Transition to online teaching during COVID-19 pandemic: Perspective of higher education teachers from India

INTRODUCTION

The education sector was significantly affected due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In India, the education of more than 320 million students got affected due to various restrictions and the nationwide lockdown.^[1,2] Schools, colleges and universities were closed. Authorities converted institutional infrastructure into quarantine centres and COVID hospitals. Classes got suspended, examinations were postponed and the teaching schedule was disrupted. It was a highly challenging period for all teachers, more so in developing countries. In India – as in other developing countries, many educational institutions lag behind with respect to the expected progress in technology. Educational institutions in India follow traditional methods of teaching-learning. The classes are conducted as per the timetable, course content is taught by formal lecturing (face to face) and students are required to attend classes and reproduce knowledge in assessments. The educators were forced to shift to an online mode of teaching overnight.

The rapid transition to online mode had many challenges.^[3] Initially, there was neophobia, fear of new things and technophobia. Online teachers were expected to know not only the technology; but also, strong management skills for the online environment. Most of the teachers and students were experiencing distance education for the first time and hence were in search of new tools and methods to face challenges. Keeping the students engaged and motivated was a difficult task; more so in a distant learning platform. Teachers were trying their best to overcome the challenges and prevent the loss of students.^[4]

Though challenging, COVID-19 has created many opportunities to change from traditional teaching to a new era of digital teaching/learning.^[5] A blended mode of learning was adopted by many educational institutions. Improvement in collaborative work was also observed. There were collaborations among teachers across the world as well as between teachers and students through online groups.^[6] It was observed that improved tools were generated by computer-mediated communication.^[7-11]

Most of the literature is focused on student perception of e-learning. There is a scarcity of literature on the perceptions of higher education teachers due to the sudden transition to an online learning environment, especially in developing countries. The present study tries to bridge this gap.

The present study tries to explore the higher education teacher’s experiences and challenges due to the sudden transition to online teaching, their perspectives on students’ motivation and interaction and the probable solutions to new challenges that appeared with the pandemic.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

This was a cross-sectional, observational and online study using a questionnaire, conducted between November 2020 and March 2021.

RESULTS

Quantitative data were based on a Likert scale score from 1 to 5, a score of 1 being strongly disagreed to 5 strongly agreeing. For convenience, points 1 (strongly disagree) and 2 (Disagree) were combined into one and represented as disagree. Similarly, 4 (Agree) and 5 (Strongly agree) were also combined and represented as agree in the results.

Teacher’s background, and tools used by them for online teaching

Most of the respondents of this study were above 50 years of age (58%) and 63% were females. The majority were teaching at the postgraduate level and were associated with government institutions as obvious in [Figure 1]. Asynchronous method of teaching like Google Classroom was used by 62.50% of respondents [Figure 2]. Most of them used it along with synchronous methods like Webinars or Zoom or Google Meet.

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Figure 1:

Teacher’s background.

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Figure 2:

Tools used by teachers for online teaching. MOOC -Massive open online courses, MS - microsoft

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Teachers’ experience during online teaching

Almost all respondents (98%) were having their first experience with online teaching. [Figure 3] depicts various aspects of teachers’ knowledge and experience. About 60% believed that they had sufficient computer and information technology (IT) skills to conduct online lectures but 75% of teachers preferred to have training on conducting online lectures. Most of our respondent’s technical backgrounds felt that online tools are easy to use when conducting lectures. Most of the teachers were of the opinion that their management skills improved and they gained experience while teaching online. 62.5% were happy due to the flexibility of timing but agreed that it increased their workload. Online teaching takes more time than the onsite class to effectively accomplish but they were comfortable with the home environment for online teaching. The majority of respondents did not rate online lectures higher than traditional lectures.

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Figure 3:

Teachers’ knowledge and experience during online teaching.

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Students’ motivation and interaction

Students’ motivation and interaction were rated low among our respondents as obvious in [Figure 4]. They felt that only sincere students take benefit of these classes, others just log in for attendance. Most of the students do not ask questions or clear their doubts. Very few felt that there was an improved relationship with the students. Most respondents believe that involving pupils from socially disadvantaged homes is difficult (69%) and internet connectivity is a problem during online classes (79%).

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Figure 4:

Various aspects of students’ motivation and interaction.

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Challenges and skills for online teaching

Most of the respondents agreed that there is difficulty in conducting practicals (68.80%), some subjects like Engineering drawing (59.40%) and clinical examinations [Figure 5]. They considered that innovation in teaching in the form of freedom to experiment, communication skills and body language had a great impact on the quality of teaching. A majority believed that it is better to keep classes short. Most of the respondents were not satisfied with the online assessments. Not much improvement in instructional quality was reported by the teachers in online mode.

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Figure 5:

Perception of challenges and skills during online teaching.

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DISCUSSION

As obvious from the responses, 98% of teachers had their first experience of online teaching. Their main focus was on the technology associated with teaching online. As our respondents belonged to higher education, about 60% believed that they had required computer and IT skills to conduct online lectures. Still, they believe instruction on how to use a particular online platform is more important than other pedagogical issues. Teaching online was a huge learning experience for most of them. Teachers, especially those above 50 years of age were not very comfortable handling technology. This challenge was overcome as various workshops were organised to train the teachers on online platforms. This is quite obvious from our survey that 75% of teachers preferred to have training in conducting online lectures.

Various challenges faced by the teachers were educational aids to be used and how to incorporate them in online mode.^[12,13] In the online mode, the teacher is much more of a ‘facilitator’ of the learning process.^[14] The students are not dependent on the teacher for knowledge as there is easy access to data on the internet. Learning is more collaborative, contextual and active with improved technology.^[15]

Communication skills were cited as important by many teachers. The teaching methodologies need to be incorporated with the technology. Teachers think that knowledge and communication are even more important in online teaching since apart from students the audience can be their parents or other faculty members. They had to devote more time to preparing their online courses. Our respondents also agreed that online teaching has increased their workload. Maintaining work-life balance was another challenge faced.

Most of the respondents agree that they face difficulty in conducting certain classes such as clinical examinations and practicals. For an English teacher, assessing the four language skills during online classes was a challenge.

Online classes helped in handling a large number of students. Students being tech-savvy have adopted online teaching very comfortably. They were of great technological help during the classes, guiding teachers when they get stuck. Many teachers feel that they have successfully begun their second inning as a teacher.

Student-teacher interaction is an important component of effective teaching. Students’ motivation and student-teacher interaction were rated low among our respondents. The experiences of classroom teaching are well enjoyed by the students. They remember the gestures, expressions, and nuances of the teacher.^[16-20] This is missing in the online mode. To increase the interest level of students, online educational tools need to be explored. Maintaining the attendance of students was a major challenge. Students log in but their presence is difficult to check by the teachers. Our respondents believe that soft skills like communication skills and body language are major criteria for efficient teaching in online mode. They also agreed that innovation, i.e., freedom to experiment with teaching practice along with the flexibility of timing, can definitely improve teaching quality.

In the present study, both students and teachers were having difficulties with the technology; mainly the internet connectivity. Students were unable to join the classes or got disconnected in the middle. As continuity could not be maintained, the students lost interest in the classes. Teachers felt frustrated when they were not able to connect.

Even in developed nations, there are some low-pay students who do not have access to broad bands and are unable to use computerised learning.^[13] A similar situation is faced by Indian students due to a deficiency in high-speed internet and digital gadgets. Even the advanced educational institutions in India are ill-equipped with digital facilities right now to cope with a sudden change. The same is reflected in our results where 71% of respondents agreed that involving pupils from disadvantaged homes was difficult. However, efforts are on to come up with a solution for this digital divide.^[1] Educational institutions need to improve their information technology infrastructure to meet such situations.

It was believed that regardless of the method of delivery, students give more importance to activities that were to be assessed and assigned the highest marks or credits.^[12,21] As quoted by an experienced online teacher, ‘…If an online activity is not assessed, it usually does not get done….’. Different modes of online assessments were introduced during this period but most of our respondents were not satisfied with them. They think that online assessment does not reveal genuine results as cheating is prevalent. More effective means need to be devised to overcome this. If students are smart, teachers need to be smarter.

CONCLUSION

Although online teaching can cater a large group of students, it has several limitations. Lack of students’ motivation, limited student-teacher interaction and internet connectivity issues were the major challenges.