Pandemic and Online Pedagogy: An Exploratory Study of Impact of Gender on Teaching-Learning Process

Abstract

The covid-19 public health pandemic posed a big challenge to the continuance of school and college education. To shift from classrooms to distant online pedagogy was a challenging enterprise in the absence of digital infrastructures and adequate time available to gain expertise in ICT. Studies on online learning during the pandemic have explored the aspects of socio-educational factors in access, efficiency issues, satisfaction, problems faced by students and teachers etc. The present paper explores the aspect of Gender qua its impact on the online teaching-learning process through an exploratory qualitative study in the light of online pedagogical experiences of final year student teachers of an elementary teacher education degree programme in a Delhi University college while they transacted various subjects to school children in the online mode during their mandatory school internship, as well as their own lived experiences shared while doing a course with the author, combined with the author’s own observations. The study brings out that girls had a disadvantageous experience in the shift to online pedagogy. Existing gender disparities got accentuated in times of technological pedagogical transition wherein boys had greater access and claims than girls. The loss of physical classrooms also adversely impacted various aspects of the lives of girls.