For centuries and decades, people around the globe considered the traditional classroom synonymous with receiving education. While the ideas have evolved and the technology has improved, the classroom environment has remained constant. But that trend has been broken since we stepped in the year 2020.
Our inclination towards online learning due to COVID-19 is growing exponentially in the current times. Almost all educational institutions, including the primary, secondary and higher education, have shifted their classes online, and we all know why! Higher educational institutions have rapidly embraced online education, and the number of students enrolled in distance programs is continually rising in colleges and universities throughout the world. In response to these changes in enrollment, many states, institutions, and organizations in the United States have been working on strategic plans to implement online education in more stable ways.
But on the other hand, counter-arguments related to the challenges of online teaching, e-learning, technologies available to support online instruction, the support and compensation needed for high-quality instructors, and the requirements of online students create challenges for them such vision statements and planning drafts.
THE RISE OF E-EDUCATION
UNESCO estimates that around more than 1.5 billion students in more than 150 countries are out of school due to the Coronavirus pandemic. The virus has forced the global community of academics to explore new customs of learning and teaching, together with distance and online education. The idea has proven challenging for both students and instructors, who have to deal with the emotional, physical, financial, and economic difficulties posed by the illness while doing their part to help control the spread of the virus. The future is unpredictable for everyone, especially for millions of students who are about to graduate this year will see a world crippled economically by the pandemic.
Undoubtedly, a significant portion of students is affected by this e-learning system. For instance, creative writing activities that can be more efficient in the physical classrooms, have gone steadily downhill. Essay writers are being hired online to deal with the problem. If you are looking for such a service for yourself or your fellows, do the proper research and conduct tests to check the credibility of essay writers online.
The COVID-19 will likely continue making problems beyond those that come up in the course of a routine of virtual education. Even if this viral spread diminishes, or a vaccination becomes readily available, the shift from online classes back to the physical classrooms may create disruptions. That includes adjusting back to higher standards of responsibility, weaning off of mobile checking habits, and returning to the trend of submitting hard copies instead of digital notes.
Hopefully, these phases of troubleshooting can provide educational institutions, lecturers, and students the chance to practice adaptability, patience, and flexibility. And these experiences will serve as preparation for future challenges that come with the next epidemic, pandemic, and other disasters (GOD FORBID).
DIFFERENCES DERIVED FROM THE PAST RECESSIONS
There are some positive aspects of these problems that occurred by the COVID-19 pandemic. A recent article by Higher Times Education was published based on a comparison of the impact of previous recessions on unemployment and university enrollment in Britain. The comparison presents a future scenario in which enrollment in higher education increases due to emerging post-recession opportunities.
It’s essential to notice that the current situation is not like economic downturns that happened in the past due to its nature and the availability of alternative, technology-based education models at a bit lower cost. The ongoing crisis could lead to different situations for four reasons:
- Human health is at risk – Most of the conventional sectors may experience significant changes in consumer demands with changes in nature.
- Students who are adaptable to online learning may be reluctant to return to traditional models of education.
- Educational institutions may prefer the online classes in the future – After experiencing alternative education models at a lower cost.
- Changes in the job markets may lead the public to use their additional skills to enter a different industry
Based on these possibilities, we could see changes in both the curriculum and delivery models in higher education.
ENVISIONING E-EDUCATION IN the 2030s AND OVER
Online learning is the current path, where education is headed. Both the academic world and in the niche of business. In recent years, countless students, employees, and educators have become aware of its many benefits. It is not just the factor that the world is facing a pandemic, but these days, we are also digitizing every industry and aspect of our society.
Digitizing means many parts of our lives that used to be isolated will now converge. The pandemic merely is quickening that process.
Since the start of 2020, a lot of new businesses have appeared online. Some of them are good, but there’s a long list of fake essay writing service providers online. To avoid hiring the fake essay writers online, you are required to read online reviews, check their sample writing pieces, etc. to ensure the reliability of the chosen service. Experts predict that college campuses will become centers for experiential and collaborative learning and student support with increasing transference towards distance education.
The concept of distance education could reduce the need for lecture space on campuses, which merges well with the need to grow other types of spaces. Traditional onsite classrooms could shift towards more hands-on learning laboratory spaces.
Research and forecast specialists also see a shift toward integrated lecture and laboratory activities within the same class sessions. It will result in a strategy that helps students to retain newly learned information and skills. This shift calls for integrating classroom space within the laboratory, open spaces that can be set up for a lecture using portable tables and chairs.
Colleges are also enclosing a higher level of academic support and student services, and campuses are well situated to grow their tutoring, study, and student services spaces and provide these services both online and in-person. Changes in how campus staff uses a campus may also affect the need for parking. Nowadays, parking capacity is planned to accommodate the busiest periods of the week. But the adoption of distance education could lessen parking demand and distribute it evenly across the day and week.
It could have positive consequences for campus planning by freeing land used for parking for other uses such as outdoor gathering spaces, dining halls, or laboratories. Regardless of the problems that come with the online classes, it is said that students should remember that assistance is available.
“It can be a difficult transformation, but it doesn’t have to be because there are many people who are willing and able to help with it.”