Designing for Transition: Supporting Teachers and Students Cope with Emergency Remote Education

Abstract

The global pandemic reached New Zealand in the middle of a teaching semester, calling educators to rapidly transition into a fully online teaching mode. Covid-19 brought fears for the unknown and required an abrupt shift, creating anxiety for academic staff, students and parents. Amidst this transition, educators had to quickly reconfigure their designs, as specific pedagogical strategies set for in-class arrangements would no longer be appropriate for the new scenario. A whiplash redirect to the online mode introduced new tools and added uncertainties about Internet access and connectivity. People had to deal with remoteness and isolation and with changes to virtual learning. This paper theorizes about what it means to design for transition during an emergency. Drawing on the Activity-Centred Analysis and Design (ACAD) framework, we discuss implications for educational design, detailing how tools, social arrangements and tasks can be carefully orchestrated to support learning activity in emergency remote education. We situate the discussion within the transitioning experiences of students and staff at a Bachelor of Nursing programme, within a three-phased educational design which involved Virtual Happy Hours (VHH). The VHH sessions were run with two cohort groups of first- and second-year students in the Bachelor programme—and included their teaching staff. The intent of the VHH was to allow participants to familiarize themselves with tools, tasks and social elements that could be (re)used to facilitate engagement in a new online space—in preparation to the upcoming course sessions in the lockdown period.

From stress to success: Exploring how Filipino students cope with remote learning amid COVID-19 pandemic

“…Numerous studies have already been conducted to document the coping strategies of students in a remote learning setting (e.g. Baloran, 2020;Croft, Dalton & Grant, 2010;Gong, 2020;Green, Burrow & Carvalho, 2020;Guo et al, 2020;Kimotho, 2018;Klapproth et al, 2020;Kwon, 2010;Matswetu et al, 2020;Nyatsanza & Mtezo, 2013;Osafo, 2017;Petronzi & Petronzi, 2020). Recent studies in the Philippine context had also been conducted to report how university students enrolled under various disciplines cope with stress, but in a faceto-face learning setting (e.g.…”

The Covid-19 World: Learning or Downfall

“…UNESCO warns that 'Covid-19 school closures around the world will hit girls hardest.' Increased drop-out rates 'will disproportionately affect adolescent girls, further entrench gender gaps in education and lead to increased risk of sexual exploitation, early pregnancy, and early and forced marriage' (Giannini 2020). Moreover, Bonilla-Molina (2020) shows that the Covid-19 educational landscape includes numerous other problems, such as lack of online educational resources, online pedagogies, and teacher training.…”

“…Thus, teachers need to conscientize that formal schooling operates inside state apparatuses and that their role needs to reach far beyond training students to reproduce given curricula. In the new normal, it is more important than ever that teachers act as public intellectuals (Giroux 2005) and teach democratic principles and practices. & We need open teaching and learning materials (books, online materials, courses, op-eds, policy recommendations) and a renewed non-fragmentary paradigm of teaching and learning in post-pandemic times.…”

“…& We need open teaching and learning materials (books, online materials, courses, op-eds, policy recommendations) and a renewed non-fragmentary paradigm of teaching and learning in post-pandemic times. It is urgent, among other things, that we continuously study the advantages and disadvantages of online learning under various circumstances (Green, Burrow, and Carvalho 2020;Zhu and Liu 2020). & Learning should be continuous and free from time and place.…”

“…& Learning should be understood beyond the limits of formal education. It should echo traditions and values developed through the long history of free/radical education: self-education ('autodidactism'), intrinsic motivation, respect for and utilization of learners' visions and life experiences, inclusion of everyone according to their needs and abilities (see Green et al 2020). Study materials should be accessible to all and freely downloadable from online collections along with the free provision of the Internet (Suoranta 2020).…”