scholarly journals Online University Teaching at the time of COVID-19 (2020): An Australian Perspective

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 183-200
Author(s):  
Erika K. Smith ◽  
Ece Kaya

The impacts of COVID-19 have been widespread, and the education sector has not been immune to its effects. In March 2020 Australian universities were forced into a shutdown, which prompted an unanticipated, sudden shift in education, from on-campus and face-to-face to an off-campus and online mode of teaching and learning. This paper describes the experiences of two Sydney-based university unit coordinators, from two different institutions, who rapidly shifted their units online as a result of COVID-19. In particular, it applies reflection as a research method, to share what the authors’ encountered as successful, and what was challenging about teaching online. Motivating and retaining students was a key challenge identified by the authors. Therefore, the paper discusses the authors’ application of various digital programs and tools in their response to this challenge of motivation and engagement. It is hoped that our experiences might benefit those looking to integrate programs and tools in the online teaching and learning space. Although Australia is currently one of the most successful countries in their handling of COVID-19, there is still great uncertainty about the future. Globally the pandemic shows no signs of abating, as many countries struggle to manage high levels of transmission and infection rates, which in turn have an impact on the education sector more broadly. Consequently, online learning may be the ‘new normal’ for many institutions in the near future. Therefore, it is important for educators to share their online teaching experiences that can contribute to greater understandings of this space.

2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 77-98
Author(s):  
Harisa Mardiana

The author's interest is to investigate the lecturers' attitudes towards online teaching in the learning process which is the teaching for the 21st-century learning process and to seek the relationship among lecturers’ attitudes, online teaching and learning process. The problem is many lecturers in Tangerang City area are afraid of using technology and some of them are stuttered and technology illiterate. The lecturers still prefer face to face learning in the class more campuses have provided Moodle as a platform of learning. With the circumstances of Coronavirus, the learning has moved to e-learning. In this research, the author used a mixed-method and the number of respondents was 104, data collection was obtained from questionnaires sent via Google Form and distributed through WhatsApp to the lecturers in Tangerang City area. Data is translated into frequency and regression linear. The result showed that 73 lecturers change them toward e-learning and remain 27 lectures had difficulty in teaching online and preferred traditional learning. Keywords: Lecturers' attitudes, online teaching, and learning process


2021 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 239-243
Author(s):  
Ana-Maria CHISEGA-NEGRILĂ

Abstract: As the time in which online teaching and learning was still an element of novelty has long been gone, virtual learning environments have to be studied thoroughly so that they will provide students not only with the necessary knowledge, but also with the proper tools to meet their learning objectives. The advancement in information technology and the access to an almost inordinate number of learning and teaching tools should have already been fructified and, as a result, not only teachers, but also learners should have already picked up the fruit of knowledge grown in the vast virtual environment of the Internet. However, as education has recently moved almost entirely online, some questions have arisen. Are the Virtual Learning Environments (VLEs) enough to offer ESL students both motivation and knowledge? Will foreign languages benefit from this growing trend or will traditional, face-to-face interaction, prove to have been more efficient? The present article will look into some of these questions and into the benefits of VLEs in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic.


2021 ◽  
pp. 105678792110423
Author(s):  
Kuruppu Achchige Dulani Daminda Kuruppu

The objective of this study was to outline the education reform approaches which could implement during online teaching and learning activities. The approaches consisted with online teaching, online mentoring /student induction programmes, online examinations and online guest lectures/webinars. The approaches practiced, were discussed in activity 1 to 7 in the methodology section. In addition, the outcome assessed using 4Rs model for reflection and PDCA cycle at the results and discussion section. In conclusion, this study showed that the approaches implemented assist to improve the interaction of the students.


Author(s):  
Albert L. Ingram ◽  
Lesley G. Hathorn

Collaboration and cooperation have become firmly established as teaching methods in face-to-face classes (e.g., Johnson, Johnson, & Smith, 1998). They are also rapidly becoming widespread in online teaching and learning in both hybrid (mixed traditional and online) course and distance courses. The methods are likely to be most effective if they are firmly grounded in how people actually work together. Some groups collaborate more successfully than others. Frequently, instructors may place students into groups in the expectation that they will collaborate without a clear idea of what collaboration is or how to recognize and encourage it. We must define what we mean by the terms, both so that we can use the techniques successfully and so that we can research them accurately.


Author(s):  
Albert L. Ingram ◽  
Lesley G. Hathorn

Collaboration and cooperation have become firmly established as teaching methods in face-to-face classes (e.g., Johnson, Johnson, & Smith, 1998). They are also rapidly becoming widespread in online teaching and learning in both hybrid (mixed traditional and online) course and distance courses. The methods are likely to be most effective if they are firmly grounded in how people actually work together. Some groups collaborate more successfully than others. Frequently, instructors may place students into groups in the expectation that they will collaborate without a clear idea of what collaboration is or how to recognize and encourage it. We must define what we mean by the terms, both so that we can use the techniques successfully and so that we can research them accurately. In addition, we must distinguish between groups in which people act independently from those who act collaboratively. As Surowiecki (2004) has pointed out, when all the results are aggregated, a large number of people acting independently may give a more accurate solution to a problem than an expert. Interdependent groups may often produce results inferior to the results obtained by their best-performing members or may be affected by a “groupthink” mentality.


Author(s):  
Geraint Lang

Twenty First Century Education is undergoing change not only to keep in step with the emerging technological innovations, but also to address the needs and meet the high expectations of a technically sophisticated student body. Physical manifestations of these changes may be seen in new institutional building work. Technologically, the Facebook Generation of students in our universities expect online access across the campus, not only to all manner of information and social networks, but to their course work. A growing body of the student population now remain in full time employment, enrolled via online courses. Their virtual access to teaching and learning requires a different form of tuition to that generally experienced in face to face lectures. Online teaching and learning is a facilitated process, which this chapter seeks to explain. The role of the facilitator is explained, along with the process of online learning, with reference to an established online degree course, Ultraversity.


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (10) ◽  
pp. 461-473
Author(s):  
Yazilmiwati Yaacob ◽  
Malissa Maria Mahmud ◽  
Nur Izzati Mustamam ◽  
Rozaini Ahmad ◽  
Noor Syazwani Ishak ◽  
...  

The Covid-19 pandemic has affected various sectors particularly the education sector. The decision by the Malaysian government to close down higher learning institutes and schools has forced educators and teachers to switch their teaching and learning techniques from face-to-face to completely online. This situation has pushed the lecturers from the General Studies Department, Sunway University, Malaysia to master not only the technological tools, but also the pedagogic aspect that drive the entire process, to ensure the teaching and learning process can be carried out properly. Within a short period of time, different methods and modalities were designed and experimented, yet little is known on how such abrupt and rapid modifications affect the overall quality. Considering the value of experiences and reflections, this study probes on the mediated experiences of GSD academics on online teaching and learning, whereby a qualitative-research design was leveraged in a plethora of collective reflections in using E-Learn. The findings revealed that E-Learn has a huge potential to be effectively employed for synchronous and asynchronous modalities due to its user-friendly features and tools within the capacity to disseminate information, structure virtual lessons, record students’ involvement, monitor reports and deploy both formative and summative assessments. This study concluded that the various features of E-Learn had tremendously assisted the GSD lecturers during the online teaching and learning process, and is deemed suitable be used as a platform or Learning Management System (LMS) for online teaching and learning activities.


2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (23) ◽  
pp. 57-67
Author(s):  
Mohd Sohaimi Esa ◽  
Abang Mohd Razif Abang Muis ◽  
Romzi Ationg ◽  
Irma Wani Othman ◽  
Siti Aidah Lukin @ Lokin ◽  
...  

The Appreciation of Ethics and Civilization (PEdP) is a compulsory university course introduced in 2020 for the Institution of Higher Learning (IHL) in replacement of Ethnic Relations. As a new compulsory university course, among its objectives is to ensure the students appreciate the ethics and civilization that appears in the multi-ethnic society of Malaysia. Accordingly, High Impact Education Practices (HEPs) have been practiced in Teaching and Learning activities to improve the students’ critical and analytical thinking in dealing with challenges both at present and in the future. This paper presents a discussion on the effectiveness of online teaching and learning of PEdP in accordance with the new norm. To do so, a study was conducted among the undergraduate students of Universiti Malaysia Sabah (UMS). The matters examined include the objectives, curriculum, and methods of teaching and learning. The study shows that the fundamental aims and objectives of this course were achieved despite being thought entirely online but it is expected that both goals and objectives can be highly achieved vita the application of traditional teaching and learning method of face to face teaching and learning activities.


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.


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