COVID-19 Emergency eLearning and Beyond: Experiences and Perspectives of University Educators

Abstract

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, eLearning became the lifeline of higher education. We explored university educators’ eLearning perspectives, practices, and future adoption intentions. In-depth interviews with 14 educators from a large university in Singapore were conducted. Educators had limited eLearning experience prior to COVID-19 emergency eLearning and expressed strong preferences for in-person sessions. The short notice to switch to eLearning and lack of eLearning experiences created stress and anxiety. Educators responded by making efforts that allowed for teaching to continue, conceding that some expectations had to be readjusted. Despite many obstacles, educators acknowledged reduced apprehension towards eLearning. Reflecting upon their experiences, educators highlighted opportunities and challenges of eLearning. A key opportunity was increased flexibility, which enabled students to learn independently. Additionally, eLearning triggered reflection upon educators teaching which could lead to improved practice. Reduction of some barriers to student–educator interaction were also mentioned. Key challenges include creating social, emotional, and cognitive engagement, catering to diverse student needs and providing holistic learning experiences. Considering opportunities and challenges, educators envisioned that eLearning would feature in their future teaching if practical and helpful for achieving educational goals. Hybrid or blended learning approaches were preferred, but support enabling the implementation of technology-based and pedagogy-informed teaching is necessary.

Teachers’ Perception towards the Use of Quizizz in the Teaching and Learning of English: A Systematic Review

“…After the four phases of selecting the eligible articles for review, 45 were found to be suitable to be used in this systematic review due to the nature of the respective studies. From the articles, four main aspects of teachers' perspectives on the use of Quizizz could be seen, mainly, effectiveness , feasibility [14,15,19,20,22,23,26,27,31,36,38,41,[43][44][45][46][47][48], difficulty [16,17,19,26,28,31,39,41,43,46,[48][49][50][51][52], and motivation [14,17,[24][25][26]31,32,35,38,40,41,44,45,47,49,50,…”

“…This represents a vast majority of the research articles found, and after reading through the 29 articles, it is safe to say that teachers mostly agree that the platform is effective in the classroom. Teachers from various countries agreed that Quizizz is effective in many ways, especially in helping learners to learn in a fun, interactive, and meaningful environment [15,19,20,24,25]. Quizizz has a high potential to be exploited in a myriad of ways, including for assessment and classroom exercises [29,31,32,37,38].…”

“…Its interface, which is user-friendly, helps learners to access different functions without much hassle. With this, learners who have limited Internet access would not waste much time or Internet quota on navigating around aimlessly [19,20,44]. In the teaching and learning process, students only need a game code from their teachers in order to access a game that can be played in real-time mode or student-paced mode [26,41].…”

E-learning in nursing education in Rwanda: A middle-range theory

“…[4][5][6][7] Developing e-learning contents and providing el-learning opportunities is one of the areas advancing rapidly. [4,8] E-learning, known as electronic learning, unites two areas, learning and technology. [9] According to Aparicio, Bacao, [9] learning "is a cognitive process for achieving knowledge" while "technology is "an enabler of the learning process".…”

The impact of the digital technological platforms on the institutional system of the higher education during the COVID 19 pandemic

“…First, changes in the methods of teaching university students based on the widespread use of remote digital technologies [2,3,4]. Secondly, the creation of favorable conditions during the pandemic for the uptake of educational material and the maintenance of a high level of quality of education, despite the remote communication between students and teachers [5,6]. Third, the needs to adapt the existing open-source learning digital platforms like the Moodle (Modular Object-Oriented Dynamic Learning Environment) based on the Internet to the possibility of a rapid shifting from full-time training to training under condition of the full or partial lockdowns [7,8].…”