Online Learning at Universities
The coronavirus pandemic is changing education; from primary schools to universities, online learning is becoming the new norm. But the transition takes some getting used to for both students and instructors. Today, News Five’s Duane Moody set out the find out how the universities are handling virtual teaching.
Duane Moody, Reporting
COVID-19 has prompted a number of educational institutions to turn to virtual sessions to keep students engaged during this crisis. The transition from face-to-face engagement to online teaching platforms is not a simple exercise, but numerous high schools and universities are taking on the challenge. The University of the West Indies Open Campus has been recognised as the pioneer of online education, but exams were sat in person as was the continuous development courses.
Sharmayne Saunders
Dr. Sharmayne Saunders, Head, UWI Open Campus
“Our students are online from their pre-university course all the way to their doctoral programmes those courses run online. So we are continuing as normal; we don’t have any breaks. What part of our online education that had challenges was examination because our students had the responsibility to take their exams face-to-face. So the university saw this as an opportunity to exploit that area and we are going to focus on how to best deliver online examination—whether it is with the use of technology, cameras and so.”
Galen University in the west, however, has gone completely online for this fall semester. That transition, says Director of Marketing and Admissions, Travis Lennan was rather seamless because all students have experience with its online teaching tool.
Travis Lennan
Travis Lennan, Director of Marketing & Admissions, Galen University
“We were very poised because we had our online facility before and it is something that we have been doing for quite some time now. While it was not necessarily as easy as everybody would say, we were more poised to go directly fully online with all of our courses because of the nature of how we have been handling our online programmes because as you know, we have a few of our programmes that are geared directly to professionals—those persons who are fully employed—they can then still gain their education in a full time capacity doing online studies with Galen.”
There are, however, some practical sessions and evaluation exercises that must be taken on site at both facilities. UWI and Galen are prepared for this prospect.
Travis Lennan
“While the vet programme has always been online and students would come in on various Saturdays and weekends to do the practical portions of that programme and I believe that we will be able to continue to do that while practicing social distancing and the whole fact that persons will be separated in a manner that is acceptable during this time. We can still have them go out for environmental science programme; go and do testing the various watersheds across the country, etc. So programmes as those are still in good hands.”
Dr. Sharmayne Saunders
“Two weeks ago, we had the university properly cleaned and sanitized by professionals and we have set the university in a format that allows for the social distancing protocols; so that is in full effect. You would notice there were some sessions today as part of our facility rental. And we also assist the Education Department with some of the CXC exams and CAPE exams.”
Duane Moody for News Five.
