FIVE THOUGHT-PROVOKING IDEAS FOR TRANSFORMING K-12 EDUCATION TO ANOTHER LEVEL

Education has become a mere formality nowadays without any impetus on providing learning to students. We are seeing lots of e-learning courses being developed, but the sole purpose of education is lost. There is a need for an educational structure that can not only provide better learning opportunities to students, but also stimulate them to gain knowledge from the subjects. In order to fulfill this prophecy, there is a need for an educational mechanism that can transform the thinking of the students to another level.

Some of the ideas for radically transforming K-12 education include:

• The transforming role of teachers: Teachers are more than just tutors in the lives of the students. They function more like mentors who are liable for making or breaking the career of the student. Hence; there is a need for an e-learning course which can not only provide interactive support to the children through one-on-one counseling, but also look after the academic progress of the student. Teachers should deliver the content in such a manner that students enjoy the learning process and get the intellectual knowledge thoroughly.
• The evolving role of tests: In the traditional learning methods, teachers used to take tests of the students. But with the inception of e-learning courses things have changed dramatically. Now, no longer does a teacher take test of the student to evaluate their progress. It is done through online practice. Hence; there is a need for a practice management tool to be integrated in the e-learning courses such that students can practice basic problems to understand the topic. Interactive exercises should also be amalgamated in the e-learning courses so that they can make the learning process interactive and fun-loving.
• Need for customized learning path for each student: It is very important to create customized learning patterns for students based on their intellectual capacity and understanding. The courses designed should follow the common core curriculum and state boards.
• Guidance from experts from relevant field: In order to be a success, it is very important for an e-learning course to integrate expertise knowledge from relevant domain so that whenever, students get stuck they can get spontaneous response from the expert of that particular field. It should also be noted that there should only be one tutor per student so that the student can enjoy undivided attention from the expert.
• Integration of images alongwith videos in the content: E-learning courses have to be designed in such a manner that students get interactive content including lots of images and videos; so that they can learn in a fun-filled environment. This kind of teaching pattern is especially important for primary level students as it makes the learning process interesting and interactive.