Week 1: EDCI 339

After understanding and reviewing the readings this week, it made me think more about online learning and online pedagogy. I then began to relate to my personal experience within online learning, specifically the time we were all forced into online learning during Covid.

Covid forced online learning and it was imposed on students, they were forced to adapt to the changes, there were no strategies for learning that were taught, or time management skills with this adjustment. In the reading (Marr, L 2018) it is highlighted how students need to be equipped with the pedagogical strategies in order to succeed and for the online learning to be effective. My personal experience with the online learning in the pandemic was a rather successful one, but it was a learning curve that a lot of people close to me unfortunately never learned, because students weren’t given the tools for them to succeed, and likewise the teachers were also forced into a realm of teaching that for a lot was foreign to them, but they had to learn to adapt to these teaching changes and learning opportunities for their students. 

I struggled with online learning at the beginning of the rapid switch to online that the pandemic caused, I struggled with being immersed into the technological adaptations of zoom calls, discussion boards, etc. 

And I wasn’t the only one…

The article “Effects of Self-Efficacy and Online Learning Mind States on Learning Ineffectiveness during the COVID-19 Lockdown” highlights a study that was done discussing the importance of enhancing students’ self-efficacy when it comes to the use of technology in learning content on online platforms and the relation this has on cognitive fatigue and overall focus in online learning. The study focuses on improvements that can be made to have a lasting impact on the effectiveness of online learning. 

This relates to how in my experience school going online was a stressful and mentally demanding time, it was a very hard adjustment because there was so much stress and uncertainty of what we were to expect in the online learning platforms. This left students feeling disconnected due to the lack of resources and understanding that was given to students at this time. 

References

Hong, J.-C., Liu, X., Cao, W., Tai, K.-H., & Zhao, L. (2022). Effects of Self-Efficacy and Online Learning Mind States on Learning Ineffectiveness during the COVID-19 Lockdown. Educational Technology & Society, 25(1), 142–154. https://www.jstor.org/stable/48647036

Marr, L. (2018). “Chapter 1: The transformation of distance learning at Open
University: the need for a new pedagogy for online learning?”. In Higher Education in the Digital Age. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar Publishing