Remote Teaching During the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Personal Reflection

Ufuoma Akpojivi

The report of the first Coronavirus COVID-19 case on March 5, 2020, and the subsequent outbreak in South Africa has impacted the socio-economic, political, and cultural spheres of the country. Indisputably, the higher education sector remains one of the most severely affected highlighting the unpreparedness of the sector for a pandemic. Drastic changes in the delivery of teaching including migration to remote teaching were introduced to meet student learning expectations and make up lost time on the academic year. Consequently, serious pedagogical issues including remote access were raised due to social inequalities and the digital divide that exist in the higher education community in South Africa.

This paper draws from personal reflections on remote teaching experience in two courses taught to different year groups, that is, a course for a large second-year class (150) that commenced before the COVID-19 pandemic and migration to remote teaching, and a smaller third-year class (30) purposively designed for remote teaching. It exhaustively compares the teaching and learning practices employed in both courses post and pre-COVID-19, highlights the challenges of migration from face-to-face to remote teaching and considers how the opportunities highlighted by these challenges can be adopted for the post-covid era. Additionally, the paper interrogates student engagement and learning experiences, and re-evaluate my personal, as well as Faculty’s pedagogical approaches in addressing social inequalities and inclusivity issues during the pandemic.

Type of Contribution

Case Study

Keywords

COVID-19, Remote teaching, Access, Reflection