One Year of Online Education in COVID-19 Age, a Challenge for the Romanian Education System

Abstract

The study tried to analyze the implication of one year of online education in the Romanian education system. To achieve this goal, the authors of this study analyzed all the levels of education, primary education, lower secondary education, upper secondary education, and even the early childhood system, but also one of the smallest Romanian universities, considered representative for grade 1 universities representing 60% of the Romanian universities. The study is based on four online questionnaires for investigation, first with more than 2500 respondents from the primary and secondary Romanian education system, and the other three applied to more than 800 students and professors from the University of Petroșani. The investigation took place during 29 January 2021 and 11 February 2021. The authors had investigated the main feature of a standard online or a classical e-learning solution, such as the meeting solution or the video conference software, the collaborative work, such as homework or projects, and the testing method or the quizzes from both perspectives of the students and of the professors. The study results could influence the expected future hybrid educational system because these results were not covered in the previous literature but proved to be necessary for relevant knowledge strategies to be implemented in the new pandemic and also in the future context.

The Use of Digital Portfolio in Higher Education before and during the COVID-19 Pandemic

“…Moreover, the participants considered the digital portfolio as an alternative and more positive evaluation system compared to the traditional system. These results are in agreement with those of previous studies conducted in the field of health [35][36][37]. However, the participants had a negative opinion about the time required to carry out the portfolio [7,30,38] and the uncertainty [28] caused by this new tool.…”

“…This aspect could be due to the fact that they experienced the use of this application in online education. For the disadvantages, the learning category did not obtain any disadvantage before the pandemic, although the autonomy category obtained a higher percentage in face-to-face education [35]. This was probably due to the much lower interaction and cooperation between students during the pandemic, which implied fewer possibilities of sharing or copying.…”

“…Uncertainty as feedback, fear of the unknown and being excessively alert about gathering all the information obtained a higher percentage before the pandemic. This could be due to the fact that, during the pandemic, the subject was better panned, providing more detailed instructions and presentations compared to face-to-face education [35]. The attention of the students at home was not affected by any external element; however, in the classroom, distraction can be much greater and hard to control.…”

Reflections throughout the COVID-19 Lockdown: What Do I Need for Successful Learning of Engineering?

“…In the conformism phase, the student accepts the teaching methodology, without seeking to improve it. Reflection on the concepts explained in class can encourage students to reflect on how what has been explained can be learned more satisfactorily, as shown in other studies of the bibliography [ 26 , 40 ].…”

Responsive Dashboard as a Component of Learning Analytics System for Evaluation in Emergency Remote Teaching Situations

“…In order to establish the component elements of the input data for the learning analytics block, data collected from the learning activities and data that evaluate the activities carried out on various platforms were analyzed on the basis of the project POCU 12596, implemented by the authors as project managers at the University of Petrosani, and financed by the European Commission through the Romanian Operational Program Human Capital (OPHC) [ 59 ]. The virtual class platform for the courses was analyzed, monitored, and evaluated [ 60 , 61 ].…”