MIXED CLASS TEACHING AS AN EMERGING TREND ACCELERATED BY COVID-19

The COVID-19 pandemic has essentially accelerated the pace of the teaching transformation. Mixed (also hyflex) class teaching has become indispensable in medical, engineering, teacher and other fields of education when only online teaching is not enough to ensure the continuity of the instruction. The research aim is to identify scenarios of mixed class teaching underpinning the elaboration of implications for higher education. The present research used both - theoretical and empirical methods. The theoretical methods included the analysis of scientific literature, theoretical modelling, systematisation, synthesis, comparison, and generalisation. The empirical study carried out in June 2021 was exploratory. Data were collected through the analysis of published studies. The collected data were processed via content analysis. The present research allows concluding that teaching has undergone significant changes in different historical periods. The findings of the empirical study facilitate the conclusion on the existence of two scenarios of mixed class teaching, namely HOT (Here or There) and COIL (Collaborative Online International Learning). Both scenarios are oriented to students’ learning, teaching in these scenarios is neither segmented nor structured. The novel contribution of the research is revealed in the implications on mixed class teaching for higher education. Future research work was proposed.

An Overview of Chemistry Teaching Transformation during COVID-19 Pandemic: An Experience from University of Botswana

COVID-19-related disruption in teaching in the University of Botswana led the school to prepare new strategies for running classes and to design innovative way of instruction. The most notable change was to replace face-to-face lectures with online teaching at least partially (blended teaching and learning). This posed many challenges, especially in the teaching of science and technology subjects. In a laboratory-based discipline such as chemistry the problems encountered were especially daunting. Moreover, writing mathematical equations, chemical reactions and reaction mechanisms posed their own difficulties. The present communication provides a brief overview of how chemistry education at the University, the premier national university of Botswana, has been transformed during the last three semesters. It is based on experience of the author and as judged by the feed-back received from colleagues and the students. Admittedly, the experience is limited and much discussion is still in progress to meet the unresolved challenges. Theory classes at undergraduate levels are now mostly taught online using packages such as Moodle and MS Teams. The tutorial and laboratory sessions have faced the greatest disruptions and the instructors continue to explore ways to conduct these virtually. Online examinations were found to be limited in their effectiveness, especially in the assessment of drawing chemical structure and reaction mechanisms as well as the students’ ability in scientific writing.