HomeAbstract of 5th-aretlFinal year B.Ed. Students’ response to a new normal with reference to virtual learning: Durban University of Technology Case study

Final year B.Ed. Students’ response to a new normal with reference to virtual learning: Durban University of Technology Case study

Proceedings of The 5th International Conference on Advanced Research in Education, Teaching and Learning

Year: 2021

DOI:

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Final year B.Ed. Students’ response to a new normal with reference to virtual learning: Durban University of Technology Case study

Duduzile Mzindle; Dumisani Ezra Mkhize

 

ABSTRACT: 

Almost three years into the pandemic and there seems to be no end of it yet, all in all the whole world is not out of the woods.  As an investigator, I am concerned about the mental models that our students possess about remote learning that they receive in teacher education programme.  This concern is caused by the fact that we are not with our students as educators to monitor their progress. We have a very limited understanding of who they are at this time. I believe that “who” we teach is as equally important as “how” we teach, for effective teaching and learning to take place.  It is against such background that I want to investigate students’ perceptions in the latter part of their teacher education programme.  I need to know if the current mode of teaching and learning (remote learning) is as impactful as the face to face interaction. The purpose of the study is to find out about their perceptions of the programme in their final year in terms of how we taught them before the pandemic when they started the programme as opposed to the time when they experience pandemic in the latter part of their study. The study will be informed by capability theory, which is concerned with evaluating a person in terms of his or her actual ability to achieve various functioning’s as part of living and takes the set of individuals capabilities as constituting an indispensable and central part of the relevant informational base of such evaluation.  It is qualitative, it will take the form of action research, and will adopt an interpretivist approach. Data will be collected using a survey questionnaire and online interviews which will be analyzed and themes will be developed as per the student’s responses.

keywords: Capability theory, empowerment, perceptions, teaching and learning, problem-solving.