The COVID-19 pandemic has significantly changed teaching methods, particularly at schools.
One of the changes that occurred in the teaching and learning process during the pandemic is that both students and teachers are obliged to conduct lessons through online classes. These classes are not obviously easy for the changes required rapid adaptations from both teachers and students. Diverse challenges emerge particularly for developing countries like Indonesia and Pakistan in the way they run the school through online classes.
One research published by Asian Education and Development Studies in 2020 explores the comparison of the challenges faced by Indonesian and Pakistani teachers regarding online learning. Here’s the comparison:
Apart from the challenges, here are the benefits of online learning experienced by teachers
Online learning does not only pose challenges and problems, but also brings benefits, especially for teachers. According to several literature sources*, there are several perceived benefits of online learning:
- Learning becomes more flexible and easily accessible to teachers and students
- Students are more motivated with more interesting learning materials, such as animations, videos, audio, and other interactive learnings
- Transportation difficulties to school in terms of cost and remote geographical location can be minimized with online learning methods
Based on research results from Asian Education and Development Studies, these are some opinions of online learning from the perspectives of Indonesian and Pakistani teachers:
“I feel that students who are not participating in in-person classes are more active in asking questions and participating in online classes by posting and commenting, resulting in discussions and increasing students’ understanding and allowing them to be confident. ” – Indonesian teacher respondents
“When I teach an online class, I can handle large classes and can answer questions in chat rooms in a time-saving manner and create interactive and fast feedback.” -Pakistani teacher respondents
“My students and I are very interested in carrying out online learning, I feel this is a class that saves time because students come according to schedule. This is an easy way to learn. All the features help me a lot to modify my learning materials.” – Indonesian teacher respondents
Thus, the opinions and summary above show that Indonesian and Pakistani teachers face different challenges but experience almost the same benefits. Not only challenges are felt by teachers, but change can also be an opportunity that can bring positive transformations, one of which is learning becomes more effective and efficient.
In order to support more effective and efficient online learning, Paideia Educational Solutions provides a free low-bandwidth (2G) connectivity application for teachers to develop creative learning designs, namely Guru Kreator, which can be downloaded here.
*Resources:
Abidin,M.J.Z., Thaheem,K.S., Pathan, Q.M.H.U. (2020). “Online teaching benefits and challenges during pandemic COVID-19: a comparative study of Pakistan and Indonesia”. Asian Education and Development Studies. Retrieved from here.
Lyons, J.F. (2004). “Teaching US history online: problems and prospects”, The History Teacher, Vol. 37 No. 4, p. 447, doi: 10.237/1555549.
Mupinga, D.M. (2005). “Distance education in high schools: benefits, challenges, and suggestions”, The Clearing House: A Journal of Educational Strategies, Issues and Ideas, Vol. 78 No. 3, pp. 105-109, doi: 10.3200/tchs.78.3.105-109.
Arshad, M. and Hina, Q.A. (2017). “Availability and problems relating to the accessibility of information and communication technologies (ict’s) among university students”, Pakistan Journal of Distance and Online Learning, Vol. 3 No. 1, pp. 33-50.
Khokhar, A.J. and Javaid, S. (2016). “Students and teachers perceptions of ICT use in classroom: Pakistani classrooms”, The Asian Conference on Technology in the Classroom Kobe, Japan.
Writer: Ilyasa & Astrid
