Communion, Care, and Leadership in Computer-Mediated Learning during the Early Stage of COVID-19

‘Should I Turn on My Video Camera?’ The Students’ Perceptions of the use of Video Cameras in Synchronous Distant Learning

One of the challenges teachers and students face in online synchronous learning is not turning on their video cameras. The reasons are multitasking, being concerned about the background, psychological barriers, and poor internet connection. In this study, social presence theory (SPT) was employed as the theoretical lens to understand the possible impacts of video cameras in synchronous online learning. Social presence allows individuals to make personal characteristics visible to the community. Students experience greater levels of trust and rapport because of verbal and nonverbal cues that occur when video cameras are turned on in video conferencing. The use of video cameras in synchronous distant learning creates intimacy and immediacy, leading to teacher–learner social presence, which leads to dialog. The phenomenographic study was carried out to analyze the students’ perceptions of the phenomena. The eighty-two first-year undergraduate and doctoral students took part in the study. It showed that students perceive a video camera as a tool for cooperation, as well as for self-discipline and self-control. The students relate the use of video cameras with quality studies, the ability to interact, and to be a part of the process. They feel less inclined to participate when their cameras are off. That leads to the weaker student–teacher relationship, which is achieved with a higher social presence. It is essential to see one other to strengthen students’ motivation, sense of belonging, and community in the courses for first-year students who are still developing learning habits and social networks.

Some Web-Based Experiences from Flipped Classroom Techniques in AEC Modules during the COVID-19 Lockdown

The classroom closure during the first semester of 2020 entailed decisive changes in higher education. Universities have become more digital in both the availability of e-resources and pervasive devices and how students communicate with lecturers and classmates. Learners adapted their study habits with a growing role of self-paced, internet-based strategies. Some flipped learning approaches have proven their efficacy under the remote-teaching physical constraints. This study aimed to appraise the outcomes from the implementation of various web-based, learning-aid tools on flipped teaching approaches in engineering modules. The open educational resources (OER) performed satisfactorily during the lockdown period in three universities from two countries with similar higher education models. Such resources encompassed classroom response systems and web-based exercise repositories, designed for diverse purposes such as autonomous learning, self-correction, flipped classroom, peer assessment, and guided study. The acquired experiences reveal that OER helped students to enhance their engagement, reach the deeper levels of the cone of learning, and widen their range of learning abilities. This procedure is easily attainable for architecture, engineering, and construction (AEC) courses and lifelong learning settings. Feedback from students, instructors’ perceptions, and learning outcomes show the suitability and effectiveness of the web-based learning assistant procedure presented here.