The Effects of Covid Bringing Classes Online

 

As a result of the covid pandemic, many institutions had to adapt to using online alternatives. One of the most impacted institutions is the education system. Teachers and students alike are expressing negative emotions concerning online school. The online medium has prevented people from having true interaction with others. This has created a huge emotional strain on everybody involved. Depression and anxiety is at an all time high all around the world currently. These emotional and psychological strains are affecting the learning of our students. However, there is another aspect of online school that may be a reason for a lack of performance of out students taking online classes. It is that our mind learns better through visual cues of the body. Hence, online videos may not cut it. This is explained in a research by Wakefield et al. called “Gesture helps learners learn, but not merely by guiding their visual attention”. In the research, Wakefield and associates use eye tracking technology to track students’ attention during lessons. They found that children performed significantly better after learning with speech and gesture instruction as opposed to speech alone lessons. The eye tracking reveals that gestures bring students attention to the teaching content. The gestures are also able to help synchronize the information with what is heard during the lecture. It combined visual learning with auditory learning.

            According to an article on Economic Policy Institute, it was predicted that students would come into fall of 2020 with about 70% of learning gains in reading and even smaller gains in math at only 50%. When checked with the actual data for grades 3-8, reading values stayed relatively the same; however, math scored in every grade dropped significantly. This could be due to the limited gestures that can be preformed on online classes. Wakefield’s research was specifically focused on gestures on math lessons, and Economic Policy Institute’s article supports Wakefield’s findings. While the long-term affects are still unknown, the evidence is concerning for kids’ education during a time like this.

            A possible alternative is the use of virtual pointers during lessons. This may not be able to completely replicate a gesture with the human body, but it will be able to synchronize visual could with the audio lectures. Some professors have opted to just using a whiteboard on their webcam so they can record their whole body. This may remove the issue of lack of gestures all together. Hopefully, overtime we are able to figure out better ways to adapt to online schooling to prevent these problems.

 

References

Wakefield E, Novack MA, Congdon EL, Franconeri S, Goldin-Meadow S. Gesture helps learners learn, but not merely by guiding their visual attention. Dev Sci. 2018;21(6):e12664. doi:10.1111/desc.12664

Report • By Emma García and Elaine Weiss • September 10. “COVID-19 and Student Performance, Equity, and U.S. Education Policy: Lessons from Pre-Pandemic Research to Inform Relief, Recovery, and Rebuilding.” Economic Policy Institute, www.epi.org/publication/the-consequences-of-the-covid-19-pandemic-for-education-performance-and-equity-in-the-united-states-what-can-we-learn-from-pre-pandemic-research-to-inform-relief-recovery-and-rebuilding/.