Virtual Learning Is Affecting Science Practical Courses

By Nsunjo Erica

The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic saw the indefinite closure of schools and universities which meant putting a stop to physical lessons in a classroom for a while and schools that could afford virtual learning opted for it.

Virtual learning is a learning experience that is enhanced through utilizing computers and the internet both outside and inside the educational organization however, this kind of learning hinders practical lessons especially for the science students.

Science courses have been threatened due to virtual learning since it doesn’t involve physical interaction and experiments, handling of machines which according to science students like those of mechatronic engineering, experiments are important.

Virtual learning is more favorable to the Art students, who dictate of notes is the order of the day, it easier for them to learn since their lesion are more of theory, which theory can be passed over verbally online.

Science students have drawn concern about how hard their lives will be if they graduate through virtual learning, “We’re forging professionals who will have to meet their tools of the trade at the workplace for the first time. I feel proud to have been a part of the system that ensured that we were kept busy while at home.” Said a student.

Virtual classes can do for social sciences but not the technical courses that need handling of machines. After graduation, these are the engineers that will be produced, those that will build bridges and buildings crumbling down in the near future. Students that weren’t exposed more to the practical part of the course.

Students offering science courses said that for a practical course, sitting behind a screen for a two-hour lecture is a little challenging because illustrations made by a lecturer online will never stand-in for physical presence in running of machines and knowledge of building and operating real-life objects.

It is more important when a student gets a chance to physically witness the illustrations and practice, ask the lecturer personal questions and this is easier when students are in a class where they physically watch and do the experiments.

With virtual learning, science students have no laboratories at their homes, therefore it gets even harder to relate to an experiment online that you cannot practice as it is being done because of the inability to access the apparatus and machines while at home.

Learning and graduating virtually shall be a success but science analysts warned that we need to realize, we are demeaning the quality of education from levels we’ve scaled in the past, the kind of graduates we shall have after virtual learning will not be compared to those we have been getting in the past after physical classes.

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