This study presents an ethnographic account of the learning design experiences of six Namibian teachers during school closures caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. The study explores the emotions, perspectives and actions of these teachers and also reveals the influence of personal, institutional and national culture on their learning design decisions, processes and outcomes. This exploration is important because it surfaces and highlights teacher experiences with learning design that can be used to influence practice and policy in future emergency situations. Data were collected using a variety of educational ethnographic techniques including artefacts, formal and informal interviews, and stimulated recall from video presentations. Five knowledge criteria were identified around the learning design and innovative processes of emergency remote teaching. These knowledge criterion include the Professional and School Context, Emotions of the participants at the time; Perspectives and actions to meet the Challenge; Process and Preparations for Remote teaching; Learning Design Context-based Decisions (including the processes used; the outcomes, and teaching artefacts). Results indicate that the school situation and context influenced the appropriate learning design materials. Furthermore, results showed that lack of infrastructure, access and connectivity as well as teacher ICT confidence and competency affected the decision making in learning design. Most of all, fear of being infected by SARS CoV-2 and fear for one’s life gripped teachers such that they were unable to fully engage in problem-solving for designing appropriate learning materials for learners.
The Ministry of Education, Arts and culture, proposed learning at K-12 as the solution for continuing education during the CoVID19 pandemic lockdown period across Namibia (March/April 2020). Due to the haste in implementation e-learning at schools by teachers, researchers sought to get a glimpse of the perceptions and self-efficacy of English subject teachers one their readiness to conduct online teaching. This single case study design involved English teachers at a selected combined school in the Erongo region. The open-ended questionnaire results focussed on teacher e-readiness, management support, school culture and school and community infrastructure and student and parent preparedness. The study findings are clear that teachers were not opposed to teaching online, however, they were very aware of the issues and limitations that would make it challenging. Challenges included not only their own ICT literacy skills and the connectivity issues, but recognising the lack of self-directed learning from their learners.
WhatsApp is the most popular mobile instant messaging (IM) app in the global south. Hence, its use in informal and formal learning spaces has significant potential and is worthy of investigation. This study explored how University faculty and students in Namibia and India used WhatsApp for learning support and to bridge the gap between formal and informal learning. From a total of 182 participants, results reveal that WhatsApp has the potential to engage users in an informal and formal learning support and delivery environment. Learning designers and those responsible for professional development need to take note of this instant messaging app and experiment with various culturally contextual learning design models to support learning.
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