Institutions around the world have switched from traditional teaching and learning environments to virtual environments as a result of COVID-19. A variety of technology-based solutions have been used by academics to support online learners in the midst of this paradigm transition. Low participation, engagement, and attendance rates, however, continue to pose problems for the implementation of eLearning in the higher education (HE) sector. The acceptance and implementation of technologies in education from the viewpoint of the learners have piqued curiosity inside this story. As a result, there is now more emphasis on using distance learning or hybrid models of teaching delivery which, motivated by these environmental changes, reviews the current position and provides potential future directions.
TopCovid-19 And The Impact On Teaching And Learning
The 21st century has been marked by numerous crises, starting with the realisation that global warming is impacting every one and everything on our planet and as discussed by Diffenbaugh and Burk (2019) the effects of global warming are also creating new economic stratification in modern society. That said however 2020 has marked the beginning of the millennium with one of the most devastating global emergencies seen in generations.
In February 2020 the entire planet was subjected to a new and unforeseen event that caused untold chaos and disruption to everyday life. SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, the new highly contagious and deadly flu started to spread in late 2019 from China’s Hubei province, Wuhan (Bhargava, 2021). The new infectious disease subjected each individual to new and unprecedented restrictions, the emergency situation, resulting from the publicly declared pandemic, caused governments around the world to impose a series of lockdowns (instituteforgovernment, 2022). The critical milestone of the lockdowns that imposed all institutions in United Kingdom (UK) to begin distance learning were introduced on 23rd march 2020, when the UK Prime Minister (PM) created the “stay and home” policy, transferred in law on 26th March 2020 (Gov.uk 1, 2021). Further re-imposition of a second lockdown in November 2020 and a third lockdown in January 2021 (Brown, Kirk-Wade and Barber, 2021), the lockdowns eventually were phased out between March and July 2021 and ended with the PM statement of 19th July 2021 (Gov.uk 2, 2021).
Like all sectors of education in the UK, academics and students within Higher Education (HE) were subjected to the lockdown mandate requiring institutions to introduce distance learning as a means of maintaining continuity of operations. In May 2020 the World Health Organisation (WHO) begun gathering information as to the impact of Covid-19 in people and how this affects people around the globe and prepared measures to attempt to mitigate the devastating impact of the pandemic (Assefa et al., 2022), the WHO prepared a number of restrictive measures that supported governments in restricting movement of people (WHO, 2021). The WHO also set out guidelines for the public to refer to and inform themselves on the danger of contagion. The protracted and multiple waves of the pandemic created an unpredictable environment for Universities requiring them to adopt and adapt to sudden stay at home policies as well as reviewing and loosening regulations (Assefa et al., 2022; Gov.uk, 2021a; Gov.uk, 2021b; Brown, Kirk-Wade and Barber, 2021; WHO, 2021).