Why is Blended Learning ideal for a post-pandemic society?

India’s relationship with digital learning has been constantly under strain due to the lack of access and connectivity. As per a recent article by a famous newspaper, despite Internet penetration being close to 50% in India, students in the 5 to 25 age group get only around 15% access. With more and more institutions offering online courses, emerging with resources to make online learning as viable as traditional classrooms, we stand a chance for change, a change for the better. Internet-powered mobile technology can change education delivery and make it more accessible, personalized, cost-effective, and shock-proof.
But as schools re-open, will India still look forward to digital learning and technology adoption with the same enthusiasm? This is where blended learning steps in.

Understanding Blended Learning

Blended pedagogy mechanism, also called the ‘phygital,’ will be the way of the future. A blended learning model is a hybrid of in-person lessons and online learning. The concept of blended learning has been around for some time, the pandemic has simply catalyzed to accelerate the process. A number of companies offering learning management system have suddenly surged up, some benefitting the consumers directly, some through the educational institutes.

Also, it is not possible and would be outright improper to define blended learning singularly. Every educational institution must find its unique blend and format to implement the blended learning format.

The real Game-Changer

The Internet opens up a world of vast possibilities. Imagine carrying your whole classroom in your pocket, and blended learning with the help of school management software is all about that. But with possibilities, we must also understand and doors of opportunities that open ups.

1. Education would no longer encompass memorizing facts and answering test questions but applying knowledge to pragmatic situations and knowing where to access reliable information.

2. In the classroom, the teacher served as the single point of knowledge and all answers. However, with the new approach towards learning, teachers are not confined to their traditional duties and responsibilities but also assume the role of discussion moderators, feedback givers, and motivators.
3. And with that, it also implies that learning will not be restricted to the classroom. With the world in your pocket, keep learning wherever you go whenever you want.

Here are some Key Reasons Why Blended Learning is the much-sought education model for the future:

1. Better Opportunity for Collaboration:

Collaboration is one of the essential factors to promote efficiency in learning. Blended learning enables the students to work together, participate in discussions, and provide feedback for each other, which undoubtedly leads to improvement and higher engagement.

2. Increased efficiency

Using blended learning, learning managers can readily access learning materials and make it possible for learners to learn at their own pace. This kind of learning gets the stress out of the learning equation, and students can get more done in lesser time efficiently.

3. Flipped Classroom

Class hours are divided in the ratio of class hours and pre-class/online learning hours. With this approach, the theory portion of the syllabus can be covered through online/ pre-recorded videos and the practical concepts can be elaborated in the classroom. Saves time, energy and gets the syllabus covered in time.

4. Better Communication

With all the resources at one’s disposal, blended learning allows more effective interactions between the learners and their instructors through the mixed use of technical and traditional resources.

5. Doubt Clearing Session in Class

Teachers will be able to devote more time to clear more doubts in the class hours itself which will build a good rapport between students and teachers and keep the curiosity and desire to know more in children in-tact.

6. Students Shoulder Responsibility of Their Education

By shifting some attention away from the teacher, blended learning promotes student autonomy and ownership of learning. Students are trained to assess and manage their own learning goals.

7. Easy Access and Navigation

The classes can be recorded and easily uploaded on LMS. Students will be able to access and navigate through the desired parts smoothly with video indexing.

8. Prepares Students for a Futuristic and Tech-Oriented World

By integrating technology in their teaching methods, teachers can better prepare students for their careers and professional lives. Today businesses often want employees proficient in using online learning resources and know to team up and keep learning even beyond the office.
Blended learning can help students build desirable skillsets for the future. It also teaches responsible online research as students must learn to extract valuable and genuine information from the Internet.

9. Increases Students’ engagement

Students find online apps and software more interesting than the traditional pedagogical approach. Blended learning breaks up the monotony of the traditional classroom by introducing information and concepts in different contexts.

10. Online Assessments and Examination

One of the biggest challenges faced by educational institutions across the world is conducting unbiased exams where students appear examinations without any unfair means. Artificial Intelligence with the help of Retinal tracking, IP address tracking, Environment Stimulus tracking is an effective solution to combat this problem.

The Role of EdPrime Towards the Blended Learning Model

EdPrime is a futuristic education technology platform with an advanced Learning Management System and School management software with a very simple yet intuitive user-interface.

It has been designed in such a way that it supports both online and offline model of learning and keep them in sync. It allows the teachers to create curriculum/syllabus mapped content that can be delivered in personalised manner to improve the learning experience.

No matter where students learn, online or offline, they can find their reading materials, published courses, assignments in one platform. It also enables them to submit these assignments online.

To instil the right values, EdPrime has collaborated with Valuez bulletin that pushes students towards innovation and inspires them. To back it up, EdPrime also features a new inspirational quote on its platform every day.

Besides students and teachers, EdPrime takes care of the interest of parents and school administration as well. Parents are always updated on their child’s track record in school, a transparent network of communication is maintained from school through the EdPrime platform.

It assists schools in admission, maintaining fee structure, keeping a record of online classes, maintain stores, expenses, vendor’s accounts.

Keeping the covid-19 scenario in mind, real-time updates on temperature, vaccination status is also available on the EdPrime platform.

Our Opinion

Blended Learning has thus opened up doors of education, knowledge, and guidance that went missing in the classroom in the traditional classroom despite the best efforts due to time constraints. Students though brilliant lose their chance to shine out and learn.

The confluence of two worlds technology and education is the talisman the Indian education system has been yearning for so long.

For students, blended courses offer the benefits of online learning coupled with the social and instructional interactions that were not available to raw online delivery. For faculty, blended courses can be a method to introduce new engagement opportunities into classes. For schools, blended courses can be an opportunity to compensate for limited classroom space, as well as a way to think differently about encourage faculty collaboration. Do think about the LMS you opt to choose as the extent of success of blended will depend a lot on it!