Navigating the New Mix of Online Learning and Home-Schooling

Covid-19 forced school closure in March 2020 and since then, many private schools have scrambled to put together online content and “push” it through LMS,  Webinars, Facebook, WhatsApp and chat rooms. For many of us, children’s classrooms have now moved to the dining table or the bedroom.

When it comes to children’s education in such an environment, parental responsibilities extend beyond logistics or space-creation. Parents are concerned about engagement — like Veena, a software professional based in Delhi, who finds that for her son  “challenge is that it is not interactive”. On the other hand, Usha, a Chennai based lawyer worried how teachers “ensure attendance,  involvement/engagement of pupils when they are not in class environment — especially young children”.

Parents have an important role to play in this brave new world of learning where children study on their own at home and with their peers in digital classrooms.  Many parents are now wearing the brilliant new hat of a “home-teacher” — with all the responsibility and anxiety but none of the respect that a “teacher-student bond” engenders, especially in the young children. We are now tasked with home-based discipline, setting hybrid routines (mix of home and school), keeping spirits up with food and family all the while ensuring that health is an imperative — from avoiding Corona to red-eyed Screen-fatigue.

Here are some simple ways that parents are navigating this new mixed learning journey for their children:

Many children are comfortable with the new online classrooms — they understand lessons taught by the teacher and can even ask questions to clarify doubts. Therefore, one must trust the teachers and work with the children to ensure respectful behaviour during a class.

Of course, a child’s participation levels in digital classrooms may range from over-excited in the early days to completely disengaged in later phases. At home, the behaviours range from refusing to listen to others or “ghosting” (being on mute and with video switched off) during online classes or playing online games in the name of studying. Some children, stressed by the lockdown, may have days when they disrupt classes or refuse to engage. In such cases, temper the disciplining with care and kindness. This is possible when the whole family, including parents, grandparents, caregivers and siblings come together to make the mixed-learning work.

On a separate note, some parents are delighted to have a say in their children’s education after being dissatisfied with the education their wards were receiving in school. They want to make detailed and ambitious plans. However, now is the time to compromise own ambitions and set realistic study goals for the children. The inner perfectionist should allow for some crooked writing and incomplete homework.

Most parents are used to workplace scheduling, with focus on productivity. On the other hand, children, young learners between the ages of 7 to 12 years, need more time to learn than adults. Children may need repetition or clarification for reinforcement and can only imbibe bite-sized lessons in one go.

Sudha, a (university) professor in Australia commented that “I am teaching a class of 155 twenty-year-olds, as we moved completely to online classes. It requires a schedule and you have to be super organized. (But) Expecting a 6-year-old to be independent is too much.”

Schools are recommending that parents start and end each day with questions related to learning – lessons, activities and pending homework. Parents can also reach out to teachers and seek help with teaching strategies, and address latent issues. Overall, we need to balance caring with productivity, reminding the children that this is not a vacation, and we all must respect schedules — including breaks.

There are many advantages to Home-schooling or having a child study only at home. A parent can design and deliver a customized learning plan based on the intimate knowledge of child’s strengths and development. Some parents prefer to put the child’s needs first — like Ankur, a software professional based in the US and father of two young children said that he sought ways for “learning that are exciting for the child, so he can learn more by himself than through some forced curriculum or schedule”.

Parents should encourage their children to connect with their friends and family to bring back a sense of normalcy. Negotiations for screen-time can include offline time for family games and exercise. Edweek.org advises “Brain Breaks” — where a family has exercise or fun activity time together — with no screens or gadgets.

A word of caution here — some parents believe that all learning can be done online. Apart from a detrimental increase in screen time, we must be cognizant of the fact that using a screen for education is different from using it for entertainment. Studying on a screen takes a lot of focus and this can impact the child.

Fortunately, with the abundance of resources available online — a parent can easily build a mixed-medium lesson plan. Enjoy the freedom to choose study-hours, sleep-breaks, physical activities or exercise and invest in fun and informative learning aids (e-books, videos, quizzes, projects).  At the same time, parents can take advantage of many at-home resources to do simple experiments and help children learn without a screen. Most important of all — let us make sure that the children learn in a stress-free environment at home.