Study reveals downsides of remote learning

Angelica Therese Idolor considers the classroom as her “happy place.” Seeing her students’ faces light up is the best part of her work as a preschool music and movement teacher in a private school in Makati.

But for two years, COVID-19 prevented “Teacher Lyca” from being in the same room with her students. She has grown accustomed to seeing their faces only in tiny squares on her screen.

Idolor considers herself fortunate because her students have access to digital devices and stable internet connection. She can also tap state of the art facilities provided by the school.

“I create videos to be uploaded to the Google classroom. Script becomes the detailed lesson plan. Once approved, videos are immediately recorded in school to give enough time to shoot and edit the videos,” she explains.

But Idolor agrees that the last two years has been turbulent, not only for her but also for the education system. Students and teachers have to make do with whatever is available to provide continuity to the learning process.

Idolor agrees it’s the teachers like her who face numerous challenges to bridge the digital divide during this critical time.

A report released by UK-based digital platform provider T4 Education in collaboration with EdTech Hub titled, “Effective Assessment and Progress Monitoring in an Online Environment: A Study in Six Countries,” identified key areas of concern in distance learning during the pandemic, such as hounding technical issues and assessment methods that fail to gauge student progress.

The report, written by Mike Fisher, Paula Maylahn, Vikas Pota and Josefina Rappallini, surveyed teachers from low and middle-income countries such as Bangladesh, India, Nigeria, Pakistan, South Africa and the Philippines.

While technology has bridged the gap between learner and teacher, lack of stable internet connection makes it difficult for most teachers to reach their students, the report states.

It says, “Access to technology is a key hurdle in many of the countries surveyed. Some families/households, especially those in rural communities did not own a device. Without a smartphone or computing device, it is impossible to access digital tools. Participants advised it was very common for a sizable percentage of students to have only one parent-owned device in the family, shared by the household.”

Asked what has made distance learning challenging for her, Idolor shares: “It was hard to create a new curriculum and grading system suited for online learning—planning and evaluating lessons and moving them online. I had to create content for videos with the media center team. On top of that, I had to learn to navigate Zoom and Google Classroom. After class, I check the work of my students.”

Uncharted territory

According to the report, teachers and school leaders experiment with different forms of distance learning, with many citing student engagement as a real challenge. Many alter the mix and delivery formats.

For Idolor’s classes, they are a mix of asynchronous and synchronous activities: completing weekly healthy habits checklist, watching videos and creating their own play area. “[The time for] socials is their favorite part as they get to be in a breakout room with other students who [have already become] their friends and they get to freely share their toys, communicate and play with one another,” she says.

Idolor has a relatively good internet connection. But for some public school teachers, high cost of mobile data has a “restricting effect” on learning. “It also limits how teachers are able to deliver lessons, resources and progress-monitor their students,” the report says.

“Student access to devices was a major barrier to online learning, but another key issue consistently referenced was the cost of mobile data.” The issue figured prominently in the focus group discussions in the Philippines, South Africa and Nigeria.

Where data costs are a concern, teachers have to tweak how they deliver lessons. In some instances, respondents reference how students’ parents had lost their jobs and source of income during the lockdowns. However, the study suggests that governments and telecommunication providers offer solutions to temper rising cost of mobile data.

“Governments, nongovernmental organizations and telecommunication providers need to be more proactive and creative in seeking to solve issues surrounding data costs for learning. Government bodies or industry suppliers could negotiate with providers to purchase lower cost data packages targeted for education usage, specifically dedicated lower cost [or] dedicated data packages for teachers could be developed,” the report adds.

Remote learning has also exposed the extensive workload that teachers endure. “In addition to having to spend a lot of time finding, creating and packaging digital learning resources, many teachers explained how many of their students were only able to access resources at night and often needed support, so teachers were frequently working at all hours of the day supporting their various students,” the report says.

Idolor—who herself attended an online Early Education Leadership training at Harvard Graduate School of Education last year—had to devise her own coping mechanisms. “I was fortunate that I was studying online at the time and I was able to communicate with my classmates who are also teachers from other countries and they were able to share some of their practices such as self-regulation,” she says.

Based on the report, teacher pressures do not end with their workload. Financial issues also emerge: one teacher had to use her cellphone hotspot (therefore personally pay for mobile data) to help parents download learning apps at the start of lockdown.

Online cheating

A spike in online cheating has also been exposed by the report. “Teachers suspected that when they were providing multiple choice quizzes that tested knowledge, students were finding the answers online,” it says.

To curb online cheating, teachers hatch different strategies to be one step ahead of their students. “Teachers talked about a variety of methods employed, often in combination, seeking to ensure reliable insights into students’ progress … Using timed quizzes that put pressure on the students to answer quickly without sharing or having time to search for answers was common. Many teachers also sought to engage parents directly for assessments, arranging times when parents could be available to supervise their children,” the report says.

But involving the parents can backfire at times. Two respondents from the Philippines reported attempts by parents to bribe them to take tests for their children.

For teachers like Idolor, distance learning is far from perfect, so she looks forward to finally returning to the classroom this school year.

“With the pandemic still not over, the government should really increase its budget for education … Programs on mental health should be included in the curriculum, as well as having enough guidance counselors in every school,” she says.