Home teaching and learning a challenge for teachers, students

KUALA LUMPUR: Implementation of the home-based teaching and earning for students nationwide is seen as a challenge not only for parents, but also teachers and students.

A teacher at a school in Putrajaya said the attendance of online classes among students from the “back classes” is quite low.

“For example, the attendance of students from the first class is 24 out of 27, while the attendance among students from the back classes is six out of 19. Students who are good will survive while the weak will continue to be left behind.

“At school, teachers can call students face-to-face and motivate them, but when classes are conducted online, it depends on the students, their preparation in terms of gadgets, data plan and self-motivation,” he said yesterday.

The teacher, who declined to be named, said other challenges of online classes are the problem of monitoring the students’ discipline and focus on their studies.

He said there are students who opened two windows or applications on their laptop screen, one for online class and the other to play “online games”.

For Syakir Fazly, 15, a Form Three student of a school in Selangor, the challenge of studying at home is not being able to focus on lessons, especially during online classes, as his siblings often make noise and disturb him, Bernama reported.

“It is difficult for me to hear the teacher and other students. When a student has a question, the teacher continues to teach because the teacher could not hear the question and the student’s voice.

“Apart from that, not everything that is taught can be clearly understood because the telephone screen is small. The link provided by the teacher is always difficult to access,” he added.

Parent Shahidah Musa, who has children attending Year One and Two in Selangor, said there are teachers who are inconsistent and keep changing social media platforms and mediums in handling online classes.

“There are times the teacher uses the WhatsApp platform, then switch to Telegram. The learning medium also changes … from the Zoom app to Google Meet and video calls. “Apart from that, class times also keep changing. The first day, it was 9.30am. The second day, it was 10am. Parents have to wait for information and updates from teachers.”

Shahidah, who bought mobile phones for her children to facilitate classes, said there are parents who had to learn to use Google classroom applications to enable them to help their children with their assignments or homework.