With COVID-19 becoming a thrust for digital education, the Centre for Corporate and Community Development organised a live webinar titled “Teaching and Learning after COVID-19” on 12 May 2020. The webinar aimed to gather esteemed speakers from various educational institutions to share their thoughts on the future of higher education and post-pandemic pedagogy. The webinar was hosted on Microsoft Teams.

The invited speakers were Universiti Teknologi Petronas (UTP) Vice Chancellor Prof Ts Dr Mohamed Ibrahim bin Abdul Mutalib, University of Nottingham Malaysia Vice-Provost for Teaching and Learning Prof Ong Fon Sim and Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM) Deputy Vice Chancellor for Academic and International Prof Dato’ Dr Ahmad Farhan Mohd Sadullah. The webinar was moderated by Faculty of Information and Communication Technology (FICT) Dean Assoc Prof Ts Dr Liew Soung Yue.

Divided into two sessions, the first session saw the speakers speaking about their institutions’ experience in tackling the challenges caused by the pandemic and the Movement Control Order (MCO) issued by the government.

In overcoming the challenges of the pandemic and the MCO, Prof Mohamed Ibrahim mentioned that UTP addressed the first few main issues to ease teaching and learning of staff and students. He said the institution looked into matters such as ways to conduct teaching and learning online, methods for conducting exams and assessment, and accessibility of internet and UTP systems. The institution also evaluated its capacity to offer online learning to students. He also explained that training was given to academics in preparing them for online teaching. The training was conducted by those who have experience and expertise in online teaching. It was noted that some students also remained in their hostel near campus to have better access to the internet.

He said that continuous discussions were conducted with academics and UTP experts to address assessment issues. The discussions also looked into ways for substituting final exams; for instance, giving students projects to take home as examination, whereby students can perform these tasks in front of the computer within the set time.

Prof Ong, on the other hand, mentioned that the University of Nottingham Malaysia due to lead from our UK Campus, we have been driving digital technologies in teaching and learning. We were able to cope when we switched to online learning and teaching. As part of the University of Nottingham strategy, we have started lecture capture, a term to describe lecture sessions that were recorded and uploaded on to Moodle for students. This started about four to five years ago. In recent years, again as contained in our digital technology enabled teaching and learning strategy, we have embarked on online marking and online feedback.

“So it was not much of a hurdle for us, although there were still some hiccups along the way. For the first two weeks since the start of the MCO, we had meetings every day to address issues and problems. Fortunately for us, we have already been training people to use online teaching and learning. We also found that class attendance improved from the online classes and students were noticeably engaging better with their lecturers by asking more questions. Certainly, some students have mentioned that they still miss the physical interaction with lecturers and other students,” said Prof Ong.

For USM, Prof Ahmad mentioned that they had expected the possibility of the MCO and hence have started preparing earlier. He said the main goal was to enable students to have continuous learning, while also maintaining safety and quality of teaching and learning online. One of the methods used was coming out with a new or adjusted calendar which gave students and the institution more learning time. They also looked into ways for substituting final exams. However, it was noted that the early stages of preparation saw some unenthusiasm towards online teaching and it was a slow start, but they managed to overcome that issue and yield fruitful results.

During the second session, the speakers gave their inputs on the future of teaching and learning post COVID-19. Prof Mohamed spoke about the two possible scenarios – the reduction of traditional face-to-face learning or total shift to online learning and teaching. However, he did highlight that not all educational institutions will fully opt for online learning and teaching because some aspects, such as the physical experience of learning and teaching on campus cannot be replaced. Therefore, he mentioned the use of a hybrid method to facilitate face-to-face teaching and online. The hybrid method may also enable academics to better manage their time.

“However, with the possibility of a hybrid method, students must also be on board and work together with the institution to make this possible and smooth. We also cannot overlook some activities, such as Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) activities and sports, whereby these activities are physical in nature. We will also need to ensure that there is constant connectivity to the internet and readily available solutions for digital challenges ahead,” explained Prof Mohamed.

He added, “Over time, there is also a need to upgrade the connectivity of online learning and teaching so that it can cover a more widespread area. We may also see in the near future that textbooks could be obsolete because of the wide internet sources, libraries may shrink, and the evolution of assessment. Of course with technology, we also see the benefit of it in reducing the cost of offering programmes because of online learning and teaching. We may also see a change in the pattern of learning whereby it becomes more personalised for the learners. Lastly, we will also need to consider how to go about R&D if the hybrid method is implemented.”

Prof Ong also spoke about the environment of higher education in Malaysia, highlighting the massification of university education, competition, the increasing complexity, and more recently the Fourth Industrial Revolution where we increasingly talk about leveraging on technology. Then came Covid-19 pandemic which causes great disruptions to the world, economy and the education sector (of course). If pre-Covid KPI is about growth and surpluses, with COVID, the most crucial KPI is survival. She then talked about teaching and learning, with blended learning to balance traditional and online learning and teaching, and the importance of leveraging on the digital technology. She highlighted the need to consider quality online delivery, moving forward. She also questioned “How do we ensure student experience if interactions continue to be digitally driven?”

Post Covid, if social distancing is practised, she spoke about the pressure on estate since social distancing will mean less students in a class. Perhaps there will still be a mix of online delivery with smaller class size for tutorial support. Employability of graduates post COVID-19 is another issue she highlighted. While learning and teaching would change, skillsets of the students must be ensured. She also listed leadership, digital capability and critical thinking as among the consistently required skills even after COVID-19. Finally, she said that institutions must be agile because the pandemic has brought uncertainties and as we do not know how this pandemic will evolve, institutions must be agile and be ready to respond.

From Prof Ahmad, participants of the webinar learnt that perhaps this pandemic and MCO has brought opportunities for changes, and for institutions to step out of their comfort zone. “Despite that, our aim remains, that is to give out students the best learning experience. We are also collecting feedback from students and academics. Hopefully, we can empower our academics so they can be more agile, creative and innovative towards teaching. We must also be able to manage our students’ expectations and need, and one of the ways would be to learn more about their learning experience. As we continue to evaluate how much is learnt and actualised from these changes, we also want to be adaptable and flexible so we can sustain,” said Prof Ahmad.