Some form of stress is a must for being successful and fulfilling your ambitions. But sapping & overwhelming stress does more harm than good. Dealing with stress, therefore, is important to be successful. The current pandemic situation has amplified and exacerbated stress for instructors. Addressing this rising anxiety issue amongst instructors and fostering mechanisms to support them, KYS Infosystems, organized an interactive session on Stress management for educators, in association with Innovative Educators Forum. Panellists Girish Ramamurthy & Shiva Prasad, KYS Infosystems emphasized on the need for a comprehensive learning management system as a tool for instructors to manage stress.

During the interactive session, it was shared, that the changing face of the education system with the introduction of new education policy, a new system of remote learning due to pandemic has brought new stressors for instructors. The trajectory of an academic calendar looks a whole lot different for those involved in organization systems. The shift to online modalities of learning, restructuring in the way content is curated and delivered, is leading to a sense of anxiousness, fear, and worry amongst instructors.

“A instructor-learner face to face interaction is very essential for learner development and has been the usual norm of teaching. With the pandemic taking this away, it is putting stress on everyone including children. There is a cultural shift in the education system from having them in the classroom to now teaching virtually. It is becoming challenging for instructors to manage the different nuances of the current online teaching mediums available”, shared Girish Ramamurthy, KYS Infosystems, a pioneer in the online education field that has created & customized EZSLATE, the robust Learning Management System for Schools & Universities.

“Instructors are in a completely unfamiliar zone with learners as remote spectators and parents as unwanted intruders. The stress of being under constant observation while teaching through an unfamiliar medium with totally new tools is least to say challenging and stressful”, further shared Shiva Prasad Desai, KYS Infosystems.

Instructors actively participated in the session and shared their struggle to engage learners gainfully, getting them to respond and collaborate during lessons, assessing the outcomes, lack of effort in class, Noisiness, and keeping the learners safe as some of the challenges they are facing.

The panellists addressed each query and shared that while the reason for stress differs as per individuals, the solution also has to be customized. It is important for every instructor to analyse each situation tactically and strategically and resolve it. Further, it was highlighted how the right technology is the best solution for instructors and organizations in these unprecedented times.

“When instructors don’t have the resources they need, especially when sustained job demands are high, instructors experience stress. This would result in less effectiveness of instructors and also affect the performance of learners. Hence it’s important for instructors to be mindful and create the right home-work balance. Regular Exercise along with Self-care, Self-realization, and Self – discipline will assist in reducing stress”,  informed Girish Ramamurthy.

“Using the right technology will help resolve many challenges. Instructors need to exploit the technology available to them. Most educators, you look at, use web conference – That is not LMS. It’s just a medium to share data. Learning Management System is a virtual organization where everything is put together. A smart LMS will have all features integrated into one, easy to use with access to instructors promoting the idea of blended & hybrid learning”, shared Shiva Prasad.

“A robust, flexible and smart Learning management system is the need of the hour. It is the tool which will empower instructors to make education fun, engaging kids, manage changes in training content & content resulting in saving time & effort, customize content giving personal attention to kids and analyzed assessment leading to better education imparted to children”, further added Girish Ramamurthy.

One of the instructors asked, “With the socio-economic disparity inaccessibility to technology,  low-income organizations have to rethink how they prioritize otherwise unquestioned beliefs of ‘completing syllabi’, how do we address this?”

“A recent survey showed that 90% of people have smartphones and with the strong penetration of Jio & airtel there is good internet connectivity. With a good LMS like EzSlate, which comes with the facility of Virtual classes, the organizations can easily connect with the learners on smartphones, where they can download the content online and then refer to it offline”, shared Shiva Prasad.

Different tools of Learning management systems were explained along with smart tips for instructors to manage stress and have a healthy work environment.