Experiences Of Online Teaching In Secondary Schools Amidst The Covid-19 Pandemic

Abstract

The untimely closure of secondary schools was a positive response by the government to protect school-going children from possible risks of contracting COVID-19 because school environments are places where hundreds of pupils meet, and this makes them dangerous places where disease can rapidly spread. As such; it was suggested that teaching and learning should continue using online platforms such as Moodle and other educational e-learning systems to keep the learning process ongoing as well as make pupils not miss out on learning or remain behind on the coverage of the school syllabus since they are still expected to write their final exams towards the end of the academic year. Simon and Mirriah (2007), said; understanding the implication of online teaching in secondary schools may be of great value, both to the education sector and the country at large for it makes it easier for both pupils and teachers to access the learning and teaching materials at their convenient time. Pupils can work at their own pace within a given time framework. Learning and teaching can also take place in any location (home, office, and many other places) and can include pupils and teachers from diverse geographical locations as well as providing opportunities to access and share information in a more easily and readily way. Teachers and students can join online communities of practice based on their area of interest rather than their geographic location. Dawes (2001) stated that online teaching has the potential to upkeep education across the curriculum and deliver opportunities for efficient pupil-teacher communication in ways not possible before. As such, teachers admit the importance of online teaching for it has the potential to both transform teaching and teachers. However, this potential may not easily be realized because 85% of teachers are expected to implement changes in what may well be adverse circumstances to better deliver online teaching services (Dawes, 2001). Balanskat, Blamire, and Kefala (2006) argue that although teachers appear to acknowledge the value of online teaching in schools, they continue encountering obstacles during the processes of adopting these technologies into their teaching and learning. It is shown by the 2019 GEM report that only 40% of teachers are to send an email with an attachment –a seemingly vital skill for any teacher hoping to send around classwork. It was also shown in the survey by the ClassTag (2019) that 57% of teachers said they do not feel prepared to facilitate online teaching. Additionally, in as much as e-learning platforms are being implemented during this covid-19 pandemic, there is no realization that teachers do not know how to use these platforms, instead of much attention is given to the pupils when in the actual sense the teachers are required to first know how these platforms operate so that they effectively deliver their lessons to the pupils (Dewes, 2001). Furthermore, this should not be the case, since there is an increase in online teaching platforms during this pandemic; one of which is the e-learning portal and Smart Revision portal, such; all the teachers are expected to know how to use any education-related technologies to better deliver their lessons to every pupil regardless of the location. Teachers are expected to utilize a range of different communication methods and ensuring that they check in on them daily or hourly if needed (Dawes, 2001). An example is making sure they state clearly when they are to be present on each teaching day in the online classrooms so that they do not leave anyone behind. However, despite the increase in online teaching platforms, there is still an increasing number of teachers of about 85% who are not able to utilize these platforms, which in turn will cause poor performance of the pupils, more especially those in examination rooms. Hence, this study will be conducted to find out the cause of this high number of teachers who do not know how to use these platforms despite the increase in the number of e-learning platforms put in place, experiences of teachers towards online teaching amidst covid-19 pandemic in specific secondary schools and also find out the challenges that they are facing, their perspective as well as the extent to which they use the technologies to deliver online teaching during this period. Conducting this study is of relevance as it will help the planners to know the kind of strategies to be put in place to increase online teaching skills for teachers, which in turn will increase their teaching services.