The Future of Education

Edition 14

Accepted Abstracts

Changes via Two Pandemics: One Change is Being Imposed by a Virus and another Change Should be Achieved by Self

Solmaz Khodaeifaal, Simon Fraser University (Canada)

Abstract

It has not been a long time that technology has genuinely served us; our education, work, and actually our lives in the 21st century have truly and strongly been interwoven with technologies. It is benevolent of a pandemic over pandemic; one needs to be changed by our selves, and another is changing the world. People are out of their comfort, normal existential zone and are experiencing different absences and tensions which have resulted in their existential lack. Some are feeling helpless and powerless in surviving themselves. Subsequently, some are trying to fight, some are trying to fly, and some are in a freezing zone. Scholars suggest that one of the effective solutions for surviving is attunement and flow, which is not an easy practice for some people. Technology is leveraging opportunities and personalizing learning. There are no distinctions between formal and informal learning as society turns itself entirely to the power of the machine. Education takes place everywhere, anytime. AIs are advancing fast, and robots are joining us. The Fourth Industrial Revolution shapes our future and expands our horizons of possibilities and opportunities. Since the COVID-19 pandemic, we have been experiencing a huge shift towards technology, the digital environment, and an online connection, interaction, and collaboration. The real classrooms are being transferred to virtual Zoom classrooms. A vast movement and a caring of revolution seem to be happening, and the crisis of COVID-19 is reshaping everything, especially education and our educational classrooms, environment, and place. Just a name of an educational institution has been left for students and teachers as a place of education. Traditional schooling systems have broken down and schooling rethought. At issue here is missing in-person activities in real places and spaces. At issue is whether virtual teaching and the learning environment, space, and place like Zoom and Team classes are sufficient not only for students learning but also for teachers teaching. The purpose of this study is to illustrate and focus on the recent changes in education and our ways of learning, and how to improve and adapt ourselves to make better progress towards a more sustainable future. I recommend and highlight that there is a need to recreate and reform our pedagogical approaches and teaching techniques and styles for the aim of increasing the efficiency of virtual teaching and learning primarily in Canada, the US, and elsewhere. The main question in this paper is: How has COVID-19 impacted education and the students' learning environments and places? As such, we need to rethink and redesign the curricula for the 21st century students. Subsequently, we should not only reconstruct our pedagogical teaching approaches but also rewrite and redesign the curricula which fulfil the 21st century students' needs.

Keywords: COVID-19, Change, Learning Environment, Place, Reality, Virtual Teaching.

References: (partial list)

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