Are we ready for virtuality?

The educational world is in turmoil. With millions of students at all levels in their homes, millions of teachers are also experiencing difficulties in transforming their classes to the online paradigm. And yet we must respond to the current urgency to translate an educational model based on close to home presence in which distance is the principle.

The recent health emergency has challenged a variety of traditional practices and education was no exception. Although the international context had been on the alert for some weeks, not everyone prepared for what happened and the truth is that many received the news of obligatory isolation measures without the tools to deal with it. Perhaps what is really happening is that traditional pedagogy often does not connect directly with what students experience toda: members of a hyper-informed, hyper-connected generation. And now the king is naked, as never before.

Education workers are facing one of the greatest challenges of their careers. Transforming a face-to-face classroom into a virtual one is no easy task, but even less so in a matter of days. There are four simple things that can be accomplished:

1- Plan and structure the class by changing the paradigm. Clarity is the key factor for students to have an optimal learning experience in the virtual format. Anticipating the doubts that students may have is indispensable. If the teacher has a precise idea of what he or she needs to convey, he or she will leave nothing unsaid and will prevent the class from extending further than necessary.

2- Understand the audience, listen to the students The online class requires designing instances of prior participation in which the educator replaces the natural exchange of the class. Having an idea of previous knowledge and learning expectations is very important to design a class that is as appropriate as possible. Free resources such as Google Forms allow this type of exchange.

3- Yes to the exercise, no to the lecture People learn by doing. Attention in the online world does not last more than 6 to 7 minutes. To pretend that a student listens beyond that is very difficult. That is why each explanation has to be accompanied immediately by some kind of exercise.

4- Develop simple visual support. Teachers who have the possibility of making a video will need to accompany it with a visual support. These slides should be simple, containing only the indispensable information, and include the graphics, diagrams, maps, images that serve as support for your presentation.

Before finishing, a secret: Whetu’s learning method. Our courses are based on a basic formula: the best way to learn is when we see the need to (inter)act to incorporate new knowledge or skills. We are understanding why we seek it, why we want it, without being imposed from above. That is the natural way in which people learn.

When it is all over, education will not be the same again. Anant Agarwal, president of edX, argues that online education is a great tool for democratization. This learning that current circumstances are pushing us to do has the potential to revolutionize our experience of education, and with it the experience of millions of students.

Original text in spanish. Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)