What have teachers learnt about teaching online in the pandemic?
Before the pandemic struck, researchers from the RELIEF Centre and Lebanese University were already cooking up a plan to introduce university teachers to more online methods. We had seen first hand that online methods had been successful in enabling students to access learning when universities were closed during the protests in Lebanon in October 2019.
Then, when all schools and universities began to close in March last year because of Covid-19, we knew we needed to hurry up! Four weeks later, we launched the course on Edraak – free and open to all teachers. You can access it here.
Co-designed MOOC led by Lebanese University researchers
During the last 3 and a half years of the RELIEF Centre, we have built solid and lasting research relationships with digital education teachers and researchers at the Lebanese University, Dr. Samar Zeitoun and Dr. Rima Malek. Dr. Samar and Dr. Rima were central to the success of our co-designed MOOCs, Community Based Research, and Educators for Change. When we started planning our third MOOC together “Teaching Online: Be Ready Now!” the aim was to help teachers at the Lebanese University and across the MENA region make the most of digital methods.
How to design active learning
We knew that these methods were very new to many teachers, so we started with the basics – How can you get connected? What tools and technologies can you use? Students and faculty from Lebanese University gave their advice in short video clips. But we also focused on pedagogy – we introduced the Conversational Framework, developed by RELIEF researcher, Professor Diana Laurillard, in order to show how you can design learning in both synchronous and asynchronous ways to support six learning types: acquisition (or reading, watching, or listening), investigation, discussion, practice, production, and collaboration.
And we demonstrated how to use tools to make that happen. In that way, we showed how to create active learning experiences, so that lessons are not all about the teacher talking.
What participants are saying
The course has been running since April 2020. 9 months in and nearly 40,000 enrolments later, it is time to take stock of what teachers learned from the course, and what they have been telling us about their experience of teaching online.
The move to online teaching was a very challenging one. Teachers found it particularly difficult to make sessions interactive and recreate the experience of the traditional classroom. This was particularly challenging because of having to work from home, and deal with their own family responsibilities at the same time:
كانت تجربة جديدة علينا كمعلمين وكطلاب مما أدى إلى زيادة المهام على المعلمين والضغط عليهم لاتمام العملية التعليمية وخصوصا مع مسؤوليات الحياة الأخرى :البيت والأطفال وتدريسهم دون أن يؤثر سلبا على الطلاب. فكانت هذه التجربة نوعا ما مستنزفة لطاقة المعلم التي يقابلها برود الطالب تجاه المشاركة والتفاعل في العملية التعليمية
It was a new experience for us as teachers and for our students. This led to an increase in the tasks on teachers and compounded the pressure on them to complete the educational process. Especially if one considers the mounting responsibilities in our personal lives, such as teaching our children and the many demands of running our home. It was hard not to get negatively affected and in turn to influence students’ focus when teaching via communication platforms. This experience was also somewhat consuming, especially when students’ participation and interaction in the educational process are mild and superficial at best.
What was great was learning how to design active learning, a technology that made teachers’ lives easier. They found out about techniques that made learning more engaging for their students – and easier for them too:
التعامل مع الطلبة اصبح اسهل بعد التعرف على اساليب التدريس عبر الإنترنت
Dealing with students became easier after learning about online teaching methods
For example, we showed teachers how to add quiz questions in the middle of youtube videos with Edpuzzle and teachers started manipulating the online world better:
رائع ومثير للدافعية ويمكن الاجابه على الاسئله بشكل مباشر اثناء حضور الطلاب للفيديو ويمكن استخدامة كاداة تقييم لمستوى الفهم والادراك لديهم
A wonderful and motivating tool that allows questions to be answered directly when students are watching videos. This can be used to assess the level of understanding and perception of students
We designed the course as a collaborative learning environment, so teachers could not only learn from the course content but from each other. We were really pleased to see that happening:
قراءة تعليقات الٱخرين تعطيني احيانا اجابات على بعض المشاكل او الاسئلة التي تشغلني وعندما ادخل تعليقاتي الخاصة اخوض تجربة تعلم تفاعلية حقيقية
Reading other people's comments sometimes gives me answers to some of the problems or questions that bother me. And when I provide my own comments, this enables an authentic interactive learning experience.
Webinar
Now we want to get Teaching Online: Be Ready Now! participants together and discuss what we have learned about digital teaching methods during the pandemic, and what we still have to learn. This is an opportunity to share our most useful teaching tools and techniques, but also to reflect on the major challenges facing teachers and their students.
Join us to continue our discussion.