Gurugram schools embrace digital education to resume teaching amidst covid-19 lockdown

Gurugram: Schools in Gurugram are increasingly relying on the digital model of education to resume teaching in the wake of the lockdown triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic. The lockdown has not only disrupted classroom teaching but also lead to the postponement of board exams. In an endeavour to sustain the momentum of education amidst uncertainty, the faculty has started working from home to develop E-learning modules and are also mulling ways to enable student-teacher interactions through ‘virtual classes’ to complete the syllabus during the lockdown.
 
At Suncity School, the faculty has prepared a daily timetable and videos on the remaining portion of the syllabus for every class. Mrs Rupa Chakravarty, Director- Suncity School said: “We started classes for I to IX from 1st April as the school re-opened for them. For classes X and XII we have been doing online teaching from the past three weeks. Teachers are using podcasts, presentations for concept initiation and live teaching for Concept elucidation. The medium which we are using to project this to students is through Microsoft Teams and ZOOM for the class meetings and the School Management system. The assignments are to be submitted through MS TEAMS. The class includes yoga and performing and fine ARTS, puppet storytelling sessions too.
 
Blue Bells Group of Schools has also taken various measures to ensure that education does not suffer due to the disruption caused by COVID-19.  
 
Anshuka Aneja, Deputy Director IT, Blue Bells Group of Schools said. “At Blue Bells, we have already started with our E-learning programme under which we are conducting online teaching sessions for all classes, through video conferencing. Teachers are working from home and preparing the required study material and assignments and posting them for the students' reference. The IT team is conducting online training to support the faculty on new platforms. It is a well-structured programme that will ensure that students do not miss out on their learning because of this unexpected event.”
 
Schools have also taken into consideration the factor that a lot of parents might be working from home and hence have devised e-modules in such a way that requires minimum parental support. At Matrikiran School, the focus is on not only academic but also on life skills to ensure the overall well-being of students. 
 
“Educators at MatriKiran have sought ways to ensure that all students are able to access and engage with the digital materials, resources, and tools they are receiving for learning. Students are delighted to engage in life skills, physical education, yoga, dance, music, craft, best out of waste and art. We have considered the gap between students who have access to and use technology in meaningful ways to further their learning and those who do not have reliable internet or students who must share devices among family members, can struggle to continue learning. Keeping in mind that parents might either be working from home or not able to help much, lesson plans are designed in a manner that does not require a lot of parental support. Said, Jyoti Guha, Principal, MatriKiran School.