Shifting online during COVID-19: A systematic review of teaching and learning strategies and their outcomes

Abstract

This systematic literature review of 36 peer-reviewed empirical articles outlines eight strategies used by higher education lecturers and students to maintain educational continuity during the COVID-19 pandemic since January 2020. The findings show that students’ online access and positive coping strategies could not eradicate their infrastructure and home environment challenges. Lecturers’ learning access equity strategies made learning resources available asynchronously, but having access did not imply that students could effectively self-direct learning. Lecturers designed classroom replication, online practical skills training, online assessment integrity, and student engagement strategies to boost online learning quality, but students who used ineffective online participation strategies had poor engagement. These findings indicate that lecturers and students need to develop more dexterity for adapting and manoeuvring their online strategies across different online teaching and learning modalities. How these online competencies could be developed in higher education are discussed.

Evaluating Academic Answers Generated Using ChatGPT

“…With the pivot to online assessments during the COVID-19 pandemic, there was a necessary shift to adapt assessment alternatives that were inclusive, accessible, reliable, and valid. − For example, time-constrained unseen examinations in invigilated rooms or in-class tests were adapted to online “take-away” exams in which questions or tasks were administered virtually and students submitted their responses electronically within a set period . Assessment design required reframing from recall-based tasks to questions that required students to demonstrate how they use information rather than reiterate what they have learned.…”

Neonatal performed echocardiography course: Can we face it?

“…Therefore, understanding the motivational factors for students in distance learning environments is imperative. There are many strategies to enhance e-learning knowledge retention, such as support for medical educators to adapt the traditional teaching, proper choice of the software platforms, establishment of an engagement code for regulating students’ activities online and a periodic feedback to improve online lessons [ 27 ]. The simple replacement of in-person by online classes, as done in our study, may not have been sufficient to keep students’ attention and interest.…”

Attending lectures in person, hybrid or online—how do students choose, and what about the outcome?

“…All high-stake exams, including the ones in this study, were carried out on-site under supervision, even at the height of the pandemic. Hygiene protocols, crowd-control, and distancing measures were put in place to ensure both the safety of students, faculty, and staff, and the integrity of the exams [one of the largest challenges during and in the aftermath of COVID-19 (Hwee et al., 2022 )].…”