Attempts, Successes, and Failures of Distance Learning in the Time of COVID-19

Abstract

Over 1.7 billion students around the world have had their education disrupted by the spread of the Coronavirus disease worldwide. Schools and universities have not faced this level of disruption since World War II. The COVID-19 pandemic presented a colossal challenge for teachers to urgently and massively adapt all their classes to distance learning in order to maintain educational continuity with the same quality. Even if some teachers and certain classes were ready to face the situation, a large majority had to adapt their teaching and learning in a very short time without training, with insufficient bandwidth, and with little preparation. This unexpected and rapid transition to online learning has led to a multiplication of teachers' strategies for distance learning in lectures, tutorials, project groups, lab works, and assessments. The purpose of this paper is to present the feedback from students and teachers who participated in the lockdown semester of two different groups of a 5-year program in Chemistry, Environment and Chemical Engineering (100 students) at INSA Toulouse (France). The analysis has highlighted some great successes and some failures in the solutions proposed. Consequently, some guidelines can be given to help us all to learn the lessons of such a singular experience in order to face the unexpected future with more knowledge and more successful distance learning. Teachers have shown very strong resilience during this crisis, at the cost of significant personal commitment. They admit that they have learned more about distance education in two months than in the last 10 years.

The advantage of distributed practice in a blended learning setting

“…The past two decades have been characterized by digital transformations (e.g., ubiquity of computers and network coverage) that facilitate the conduct of online courses and distance learning. Furthermore, the current situation related to COVID-19 pandemic containment measures, including home confinement, social distancing, suspension of gatherings, and closing of schools, has exponentially increased the use of online courses and distance learning (Dietrich et al 2020 ). It is predicted that there will be an even stronger uptick in interest in these learning modalities in the future.…”

Avoiding the Dark Side of Digital Transformation in Teaching. An Institutional Reference Framework for eLearning in Higher Education

“…However, different difficulties with this system might be underlined, such as class rhythm, problems for interacting with the teachers and peers, attention and procrastination issues, etc. [48]. Thus, video conferencing systems are an essential component of the online learning technological ecosystems [49], because not all of the activities must be synchronous.…”

Distance Motor Learning during the COVID-19 Induced Confinement: Video Feedback with a Pedagogical Activity Improves the Snatch Technique in Young Athletes

“…A mixed-design 3 × 3 (group × time) ANOVA (Table 2) with a repeated measurement of the second factor showed (i) a significant time effect for all kinematic variables with p < 0.001 and theղp 2 range from 0.21 to 0.26 for Dx2, DxV and Diff Tr with p < 0.01 and theղp 2 range from 0.14 to 0.17 for DxT, DxL and VTR and with p < 0.05 and ղp2 = 0.11 for HMV; (ii) a significant group effect for DxL and DxT with p = 0.002 and ղp 2 = 0.21 and 0.22, respectively and (iii) a significant effect of a group-by-time interaction for DxL with p = 0.04 and ηp 2…”

“…In response to the current situation of quarantine and social distancing, technological advancements are certainly urging sports pedagogists and physical educators to adjust to new methods for providing movement-related feedback [ 2 , 28 ] particularly with regard to new distance learning methods involving video-mediated feedback techniques.…”

“…The COVID-19 pandemic has affected educational and sports systems worldwide, leading to the near-total closure of schools, universities and collegesand, consequently, the closure of affiliated training centers for young athletes as a measure to curtail the spread of the infectious disease [1][2][3]. Meanwhile, this global health crisis is triggering the application of distance learning modalities in various fields [4], requiring educators to investigate alternative methods with which to enhance knowledge acquisition in these remote environments [5].…”