Abstract:

The dawn of the coronavirus pandemic, commonly termed Covid-19 was an unprecedented call to question teaching and learning pedagogies in the fourth industrial revolution era. The resultant swift transition to online models was an historical epoch in the education system across the globe that has affected education institutions in various ways. This critical analysis of content from a collection in an article by “Jandrić, P. et al. 2020.Teaching in the age of Covid-19: Testimonials. Post-digital Science and Education”, is evident of the wide but interrelated perceptions and experiences of academics concerning the abrupt embracing of online teaching and learning. The analysis is intended to determine the challenges faced with and possible opportunities of swift migration to online platforms in teaching and learning. Institutions were forced to migrate to online platforms worldwide after governments closed businesses to contain the deadly virus. The collection consists of 81 textual testimonies submitted by 84 authors from 19 countries across the globe, and the analysis was based on the number of testimonials. Seventy out of 81 (86%) testimonies indicated online teaching and learning experiences while 11 out of 81 (14%) did not allude to online teaching and learning and were excluded from the analysis. The research questions had a wide focus of the impact of Covid-19 but the current analysis only focuses on online teaching and learning perceptions and experiences of the respondents. Themes were deduced from the selected N-Vivo codes of the studied lecturers and students in higher education institutions. Most of the respondents were familiar with online tools for teaching and learning. Those that used these tools did so in a blended model. The major themes from the respondents’ testimonies include the disturbances of personal life working from home, echoed by all the 70 participants (100%). Social isolation was voiced by both lecturer and student respondents (21%). Varied technological challenges that hamper smooth online teaching and learning emerged, regardless of geographic location (20%). Difficulty adapting to the new normal of complete online instruction also emerged (17%). Working and preparation time was reported to have increased (14%). Inequality of access to technological infrastructure emerged especially among student respondents (9%). Lack of digital literacy was cited as impeding easy migration to online interaction (9%) The challenge of changing curricular originally designed for contact teaching to an online model appeared to be problematic in some subjects (7%). Furthermore, lack of information and data protection was a concern (7%). A significant 41% of the voices were open to learning and gaining new insights in online teaching and learning. Importantly, roadmaps for embracing online teaching and learning in the future were sketched from these voices and these need to be developed for sustainable online education.

Keywords:

Covid-19, on-line teaching and learning, higher education, technological infrastructure, digital literacy