New and returning students alike may find the transition from high school to university both exciting and stressful. Increasing academic pressures in an increasingly competitive environment, coupled with a wide range of lifestyle changes, can contribute to suboptimal wellbeing. As mental health difficulties have been reported to rise concurrently with university attendance in the U.K., university wellness services have grown as a result. A new coronavirus knew as Sars-Cov-2, or COVID-19 has suddenly altered the learning environment for higher education students. University campuses have been closed in the United Kingdom to both students and non-essential staff to protect them from contracting the virus.
There
have been substantial repercussions from these decisions for the delivery of
education, relationships, and, most importantly, for the provision of student
services. For the upcoming academic year, there remains uncertainty regarding
how teaching will be conducted. Students will face new, online, environments
that they will be expected to navigate without the familiar supports that they
are used to due to the pandemic uncertainty.
Students'
well-being will be considered as a population-level concept as opposed to
diagnosed mental health conditions, considering the outbreak of COVID-19.
Research and practitioners must consider the novel challenges of implementing
wellbeing initiatives moving forward, given the unprecedented world in which students
learn today. There is positive as well as negative effects on the students due
to the Covid-19 pandemic. We are going to discuss both scenarios here.
Firstly,
let us consider the negative ones, they are:
1.
Sluggish Border Movements:
The movement of the international students was affected due to this pandemic.
The students were unable to go to their colleges and universities for higher
studies which affected both their academic and psychological health adversely.
The various countries had restricted their movement by not providing them
visas.
2.
Students learn passively: It
is not without risk that most of our students become passive learners because
of the sudden shift to online learning students and teachers all over the world
had issues. They were not prepared, and curriculums were not designed to
accommodate them. Since they are struggling with attention span issues. The
students from remorse areas were facing issues all over the world due to a lack
of resources. The teachers were facing issues as they were not that tech-savvy
to manage such a situation.
3. Online education unprepared teachers: Teachers are not all adept at teaching online learning, or at least are not prepared for that sudden shift from face-to-face instruction to online learning. As a result, most of the teachers are just using video platforms like Zoom to deliver lectures, so it may not be online learning without a dedicated platform.
Now here are some affirmative impacts of the pandemic:
1.
Blended learning is on the rise: Blended learning models will become a norm in universities
and colleges, where face-to-face and online delivery models will be combined.
To be technologically savvy, all teachers will have to undergo some training
and become more familiar with the technology.
2.
The new norm will be learning management systems: Universities and colleges will have a fantastic
opportunity to expand their offering of learning management systems to the
public. Growing at an extremely fast pace, this technology must be priced
appropriately to be used by all institutions.
3. Material improvement: educational materials at universities and colleges can be improved. Considering blend learning to be the new format, new ways of designing and delivering quality content will be encouraged, especially since the use of learning management systems will mean that academics will be more open and transparent.
