P E A R L P R A D O, I G N A T I U S T A N, and J O H N A N T H O N Y
E S T O L L O S O
The Ripples Publication
The future with Covid-19 is quite incalculable: when you extensively view through scrutinizing uncertainty ahead to search for clues, the more it gets swallowed up in a sort of radioactive gloom. Despite this, Ateneo continues to sustain and push quality education through stepping in the digital world. Significantly, students, educators, and parents have let their voices be heard about the Contextualized Blended Learning (CBL) program through interviews.
Another Look at the CBL
In the basic level, it is inevitable for the institution to address how this year is going to start and end. How might students learn with an adequate amount of time? How might learners progress on the off-chance that they can't understand a specific subject? More than ever, Ateneo is challenged to think outside the box and to put things in perspective. Hence, the CBL.
Of course, the results of contextualization are readily welcomed, even though we may not be consciously aware of it. Certainly, there will be instances wherein stakeholders would have some difficulties adapting to this new kind of change yet it must not necessarily translate to a deprivation of education. The primal worry perhaps is how we can adjust to this new learning technique.
Much as we would like to be skeptical about it, the CBL has inevitably opened digital floodgates: everything is accessible and readily available. Parents and guardians would now be able to look at and even apply to a wider choice of schools for their kids, without having to take a day off or remain in serpentine queues for applications. They can easily check on the status of their children's requirements, progress, pay expenses, and feedback from their educators. Older students can compensate for their missed classes by downloading class notes or sharing them on the web. Instruction can be augmented through self-initiated retrieval of information. All these and more.
Furnished with functional digital pipework, the implementation of instruction will flow smoothly and effectively. While technical issues are considered as one of the fundamental hindrances of web-based preparations for instruction, this can still be addressed quite comprehensively.
Virtual Fog
A persistent concern in education is connection – not only in the technological sense but essentially physical interaction which is understood to be the ultimate form of instruction. Consequently, as face-to-face classes have been restricted, the majority of students struggle with slow-paced internet connection somehow implies the ineffectiveness of online learning. In this case, major adjustments must be done by delving deeper into the technology-infused system.
Distinctly, academic consultation is of the essence. The demand of this action would be a test not only to students but also to the educators, bending over backward in the digital doorway ensuring that they cater quality instructions and high levels of understanding to their students.
With this lack of physical interaction, students feel that the level of productiveness at home has a big difference when in school. This situation is interpreted from two points of view. On one hand, extroverts might be down in the dumps, seeking for energy that they mostly get from active personal interaction with teachers and classmates. With this, their performance might be a stumbling block compared to face-to-face learning. On the other hand, introverts would most likely to benefit from this situation as they control their peace and place wherein virtual learning might work best on them. As such, this occurrence shows a comparative uniqueness which suggests that a normal atmosphere must be maintained, even in the time of pandemic.
Additionally, as education shifts to the ‘new normal’, the struggle to look for motivation is an elbow grease for both students and teachers. As educators burn the midnight oil working, it is difficult to stay motivated when all they see is a digital screen while sitting with headphones on: it can be mentally draining and challenging.
Conversely, some students find virtual classrooms as a new setting to see twists of learning style formulated by educators with so much time and effort. It excites them to be in the digital world exploring the technology in the long run. Additionally, parents expect the school to deliver a new creative way of learning.
Shift of Learning Space
Prominently, a constant issue has been brought up by most students, the concern of their study space at their homes. On the big shift in learning space, many have stated that they do not see their homes as a space for work. With the underlying distractions, will a student’s focus before a laptop screen be as effective as traditional learning?
Expecting to be isolated for months, this scenario may result in a probable cabin fever. Some might be craving for in-person interaction, which may adversely affect performance and productivity of students. This is where the dilemma of staying motivated goes in.
One parent articulated the fear that with this environment, students might focus more on passing rather than actually learning, which counteracts the purpose of education. With the series of distractions, this may hinder and test the capabilities of students to set focus on their new setting.
Still, parents and guardian expect the school year to be compromising. One expressed specifically the expectation from the school to come up with efficient ways of learning to entice students to push through willingly. There is the desire “to not let this school year be just a 'filler'.”
This is why study spaces are essential as the learning atmosphere shifts to the new normal. A sense of discipline can be established that learning needs an ultimate source of focus to avoid short span attention that could lose mettle. When students provide the same energy with their educators virtually, effective education can be pushed through and acquire maximum performance, similar to the traditional classroom setting. Despite all, we must value the purpose of education especially in these trying times.
When Life Gives You Lemons
Amid academic preparations, educators still face the question of how instruction will be implemented effectively in these relatively unstable times. Remarkably, interviews with teachers from various units have revealed characteristically optimistic expectations for the school year.
Especially highlighted from these interviews is the need for connection; not just a digital one, to note, but a real, human one that students are used to. However, this phenomenon is understood from a Janus-faced perspective. Regrettably, the forfeiture of face-to-face classes removes the possibility of school interaction – a crucial loss to instruction. On the other hand, the situation provides a venue for parent-child bonding, especially to students in the lower grade levels. A number of teachers pointed out that this arrangement presents a much-needed vibe of normalcy in time of pandemic: despite constraints, established routines ensure structure, something very much needed in the formative years of a student.
Evidently, an online platform in teaching would demand from teachers, at the very least, a working knowledge of how to navigate through the digital jungle of learning management systems and apps. As such, the situation has generally become the ultimate exercise for digital literacy – something which the school has prepared for in the past years.
Teachers confidently quipped that the CBL would give educators a chance to be creative with their lessons and modules. One teacher especially pointed out that the demand from students to access lessons via the internet (notwithstanding the issues on inclusivity of this arrangement) would likewise help them prepare to become more competent global citizens. On the side of technological competence, it’s a win-win situation.
Conversely, other issues of a more adverse nature have been raised. Considering that all academic transactions have to be accomplished online and onscreen, the amount of screen time and its consequent health effects have surfaced. Not inclusive of the time spent for onsite lectures and sessions, there would be the preparation of materials and modules as well as the checking of assessments and papers which necessitate the teacher to spend extra hours before a laptop screen.
Additionally, there is the question of sustainability of resources. What with the intermittent blackouts and sudden interruptions of connection, the ability of the institution to support and maintain digital traffic is likewise put to task. More so would be the capability of the school to consistently provide for identified students who express a need for devices and internet connectivity.
It is perhaps with little reservation that we can say that the success of the school year rests so much on the capacity and consistency of Ateneo to steer through the situation and to provide safety nets with which to address unforeseen though possible issues.
Not Many but Much
One issue that has especially been prominent in many of the teachers’ responses would be the reliability of assessment. What assurances and checks can be provided that the measurements of learning are accurate and credible? Granting that a digital education is a more environment-friendly arrangement (No heaps of paper in the faculty room!), it nevertheless puts traditional methods of teaching on the line of fire. Beyond the computer screen, who does the learning? How authentic is it?
Corollary to this dilemma would be the nature of these assessments. Now that conventional multiple choices and identification tests are now rendered unreliably unfeasible, the bulk of testing material would appear to veer towards formal papers and short answers. Still, cautionary provisions have to be set in place lest students be consumed in unending waves of essays and term papers.
With this in mind, educators have come to a realization that there is a need to re-examine content. In the words of one teacher, teaching – and assessment for that matter – in these times is to cover ‘what is truly, really, and substantially essential’ in the subjects being taught.
However, this is nothing new in Jesuit pedagogy. The maxim Non multa sed multum – not many but much – is a standing aphorism on how Ignatian teaching is to be done: not a plethora of information but depth in and comprehension of content where students find meaning, significance, and application in real life.
* * * * *
There still remains much to be said about academic conditions right now, and granted, these are not easy to discuss in the light of difficulties that these circumstances incur. Nonetheless, education has to plow through the muck, and with what resources the community can muster, rise to the occasion.
At the background of all these, one cannot deny that there is a communal desire that looks forward to the day when students can come to school safely again and instruction restored in the now-empty classrooms of Ateneo. Yet as of now, we just might have to be comfortable with the ambiguity of things.