Have students' perceptions of online education changed with the easing of COVID-19 restrictions?

This research examines student preference toward online and on-ground (i.e., face-to-face) course delivery methods in higher education as a result of the easing of COVID-19 pandemic restrictions. Over 130 undergraduate and graduate students enrolled in Computer and Information Systems courses at a university located in the northeastern United States were surveyed from April 2021 to May 2022. The study found that with the easing of COVID-19 restrictions in Spring 2022, students significantly preferred on-ground over online courses in comparison to their preferences when COVID-19 restrictions were still high in 2021. None of the potential influencing factors contributing to the changed preference, including students' perceptions of online course effectiveness, self-skills supporting online learning (e.g., work independently without supervision, prioritization and time management), and the usefulness of classroom interaction in learning, were found to have significant differences from the time when COVID-19 restrictions were high to the present easing of them. © 2023 Issues in Information Systems. All rights reserved.

The Benefits and Limitations of Teaching English for Specific Purposes Online and Face-to-Face: Sport and Health Sciences Students' Perspectives

The restrictions imposed to limit the spread of COVID-19 resulted in the switch from in-person to online teaching, including the teaching of foreign languages in 2020-2022. This study uses the feedback of students who have studied English for Specific Purposes (ESP) in virtual and classroom settings. The aim is to investigate the benefits and limitations of each approach for language acquisition in ESP for sport and health sciences. A questionnaire to ascertain students' experiences was distributed to 60 students in sport and health sciences who studied ESP at the Latvian Academy of Sport Education. It was found that online and face-to-face studies of ESP in sport and health sciences tended to facilitate the acquisition of different language skills. In the questionnaire, students reported consistent progress in the study of vocabulary and reading the texts related to their area of study during both online and face-to-face studies, but less improvement was reported in the areas of grammar and speaking skills. Overall, synchronous online live classes would facilitate the steady and continuous development of all language skills if supplemented by continuous support from the teaching personnel, regular offline meetings or classes, and access to specially designed online resources.

Blended Online Learning Strategy Amidst Covid 19 Pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic has drastically changed the landscape of education around the world. As academic institutions moved from traditional face-to-face instruction to distance learning instruction to ensure educational continuity while dealing with the health global crisis. The present study reports on the effectiveness of blended online learning at the time of the COVID-19 pandemic. A Phenomenological research design was employed to obtain empirical information from the participants, and the data collected were analyzed using thematic analysis. The findings of the study revealed that blended online learning was beneficial for the learners since it offers flexibility, autonomous learning, engagement, and improved ICT skills. However, the participants also experienced challenges that hamper their learning including technical issues, incomprehensible materials, home distractions, and a lack of resources. © 2022 IEEE.

E-learning Challenges for Lecturers in Indonesia Higher Education Institutions

Since the Covid-19 outbreak in March 2020, e-learning has become a necessity. There may have been some uncertainty on how to perform e-learning properly because many educational institutions may not have expected the rapid change in learning style. This is especially true when it comes to offering an e-learning management system (LMS). This study aims to examine the affordances of higher education institutions in Indonesia in conducting the e-learning during the pandemic. To understand more about the adoption of e-learning in their individual institutions, we conducted an online survey towards 100 university lecturers from several cities. The results revealed that 79% of the participants used a specially built LMS in their universities, while the rest still used commercially built LMS like Moodle. Then, 82% of the participants prefer blended learning model which combined face-To-face and e-learning models, and 46% of them wanted to have a fifty-fifty division between face to face and e-learning. As for the challenges, no interaction with students was deemed as the most disturbing challenge for the lecturers. The results imply that e-learning will continue to be implemented in Indonesia, regardless of the condition of the pandemic. Thus, universities should provide an e-LMS that can cater all the e-learning needs, while lecturers should also equip themselves with pedagogical as well as technological skills to face the e-learning challenges. © 2023 IEEE.

Who Needs Zoom? Female Arab Students' Perceptions of Face-to-Face Learning and Learning on Zoom

Zoom has been adopted by Al-Qasemi Academic College of Education as an alternative to face-to-face teaching/learning since the outset of COVID-19. The study explores female students' perceptions of social presence, social interaction, and satisfaction in Zoom learning compared to face-to-face learning, along with the overall factors shaping their perceptions. All 228 participants were female students who learned via Zoom during the pandemic for at least one semester before switching back to face-to-face learning. A mixed-method design was used in the study, which included a questionnaire to learn about students' perceptions and semi-structured interviews to gain in-depth understanding of the factors affecting their attitudes. The results indicate that students' perceptions of social presence, social interaction, and satisfaction tended to be higher for face-to-face learning than Zoom learning. They also suggest a significant relationship between the students' satisfaction and their perceptions of social presence and interaction. Furthermore, the students' degrees and majors seem to have had a significant bearing on their level of satisfaction with Zoom learning. Finally, the findings of the thematic analysis of the interviewees' responses show that there were other factors influencing the participants' perceptions. Thus, an informed combination of face-to-face and Zoom learning is encouraged as a sustainable solution to enhance student satisfaction.

Limited face-to-face learning on students in inclusive classrooms during the Covid-19 pandemic: Perceptions of elementary school teachers in Indonesia

Implementing limited face-to-face learning (LF2FL) during the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted students in inclusive classrooms. Some of the adjustments teachers and students faced were obstacles and challenges that took time to make. The teacher must comply online learning experience conducted with all its shortcomings during the implementation of LF2FL and its impacts on students, including students with disability. We conducted a study to explore teachers' perceptions of the impact of implementing LF2FL on students in inclusive classrooms in elementary schools. This research used a case study to obtain and examine data in a context that the phenomena will accept in depth. We involved 16 elementary school teachers, conducted semi-structured interviews, and analysed the data using thematic analysis. The results showed two main themes, namely learning outcomes and instructional processes, which emerged for students without disabilities and students with disability. For the learning outcomes, teachers highlighted sub-themes of the cognitive and affective aspects most. The instructional process sub-theme of the interaction was one of the essential aspects of minimising learning loss during online learning from home. Our finding detail in more depth the two types of students, both in terms of similarities and differences of LF2FL on students in inclusive classrooms that contributes to the reconfirmation of knowledge for all students, reduces students' mental stress, and increases student motivation through direct interaction between teachers and students. It is necessary to increase transformational competence in the education system for teachers, especially in the inclusive education system. The government needs to modify the curriculum to be more flexible and adaptive for all students in inclusive elementary schools who can keep up with the changes in education in Indonesia.

Online or Traditional Learning at the Near End of the Pandemic: Assessment of Students' Intentions to Pursue Online Learning in the Philippines

Online learning has been utilized due to the sudden shift taken among educational institutions to continue students' learning during the COVID-19 pandemic. Three years into the pandemic, universities now offer different modalities of education due to the establishment of online and modular learning modalities. Hence, the intention of students to adapt to online learning despite the availability of traditional learning is underexplored. With the limited availability of face-to-face learning at the near end of the epidemic in the Philippines, this study sought to analyze the factors that influenced behavioral intentions towards continuing online learning modalities. Five hundred students from different universities in the Philippines participated and answered 42 adapted questions in an online survey via Google Forms. Structural equation modeling (SEM) was used in this study, with factors such as an affective latent variable, attitude towards behavior, autonomy, relatedness, competency, expectation, confirmation, satisfaction, and behavioral intention. The study found that attitude towards behavior has the highest positive direct effect on students' intentions to pursue online learning, followed by expectation and confirmation, satisfaction and behavioral intention, competence and behavioral intention, and the affective variable and satisfaction. The effect of expectations on satisfaction and the affective variable on behavioral intentions was seen to have no significance regarding students' intentions. This also study integrated expectation–confirmation theory, the theory of planned behavior, and self-determination theory to holistically evaluate students' intentions to pursue online learning despite the availability of traditional learning. The educational sector can utilize these findings to consider pursuing and offering online learning. Additionally, the study can help future researchers evaluate students' behavioral intentions concerning online learning.

Undergraduate Learning in the COVID-19 Pandemic: Lessons Learned and Ways Forward.

The SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic is in constant evolution, much like the virus, and we must learn to adapt our undergraduate education and learning strategies to enable students to complete their studies. This narrative review focuses on what is currently known about the face-to-face and e-learning strategies of undergraduate medical students in resource-limited settings during the COVID-19 pandemic. The majority of studies, involving health professional students, took place in 2020. Few involved educators. Students have faced challenges with the transition to remote learning, for which a couple of interventions have been devised. Bridging the gap in access and utilisation of remote learning might have required more time, however, the COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated the learning curve and the transition from in-person to online learning.

Students Experience Testing in the Implementation of the 'Gather Town' Meeting Platform as an Alternative Learning Media other than Zoom Cloud Meeting Application

The COVID-19 pandemic has limited the mobility of everyone in the world. Education is one of the most affected sectors because education systems have been done face to face. Most educational institutions switch to online learning by using online meeting platforms. We discovered an online meeting platform called 'Gather town' which looks more attractive in increasing learning motivation and may be an alternative solution for online education. This paper aims to test student experience using 'Gather Town' as a new learning medium and compare the effectiveness with Zoom Meeting Application. We compare the User Experience of both applications by letting respondents try the application and ask for feedback from our questionnaire. The result from the questionnaire shows that Gather Town has excellent potential as an alternative new learning media. © 2022 IEEE.

Sentiment Analysis towards Face-to-Face School Activities during the COVID-19 pandemic in Indonesia

As the COVID-19 pandemic took place, many face-to-face activities have been stopped to suppress the spread. However, in the last few months, many of those activities including learning activities have started to switch from online back to face-to-face. One of the major activities is face-to-face learning activities which involve millions of students all over Indonesia. Consequently, this study focuses on analyzing public sentiment through Twitter tweets which were obtained through scrapping by using Tweepy. The tweets were labeled using a semi-automatic process, using TextBlob and manual annotation. Next, we trained an IndoBERT model to conduct sentiment analysis and found that public sentiment was dominated by a mix of both negative and positive sentiment, followed by neutral sentiment. Our model obtained an accuracy of 40.79% on unseen data. © 2022 IEEE.

Applying Social Media for Studying Challenges of COVID-19 for Students

This conference paper contributes to understanding opportunities to use social media for identifying priorities and challenges of students from different countries in online and face-to-face learning and networking activities during the COVID-19 pandemic. The COVID-19 crisis has resulted in more intensive online learning and hybrid learning applications in higher education. When there is a shift from a teacher-controlled class environment to a more learner-controlled social media, the role of the educator becomes more of a facilitator. The main research question in this paper is: How social media activities facilitated by instructors can support international learner-driven online networking and knowledge sharing during the COVID-19 pandemic? Our action research aim was to reveal learning preferences and networking challenges that students do not usually share in a class environment. Despite critics of Facebook and the increasing popularity of alternative social media among young people, Facebook groups offer tools for discourse between different age cohorts and conduct polls to assess alternative educational tools and COVID-19 administrative restrictions that influence student mobility and socialisation. To study the challenges of COVID-19 for students in online learning and in physical interaction, we applied netnography methods in combination with interventions by educators to study students' preferences in the Facebook group Challenges in online learning - COVID-19. Among the most popular Facebook polls for students were questions about group work and exam arrangements during the pandemic and work from anywhere practice implications, cross-border mobility regulations during the COVID-19 pandemic and reasons why some students do not participate in web conferences using their computer cameras. Students shared the view that flexible online work from anywhere solutions will be for many organisations among trends that will remain after the COVID-19 crisis is over. Some students, both from Europe and developing countries, believed that this trend would improve job opportunities for the workforce living in low-cost countries. Facebook group enabled international knowledge sharing, where both students and educators could share their views on many issues that influence the rapidly changing online learning and networking environment. © The Authors, (2022). All Rights Reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission may be made without written permission from the individual authors.

Problem-Based Learning in Graduate and Undergraduate Chemistry Courses: Face-to-Face and Online Experiences

The problem-based learning (PBL) methodology has been applied in a set of chemistry courses at the University of Barcelona to determine the main factors that are relevant to a satisfactory application of this educational approach in different contexts (from undergraduate to master subjects). The exceptional situation resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic has also forced us to adapt this methodology from the traditional face-to-face modality to an online version. Thus, the resulting comparative study has allowed us to identify the main aspects of each subject, student background, and modality used, which are relevant to a satisfactory application of PBL. In general, the application of the PBL methodology using Moodle and BBCollaborate as live teaching platforms has a positive impact on student learning and satisfaction. Interestingly, although the face-to-face implementation is preferred to the online modality, students evaluate positively the application of online PBL with respect to the traditional online teaching. Thus, the intrinsic characteristics of PBL, which enhance the learning motivation with suitable problems to be solved in groups, makes this required collaborative work a key point to facilitate student learning. © 2023 American Chemical Society.

Emerging Hybrid Online Learning in Post-pandemic Situation: Idealism and Reality

The Covid-19 pandemic has significantly changed the way of learning models, one of which is the implementation of hybrid online learning (HOL). Although some instructors have applied this model to their learning activities, the process and results are still not optimal due to various constraints. Therefore, this paper explores HOL implementation regarding its idealism and reality in post-pandemic situations where face-to-face (F2F) learning is allowed in limited circumstances. For this reason, a descriptive-analytical systematic review of the relevant papers discusses the implementation of learning with the HOL model and is relied upon in this study to draw the reality of its implementation and offer solutions to potential problems. The investigation shows that many instructors have tried to apply this learning model because it is considered very suitable in post-pandemic situations to facilitate students who can attend face-to-face (F2F) in classrooms and for those who choose to be in a different room but still need to keep interacting synchronously with the other participants in the classroom. However, this learning model is considered not optimal in the real situation, both regarding the learning process and achievement of expected learning outcomes, due to several technical and non-technical obstacles. © 2022 IEEE.

Adapting a Web 2.0-Based Course to a Fully Online Course and Readapting It Back for Face-to-Face Use

COVID-19 pandemic has dramatically reshaped educational strategies and the methods of their delivery. It has also affected those courses that incorporate many social media online activities. This paper introduces the major strategies that were used to adapt an already stable Web 2.0-based course to a fully online course. A comparison of teaching and learning methods and outcomes before and after the transition is presented, illustrated by a series of selected decision factors that are discussed in more detail. It is additionally supplemented by students' evaluation of the course organization and its quality in parallel with the teacher's impression of the amount of acquired knowledge and the ways students received their passing grade. Expecting a soon return to in-class education, the course will have to undergo a new in-depth adaptation taking into account the experiences gained during fully online learning and the fact that students will have to re-learn how face-to-face education functioned. © 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.

From Classroom to Online Education-An Educators Insights

Face to face activities at universities became difficult in the spring of 2020 with the worldwide outbreak of the SARS virus version COVID19. The initial information was that all classes were to be done online for a short period only, and we believed that we would return to the classroom in two weeks. But within a short period, all face-To-face classes were cancelled and replaced with remote lectures utilizing online Learning Management Systems (LMS) and video conferencing. For many colleges, most classes are still conducted this way in the spring of 2021. The large scale of online education has exposed a number of problems and challenges that although somewhat known have taken on greater significance. This paper describes online teaching models, learning styles, engagement, and interaction models to create a foundation for a set of patterns that capture ways of dealing with these problems-solutions that have been developed and applied for online education even before the pandemic hit but are now being more broadly used. The paper was written over the course of 3 semesters, with examples from teaching at 3 different colleges, depicting the transition from face-To-face teaching coming to an abrupt halt and the rapid transition to pure on-line mode. To support remote activities, the universities contracted some sort of software. St John's University contracted Cisco WebEx, which was available to faculty and students. The City University of New York, (CUNY) system has unique software within each College. At The College of Technology, we used Collaborate Ultra, a tool part of the LMS (Blackboard). Baruch College offered this tool and Zoom was offered with a license from the school. During the second semester, zoom licensing was enhanced and offered throughout the CUNY system. Most of the patterns in this paper depend on an LMS system being in place, as they cover practical topics like course design and how to deal with testing and exams, but also move into areas of student engagement and motivation. Definitions of user experience may be vague and conflicting, as each student and school is unique. The motivation of this paper was the pandemic;however, the findings show engagement as being positive, and yet still exploratory. We engage with technology because it allows us to achieve our purposes. This work contributes to the understanding of how we can apply patterns for online education and shows the start of a whole new pattern language that can benefit educators as well as students as we move forward with a new educational model. © 2022 ACM.

An Authentic Peer-Led Team Learning Program for Community Colleges: A Recruitment, Retention, and Completion Instrument for Face-to-Face and Online Modality

The Peer-Led Team Learning (PLTL) teaching model has been widely applied in several four-year institutions in STEM areas, including Computer Science. Although only a few two-year colleges have adopted similar teaching models, the number of contact hours and interaction between peer leaders and students are limited, and the implementation of an authentic PLTL model is constrained by students' schedules and location accommodation. The propelled migration from face-to-face to online classes during the COVID-19 pandemic surfaced dissemination and implementation of such model alternative. The PLTL model was implemented for the fundamentals of Computer Science, i.e., CS 1, 2, and 3, where peer leaders learned pedagogical techniques, designed, implemented, and proctored programming activities for the three courses online. In this paper, we report the experience of the PLTL model applied to a computer science program in a community college. Experience includes the peer leaders' growth in disseminating material to their peers and how this model measures course performance, recruitment, retention, and completion. © 2023 ACM.

PERCEPTION OF THE RETURN TO THE FACE-TO-FACE MODALITY IN ECONOMICS STUDENTS: CAREER IN ADMINISTRATIVE COMPUTING

Educational institutions globally were forced to provide learning spaces in synchronous and asynchronous online mode from the first quarter of 2020, a product of the Covid-19 pandemic. During the third quarter of 2021, the National Autonomous University of Honduras (UNAH) launched a pilot program to return to face-to-face teaching. For this reason, the Department of Informatics of the Faculty of Administrative and Accounting Economic Sciences conducted a cross-sectional descriptive study to identify why the students considered it necessary to return to the face-to-face modality. As a result, the categories Type of content, Forms of communication, Educational environment and Educational performance were found. The findings leave open future research to investigate more about the teaching-learning methodologies with which students received classes before the pandemic and methodologies used during the pandemic, given that other research has shown that master classes traditional ones do not motivate students, they do not benefit communication between the actors of the educational process, but are enriched by remote communication tools and active teaching methodologies. © 2023, University of Cienfuegos, Carlos Rafael Rodriguez. All rights reserved.

The impact of COVID-19 on students' academic performance: The case of the university of Ghana business school

The unruly consequences of the COVID-19 outbreak have hamstrung higher education institutions. This study aims to investigate the perceived impact of COVID-19 on student learning and academic performance through a qualitative approach. In-depth semi-structured interviews with 30 purposively chosen informants were used. The results indicated that 70% of students perceive a paradigm shift in their learning experience before and after COVID-19. It was discovered that their sociodemographic characteristics influenced 60% of students, and 57% were influenced by their parent's socioeconomic status, which influenced their academic achievements during the COVID-19 outbreak. The findings revealed that 63% of students had faced numerous challenges during the COVID-19 online learning, affecting their academic performance. The study provides insight into the student academic performance during the covid-19 online education in the Ghanaian context. The study discusses the implications of the findings on higher institutions, government, and parents' household income and recommendations for future research. Higher education institutions, governments, and parents must purchase licensed e-learning tools and provide students and professors with digital skills training to enhance faculty teaching, student learning, and academic performance. © 2023 The Author(s). This open access article is distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) 4.0 license.

The use of facial expressions in measuring students' interaction with distance learning environments during the COVID-19 crisis.

Digital learning is becoming increasingly important in the crisis COVID-19 and is widespread in most countries. The proliferation of smart devices and 5G telecommunications systems are contributing to the development of digital learning systems as an alternative to traditional learning systems. Digital learning includes blended learning, online learning, and personalized learning which mainly depends on the use of new technologies and strategies, so digital learning is widely developed to improve education and combat emerging disasters such as COVID-19 diseases. Despite the tremendous benefits of digital learning, there are many obstacles related to the lack of digitized curriculum and collaboration between teachers and students. Therefore, many attempts have been made to improve the learning outcomes through the following strategies: collaboration, teacher convenience, personalized learning, cost and time savings through professional development, and modeling. In this study, facial expressions and heart rate are used to measure the effectiveness of digital learning systems and the level of learners' engagement in learning environments. The results showed that the proposed approach outperformed the known related works in terms of learning effectiveness. The results of this research can be used to develop a digital learning environment.

Problem-Based Learning in Graduate and Undergraduate Chemistry Courses: Face-to-Face and Online Experiences

The problem-based learning (PBL) methodology has been applied in a set of chemistry courses at the University of Barcelona to determine the main factors that are relevant to a satisfactory application of this educational approach in different contexts (from undergraduate to master subjects). The exceptional situation resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic has also forced us to adapt this methodology from the traditional face-to-face modality to an online version. Thus, the resulting comparative study has allowed us to identify the main aspects of each subject, student background, and modality used, which are relevant to a satisfactory application of PBL. In general, the application of the PBL methodology using Moodle and BBCollaborate as live teaching platforms has a positive impact on student learning and satisfaction. Interestingly, although the face-to-face implementation is preferred to the online modality, students evaluate positively the application of online PBL with respect to the traditional online teaching. Thus, the intrinsic characteristics of PBL, which enhance the learning motivation with suitable problems to be solved in groups, makes this required collaborative work a key point to facilitate student learning. © 2023 The Authors. Published by American Chemical Society and Division of Chemical Education, Inc.