Online Learning Instruction And Research In Post Pandemic Higher Education In Africa

Online Learning, Instruction, and Research in Post-Pandemic Higher Education in Africa, edited by Martin Munyao, argues that beyond survival, universities need to adapt to technology-mediated communication learning in order to thrive. Disruptive technologies have recently proved to be means of thriving for institutions of higher learning. This book reflects on how leveraging on education technology has transformed teaching, learning, and research Higher Education Institutions (HEI) impacting Africa through digital transformation. In particular, HEIs are collaborating more now than ever before. Finally, this book addresses the challenges of teaching STEM programs online in Africa.

This book critically examines how the COVID-19 pandemic has stimulated digital innovation within higher education using case studies from Africa. Imagining a future for post-pandemic higher education, it analyses the challenges and opportunities of remote teaching and learning. The book explores the structural barriers around access to higher education and how these were reconfigured and amplified by technology-dependent teaching and learning. Case studies from countries across Africa provide unique insights into the challenges experienced by Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) during the COVID-19 pandemic, examining examples of emergent pedagogies such as online, mobile and social media-enhanced teaching, and blended learning. The chapters consider online assessment and teacher professional development, critically examining some of the benefits and structural challenges of digital technology integration in the context of pre-existing education disparities (such as students and teachers living in poverty-stricken and highly unequal societies). Offering invaluable insights into higher education in Africa, the book will be essential reading for researchers, scholars, and students in the fields of higher education study, digital education and educational technology, and African and comparative education. It will also be of interest to higher education managers and policymakers.

The COVID-19 pandemic has forced companies, institutions, citizens, and students to rapidly change their behaviors and use virtual technologies to perform their usual working tasks. Though virtual technologies for learning were already present in most universities, the pandemic has forced virtual technologies to lead the way in order to continue teaching and learning for students and faculty around the world. Universities and teachers had to quickly adjust everything from their curriculum to their teaching styles in order to adapt to an online learning environment. Online learning is a complex issue and one that comes with both challenges and opportunities; there is plenty of room for growth, and further study is required to better understand how to improve online education. The Handbook of Research on Developing a Post-Pandemic Paradigm for Virtual Technologies in Higher Education is a comprehensive reference book that presents the testimonials of teachers and students with various degrees of experience with distance learning and their utilization of current virtual tools and applications for learning, as well as the impact of these technologies and their potential future use. With topics ranging from designing an online learning course to discussing group work in an online environment, this book is ideal for teachers, educational software developers, IT consultants, instructional designers, administrators, professors, researchers, lecturers, students, and all those who are interested in learning more about distance learning and all the positive and negative aspects that accompany it.

This book examines the ongoing changes initially caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and the future prospects of teaching and learning in higher education institutions. It focuses on the impact of online education on issues of learning equity and epistemic justice. The transition from traditional face-to-face teaching to remote learning has exacerbated existing inequalities in epistemological access among higher education students, despite the shortcomings of the former in this regard. The book features essays by African academics who reflect on the challenges of epistemological access during the sudden shift to hybrid, blended and remote teaching and learning. It specifically explores the question of equitable learning in diverse home contexts, drawing on both theoretical and empirical studies conducted by the authors in South African universities and the region. The chapters employ the conceptual framework of epistemic injustice to define and explore various forms of such injustice, providing a basis for analyzing the implications of the transition to online pedagogy.

This timely volume documents the immediate, global impacts of the coronavirus pandemic (COVID-19) on teaching and learning in higher education. Focusing on student and faculty experiences of online and distance education, the text provides reflections on novel initiatives, unexpected challenges, and lessons learned. Responding to the urgent need to better understand online teaching and learning during the COVID-19 pandemic, this book investigates how the use of information and communication technologies (ICT) impacted students, faculty, and staff experiences during the COVID-19 lockdown. Chapters initially look at the challenges faced by universities and educators in their attempts to overcome the practical difficulties involved in developing effective online programming and pedagogy. The text then builds on these insights to highlight student experiences and consider issues of social connection and inequality. Finally, the volume looks forward to asking what lessons COVID-19 can offer for the future development of online and distance learning in higher education. This engaging volume will benefit researchers, academics, and educators with an interest in online teaching and eLearning, curriculum design, and more, specifically those involved with the digitalization of higher education. The text will also support further discussion and reflection around pedagogical transformation, international teaching and learning, and educational policy more broadly.

This book’s research is on online pedagogical approaches devised by teacher educators and researchers to circumvent a face-to-face curriculum delivery during the COVID-19 pandemic. The challenge faced by educators was that they were uncertain of how to use digital technologies in teaching, learning and assessment productively. This book reports on case studies on teaching student teachers with technology in a way that advanced not only communication but also the cognitive growth of students in relation to disciplinary knowledge. The scholars from South African universities used both conceptual and empirical methodologies, mostly in qualitative set-ups. The scholarly contributions in this book are varied. They cover theoretical nuances for ICT use in education, considerations for the use of computers in the classroom, pedagogical thinking and pedagogical integration of ICTs in education, affordances of iPads in visible teaching and learning, supporting student cognition in Languages, Mathematics, Science, Engineering Graphics and Design with ICTs. The use of software applications such as GeoGebra and Excel in teaching and learning mathematics is researched, among others. The rich discussions that emerged from their research enable academics to learn from ‘others’ innovative moments that came as a result of pandemic pressure. The recommendations in this book can be used in blended learning beyond the COVID-19 era, as curriculum delivery methods are bound to change. The value of this book is that it reports on pedagogical innovations in using digital technologies in teacher education. Researchers have an opportunity to learn from this book how to deal with the tantalising teaching and learning problem of our time: How can the use of digital technology transform teaching and learning in general and teacher education in particular?

e-Learning Ecologies explores transformations in the patterns of pedagogy that accompany e-learning—the use of computing devices that mediate or supplement the relationships between learners and teachers—to present and assess learnable content, to provide spaces where students do their work, and to mediate peer-to-peer interactions. Written by the members of the "new learning" research group, this textbook suggests that e-learning ecologies may play a key part in shifting the systems of modern education, even as technology itself is pedagogically neutral. The chapters in this book aim to create an analytical framework with which to differentiate those aspects of educational technology that reproduce old pedagogical relations from those that are genuinely innovative and generative of new kinds of learning. Featuring case studies from elementary schools, colleges, and universities on the practicalities of new learning environments, e-Learning Ecologies elucidates the role of new technologies of knowledge representation and communication in bringing about change to educational institutions.

This book critically examines the role of governments in promoting parity during and in post-pandemic education. This comes from the realisation that the pandemic has deepened the crisis by depleting the meagre resources that African countries might have devoted to ‘normative educational practices’ where those on the margins would have been pushed further behind while the privileged would have been further initiated into the cultural and capital flows of private schools and historically research-intensive institutions of higher learning. This has far-reaching implications for the education of underprivileged citizens, and education, particularly modes and modalities of delivery, has to be reimagined to subvert the challenges wrought by the pandemic. This book significantly bridges the gap between the pre-and post-COVID-19 pandemic pedagogical practices and the erstwhile modalities that have been resilient over time. The book focuses on ways to stave off pedagogical challenges that face countries as the global pandemic makes its mark.

With comprehensive examples from researchers across East Africa, West Africa, and Southern Africa, the book examines how primary, secondary, and tertiary education was affected by the pandemic and how its effects are shaping the future of education in Africa. This book addresses diverse issues relating to COVID-19 and education, including the gendered-, classed-, and disability-related effects of the pandemic; African educators’ and students’ experiences with different remote learning technologies; and the outcomes of government interventions in education, such as prolonged school closures. The chapters and case studies highlighted in the volume represent the voices of African educators, students, and parents as they share their experiences of the pandemic and their perspectives on how learning should be optimised to better manage future disruptions to education. This book is the first of its kind to comprehensively examine the effects of COVID-19 on education in Africa and will be essential reading for researchers, academics, and scholars of African education, international and comparative education, and education policy.