Few words, which most of us mispronounce. Trying to correct the way my students pronounce the following words. I was also pronouncing those words wrongly a few years ago. 

 The acronym of extraordinary. qualities of Bhutanese people - Sincerity, Mindfulness, Astuteness, Resilience, and Timelessness, is SMART.

 This year the International Women's Day coincides with Dakini Day. Lots of love to mothers, sisters, wives, daughters, and all women in the world. Happy International Women's Day. 

More than ever, due to pandemic, COVID19, most of the countries including Bhutan were forced to carry on online means of teaching and learning. Correspondingly, people realized the importance of real learning, the face to face method of teaching and learning in a classroom. Learning online or virtual learning is a good idea, but it cannot replace classroom lessons. Conventional classroom education sounds older than virtual learning, but it is still the best way of teaching and learning. On the other hand, virtual learning may prove people to be moving with time but it cannot cater to all the purposes of education. Therefore; online education may not be as good as conventional classroom education. Online classrooms may not be an effective method in inducing interpersonal growth in their students. It may also contribute to time factors and objective forms of assessment. 

Online education cannot be as good as conventional classroom education because the virtual nature of class will affect the interpersonal skills development of students. Besides content knowledge, educational institutions like schools and colleges are the place where students develop their interpersonal skills. Skills like respecting elders, caring for younger ones, and talking nicer, are mostly learned in schools and colleges. The more a student interacts with friends and teachers (or other staff), the more they pick those skills. However, studying from home through virtual platforms hinder those interactions and retard interpersonal skills development. As the trend of online education expands, professors have questioned whether an online education provides students with the proper development of interpersonal relationships and social skills (Allen & Seaman, 2011 as cited in Lindsey, 2015). This makes it evident that online teaching and learning, not reliable methods. 

Online classes make students procrastinate more frequently. Some argue that online class is less time consuming than real class (Life Long Learning, 2017). However, online classes do not have instructors hounding students to stay on task. This makes the students go complacent with their academics. Moreover, online classes have to rely on fundamental attributes like electricity, internet connectivity, and management of time. Uncertainty of power feed is related to the decimation of teachers as well as students’ time and efforts. The difference in the strength of internet connectivity products to learning gaps among the students. The setting of the online classes is usually at home which makes students face challenges to manage time between chores at home and studies. Therefore, students have more reasons to procrastinate assignments and homework while learning online. 

Assessment is another obstruction commencing the online teaching and learning process. One may claim that online teaching can be a benefit in providing assessment in diverse geographical areas (TestReach, 2012). On the contrary, the assessment becomes unfair. The actual abilities of the students cannot be justified through online assessments. This is solely linked to unfair means such as copying. Furthermore, the students’ participation in the academic forums cannot be a reliable source to draw correct inferences of student’s potential. Attesting to the veracity of this view, Rastogi, and Bhardwaj (2020) have interpreted that online classes and its affiliated assessments lack transparency since most of the works from the students can be plagiarised. Consequently, it does not provide a well-grounded trend of student’s learning progress. This scaffolds the inefficacy of online classrooms. 

The advancements in the teaching and learning process with modern technology have been acknowledged around the globe. However, it has not been effective in serving purposes like the conventional teaching method. Its drawbacks include not being able to bring about interpersonal skills development. The virtual environment provides fewer platforms for students to interact with each other. It also results in ineffective management of time, and unjustified assessments. Education is advancing with the introduction of sophisticated technologies. Yet, the conventional method of teaching and learning remains an irreplaceable means of teaching and learning built since time immemorial.

References

Life Long Learning. (2017). 13 huge advantages to taking online classes. Retrieved from https://www.cornerstone.edu/blog-post/13-huge-advantages-to-taking-online-classes/

Natasha S. Lindsey, M. L. (2015). Interpersonal Skills and Education in the. Journal of Interactive Online Learning , 126.

Rastogi, V., & Bhaedwaj, A. (2020). Why online examinations make for unfair testing. Retrieved from https://livewire.thewire.in/campus/why-online-examinations-make-for-unfair-testing/

TestReach. (2012, June 09). The Benefits of Online Assessment. Retrieved october 11, 2020, from TestReach: https://www.testreach.com/benefits-of-online-assessment-testreach.html

No cliff echoes without a source of the sound. With required conditions, all cliffs echoes. This simple phenomenon has many functions that may extend beyond one's knowledge. The strength of the sound source is the weakness of the cliff and the weakness of the sound source is the strength of the cliff. 

The sound source has its own ability to produce sounds but a cliff cannot produce sounds of its own. Though a cliff is disabled of producing sounds of its own, it never fails to throw back the echo. If both the sound source and cliff are personified, one can learn a valuable lesson. 

At times, in one's life, another person would always try to blame for any kind of deteriorating factors in relationships (family, friends, workmates, etc) and take the credits for strengthening the same. When one's ego wins, he/she would start to say that another person is; not calling, not texting in social media, not giving regards, and so on. 'He/she did not talk or greet me first, so I too ignored him/her', is what we hear from egoistic individuals. 

In life, one should not always expect others to be the one to approach first to; call, greet, respect, and so on. If one tries to appear first like the sound source, others would always react and respond like the echo from the cliff.

We humans unintentionally or intentionally tend to expect many things from others. If such expectations appear in one's mind, try doing the same expected actions to others.