SPOKANE, Wash. - August 5, 2020 - (Newswire.com)
International educators have formed an alliance to address an international crisis in education due to the COVID-19 pandemic. According to the UN Secretary-General, the world is facing a "generational catastrophe" because of school closures during the COVID-19 pandemic. As a result, teachers and professors worldwide are being required to move from physical classrooms into 'virtual spaces' to teach online with little to no preparation. Dr. Otherine Johnson Neisler of Muscat, Oman and David Paquin of Spokane, Washington have worked collaboratively for years in faculty education and are observing an international crisis in education, affecting millions of faculty members and hundreds of millions of students.
"Educators and their students are facing the greatest challenge of their academic lives," states Dr. Johnson Neisler, Co-Founder of Modern Faculty. "Early research shows that students are not engaging in online learning and are falling behind in almost all subject areas. This lost ground in academic performance will have lifelong repercussions."
Faculty members worldwide are apprehensive about returning to the classroom due to the pandemic but are equally uneasy about providing quality education outcomes online.
"Faculty and students alike are unfairly being directed to teach and learn online, in each case, a scenario that they did not sign up for. Colleges must at least provide the necessary tools for both to succeed," says David Paquin. "Educational facilities in 107 countries have closed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, forcing over 860 million students to enter a world of online education for the first time. The challenges of effective learning in this environment are enormous."
Universities that had originally hoped to address the virus with socially distant, in-person classrooms now recognize that online classrooms are inevitable. This has placed a majority of them in dire need of new resources to teach online including effective use of learning management systems, course authoring tools, technical infrastructure, and, most importantly, the education of faculty on how to teach effectively online.
About Modern Faculty:
Modern Faculty (www.ModernFaculty.com) is an international collaboration of lifelong educational professionals offering Universities and Colleges guidance on the most effective plan for an institution's transition to the virtual classroom. Dr. Johnson Neisler is the Deputy Director for the Centers of Excellence in Teaching and Learning at Sultan Qaboos University in Oman and David Paquin has a Masters Degree in Adult Education and has developed customized online education systems in the U.S for twenty years. Modern Faculty's mission is to design and build highly cost-effective programs that are unique to each educational institution using the best of a wide range of resources available through the Internet.
Contact: David Paquin, Dave@ModernFaculty.com 208-416-1172 www.ModernFaculty.com
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Original Source: International Crisis in Education
