All my life, I have always had in-school learning. The only time I get to experience “online” education is in movies, and now that COVID-19 has held the world hostage. Due to the surge in infections in the country, so many activities have been put on hold. Places of worship, markets, companies and even schools have been asked to temporarily shut down.
In Nigeria, online schooling isn’t very common; however due to the lockdown, different schools from nursery to tertiary levels have had to adopt this method in order to engage the students at home.
AUI has taken on this mode of education by opting for ‘Google classroom’. This web service enables lecturers and students to connect, virtually of course.
Well, ever since this online lectures began, I have realized how much I miss in-school learning. Although I’m often eager to go home whenever school’s in session, I honestly think physical class interactions are way better than online teaching or learning and I’ll tell you why.
Normally, students love to be shown practical examples for better understanding and that’s no different with me. It hasn’t be so effective, in my opinion, with the online class. There’s a limit to which the lecturer can explain and exemplify given the technical nature of the class. Sometimes the lecturers’ notes are quite ambiguous which makes things difficult to comprehend. If I was in school, I’m pretty sure things would be different.
In-school learning enables the student to read the lecturer’s body language and vice versa. When you’re in class, you can tell by the way the lecturer is gesticulating the message he/she is trying to pass across; on the other hand, by reading the students’ reactions the lecturer may tell if the students are following. Well, it’s really not the same with virtual learning.
The fact that I can’t completely brainstorm with my colleagues is another reason why I miss being in an actual school environment. It is said that two heads are better than one. When two or more persons gather to learn, they share their various views on a problem and then come up with different solutions. I miss going to the library with my friends and making research. I know the internet has made research pretty easy but there’s this nice feeling that comes with being in the library. Besides, phone conversations are not enough to get me as much information as I would have if I was among my colleagues and lecturers.
Lest I forget, this online learning consumes loads of data and it’s so annoying because if I was in school, I won’t spend so much money on data.
One more thing; struggling to get good network connection is so exhausting. Sometimes, I spend half of the class battling with poor network; it’s either I’m logged out of the class suddenly or I can barely hear what the lecturer is saying. In some other cases, the lecturers find it difficult connecting to the platform due to the same network issue. By the time we get it solved, half of the time is far spent and not much is taught or learned.
I really want everything to return to how it was; I want to sit in the four corners of an actual classroom again.
Till then, I’ll just have to make the best out of the present situation cause at the end of the day, ‘there’s no excuse for failure’.
- Mbachu Stephanie (ENG ‘400L)