E-Teaching in Higher Education: an Innovative Pedagogy to Generate Digitally Competent Students at King Khalid University

Abstract

The education system in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is on the verge of digital advancement. Primarily, this research paper aims to examine how a digitally competent teacher can help the institution and its learners to achieve high-level competency in digital and academic learning, as well as to develop critical thinking. It also intends to focus on the characteristics of e-teaching and the consequences of learning competency with its implication in female undergraduate colleges of King Khalid University. For the data collection, both the qualitative and quantitative approaches were employed. Several teachers were interviewed on their experiences with the utilization of digital sources, whereas, a large group of students from distinct study areas responded to a questionnaire to provide their feedback on their e-learning experience. The analysis indicates the necessity of appropriate trainings for e-teachers to handle the unexpected situations that occur during the teaching or evaluating process. Despite being a challenging task, they found it very useful to make students engaged with varied activities. The results also demonstrate that the eteaching experience with digital media enables the teachers to assess their digital competence and teaching efficiency.