With Online Learning Taking Precedence; Will It Displace Traditional Classroom Learning Ever In Future

Vibhuti Taneja May 18, 2020

There is a lot of talks about how there will be a permanent and paradigm shift mainly across Education and IT services sector post the lockdown is lifted across the globe. Some are speculating that online classrooms will be the new way of holding teaching sessions and WEF or Work from Home will become common to avoid large fixed cost on infrastructure by IT services companies.

With the corona pandemic here to stay for some time; schools have started relying on technology to hold classroom sessions on a regular basis. Some students and parents have taken this step into their stride and shown a positive response to it however some parents are concerned about the safety and security of their kids as online learning will also expose their kids to the dark side of the online world. A large number of parents still feel traditional classroom teaching environment is better than the online classroom environment.

Deterrents of online learning

One of the major reasons that make parents are apprehensive about online learning becoming a permanent method of teaching is cyberbullying and cybercrimes online. Students are soft targets for such criminals that exploit and take undue advantage of kids with malicious intent. Child’s safety is the first major challenge in an online classroom environment among parents. It also lacks the constant supervision that a teacher provides in a traditional classroom environment required by students. Most of the parents are working couple that makes it difficult for them to give the time and attention required to kids at home.

Some have also pointed out reasons like lack of focus, self-discipline and sense of direction that is warranted to learn in a virtual classroom environment. In the case of pre-primary and primary students, it will also impact on the social skills and interaction that is necessary and much needed for their personality development. With technology embedded in our daily lives, access and exposure to content is just a click away. With such ease to use online content kids may access to undesirable content on the internet that is a deterrent for most of the parents.

What makes traditional classroom learning the best and difficult to replace with any other model

One of the many and important reasons that make traditional learning the best model of education is the level of engagement it provides between teachers and students in the classroom. Traditional classroom teaching environment increases the interaction among students, level of competitiveness and favourable way to learn from each other. Teachers play a pivotal role in instilling discipline and providing a sense of direction to students in a traditional learning environment that is also missing in online learning. Hence one-on-one teaching has proved to be much more effective than online learning.

Traditional learning has tangible benefits over online learning; this benefit is apparent among pre-primary and primary students who have a short attention span and find it difficult to spend long hours in a virtual classroom environment.

Also, online teaching methods have focused on converting the textbook content to digital content; it lacks the importance of learning aspect; whereas traditional classroom emphases on content and student learning aspect as well. Online learning can be tedious for students as they tend to postpone learning due to lack of self-discipline and teachers also face the challenge of engaging students.

The world has already made a transition to the ‘Shared Economy’ concept and ‘Shared Learning’ has always been the norm in a traditional classroom that is difficult to emulate and replace. Students grasp better when they have increased interaction with teachers and their peers.

With the sudden alteration from classroom to online learning, some are speculating if the adoption of online learning will continue to persist post-pandemic; given the reasons mentioned above, it looks like the traditional classroom is indispensable and is here to stay.