What Is The New Normal Education In The UK?
Remote, digital, and online education is a new normal education in the UK. Further normal education is an outcome to meet the challenges of COVID-19. To address the needs of the students in the post-pandemic arena, teachers are using a blend of asynchronous and synchronous learning with digital tools. This blend has made them capable of delivering effective education to the students.
What Are The Challenges In New Normal Education?
The underlying challenges that students and teachers experience during new normal education are as follows;
1. Communication and Interaction
Communication and social interaction do not occur in real-time in new normal education. For this, students and teachers communicate and interact less via digital education. Improper and ineffective communication is a challenge in students’ learning, leading to low grades. The teacher should encourage open or two-way communication by allowing them to ask questions at any time of the day. They should arrange virtual teamwork activities to enhance students’ social interaction with them and others.
2. Network and bandwidth limitation
The public internet is often low cost that becomes slow when household connections use it during peak hours (online classes). Any interruption on the internet, such as connectivity or bandwidth limitation, negatively disrupts the effectiveness of new normal education. For instance, the teachers’ motivation to deliver a lecture and students’ motivation to attend the lecture becomes low. The student can even miss an important point. So, new normal education experiences poor or unstable network connections with a bandwidth limitation. Teachers can overcome this challenge by delivering a lecture through recorded videos. Teachers can record them within their comfort zone, and students can re-watch them in need.
3. Training
Another challenge of a new normal education is that instructors are not trained to deliver education via digital means. The lack of training does not help them identify students’ lack of engagement in online education. This challenge can be overcome by providing instructors with proper practice-based training on online education. The training will help them deliver online or digital education better and more effectively.
What Are The Effects Of New Normal Education On The Students?
New normal education is challenging and provides many benefits to the students. Experts of a PhD dissertation writing service have researched its effects. These profound effects of new normal education on students are as follows in the form of pros and cons;
Pros
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Flexibility
Students get flexible time in new normal education as it does not require them to visit physical, educational places. They can get lectures anywhere without a place restriction.
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Time-saving
Students do not have to wait long to attend the lectures. This saves time, and they can further enrol in short courses to improve their skill gap.
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Cost-effective
Online education is cost-effective for students as it saves them money in travelling, eating and buying clothes.
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Personalisation
Online education comprises a variety of techniques. It becomes personalised by meeting the learning and educational needs of the students.
Cons
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Difficulty in comprehending the meaning
Students in a new normal education environment experience difficulties comprehending the meaning and information. They do so as the teacher is not physically available to resolve the concerns and queries of the student. A teacher can play its role by repeatedly explaining and revising a certain topic to build students’ learning.
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Engagement
It isn’t easy to establish the students’ engagement in a new normal education. The reason is that students during online classes are involved in using social media, watching movies or playing online games. They act as they attend the lectures, but they are not mentally and physically available to grasp the lectures. The teachers should play their role in grabbing students’ attention. They should engage them by asking questions randomly. They should ask random students to summarise the topic delivered during the lecture. This will make students engaging and attentive.
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Stress and Anger
A student can lose an important file with a poor internet connection. The poor internet connection can even delay the submission of exams online. With this loss, the student experiences stress and anger in a new normal education. To minimise this effect, they should use the save command in writing every letter or sentence in the file. Students should prefer physical exams over online exams that do not require strong network connections.
Some Research Topics About New Normal Education
The research topics that researchers can opt about new normal education are as follows;
- The impact of flexible teaching on students’ online learning aptitude.
- The role of asynchronous learning in helping students grasp maximum learning online.
- Factors in enhancing sustained learning in digital education.
- The role of online learning in developing innovation and creativity in student learning.
- Reliability of assessment either in digital or traditional education.
- Does digital learning enhance students’ participation and involvement?
- Role of cyber-security in delivering digital education.
- Evaluating the effectiveness of teaching styles in digital education.
- The role of distance learning in increasing students’ satisfaction and presence.
- Enhancing students’ engagement with the democratic style of online learning.
- Challenges of digital learning or education for students and teachers.
- Role of communication channels in the effectiveness of digital education for students and instructors.
- Successful education mode, digital or traditional?
- Effectiveness of digital learning for students with physical disabilities.
- Efficacy of strategies in delivering online learning.
Final thoughts
New normal education is a trend that emerged in response to the COVID-19 health crisis. It is cost and time saving for students. Yet, insufficient training of teachers and network connectivity issues are some of its challenges that should be overcome to deliver effective new normal education.