Arathi Warriaar

The Dilemmas raised by the Shift from In-Person to Online Professional Learning Educational institutions have been warming up in a poised manner for the start of the academic year in the thick of things, especially with the existing COVID-19 crisis. There is a lot of irresolution and vacillation for this model, and salient parts should not be overlooked and disdained. Will everyone be provided with distance education? How did this transformation take place? These are few challenging questions that we need to ask ourselves, as this shift requires unmitigated instructions and plans to acclimatize with all the prospects. Before going deeper into this topic, it is epoch-making to realize the fact that online learning is no longer a ‘new thing’ in the upshot. It is clear from the timeline of corporate training that this was commenced in the late 90s. The particular timeline was crafted by Josh Bersin, founder of Bersin & Associates and author of a few notable bestsellers in the learning and talent management industry. Further, stats show that 90% of corporations prefer e-learning compared to the same in 1995. The not-so-gradual shift to online learning A shift transpires in any system when an unanticipated and fortuitous event takes place and takes over that system with an advanced and new-fangled idea. When American men went off to war during the Second World War, women proved that they are enough to do “men’s” work. The world has changed since then. The year 2019 showed 59% of learning pros spending their budget on online learning than they did three years ago. This has been a significant shift in those three years and has been a successful change for the industry and has helped people learn more constructively. As we know, the coronavirus pandemic has been kicking in experimentation on everything, including remote learning. This crisis will transform many facets of human life, and education could be one of them. We should keep in mind the questions about learning models and accessibility of quality during this measure. Is online learning a boon or a bane for our educational framework? Online learning has its perquisites, like the ability to re-access materials, the possibility of building healthy communities among different groups, enables both teachers and learners to be directly involved in their professional growth, and flexibility and versatility. However, when Washington Community colleges conducted a study to analyse if e-learning is more advantageous than traditional classroom learning, the researchers found that the number of students who drop out or get a failing grade is higher in the case of the online counterpart. According to what Lou Tedrick, Verizon Wireless Staff Vice President of Workforce Development told ​The Training Magazine,​ “The results of the study don’t surprise me, given the ‘face time’ that is needed for success for most students. If you take that away from a struggling student, his or her performance is likely to be worse. In the workplace, we try to determine what would be best learned online vs. in the classroom and go from there. If we don’t think online is the best possible solution and bringing folks into a classroom is not feasible, we try other means such as a manager-led module or virtual instructor-led training (viLT), so there is time for 1:1/group interaction.” The results of the study indicate that the way online education is being conducted might need changes. The almost-sudden shift to online learning might have left the educators with little time to devise a strategy that will help them connect with their students well. Other variables like lack of the most suitable equipment on both the students’ and the teachers’ side should also be considered here. On that account, it is cardinal and of paramount importance for students to determine and govern their learning method and strategy through needs analysis. Similarly, educators need to be open to experimentation and learning to match the students’ wavelength. The hybrid way Another system that many organizations have started following is blended learning, which provides the best of both worlds – face-to-face and online learning. The idea is to use both, without any specific proportion for each, by just looking at which is operative and efficacious. Evidence suggests that blended learning does make a significant difference. As mentioned in the journal ‘Education+Training’, researchers have confirmed that the blend of human interaction linked with behavioral engagement, higher cognitive engagement, and positive emotional engagement engenders the best outcome. For the educators, this would imply that teaching in both the spheres should be done progressively. Even if the school syllabus with regard to the subjects and area of study are not a lot different from (say) a decade ago, enhancing the methods of teaching continuously is a challenge the learning industry needs to accept and work on. Creativity and experimentation in teaching could be the supporting pillars for the future of the world of education.