Online school during the Covid-19 pandemic has been a year and still ongoing. It did not mean that all of the stakeholders and students are liking and familiar with this method. Since the beginning of the pandemic in Indonesia last March 2020, players in the education sector are adjusting to the condition and government regulations. The shifting method from offline to online learning is challenging, especially for students from low-income families to access smartphones and internet quotas. The struggles come in many forms, such as minimum surveillance from teachers, hard to access the materials, awaken student’s focus, and spirit derivation. In some cases, it is hard to access the internet connection. This condition also leads to “student’s learning lost” where students lost their learning capacity because of the teachers’ disconnection. Disconnection means that there is a gap between the teacher’s mind and the student’s expectation.
In Webinar Digital Society held by Kementerian Komunikasi dan Informatika RI (The Ministry of Communications and Informatics of the Republic of Indonesia) and Kementerian Pendidikan dan Kebudayaan RI (The Ministry of Education and Culture of the Republic of Indonesia) with the topic of “Kiat Mengatasi Kejenuhan Ajar Mengajar Selama PJJ di Masa Pandemi” (Tips for Overcoming Boredom in Teaching for Distance Learning during The Pandemic), Stephanie Hardjo, Head of K12 Product Ruangguru, has shared why this disconnection phenomenon occurs during online school and ways to tackle it. According to Stephanie, teachers need to know what kind of interest their students like and their learning styles to meet the effective and efficient way to deliver the materials.
“Creating multiple entry points is needed, but it depends on the students’ interest,” said Stephanie.
A learning system is the one that can decrease the gap mentioned above. In Ruangguru, we apply “POKOK” the Indonesian acronym of Permainan, Otonom, Kepentingan, Orang dekat, Kemampuan.
- Permainan here means that teachers need to apply some games to make the learning system more fun.
- Otonom implies that the teacher gives options on how to finish the materials that have been delivered.
- Kepentingan or importance is when the teacher explains how vital the given material is.
- Orang dekat or people surrounding contribute to assisting students during online school.
- Kemampuan or competency here means that the teacher provides an appreciation for students by showing their work competencies. Alongside with that, Ruangguru also believes that good digital content and interactive learning medium plays a significant role during online school.
Ruangguru proves that online learning is also as effective as the offline class at school. Proven research by Ruangguru in 2018–2019 implicates 1,810 senior high school students that online school helps them increase their score and become more active and creative. Teachers can implement this to start giving interactive and playful materials such as video, PDF/PPT, infographic summary, articles, digital materials bank, and individual/team projects. All of the mentioned ways above can be supported by Ruangguru’s application and using our Learning Management System (LMS) to ease teachers in controlling them.
We cannot deny that digital literacy is needed nowadays to keep up-to-date with current technologies. With online school, digital illiterate people are slowly decreasing. These learning technologies will continue to help in the learning system even when the pandemic ends.
