How Kolkata teachers used innovative hacks to make online classes interesting

The onset of the pandemic has altered the education system across the world. Shifting to the virtual mode of education all of a sudden posed a challenge for both students and teachers.

Technology advanced leaps and bounds to support the New Normal and teachers came up with their own innovations to replace the regular chalk-and-talk teaching methods.

Educators in several schools adopted various creative methods to impart knowledge and to keep students engaged. From holding quizzes or video shows to conducting polls and practical sessions at home, both teachers and students have adapted to their environment well. Let’s take a look at what is being done across the city.

Labs at home

Students in middle school and above were introduced to simple experiments they could conduct at home. Before the pandemic, teachers would take them to the lab so that they start getting accustomed to instruments, reagents, structures and organisms. Mahadevi Birla World Academy, Sushila Birla Girls’ School, Birla High School, La Martinere for Boys came up with new alternatives to give students some hands-on experiences.

“Getting to know the practical aspects of the topics they are studying in their textbooks increases the thirst of the students to learn more. They are doing various activities such as preparing mnemonics to remember the periodic table, forming 3-D structures of molecules, creating poetry to remember concepts, etc. For higher classes we are giving them group work,” said Rupali Chakraborty, who teaches Chemistry to Classes VI to XII at Sushila Birla Girls’ School.

“The junior students were more excited about the virtual platform. They observes plants around them to study morphology, prepared documentaries, made models and engaged themselves. For the senior classes, I tried to go beyond the book to give them complete knowledge about a topic.” said Moynee Mukherjee, Biology teacher at Sushila Birla Girls’ School.

For Soham Misra, a student of Class IX at La Martinere for Boys, online classes were a rather draining ordeal but for the fun things the teachers had in store for students. “I feel more intrigued and interested in class these days when there's something new being taught because there's always a video or an animated presentation or a quiz to pull in each one of us,” he said.

“Teachers came up with presentations to help us understand concepts like a structure of a compound in chemistry or a visualisation of a problem in physics. Regular quizzes helped us understand where we stood among our classmates.” said Swastik Mukherjee, Class XII, Birla High School.

Talking Humanities

Science subjects are more practical-based but Humanities and languages too can be taught using different blended tools.

“I helped my students relate to real-life stories they are accustomed to while teaching a particular topic. Also, I tried to create a simulated environment so that students could also have an idea about the working field.” said Swyamduti Majumder, Sociology teacher of Sushila Birla Girls’ School.

Indrani Banerjee, Political Science teacher at Birla High School, used a variety of methods to engage students with differing abilities. “In my class, we had peer teaching, flip classes where the boys chose from a range of topics and taught the class, rapid fires, debates, MUNs, and more. These helped enhance the concepts and made the classes more engaging,” she said.

Piyali Sanyal, Psychology teacher at Birla High School, tried to give students practical examples. “This helped them identify and understand their own problems,” she said.

Ekalabya Bhattacharya, who graduated from Birla High School in 2021, said he never felt a lack of engagement because of teachers' effort to tweak their methods of teaching. “I am a student of Humanities and my teachers adopted creative and multidisciplinary approaches towards imparting education,” he said.

“We used to discuss our personal takes on a particular topic in class and had discussions. These interactions made the subject and the classes more intriguing,” said Rupanjana Ghosh, a 2020-21 batch student of Mahadevi Birla World Academy.

On languages

Online classes helped make students more creative.

Sushanta Mukherjee, who teaches English to middle school students at Mahadevi Birla Academy, focused on experiential learning. “Students were encouraged to read and then they had to make a presentation in class. We used apps to help students understand the concept better and after that when they read their lessons everything is clearer,” she said.

Chitralekha Mukherjee (Chatterjee), Bengali teacher at Birla High School, used audio and video clips to enhance lessons. “The online platform gave us the opportunity to show a particular clipping before teaching and that really helped the students grasp the lesson easily and it definitely has a long-lasting effect when you see something before reading,” she said.

“Our teachers tried their best to make lessons fun,” said Oishi Sinha Chowdhury, a Class XI student of Mahadevi Birla World Academy.