Lecturers' Reflections on Online Teaching in a Higher Education Institution During Co ViD-19 Pandemic: A Case Study Approach

Abstract

At the onset of the year 2020, the Co ViD-19 pandemic outbreak forced universities worldwide to close their campuses. The closures disrupted learning, research and academic activities of millions of learners, research institutions and families' ways of lives. Several countries implemented e- learning and distance-learning approaches on different platforms to minimise disruptions of academic activities. Online learning meant that both students and staff members must have devices and reliable internet connection. However, in many cases, both staff members and students were not prepared for the drastic changes brought by online learning. These changes necessitate the adoption of new teaching methods. However, most lecturers were not trained in these techniques. As a result, lecturers had varying expectations and experiences from the new ways of teaching. This paper, therefore, makes a critical analysis of the experiences of academic staff on online learning at a University of Technology in South Africa during the CoViD-19 pandemic. In particular, the paper examines the experiences from the Information, and Communication Technology courses lecturers' perspectives to harvest the challenges encountered and lessons learnt. Online google forms were used to collect qualitative data and a thematic analysis was used to analyse the findings. In particular, behavioural and instructional approaches were utilised to capture the online teaching experiences from the lecturers. Most lecturers noted that it was difficult to get full participation of the students. However, online learning was found to provide some advantages over face-to-face physical classes. From our findings, we can conclude that the migration to online learning require more than physical resources. Proper planning and training for both students and staff is essential.