Critical Incident In Online Teaching

In accordance to Coman and colleagues (2020), research showed that there were some areas that might be perceived obstacles when utilising E-learning platforms in students’ process of learning. These include reduced motivation in students, feelings of isolation due to lack of physical interaction with classmates, slow feedback or guide as teachers are not usually present when students might need help with their learning. In accordance to Deni and Zainal (2018), proper pedagogies approached should be reconsidered when exploiting the online tool for teaching to encourage students’ participation and engagement.

From one of my teaching experiences, I encountered an incident where things did not go as what I had planned. It was when I was teaching an introductory topic on Plant System for my Year 5 students. It was a 2 hour session and often times, I started the lesson with a recap. The topic review went well as students were participative during the Q&A session. However, as the lesson carried on, it was observed that the participation had reduced and only few same students were contributing. When being asked if they need some clarification, it was responded with a short comment, ‘okay’. During the plenary, only few students were contributing and a link to Google Forms was shared for their assessment. The questions posted in the online form was mostly multiple choice questions. At the very last part of the assessment, students’ self-assessment was included. Out of 18 responses, 10 students stated that they only understand part of the lesson. The result had shown that the learning objective was not achieved.

In order to overcome that situation, I reflected back on my way of teaching and decided to incorporate online quiz during starter and considered adding videos during the main lesson. It was noticed that my lesson lack engagement as I was too focused on discussion to dig more information on students’ understanding rather than considering their interest in learning. The learning experience lack meaning to the students. In addition to that, the screen time was beyond 1 hour without any break in between which may affect their attention span during the lesson.

In the following lesson, Wordwall was introduced to the students in hopes to promote participation among students. It was observed that more than half of the students who attended the online session had responded on the quiz. This was proven based on their shared screenshots (refer to the pictures below). Rinaldi and colleagues (2017) claimed that immediate feedback from the quiz is significant for students who might be struggling to comprehend the topic or those who are reluctant to ask questions in a conventional classroom setting.

According to positive feedbacks from the students, Wordwall had been incorporated for the following lessons to as one of the way for the students to self-regulate and for myself to assess their learning.

In addition to that, it would be even better to shift the text-based discussion into virtual face-to-face interaction via Zoom, Google Meet or Ms Teams. Lack of virtual meeting was a result of parents and students responses during online lesson. With the implementation of online learning, students with different social or economic backgrounds were taken into consideration. An investigation by Sayem et al. (2017) discovered that Zoom is efficient for online learning resulting in improved students’ participation. In contrast to that, Wang et al. (2018) reported that the researchers noticed lack of students’ participation and responses as their webcams were switched off.

Another suggestion would be incorporating STEM into the lesson. This is because STEM involved hands-on learning experience where students are allowed to make models. This could have been applied when teaching the Plant Sytem topic. Based on a research by Kubat (2018), STEM education encouraged the students to do research and promotee problem-solving skills. However, teacher conducting the STEM education need to be trained to be familiarised on how to implement the STEM lesson with STEM concept.

Some of students’ feedback from Wordwall quiz

References

Coman, C., Țîru, L. G., Meseșan-Schmitz, L., Stanciu, C., & Bularca, M. C. (2020). Online teaching and learning in higher education during the coronavirus pandemic: students’ perspective. Sustainability, 12(24), 10367.

Deni, A. R. M., & Zainal, Z. I. (2018, October). Padlet as an educational tool: Pedagogical considerations and lessons learnt. In Proceedings of the 10th International Conference on Education Technology and Computers (pp. 156-162).

Kubat, U. (2018). The Integration of STEM into Science Classes. World Journal on Educational Technology: Current Issues, 10(3), 165-173.

Sayem, A. S. M., Taylor, B., McClanachan, M., & Mumtahina, U. (2017, December). Effective use of zoom technology and instructional videos to improve engagement and success of distance students in engineering. In 28th annual conference of the Australasian association for engineering education (AAEE 2017) (p. 926).

Wang, Q., Huang, C., & Quek, C. L. (2018). Students’ perspectives on the design and implementation of a blended synchronous learning environment. Australasian Journal of Educational Technology, 34(1).