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E-learning scores during the coronavirus crisis

With schools going into temporary shut-down and parents perhaps into shock our immediate response was to ask what can we do to help parents, students, teachers and their leaders to cope in this unprecedented moment for the world.
How can we make sure that the learning doesn't stop? Can we turn adversity into opportunity? After all, adversity is often the greatest teacher in life.
Come to think of it, learning without going to school is not only possible but will be an education for everyone involved. Parents can become better home schoolers, teachers can learn to truly harness the powers of digital landscape, and students learn the power of self-organising and staying in touch without touching as we are all learning to do.
Considerable evidence shows that periods of extreme adversity foster innovation. The UAE Government schools' proposed home-teaching programme called Learn from Afar could be an example of this. I'm very confident that we will see inspiring ways of virtual learning in our private schools, in setting up their own distance-learning programmes or expanding their existing e-learning tools. Out of such self-organising behaviours, a new order of teaching and learning will emerge. And, in my view, there will be no going back.
Besides, it is worth looking at what China is doing to ensure minimal disruption for students. On January 27, the Chinese government advised schools to delay the opening of the spring semester until further notice. It has also called for "nonstop teaching and learning" and encouraged various online education methods. Insights gained from schools in China include:
>Teachers have formed groups to learn best practices from each other, consult with technical staff, and master different kinds of online teaching platforms.
>Some teachers are growing stressed dealing with the challenges of online teaching, including the lack of face-to-face interaction and sometimes unreliable technology. In the future, there is a need to better prepare teachers with ICT competency in advance, to ensure online teaching and learning can continue in another emergency.
>To help bolster teachers' ICT competency, there is a need to provide a one-stop online teaching and learning support platform to provide teachers with the technical information for ICT tools and platforms, general guideline for online teaching, practical education resources, and other support, including feedback for teachers' questions and psychological support.
>Online platforms should include multiple options for meeting practical teaching needs, such as synchronised video and voice for group learning and classroom interactions.
>There is a need to rethink how education can be effective for students' overall cognitive and non-cognitive development with e-learning.
>There are challenges in teachers interacting with students through online education, as only a few teachers take students' feelings and interests into account.
In learning full-time from home, Wuhan students have been just as busy as the teachers. In the locked down epicentre of the outbreak in Hubei province, Wuhan No 11 High School and Wuhan Pacific High School among others have been exploring online education options. The school's online courses, launched on January 30 via Alibaba's DingTalk app, have been attended by more than 700 12th-grade students. One 12th-grader at Wuhan Pacific High School, said: "Seeing the surge in the number of people infected, I became anxious after being quarantined at home during the winter vacation. Having online classes relieves my tension and makes me focus on my studies."
The school's WeChat account shows that on January 30, teachers of 12th-grade students began conducting live streaming courses via the QQ online messaging platform. Four days later, all 10- and 11-grade students at the school had started taking online courses. When the new semester began online in Wuhan on February 10, more than one million primary and secondary school students and their parents viewed 426 virtual classes, according to the Wuhan education bureau.
The government's efforts more generally are worth noting. Nationwide, traditional bricks-and-mortar schools are working with internet companies to offer classes online. The Shanghai Municipal Education Commission announced that schools would launch a regional online education program via television and the internet. The program began airing recently. In an effort to combat the outbreak, state and regional teaching resources to guarantee online education for students nationwide were harnessed. On Feb 17, a cloud platform began broadcasting to ensure the country's 180 million students could continue their studies. In the first week, the platform offered 169 lessons covering 12 subjects.
The government has enlisted three major telecoms operators as well as tech companies such as Huawei, Baidu and Alibaba to back up the platform with 7,000 servers, according to China Central Television. In addition to online classes, primary and secondary school students can study via television, according to the ministry. For students living in remote or rural areas with poor internet accessibility, a channel operated by China Education Television started airing classes on Feb 17 to enable home studies.
Linda Rush is the dean of the TELLAL Institute, Dubai, UAE