ABSTRACT
Covid 19 forced lecturers and students to accept that inspirational and beneficial teaching and learning does not necessarily rest within the four walls of a lecture hall. When higher education institutions had to transition rapidly from face-to-face to online education, social media platforms became a powerful catalyst for effective teaching and learning. Undoubtedly social media platforms have influenced our lives in an unprecedented manner. It has also altered the teaching and learning landscape by taking on an innovative role in online education. This investigation explored students' experiences of learning module content via TikTok. TikTok was adopted as a teaching tool because it is considered an appealing social media platform for Gen Z users, with its central attraction being short video content. This investigation primarily relied on Bandura's social learning theory as the theoretical lens applied to the data as it points to the importance of an individual's self-regulation and the external situation in terms of learning. It also offers an alternative view of social learning by seeing it as situated in communities of practice. Through a qualitative inquiry, teacher education students' reflections on being taught using TikTok were gathered. Evidence from the survey administered to 80 students strongly suggests that TikTok offered an efficient, fun, and exciting way of gaining unlimited access to learning content. It also enhances retention and creativity, making it a suitable 21st-century teaching strategy that promotes self-directed learning. It is a perfectly suited social media platform for a generation that prefers to consume content via rich video formats that act as confidence boosters. Hence making it an innovative teaching tool that encourages a new form of social learning. © 2023 International Conference on Multidisciplinary Research. All rights reserved.
ABSTRACT
The COVID-19 pandemic exposed challenges within traditional instructional approaches in various learning contexts, highlighting a greater need for curriculum transformation. With the disruption of face-to-face instruction, remote teaching, learning, and tutoring are proving to be pedagogic solutions for engaging with students to ensure the continuation of successful teaching and learning. Therefore, it is important that virtual experiences align with the curriculum and instructional approaches. This investigation aimed at exploring how tutors can introduce remote learning and tutoring in an undergraduate module in the Faculty of Education at the University of Johannesburg (UJ). We also wanted to examine tutors' ability to motivate students to use their mobile devices for study purposes during formal tutorials. A qualitative exploratory inquiry determined how mobile devices could support remote teaching and learning and tutoring. Through an in-depth literature review, focus group interviews with five tutors, and questionnaires answered by approximately 400 second-year students, data was collected. Challenges that were identified the additional hours required by lecturers and tutors to deliver much-needed support after hours and only students with the needed resources and access could benefit from the support, the digital divide was of concern. Successes identified linked to students' appreciation of the importance of implementing a tutoring system that fits the 21st century context. A tutoring system that is not only compliant with modern technological advancements but that it consistent with the global expectation to equip students with relevant skills. This investigation revealed that tutors could serve as catalysts for motivating students to use their devices for study purposes. The findings also revealed that there is a greater need for remote (virtual) tutoring that is student-centred for effective learning to occur, especially under remote learning conditions. © 2023 International Conference on Multidisciplinary Research. All rights reserved.