The majority of teachers and tutors expect online teaching to continue over the next 12 months, according to a major survey by digital teaching platform Bramble.
Drawing responses from more than 2,000 global users of Bramble’s live online teaching service, the survey maps how the rapid digital transformation driven by the COVID-19 outbreak has induced a shift in mindset across the education sector.
Seventeen percent of Bramble’s responses came from teachers who also tutor; 91% of whom expect at least some of their classroom teaching to stay online as we move through 2021, while 87% expect live online teaching platforms such as Bramble to play a significant part in teaching over the next year.
The results follow the UK government’s pledge to implement a billion-pound summer catch-up plan in an attempt to minimise the impact of lost teaching time throughout the coronavirus lockdown.
Prior to the lockdown, 82% of teachers surveyed claimed they did not deliver classes online, while just 6% claimed they were teaching online only.
Post-pandemic, however, 99% of tutors believe that at least some of their work will be conducted online over the next 12 months, while 87% feel that at least 50% of their tutoring activities will be delivered online. Over a third of these respondents said their tutoring will be offered online exclusively.
On top of this, 72% of respondents feel e-learning is more effective or as effective as classroom-based instruction.
Online teaching has been deemed even more valuable from the students’ perspective, with 84% deeming it more effective or just as effective as face-to-face delivery.
Parents also take a similar stance, with 73% citing e-learning as more effective or just as effective.
On-demand education could be a viable alternative to classroom teaching, with 73% of students stating they are likely or very likely to use searchable lesson recordings for both learning and revision over the next year.
Parents also acknowledged the value of flexible timetables in online education, also citing the safeguarding guarantees of pre-recorded lessons and greater choice of quality teachers as key perks to digital learning.
Of Bramble’s 2,060 survey respondents, 60% were tutors, 28% were students, 7% were parents and representatives of tutoring organisations (such as charities), while 5% were from commercial tuition agencies.
Seventy-one percent of the tutoring organisations who participated said that at least 50% of their tutoring activities would take place online in the next 12 months, citing increased access to their tutoring among a wider pool of students as the biggest benefit of teaching remotely.
Tutor respondents included teachers who also tutor (17%), students who tutor (33%), part-time tutors (28%), full-time tutors (13%), retirees who tutor (5%) and volunteer tutors (4%).
“The survey shows that the shift from in-person to online tutoring is not just for the lockdown,” said Bramble co-founder, Will Chambers. “It also dispels the myth that online tutoring is inferior. Online tutoring is now the most likely way tutors will teach their students for at least the next 12 months, and likely much further beyond that.
“It’s a dramatic change that’s been driven by necessity but there is now a widespread realisation amongst tutors, as well as students and parents, that tutoring online is just as effective – and for many even more effective – than the in-person approach that was so prevalent just a few months ago,” added Chambers.
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