Educational Reboot

As the pandemic swept across the world, schools were compelled to suspend classes, affecting over 1.2 billion children in 186 countries. These drastic changes had careened everyone towards technology. It served as a salve towards economic efficiency as social distancing impeded ways of meeting face-to-face. To students worldwide, it cemented an educational riot: online learning in full screen mode.

Historically, correspondence courses (teaching through mail) offered by the University of Chicago in 1892 became the starting point for online learning, until people started using radios, televisions, and finally the internet to disseminate free or paid courses. A century later, approximately 5.5 million students worldwide were enrolled in at least one online university course last 2009.

Even with its ever growing streams of students, people still deem it incomparable to campus learning. When Minerva Schools CEO Ben Nelson first declared its revolutionary take on education—going online completely as they travel across the world—people called it ludicrous and “like a summer camp for students from the wealthy families.”

Minerva Schools surmounted these challenges as they ranked first in the Collegiate Learning Assessment (CLA), a nonprofit evaluation of students' critical thinking skills. Although many can say that their system worked, online education was only a helping hand for students.

Nonetheless, they proved that the quality of teaching online was comparable to a campus one because professors recruited by the university were acclaimed experts. Online learning gave students a chance to learn from experts across different continents because the servers of the web had no limit.

In the times of this crisis, every student had no other choice but to depend on online education. In front of their laptops, they took refuge in video conferencing apps such as Zoom, HouseParty, Google Meet, Facetime, and BLACKBOARD.

Well-known Philippine universities devised their own softwares so that their students' learning experience was appropriate to their curriculum. University of Santo Tomas (UST) has UST Cloud Campus, De La Salle College of Saint Benilde (DLS-CSB) has Benilde Online Learning Term (BOLT), and Ateneo De Manila University (ADMU) has Ateneo BlueCloud (ABC) and Adaptive Design for Learning (ADL).

Different educators and school directors had observed astounding benefits of online learning. Br. Edmundo Fernandez FSC, president of DLS-CSB and LSGH applauded its versatility as parents can schedule their children's classes to times that are appropriate.

Teachers can also teach about 80 students, unlike the usual 30 to 40, while still keeping an eye on them individually. Additionally, research had stated that 25% to 60% more material was preserved in the mind, in comparison to an 8% to 10% in the classroom since some topics were learned at the students' own pace.

With that said, self-paced learning was troublesome, especially to students who were used to the campus environment. Although students can catch up with academic subjects, Grade 11 STEM Scholastican Gleezell Uy confessed that “online learning is incomparable to a traditional campus experience when performance tasks, such as laboratory assessments, demand empirical practice.”

Another problem was the engagement with teachers. Scholasticans were limited to brief exchanges of private messages for questions. Unlike the universities mentioned, SSC partnered with AraLinks software. Students became more dependent on these softwares as teachers sent out powerpoints and lectures, but there was little to no online teaching involved.

These problems were not just faced by the school but also nationwide. Jane Talo-Talo, a student in southwestern Cebu, said signals in their area were terrible. Most students, especially in public schools, lacked the equipment (tablet, phone, laptop) to access online materials. The disparity between the privilege and underprivileged had become more and more prominent.

These problems must be resolved to create a feasible online learning system. Wifi connections need to be stabilized, equipment should be provided, and teaching practices must be enhanced. These programs may cost a lot—providing for laptops to public school teachers already amounts to Php 27 billion—but it is a risk this country must take.

DepEd and CHED must also prepare back-up learning systems and styles as a contingency plan; they can use methods inspired by Minerva's breakthrough so that each student acquires an independent, innovative, and industrious mindset.

Western countries have succeeded in implementing this kind of education so it is not impossible for the Philippines to achieve the same condition. All we need is self-reboot. Any crises can hack into our lives at any given moment and we must be prepared for its virus.