Why Teachers Need to Introduce Online Learning in the K-12 Classroom?
In the traditional classroom-based learning, it is the teachers who control the students and deliver them course materials when needed. However, with the emergence of technologies in recent times, the educational industry has seen a major shift in the way teachers impart education to their students. What has been noticed is an increasing utilization of technology to meet the needs of K12 students to prepare them to get success in the global economy. Online learning plays an important role in this shift where teachers and students both equally participate to have an enriched learning experience.
In this article, I have tried to review some of the factors that led to this major shift from a classroom-styled learning to the more technological online learning.
Student Performance
K-12 classrooms that have used or started implementing web-based learning have seen positive changes in the form of better student performance. Teachers can now conduct online tests to understand students’ individual learning style. From the collected data, teachers can then modify the course to enable students to learn best. Online learning, therefore, helps teachers create an instructional program that will suit the students and his instructive needs. Educators can also capture and record every student performance data for later data analysis.
Student Engagement
Online learning leads to greater student engagement than ever before. It is because students get the chance of talking to their faculty in real-time without waiting for hours to finally come face-to-face with their teachers. Most of the lecturers set up online forums and communities to allow their students to join in. Within the forum, the students can discuss, question, and share their learning materials and coursework with others. Moreover, teachers will be available 24×7 to answer their questions and clear any doubts regarding a lesson or assessment work.
Student Achievement
The traditional classroom instructing does not provide the scope to learn and process information just like web-based learning provides. This modern technology-based method helps students to actively engage in activities and tasks related to their classes and programs. According to many lecturers, online learning not only helps in finding an answer to a question, but also leads to developing a conceptual thinking behind such an answer. Thus, web-based learning can assist in promoting student achievement by helping them develop a deeper understanding of the notions being taught.
Factors for Teachers
With the introduction of technology in the educational sector, the role of teachers has also changed. In traditional classrooms, the teachers used to play the typical role of a lecturer, speaking about a concept, asking questions to learners, and finally giving homework for the next day. However, technology has brought in a paradigm shift from conventional teacher-based knowledge transfer to student-centric instruction to meet the educational demands of the learners. Teachers nowadays give more stress on the customization of content to meet the needs of individual students.
