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ONLINE LEARNING BARRIERS: UNRAVELING THE CHALLENGES FACED BY ADMINISTRATORS IN HIGHER EDUCATION
from e-Aral Natin
by Rosalie Nimo
ONLINE LEARNING BARRIERS:
UNRAVELING THE CHALLENGES FACED BY ADMINISTRATORS IN HIGHER EDUCATION
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by: Marie Joy Payumo-Salgado & Daniel Ong
Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) were caught unprepared when the entire country entered lockdown due
to the Covid-19 pandemic. For private schools, it was worse, since all private HEI’s were still struggling to overcome the financial impact brought about by the K-12 implementation. Public schools on the other hand were cushioned because the government continued picking up the bills, but nevertheless saw their budgets upended by the shift to remote learning. The pandemic truly impacted both private and public HEIs.
The team interviewed administrators from two northern Luzon schools, Saint Mary’s University (SMU) and Don Mariano Marcos Memorial State University (DMMMSU) - Mid La Union Campus, to identify the common challenges the HEI administrators encountered when their schools shifted to online learning. These are their responses.
READINESS OF THE FACULTY MEMBERS
Both schools were caught unprepared by the sudden need to shift to remote learning. Since both are conventional face-to-face institutions, they had few teachers capable of remote and online learning, necessitating the provision of substantial teacher training.
DMMMSU responded by conceptualizing a “3C’s framework” - Communication to Connect and Collaborate. The State University partnered with DMMMSU Open University and nearby private HEIs to forge a functional collaborative academic operation. This partnership leveraged the needed technical skills of qualified faculty members into a shared resource that facilitated the retraining.
SMU also established a framework called the Marian Compassionate Teaching Framework to promote academic resiliency through the four operative principles of Clarity, Communication,
Saint Mary’s University (SMU) and Don Mariano Marcos Memorial State University (DMMMSU) - Mid La Union Campus. Connection, and Care. The school’s CICT and Teacher Education Department worked as a team to give the needed technological and pedagogical training to all faculty members.
ICT INFRASTRUCTURE
SMU relied on its existing ICT infrastructure to continue delivering instruction. Instead of acquiring a commercially available (but significantly expensive) Learning Management System (LMS), the school updated its customizable Moodle-based LMS with the help of an IT consultant. The school also upgraded its available internet bandwidth and added to its cloud storage. These expenses were committed despite the required capital outlay at a time when the school’s finances were lean.
DMMMSU’s initiatives concentrated on providing training in the use of various free-to-use LMS’s such as Google Classroom. However, the school’s lack of robust ICT infrastructure in most of its Colleges became a barrier to the sharing of teaching resources. Faculty members even had to pay out of their own pockets for internet access, although by the second semester, the ICT infrastructure of all campuses had improved to the point of installing all faculty rooms with the needed equipment and connectivity.
Common to both schools is the use of Facebook Messenger to deliver learning materials and receive requirements – a necessary asynchronous communications tool to accommodate students with weak or irregular Internet access.
FINANCIAL RESOURCES
For FY 2021, the national government has allocated funds for DMMMSU to upskill its faculty and non-teaching staff through Faculty Trainings, developing instructional materials, and to create an enabling environment in this new learning setup. The Commission on Higher Education (CHED) also authorized fund provisions for equipment upgrades and industrial programs. Research projects continue to be funded by the institution, CHED, and other external organizations.
SMU’s resources are depleted because of the decline in enrollment in the past three years. However, amounts were earmarked to finance the upgrade in the LMS and internet connection. The school strategically prioritized its ICT investments even while ensuring liquidity for its operating needs, in order to ensure it would be in a position to entice new students through its remote learning capabilities. Expenses deemed non-critical, such as faculty grants for scholarships were frozen, the operating cash being focused on training faculty members for remote and online teaching.
TO END...
The tale of two schools that these interviews has revealed is one of school administrators creatively and resiliently navigating, managing, and meeting the challenges of shifting to remote and online education. The Boards of these HEI’s approved the frameworks that guide and ground the administrations’ decisions. This in turn allowed administrators to strategically maximize their internal and external resources in reshaping their higher education mission for remote and online delivery. Truly, while the pandemic challenged the HEIs, it did not stop them from continuing to deliver their basic mandate - to provide quality education.
WATCH INTERVIEW WITH DR. OCHOCO
A brief interview of Dr. Cedric Anthony E. Ochoco, the Dean of College of Education of Don Mariano Marcos Memorial State University Mid La Union Campus, regarding the administrative challanges in online learning.
