Face-to-face classes hijacked by COVID-19: what and how HEI instructors want to learn for online teaching

摘要

Upon the forced interruption of face-to-face classes because of COVID-19, HEIs moved online to deliver courses in the spring semester of the 2019-2020 academic year. A survey of 108 instructors from HEIs in Wuhan, Hubei, China was carried out to Figure out the situation or perception of HEI instructors before, during and after the online transition. The research reveals a severe lack of online teaching experience among teaching staff prior to the transition but they got prepared mainly by self-directed learning or attending training programs. In the pandemic semester, about two thirds of respondents used five-streamed delivery while the rest employed asynchronous teaching and the most-frequently-encountered problems were internet connection failure, fake attendance and poor involvement of students. Almost all respondents agreed upon an investment in and speed up of the development of online teaching resources in the post-pandemic period and their primary concerns for training lied in how to engage students, how to design in-class activities and online course assessment. As for forms of training, smaller and more focused programs like small workshops or short training videos were more favored by the respondents. The research also reveals some interesting differences between different categories of respondents.