The current situation in Armenia, around the COVID-19, had a one of the biggest impaction on the education sector. The all governmental/none governmental institutions are closed here. The student and teachers faced with the challenge called “technologized century”, where the learning, grading, home working processes are implemented poorly based on the e-tools.
ZOOM comes to help us to overcome the communication/distance learning situation.
Here the problem is the equipment for example, whilst 95% of students in Switzerland, Norway, and Austria have a computer to use for their schoolwork, the numbers in emerging countries varies 20-60%.
Some facts from “World economic forum”
The COVID-19 has resulted in schools shut all across the world. Globally, over 1.2 billion children are out of the classroom.
As a result, education has changed dramatically, with the distinctive rise of e-learning, whereby teaching is undertaken remotely and on digital platforms.
Research suggests that online learning has been shown to increase retention of information, and take less time, meaning the changes coronavirus have caused might be here to stay.
There are dozens of educational applications , platforms and resources “Most of the solutions curated are free” aim to help parents, teachers, schools, students learning and provide social care and interaction during periods of educational institutions closure, but what about the STEM hands-on learning:
Hands-on: refers to human interaction, often with technology. It implies active participation in a direct and practical way.
Permanently increasing demand for competitive entry-level engineers for growing high tech industry throughout the world creates certain level of pressure on technological universities.
According to the blitz survey carried out by Economic Policy magazine, around 94% of engineers graduated from technological universities, located at emerging countries; do not fit to the employment minimum standards because of the absence of experimental background.
Armenian leading companies of the high tech sector alert that education providers lacks visual and practical tools that affects 82% of the students and makes their learning complicated.
More then a 80% STEM student are “Kinestatic learners”
Kkinaesthetic learning (British English), or tactile learning is a learning style in which learning takes place by the students carrying out physical activities, rather than listening to a lecture or watching demonstrations.
So from one side is the danger of the COVID-19, from another side the demand of having experimental as a productive method of learning , where students should physically interact with the tools, components, measurement instruments, do group works. The question is still open …