UTAR Webinars Support Continuous Learning from Home

UTAR has successfully conducted more than 400 inspiring and educational webinars as well as online courses, viewed by more than 300,000 local and international participants. These webinars and online courses have kept its students, staff as well as the public engaged with continuous learning from the comfort of their home since the start of the MCO due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

UTAR academics and staff gathered resources and collaborated with local and international industry and university partners, and SME professionals to conduct insightful and educational webinars and online courses to ensure its staff, students and even the public are kept engaged in mindful and continuous learning to ensure that their time spent at home also incorporates intellectual pursuits, knowledge acquisition and critical thinking in various areas of interests. Accomplished academics, researchers, professionals, analysts, consultants, corporate leaders, entrepreneurs, TCM, health and medical specialists, among many others, unselfishly shared their knowledge and expertise through the webinars and online courses for the benefit of the students and the public community.

Among the webinar and online courses topics covered were medical knowledge and understanding of the COVID-19 pandemic and how to boost immunity to stay healthy during the MCO. In addition, mental, physical and emotional health, and stress management were key concerns of the community during the MCO. As a response, webinars and online courses related to these issues were conducted to create an avenue for the public to participate and seek answers to their questions while providing guidelines for a more peaceful, healthy and harmonious living at home. Free online counseling services were also provided by UTAR qualified counselors to its staff and students during the MCO period and these services are currently on-going webinars and online courses on healthy rests and nutrition were also conducted to ensure the good health of everyone.

More importantly, online teaching and learning from home became the daily norm for academics and students, many of them are new to using technology to conduct teaching and learning. Lecturers and students literally had to pick up additional technological knowledge, learn new software programmes overnight and engage in online communication instead of face to face learning to continue their degree studies following the programme curriculum.

Assignments and assessments were conducted online and are still being conducted online until the COVID-19 situation improves and with instructions from the government. To accommodate this whole process of online teaching and learning, UTAR conducted webinars, online courses and tutorials, and information on the University website teaching students how to use online communication and learning tools (such as Microsoft Teams, Zoom, google docs, etc) to facilitate online learning and communication between lecturers and students at home. On-going online support and telephone hotlines provide assistance and guidance for those who require them from time to time.

UTAR has strategised to conduct numerous webinars and online courses during the MCO not just for the staff and students on campus but also to the public and international community to execute its social responsibility as an educational institution in the country. The University recognises the need by the home community to occupy its time fruitfully while observing the MCO. There were also many webinars and online courses related to the UN’s SDG goals, particularly on environmental safety and sustainability, particularly on the management of wastes.

When face-to-face communication is not possible, webinars and online courses are good options as they also give the presenters a chance to create high quality visual contents that are impactful to the audience and allowing them to ask questions in a more relaxed environment on a more personal basis instead of a physical group setting.

UTAR thanks all staff, students, presenters, partners and participants for their contribution and support in making the webinars and online courses a success.

Some of the more popular webinars conducted are gathered below based on FB reactions:

1. Webinar title: Department of Soft Skills Competency (DSSC) Online Courses During the MCO period

This webinar reached 7,457 views, 51 reactions and 1,195 post clicks.

FB Link: https://www.facebook.com/UTARnet/posts/2984091881667529?__tn__=-R