scholarly journals Clinical Legal Education during a Global Pandemic - Suggestions from the Trenches: The Perspective of the Nelson Mandela University

Author(s):  
Marc Welgemoed

Summary/Abstract   The Covid-19 pandemic has plunged the world into turmoil and uncertainty.  The academic world is no exception.  In South Africa, due to a nationwide lockdown imposed by government, universities had to suspend all academic activities, but very quickly explored online teaching and learning options in order to ensure continued education to students.  As far as Clinical Legal Education, or CLE, is concerned, such online options of teaching and learning could present problems to university law faculties, university law clinics and law students in general, as CLE is a practical methodology, usually following a live-client or simulation model, depending on the particular university and law clinic.  This article provides insight into the online methodology followed by the Nelson Mandela University, or NMU.  The NMU presents CLE as part of its Legal Practice-module and conventionally follows the live-client model.  As the national lockdown in South Africa required inter alia social distancing, the live-client model had been temporarily suspended by the NMU Law Faculty Management Committee and replaced with an online methodology.  The aim of this was an attempt to complete the first semester of the academic year in 2020.  This online methodology is structured so as to provide practical-orientated training to students relating to a wide variety of topics, including drafting of legal documents, divorce matters, medico-legal practice, labour legal practice, criminal legal practice, as well as professional ethics.  The online training took place in two staggered teaching and learning pathways in line with the strategy of the NMU, underpinned by the principle of “no student will be left behind.”   In this way, provision had been made for students with online connectivity and access to electronic devices, students with online connectivity only after return to campus or another venue where connectivity is possible and electronic devices are available, as well as for students who do not have access to online connectivity and electronic devices at all.  The reworked CLE-programme of the NMU, planned for the second semester of the 2020-academic year, will also be discussed in this article.  The online methodology, followed by the NMU, should however not be viewed as definitive or cast in stone in any way.  There might be – and there surely are – alternative methodologies, both online and otherwise, that may provide equally good or even better training to CLE-students during a global pandemic.  Alternative suggestions in this regard will also be discussed in this article.  It is hoped that this article will provide inspiration, as well as assistance, to university law faculties and law clinics that are struggling to engage with continued practical legal education during the testing and uncertain times brought about by the Covid-19 pandemic.  It is further hoped that this article may provide guidance in other difficult and unforeseen future instances that may await CLE.  In this regard, it is important to remember that the Fourth Industrial Revolution is rapidly increasing its grip on the world and that CLE will have to adapt to the demands thereof.

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (4) ◽  
pp. 177
Author(s):  
Brantina Chirinda ◽  
Mdutshekelwa Ndlovu ◽  
Erica Spangenberg

The COVID-19 global pandemic widely affected education across the world and engendered unprecedented scenarios that required expeditious responses. In South Africa, the pandemic came on top of pre-existing inequalities in the education system. Using a qualitative research method of exploratory and descriptive nature, this study engaged a social justice framework to explore the teaching and learning of mathematics during the COVID-19 lockdown in a context of historical disadvantage. A sample of twenty-three Grade 12 mathematics teachers at various public secondary schools in Gauteng, South Africa was used in the study. The teachers were selected through purposive sampling. A Google-generated open-ended questionnaire and follow-up telephonic interviews were used to collect data. Data were analysed thematically in five steps. The findings revealed that the WhatsApp platform is a valuable tool that can support the teaching and learning of mathematics beyond the classroom in the contexts of historical disadvantage. The findings also provided insights into how mathematics teachers became learners themselves during emergency remote teaching (ERT) as they had to adapt to digital teaching, find solutions to unfamiliar problems and acquire knowledge from a larger mathematics education community around the globe. The article discusses these findings and teachers’ challenges of transitioning from traditional face-to-face classrooms to ERT and how they were addressed. At the time of publishing the article, most learners in South Africa had started going to school on a rotational basis. Nonetheless, the study reported in this article is of importance as ERT in the context of historical disadvantage has foregrounded issues of inequality in the South African education system that must be dealt with urgently.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 1425-1431
Author(s):  
Andi Rahman

The current Covid-19 pandemic has had many effects on human life globally, including the implementation of education. This study aimed to obtain the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on learning outcomes in higher education. The research method used is a cross-sectional study. The data were taken from the test results at the end of the lecture, observations, and interviews. The research was conducted at the University of Muhammadiyah Lampung, IPDN Jatinangor Campus, and the Ahmad Dahlan Institute of Technology and Business, with 120 students participating. The data analysis technique used the percentage technique and cross-tabulation. The study results concluded that student learning outcomes decreased in the 2020-2021 academic year compared to the 2019-2020 academic year. The decline in learning outcomes includes knowledge, skills, and psychology. This finding has implications for the understanding of education personnel regarding online teaching and learning design during the Covid-19 pandemic.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kevin Fuchs

The pandemic has shaken up the higher education landscape around the world, with responses from institutions falling into three categories: retaining in-class teaching with social distancing, adopting hybrid models (blended learning, limiting the number of students on campus), or transitioning to fully online teaching. However, there is a significant difference between emergency remote teaching and a genuine shift to online/hybrid learning, with the key distinguishing term being “emergency.” In response to the global pandemic, the higher education community is now working on the continuous development of action plans in a quest to identify means to manage the crisis more efficiently. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the perceived performance of ERT from the perspective of undergraduate students. For that purpose, samples (n=332) were taken in two different geographical settings, i.e., Thailand and Sweden. Moreover, it is the objective to compare both samples and identify similarities and inadequacies which help stakeholders to manage ERT more efficiently in the future.


Author(s):  
Clare Lade ◽  
Paul Strickland ◽  
Elspeth Frew ◽  
Paul Willard ◽  
Sandra Cherro Osorio ◽  
...  

This chapter examines the ways in which teaching and training in tourism, hospitality and events have evolved and adapted to the contemporary demands of academia and industry. It explores the development of education in tourism, hospitality and events, the contemporary factors which influence teaching and learning, and discusses the rise of Massive Open Online Courses with a particular focus on their potential application within tourism, hospitality and events curriculum. The chapter concludes by providing an overview of Open Badges and their importance in education. At the time of writing, the world has been confronted by the Covid-19 global pandemic which has caused great disruption at all levels. The impact of Covid-19 is briefly addressed in this chapter as the enforcement of social distancing measures has led to a significant increase globally in online education.


2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 172-182
Author(s):  
María Perramon ◽  
Xus Ugarte

Abstract At a time when the advances in information and communication technologies meant that new approaches to virtual teaching and learning could be proposed, the teaching staff on the degree in Translation and Interpreting at UVic decided to offer part of the degree in distance learning mode. This learning mode was launched in the 2001–2002 academic year, with optional face-to-face teaching sessions some Saturdays and coexisted with the traditional face-to-face courses. During the first years, the fourth-year interpreting specialisation subjects were not taught online for technical and pedagogical reasons. Since the 2014-2015 academic year, we also teach these subjects online. The challenge that we face starting the 2017-2018 academic year is twofold: 1. To adapt the online teaching of interpreting subjects to groups with a high number of students in the new Inter-university Degree in Translation, Interpreting and Applied Languages jointly offered by the University of Vic and the Open University of Catalonia (UOC). 2. To adapt the contents and methodology of interpreting subjects to changes in professional practice: telephone and videoconference interpreting, especially in liaison interpreting. In our paper, we will show some online teaching resources, as well as several online tools which we use in our courses.


2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 21-29
Author(s):  
Yuli Fitrisia ◽  
Kartina Diah Kusuma Wardhani ◽  
Mardhiah Fadhli ◽  
Wenda Novayani ◽  
Dini Nurmalasari ◽  
...  

The pandemic that has hit the world has forced us to do learning indirectly or is often referred to as online (Daring). Online teaching and learning process requires some adjustments both on the teacher's side and the student's side. One of the adjustments is the need to seek technology and adaptation using technology. The currently widely used technology is online meeting services, such as the Zoom Meeting application, Google Meet, Video Calling via the Massager application, or other similar applications. To adapt to the technology, teachers at Madrasah Ibtidaiyah Muhammadiyah 01 Pekanbaru strongly desire to deepen ownership of the Zoom application as one of the media used for online learning. This training aims to provide an understanding and hands-on practice of using Zoom Meeting technology to increase learning effectiveness.


Author(s):  
Beby Masitho Batubara

Indonesia is the number one country with the highest number of Covid patients in Central Asia. This has an impact on various sectors including the education sector. In Indonesia, approximately 45 million students in Indonesia or it can be said that 3% of the total data globally, students who cannot take part in learning, the government issued a learning process policy in the midst of a pandemic, this policy determines the learning process which is usually carried out face-to-face, changes be learning online. This research uses a qualitative descriptive approach, with the type of library research, which is the collection of data related to the object of research in the form of literature or studying and deepening the literature literature books, reports and scientific journals, research results and other sources. The obstacles faced in implementing this learning method, namely the unpreparedness of students in the online teaching and learning process,Several studies have stated that not all of the teaching staff in Indonesia in various regions are equalized in carrying out the learning process online based on quality, competency in the use of communication and technology). Not only that, the weak education of the elderly to accompany students in using online media and not supported by facilities to carry out online learning. Dith the provision of internet networks with requiresubstantial costs. The problems in the world of education amid the Covid-19 pandemic must be a serious concern of the central and local governments.


2021 ◽  
pp. 1-19
Author(s):  
Tanya Bekker ◽  
Nazir Carrim

In this article, we view epistemological access as organising systematic teaching and learning, and we focus on teaching and learning online during COVID-19 pandemic conditions in 2020. We used a Survey Monkey questionnaire with two universities in South Africa that moved their teaching and learning online to survey whether lecturers thought that the extent of epistemological access was affected when this happened. Our findings indicate that lecturers feel that the emergency teaching and learning did compromise their teaching, and, while most used existing face-to-face materials online, and some changed the content when they went online, they changed the assessment formats. We argue that these changes, although understandable given pandemic conditions, did not necessarily constitute the kind of carefully designed, paced, sequenced, and assessed online teaching and learning that also enhances epistemological access. We indicate that if one is to accept that the so-called new normal in education will largely be online, then the quality assurance of online teaching and learning will become unavoidable.


Journal ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 38-45
Author(s):  
Andrew Russell ◽  
Lucy Johnson ◽  
Emily Tupper ◽  
Alice-Amber Keegan ◽  
Halima Akhter ◽  
...  

‘Covid-19 and Me’ was an affective learning blog post exercise assigned to 1st year undergraduate students taking a medical anthropology module at the start of academic year 2020-21.  We describe the way in which a collective analysis of the accounts was undertaken and how these were presented and discussed in a set of online and face-to-face seminars. We discuss whether Covid-19 was indeed a ‘portal’ in Arundhati Roy’s use of the term, arguing that it was the written reflection and collective anthropological analysis of their accounts, rather than the virus itself, that enabled students to ‘imagine the world anew’.


2021 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. p67
Author(s):  
Paula Smith-Hawkins

This study examines the online teaching and learning experience of twenty-one (21) faculty members at a Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) research university from the initial campus closure of the university in February 2020 in response to the COVID-19 global pandemic, through the end of Fall 2020 semester. The methodology entailed one-on-one interviews with instructors, reviews of the course materials in the Learning Management System, and the examination of email and videoconferencing exchanges. Gagne’s Nine Events of Instruction and the Quality Matters Rubric guidelines for instructional design framed the methodology. This study finds that faculty benefitted from close connections with colleagues and continuous institutional support during the pivot to emergency remote teaching and into a hybrid learning environment. These two factors – collegial connections and university resources – were crucial in sustaining faculty work during the period of this study.


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