ABSTRACT
How is online tertiary education opening the student/teacher mind-set, particularly during the transitional learning/teaching process? The question is tested through a country-wide survey of students/teachers conducted against Independent University, Bangladesh's (IUB's) own transition. Students reported two broad changes: (a) micro-level infrastructural and resource issues resonating with macro-level interventions;and (b) the quality of learning vis-à-vis teaching amid-online platform transition merely exacerbating both teacher-level and student-level pressures. Accordingly, the chapter illustrates a handful of micro-level leverage points, based upon learner characteristics, needs, and university online ecosystem (including infrastructures, teacher's competency challenges, and Covid-19 impacts on the learning-teaching community), for future relevance. © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023.
ABSTRACT
Background: Mobile phones have become a widely accepted learning mode due to the impact of COVID-19. This study explores the mobile technology acceptance, among nursing students at selected educational institutions in South India. Materials and Methods: Quantitative cross-sectional descriptive design. First-year 176 B.Sc. nursing students who underwent blended learning were selected by the purposive sampling method. The tool "Technology Acceptance Model" was used to collect responses. Bivariate analysis was used to determine the relationship between the demographic and study-related variables with the mobile technology acceptance using SPSS version 25.0. Results: The majority 73.9% of the students belonged to the age group of 18-19 years, females 76.7% and, 98.9% were unmarried. Among the constructs of TAM, a mean (SD) value of 22.08 (2.26) was found for material (mobile device audio/video) characteristics the mean (SD) value was 22.08 (2.26), attitude about use 17.58 (1.95), behavioral intention 17.46 (1.78) and system characteristics 17.21 (2.27). The mobile technology acceptance revealed that 126 (71.6%) strongly agreed, 49 (27.8%) agreed, and 1 (0.6%) was neutral with a mean (SD) of 105.19 (8.68), respectively. A positive correlation was found between the system characteristics, material characteristics, perceived ease to use, perceived usefulness, attitude about the use, behavioral intention with a P value <0.001. There was a statistically significant association between Mobile technology acceptance and time spent by the students for independent studies shown the Chi-square value of 12.7, with P value <0.05. Conclusion: Nursing students had a positive acceptance and behavior toward smartphone use.
ABSTRACT
Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, teachers have to hesitantly switch to the virtual world of teaching, known as enriched virtual blended learning in which technology, surely plays a significant role in material delivery and discussion. Studies related to blended learning in English language classes, especially in academic writing classes, have been done in many countries, but they are still lacking in the Indonesian setting. This study aimed to investigate the effectiveness of technology utilization in enriched blended learning to teach academic writing and the students' perspectives towards the use of technology in blended learning. This study involving forty-five students in a university in Jakarta applied both quantitative and qualitative methods. A pre-test and a post-test were assigned before and after the blended learning period to study the effectiveness of blended learning. In addition, surveys and interviews were conducted to investigate the students' perspectives. The results indicated that the use of technology in blended learning effectively helped students develop their academic writing skills despite being a new experience. Furthermore, despite some limitations, this strategy of using technology in teaching-learning was accepted with optimism as they started to get accustomed to it. Hence, the use of technology is promising for the future of learning. © 2023 IEEE.
ABSTRACT
In the COVID-19 reality, educational organizations worldwide faced the urgent need to transform the educational process to prevent the uncontrolled spread of infection while ensuring that students' competencies were built at the desired level. The primary way to solve this problem was an accelerated transition to distance education. In order to switch to this type of learning, educational institutions are devoting significant resources to training their staff in new teaching methods and improving technology for interacting with students. However, fast is not always good. Moreover, radical changes that do not correspond with the perceptions of the participants in the educational process may not bring the expected results, even if they are implemented in the spirit of the latest trends. In this regard, it is advisable to conduct research to update the ideas about the advantages and disadvantages of distance education, the timely identification of which can help improve the quality and effectiveness of the educational process. The paper presents the results of research conducted among the students of one of the flagship universities of Russia. The conducted study shows that students negatively perceive some advantages of distance education. Therefore, it is necessary to reconsider the conceptual foundations of distance education. © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022.
ABSTRACT
Background: In industrialized and developing economic countries like India, the technology transfer has significantly enhanced the quality of higher education, where the tentacles of digitalization have deeply entered education system, which opened the gateway of blended pedagogy, enabling a greater access to course content, learning preparation in peers and interactions. Across the globe, blended learning is applied in pharmaceutical education but it gained momentum in Indian pharmacy education during the global threat, COVID-19 pandemic. Aim and Objectives: The current experimental study of six months duration was performed to investigate the perception of pharmacy students towards blended pedagogy in pharmacy education at undergraduate level. Methodology: In the current experiment survey, a validated standard self-administered questionnaire with 28 inventories under 7 categories was administered to students pursuing undergraduate pharmacy programs in a pharmacy institute located at rural Andhra Pradesh for a period of six months, through online mode;data collection was performed in students showing willingness and further collected data was assessed through excel spreadsheet. Result(s): The study observed a two-third satisfaction on an average in terms of all the indicators which influence the blended pedagogy (teacher 71.8%, course content 74.8%, technology transfer 58.7%, interactions 78.8%, and constructive knowledge 73.7%). Conclusion(s): In conclusion, our study envisaged effective student engagement, with more facilitator-student interactions and adaptability;through blended learning which enabled, enhanced and transformed students to active learners.Copyright © 2023, Indian Pharmaceutical Association. All rights reserved.
ABSTRACT
The word Metaverse has influenced many sectors such as healthcare, education, retail and manufacturing and few more industries are there which will be impacted by 2026 as per the research conducted by Gartner. The word 'Metaverse' especially in education sector came into existence after the COVID-19 epidemic when the humanity were forced to think about the new methodology of educating and teaching. This ecosphere is the combination of technologies which enables multimodal interactions with artificial environment, electronic library and people such as Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR). It is believed that metaverse will improve collaboration, training process will be enhanced and most importantly it will create a happier workplace. This is only the reason that many corporate giants like Nvidia, facebook, apple, epic Games and companies has shifted towards this pedagogical ecosystem. This technology has the potential which enables absolute incorporating user conversation in actual-time and compelling interactivity with digital artifact. In this paper, we are addressing metaverse in education along with a detailed framework of metaverse in education. It includes a comparative study of conventional education, online education and metaverse education based on parameters like place of learning, resources used, teaching methodology, learning experience, learning target and learning assessment. Competency based education, energize student and positive attitude towards learning. The various challenges of the metaverse in educational sector are also debated. This paper will help the researcher's fraternity to get a deeper insight along with a clear perception of this ecosystem in education. © 2023 IEEE.
ABSTRACT
Background The flipped classroom method requires that students engage with homework before coming to the classroom so that class time can be spent on active and collaborative learning exercises. Research has demonstrated that this can improve student performance versus traditional lecturer-led teaching methods. Objective During the COVID-19 pandemic, the vast majority of teaching has been entirely online such that even ‘in-class' time has been virtual. The current article examined whether online-only delivery affects the efficacy of the flipped classroom approach. Method Grades for a research methods and statistics module and a statistics portfolio assignment were compared across consecutive cohorts of undergraduate psychology students taught by different methods. Results Overall grades on the module did not differ significantly across teaching methods but student performance on statistics tests did. Flipped classrooms, whether accompanied by on-campus or synchronous online classes, led to significantly better performance than traditional methods. No detriment was observed by teaching entirely online. Conclusion The key advantages of the flipped classroom method appear driven by active learning which can occur irrespective of classroom context. Teaching Implications Using flipped classrooms can be a useful tool, particularly in subjects where students may otherwise be less engaged with the content.
ABSTRACT
The COVID-19-induced lockdown resulted in the closure of learning institutions and subsequent intermittent college attendance as a way of preventing the spread of the virus. In Zimbabwe, the Ministry of Higher and Tertiary Education, Innovation Science, and Technology Development instructed tertiary institutions to adopt online learning in addition to face-to-face learning as a way of ensuring that learning continued during COVID-19 restrictions. There was a shift from exclusively humanist education, where humans have been believed to be the only agents in the teaching and learning process, to posthumanist education, where technology was used as a tool for learning. This study explored the organisational preparedness of TVET institutions to take on board posthuman pedagogy when online learning was blended with face-to-face learning. This was a qualitative study that used observations and in-depth interviews to collect data on the institutional preparedness of two randomly sampled TVET institutions to embrace posthumanist education. Ten randomly sampled lecturers were interviewed to elicit their views and experiences of implementing blended learning, which is largely ingrained in posthuman pedagogy. An observation was made on the suitability of technological infrastructure to support blended learning. Ten randomly selected students from each institution participated in focus group discussions to elicit the organisational preparedness of institutions for blended learning. Results showed that the institutions were not ready for blended learning. Lecturers and students were not equipped or skilled to use online technologies. The infrastructure to drive online learning was inadequate. Inadequacies in the internet infrastructure affected their understanding and acceptance of online learning. © 2023, OpenED Network. All rights reserved.
ABSTRACT
Blended learning is a growing phenomenon in higher education after the COVID-19 pandemic (the educational process moved entirely online), and the way is prepared for blended education mode in universities. Although blended learning research is on the rise, fewer studies regard university students' learning behavior in blended learning environments. This study aims to investigate university students' blended learning behavior perceptions shortly after the pandemic. A 19-item questionnaire was administered to 176 university students in Greece. Students, in general, expressed positive blended learning behavior perceptions. Higher percentages of agreement were associated with the role of audio-visual online resources in facilitating and supporting independent learning and with student motivation in blended education. Students expressed lower percentages of agreement, and some uncertainty, with regard to involvement in small group work with their peers. Implications for students, educators, as well as university policy and practice are discussed. © 2023 by the authors.
ABSTRACT
COVID-19 has challenged educators not only in Ukrainian universities but throughout the whole world to keep abreast with the rapid emergence of new technologies, adapt the education system to online needs, and use blended learning as a necessity of the transformed education environment. We carried out two case studies aimed at gauging the students' perception, experience, and satisfaction level on the pandemicinduced online EFL learning via a Google Forms questionnaire in 2020-2021 a.y. and 2021-2022 a.y. at Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv (Ukraine). The first case conducted a 16-question online survey, and an analysis unit was the responses of 112 first-year students studying English as L2 and majoring in Computer Science and Cybernetics at the University of Kyiv under the Coronavirus lockdown reality. The second case encompassed 80 respondents and was fulfilled through the same 16-question online survey under similar study conditions. The sample groups were undergraduate students of the same age (17-18 y. o.) and the English language level (B1+) enrolled in the university with similar admissions criteria, prerequisites, and curricula. The survey's participation was voluntary and anonymous. The respondents gave feedback on three question categories: EFL online learning effectiveness, technical provision satisfaction, self-organization, and confidence level. The opinions were not fully homogeneous but the majority of Computer Science and Cybernetics undergraduates in both case studies pointed out that the online EFL course was effective. The first survey findings revealed that the first-year university learners had a predominately positive attitude towards online education, describing English lessons as well-structured and engaging. Our second investigation demonstrated that apart from staff readiness, confidence, students' Internet accessibility, and motivation, the undergraduates have indicated tiredness of online meetings, pointing out that they have a lack of live communication. The obtained study results can help in understanding EFL teachers how to continue teaching and learning during such unprecedented times and to ensure a high level of education, responding to the current students' needs and priorities for successful online classes. [ FROM AUTHOR] Copyright of Romanian Journal for Multidimensional Education / Revista Romaneasca pentru Educatie Multidimensionala is the property of Lumen Publishing House and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full . (Copyright applies to all s.)
ABSTRACT
The COVID-19 pandemic that began in March 2020 gave rise to a number of challenges for first-year experience activities at universities globally. One of the key challenges was the process of onboarding first-year students through an orientation programme that could not take place face-to-face as per the norm. In 2021, the first-year orientation at a large South African university in this study moved to an online platform, becoming a week-long programme conducted on Microsoft Teams and comprising a variety of live and pre-recorded videos. The programme included seven core learning sessions designed to introduce the students to key services available at the university and to lay the foundation for student success. Using data from the university's 2021 Orientation Week (O-Week) Survey, this paper seeks to explore - from the perspective of the students - the core challenges associated with an online orientation during the COVID-19 pandemic. The study employs descriptive statistics to decipher the profile of the survey respondents as well as participants' experience of various learning sessions. A thematic approach was used to analyse the open-ended questions to provide the contextual perspectives on the challenges that students experienced with online orientation. The study identified five categories of challenges, which had a negative impact on their process of transitioning into the university environment. The study's findings will help universities to understand the drawbacks of online orientation as well as provide empirical guidance for them as to how they could leverage online orientation for student success in shaping the remote, blended, and hybrid learning discourse. The particular university under discussion subsequently used these findings as guidelines to conceptualise a new three-week blended orientation programme, Gateway to Success, which was introduced at the beginning of 2022.
ABSTRACT
The authors share their online teaching experiences in a private university in Canada during the COVID-19 pandemic and offer recommendations for fostering dynamic learning in synchronous online classrooms and further research. Over 60% of the world's student population has been affected by nationwide closure, and 1.2 million university students were displaced from the classroom in Canada (UNESCO, 2020). Educators who have embraced the transition to online teaching-learning try various teaching and assessment methodologies that suit their classes (Lage et al., 2000;Luthra & MacKenzie, 2020). Recent studies (Burgess & Sievertsen, 2020) have investigated the impact of the COVID-19 on educators and students' performance. However, few have reviewed technology-based instruments that could facilitate online teaching and learning at the time of a pandemic or offered recommendations for online teaching and learning improvements. This chapter reviews digital tools utilized in online synchronous classes in the Bachelor of Business Administration program at a Canadian university of 8000 to 10,000 students to address this gap. It offers educators, researchers, and educational institutions recommendations to enhance the learning experiences and foster engagement in online classrooms. This chapter first reviews research on blended learning (BL), which refers to synchronous teaching/learning classes, as well as online asynchronous resources and assignments. Then, the faculty members' online teaching experiences and challenges are presented. Finally, recommendations are considered to facilitate online teaching and advance research. © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021. All rights reserved.
ABSTRACT
The ambition of this development study is to explore the opportunity to put the knowledge gained during the COVID-19 pandemic into practice in a blended, post-COVID, learning environment. The focus is to explore how a combination of digital and face-to-face activities may allow for fostering social presence among undergraduate students. The Social Presence model and the five elements of Affective Association, Community of Cohesion, Instructor Investment, Interaction Intensity, and Knowledge and Experience, encompass the theoretical framework of the study. The contextual setting is the first course of The Marketing Programme at Linnaeus University in Sweden, a bachelor program with a 50% Swedish intake and 50% international intake. Given the diverse background of the students in this course, challenges are typically encountered in relation to community building. Empirical data was collected during the fall of 2022 among the enrolled students using an online questionnaire. While the results from this study should be seen as preliminary, they offer an inspiring glimpse of how to nurture social presence in a blended learning environment. Copyright © 2023 by SCITEPRESS – Science and Technology Publications, Lda. Under CC license (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)
ABSTRACT
e-Learning was abruptly adopted in many countries to mitigate the adverse consequences of the sudden closure of institutions of higher learning caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Against this background, this study investigated how business undergraduates want to learn in the future and predictors of their future preferred mode of learning. 251 business undergraduates from a private university in Malaysia participated in an online survey conducted in July 2020, during the sudden closure of institutions of higher learning. Data collected were analysed using the multiple discriminant analysis to develop a characteristics profile of the three groups of business undergraduates (i.e., preferred fully conventional classroom learning, blended learning and fully e-learning) in terms of important predictors. Results revealed that the significant predictors of future preferred mode of learning of business undergraduates, in descending order, were disadvantages of e-learning, advantages of e-learning, self-regulated learning, learning outcomes, information and communications technology infrastructure and training, support and resources. This study concludes with some reflective thoughts about important lessons learned from this unprecedented pandemic pertaining to e-learning readiness to deal with future unexpected crises.
ABSTRACT
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.
ABSTRACT
The aim of this research was to construct a teaching model that was intended as a standardization and benchmark for lecturers in the online class teaching and learning process during the COVID-19 pandemic in the English Education Department of Islamic religious universities in Indonesia. This problem was identified from the results of pre-observation research which indicated that in Indonesian Islamic religious university institutions, especially in the English Language Education study program, there was not yet clear standardization for conducting full online learning. The product of this research study is in the form of a teaching model developed using the ASSURE method that consists of analyzing the participants' needs, stating the objectives, selecting appropriate strategies, utilizing a technological approach, requiring learners' participation, and evaluating the final product of this study. In developing this research product, the researchers also conducted a validation process with experts in the field of English teaching strategies. The validation is related to the teaching model, model design, and contextualization. The product of this research has been revised and improved based on the advice from the experts. Furthermore, at the stage of requiring students' participation, the product also underwent trials involving 10 lecturers and 100 students from five different English Education Departments. The results obtained from the trial process were also used by the researchers for perfecting the model so that the teaching model based on blended learning would be an appropriate educational tool to be used in teaching and learning during online learning in the English Education Departments of Islamic religious universities in the future. © Authors This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)
ABSTRACT
Quantum information is an emerging scientific and technological discipline attracting a growing number of professionals from various related fields. Although it can potentially serve as a valuable source of skilled labor, the Internet provides a way to disseminate information about education, opportunities, and collaboration. In this work, we analyzed, through a blended approach, the sustained effort over 12 years to involve science and engineering students in research education and collaboration, emphasizing the role played by the Internet. Three main spaces have been promoted, workshops, research stays, and a minor, all successfully developed through distance education in 2021-2022, involving students from various locations in Mexico and the United States. The success of these efforts was measured by research-oriented indicators, the number of participants, and their surveyed opinions. The decisive inclusion of the Internet to facilitate the blended approach has accelerated the boost in human resources and research production. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the Internet played a crucial role in the digital transformation of this research education initiative, leading to effective educative and collaborative experiences in the "New Normal".
ABSTRACT
PurposeThe COVID-19 pandemic has proven that how supply chain management (SCM) can become a crucial process for sustainability of the world's production/service. The global supply chain crisis during pandemic has affected most of the sectors. Home and personal care products manufacturers are among them. In this study (1) the problems at SCM of personal and home care products manufacturers during pandemic are discussed with the help of medium-size manufacturer and (2) the factors affecting suppliers' performance for the relevant sector during COVID-19 are analyzed comprehensively.Design/methodology/approachThe importance of the factors is evaluated using fuzzy cognitive maps that can help to reveal hidden casual relationships with the help of expert knowledge. In order to eliminate subjectivity due to usage of expert knowledge, the maps are trained with a hybrid learning approach that consists of Non-linear Learning and Extended Great Deluge Algorithms to increase robustness of the analysis.FindingsThe findings of the study indicate that the factors such as general quality level of products/services, compliance to delivery time, communication skills and total production capacity of suppliers have been crucial factors during pandemic.Originality/valueWhile the implementation of the hybrid learning approach on supply chain can fill the gap in the relevant literature, the promising results of the study can prove the convenience of the methodology to model the of complex systems like supply chain processes.
ABSTRACT
Gaelic is a minoritised indigenous language of Scotland, with its traditional heartland in the rural north-west of the country. The education system, and in particular Gaelic Medium Education (GME), has been recognised as an important strand of the language maintenance and support initiatives. The provision of GME has grown significantly since its inception in the early 1980s, it remains on the -periphery' of the education system, with around 0.9% of all primary school pupils enrolled in GME settings. The ongoing language shift from Gaelic to English, a process that has been particularly pronounced in the traditional heartlands of the language, and the resulted decline in the use of Gaelic as the language of the home, the family, and the community, raises the question of how GME can contribute to a sustainable future for Gaelic. This article will discuss the findings of a small-scale mixed method practitioner enquiry study, which incorporated parental questionnaires, classroom observations, class-based language assessments and focus groups, to explore the use of blended learning approaches to enhance the development of language skills. The results of this study, conducted initially to evaluate the impact of the Covid-19 school closures on the linguistic proficiency of children in Primary 1 to Primary 3 enrolled in GME, show that pupils who were actively engaged in online learning activities showed a greater confidence and proficiency in their use of Gaelic compared to their peers who had not used these materials to support their learning, as well as increased involvement of caregivers in these Gaelic homework tasks. These findings allow for a re-imaging of approaches to homework in minority language immersion contexts to support the acquisition and use of the minority language beyond the classroom. © Society for the Provision of Education in Rural Education. All Rights Reserved.
ABSTRACT
The COVID-19 pandemic has precipitated an unprecedented education crisis, causing severe disruption to global education systems. One consequence has been an increased demand for online educational platforms, leading to a shift from face-to-face to online teaching. This was the case in Singapore where online educational provisions were quickly adopted and implemented by institutions providing continuing education and training to adult learners. This paper reports on the data from a survey of 258 participants on the accessibility and effectiveness of the different modes of learning (i.e. online learning, face-to-face learning, and a combination of both) based on comparisons prior to and after the onset of COVID-19. The findings indicate that familiarity with online platforms enhances the potential efficacy of online provisions of continuing education and training, but also illuminate issues concerning the kinds of experiences required for effective continuing education and training, with implications for providers and educators in and beyond Singapore.