Yessa Villegas’s Updates
Change is inevitable
In this new-normal setup, many institutions have been compelled, including our school, to immediately transition from face-to-face teaching-learning process to online synchronous and asynchronous classroom and distanced modular learning. The abrupt switch to online learning (synchronous and asynchronous) has been particularly challenging for me as a teacher and for my learners who prefer in-person instruction. Online learning is often stigmatized as a weaker option that provides a lower quality education than in-person face-to-face learning (Hodges et al. 2020). Indeed, such negative attitudes to fully online learning were revealed by a large EDUCAUSE survey (Pomerantz and Brooks 2017). Obviously, many of us educators and our learners do not see the value of online learning, despite the fact that online learning has been around for many years. The online synchronous and asynchronous classroom is similar to the typical flipped classroom model in that students are encouraged to prepare for class by completing some pre-class activities (e.g., watching video lectures, completing quizzes). However, unlike the conventional flipped classroom approach, students in online synchronous and asynchronous classroom do not meet face-to-face, but online (Stohr et al. 2020). With the changes adapted in the Philippines' educational system, most of us teachers from the department of education have limited knowledge of the online platforms (including online tools and strategies) that can be used in teaching our learners since the country have been very comfortable and dependable with the usual face-to-face teaching-learning process. I hope that educational institutions continue to help in supporting the educators by providing us the necessary information in using such tools through seminars, workshops, trainings,etc.