Students missing class - SparkTOUCH

Conventional Education System

Take a look at the conventional education system in our country. The curriculum consists of topics across subjects that are to be taught throughout the year. The syllabus for the year is then broken down into quarterly and half-yearly portions for seamless transfer of knowledge and information. This is again refined into lesson plans as chapters, lectures and subtopics, which teachers cover during their scheduled time table.

If you notice, the overall process is very rigid. Any minor deviation from the set time table and classes go haywire in terms of completing the syllabus. The pressure to complete portions and syllabus only gets more intense with an increase in the grade of students. This pushes teachers to take up extra classes or even sessions dedicated for physical education. Such is the pressure in the standard Indian classroom. 

Absenteeism – Plaguing concern in classrooms today

Absenteeism of teachers and students both stall the imparting of knowledge. While the absenteeism of the former is very rare, it’s the other that’s quite frequent in schools and institutions. 

As a student, it is easy for you to fall sick or have other issues that stop you from going to school. During such times, it becomes difficult to balance both academics and personal life. Also, we should also consider that not all students come with the same mental and physical immunity levels. 

Besides, studies also reveal that students who miss classes during the initial months of an academic year are more likely to eventually miss more classes during the academic year. Chronic absenteeism is one concern teachers and institutions are still trying to do away with. With such an austere education system, it only falls as a burden on the shoulders of students though they don’t always have control of their absenteeism. 

How to Fix This Plaguing Concern?

For reasons unknown, the entire concern of absenteeism passes off as insignificant when compared to marks, excellence and academic performance. Not many understand and acknowledge that this is a fundamental flaw which when fixed will reflect on other parameters we just mentioned above. 

Illness or other personal concerns

For instance, when a student goes on leave for a week or two because of illness or other personal concerns, he or she has to catch up with the lessons covered during the leave period. This is including the fact that the student has to balance the mental or physical health and the lessons missed. 

To fix concerns at grass root levels, the best way is to leverage the potential of technology. Today’s Edtech devices have evolved in terms of their functionalities. From being just a digital whiteboard for teaching and writing, they have become powerhouses of features. 

SparkPANEL for Remote Collaboration

Consider SparkPANEL for instance. This is an All-in-One  Interactive device that can perform a myriad of functions. But the most crucial aspect of education it fulfills is remote collaboration. Turning your entire classroom into a digital environment, the device allows students who are absent to join your classes virtually from wherever they are. 

All the students need is a device, which could be a smartphone or a tablet, and the eins Learners App. Once the app is installed on the device, students can connect to their classroom sessions and never miss another class. 

Incorporating Technology into Education

The whole idea of incorporating technology into education is to redefine conventions. That’s why such devices shatter the passive participation of students in a classroom and turn every class into an interactive session. While attending classes remotely, students can participate in class activities like writing, answering, annotating and more from their own device. All their activities can be projected on a big screen after the teacher enables sharing. If the teacher intends to share feedback privately, he or she can do that directly to students as well. 

This is the future we at Eins are building. We are dealing with students’ concerns and fixing them one at a time. So, the next time somebody asks you whether he or she is missing out on classes because of absenteeism, tell them about this.