Digital teaching as a challenge for teachers: personal conversation is missing

Corona demands a lot from families - not least because the students are encouraged to study at home. But digital teaching also poses a major challenge for teachers.

Landkreis - Since March 16, teachers in Bavaria have been asked to teach students at home. For this reason, many teaching materials were provided digitally, "which ultimately led to a collapse of the digital infrastructure, such as the learning platform mebis or Untis Messenger," reports Roswitha Stichlmeyr, headmistress of FOS / BOS Freising. In the meantime, the learning platforms are more usable again, "even if an overload is indicated at very busy times," said Stichlmeyr.

"Many families are overwhelmed with the system"

The teachers have become very creative in the past few weeks to reach their students: the learning platforms are used as well as e-mail, their own clouds or encrypted messenger services. Dagmar Kirmayer, a teacher at the Zolling middle school, discovered the latter method for herself and her tenth grade. She is in constant contact with her (final) students, answers questions, distributes work instructions and checks her homework. It also provides students with tasks, computing methods and solutions via the cloud.

Digital instruction demands a lot from everyone involved: "Many families are overwhelmed with the system," says Kirmayer. And the kind of teaching requires discipline from the students, “which of course not everyone has,” the teacher knows. It is all the more important to motivate the students. For Dagmar Kirmayer and her colleague Carola Eggensberger it is about preparing the tenth graders for their final exam. That is why everything is concentrating on the examination subjects - "There are no subject subjects at the moment".

"Actually using time at home for teaching purposes"

Even if the teachers do everything they can to provide the students with as much material and assistance as possible, many questions remain unanswered. In addition, many children need personal contact or lessons. The committed teacher feels the same way: "What I totally miss is the personal conversation with my students," says Kirmayer. And of course the feedback on how the students are doing the tasks.

Roswitha Stichlmeyr also missed the feedback from the pupils "whether they can work well with the prepared teaching material, where they would like suggestions for improvement, or in which subjects for which chapters they still need teaching material". Therefore, she makes a big request to the students: "Give your teachers feedback." And she appeals to everyone "to actually use the time at home for teaching purposes". It is up to the pupil to “deal with the learning content in a responsible and responsible manner and to prepare for the final exams or the next grade”, said Stichlmeyr. Because one thing is certain: "If the teaching starts again, we will not be able to catch up this time."

Much is still unclear

It is still unclear when normal lessons will resume, whether and when proof of performance will be written, and whether the final exams can take place as planned. But Dagmar Kirmayer does everything to prepare her students for it as well as possible. She is confident in mathematics. In German and English she knows that "the exercise is missing" and the lack of instruction "harms the weak". But a way will be found so that everyone can get through this time well. Stichlmeyr wishes the students "good motivation, perseverance and good luck" - and above all health.

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