Schools start training teachers for hybrid class

KOLKATA: When teachers walk into class from November 16, they will carry their laptops, earphones and other smart gadgets to facilitate new-age teaching. Teachers are being trained for hybrid classrooms where a group of students will be physically present while another set will be attending classes online.
Teachers will not be able to sit or stand wherever they want in class during lessons since moving away from a particular spot will mean students attending the class virtually will not be able to see them.Teachers will have to always be facing the laptop camera at the right angle. On the other hand, sharing videos or teaching with the help of audio-visual tools have now become routine in online classes. But teachers will have to modify those lessons so as to include the students who are actually in the classrooms. Screens are now being set up in classrooms for projections and cameras are being installed at different angles so that the interaction between those in class and those at home can happen as “break-out” sessions to punctuate lectures. This will be a way for teachers to see how much the class has followed.
“This is going to be a whole new experience in teaching and it will not be easy. A teacher will have to grab the attention of both the online and offline candidates simultaneously. The professional help that we have hired will train teachers about voice modulation and throw so that their voices do not trail off. They will also be taught about synchronising teaching materials for both kinds of pupils in front of them, about the right angle to sit or stand for maximum visibility, and learning to speak into the microphone from a certain distance,” said John Bagul, principal of South City International School.
Training of teachers will start from the beginning of November when they will have to start going back to school daily. Many schools have already started asking teachers to attend webinars on how to teach in hybrid classrooms being conducted by learning platform management experts.
“Hybrid classroom teaching requires mastering of certain techniques and the transition from online classes to this will be a challenge for teachers. Hence, we are making them attend webinars before they come back to campus on November 1. After that, special hands-on training will be given,” said Father Rodney Borneo, principal of St Augustine’s Day School, Shyamnagar.
Some schools have activated their in-house IT teams to help train the teachers on the angles and ranges that the cameras and microphones can catch. “There are inbuilt white boards and screen-sharing facilities on online meeting platforms, but the teacher has to know how to get the information transmitted to the students who are physically in the classroom. The teacher cannot be writing a lesson twice for the two different categories of students. Our IT and computer maintenance teams will be helping the teachers with these,” said John Stephen, acting principal of La Martiniere for Boys.