Free Paper Sample: Effects of COVID-19 Crisis to Instruction in College Campuses

COVID-19 has a significant effect on the quality of college education. Institutions had to change their method of instruction to suit the government regulations of lockdown measures. The new delivery methods that collages opted for were significantly insufficient and resulted in poor teaching and learning. Although collages continued delivering through turning to Information and communication technology to provide the programs online, the quality of education reduced significantly. A college education could also lack students in the future as students come from high schools that have also closed down to control the virus's spread. Therefore, the disease has dramatically impacted the quality of the students who enter higher learning institutions and the productivity of instruction methods. There is a need for the government and college campuses to look for solutions to emerging challenges resulting from the pandemic.

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As soon as countries recorded the first COVID-19 cases, they resolved to close down their economy to control the virus's spread. The lockdown also meant that schools and college Campuses were to close (Dorn et al., 2020). Once the physical teaching and learning stopped in the colleges, they turned to online education, which involved sending lecture notes through the internet. The students who had already enrolled for higher learning institutions courses did not stop learning (Dorn et al., 2020). Still, the quality of the delivery method considerably deteriorated as some countries lack advanced technologies. Therefore, the nature of online teaching and learning was deficient in less developed countries, while in states with more advanced technology, content delivery remained quality. Virtual teaching requires improvement in delivery for it to serve best as a substitute for physical teaching and learning.

The quality of online content delivery has also become very different between urban and rural populations. The students who live in urban areas enjoy access to sound ICT systems, unlike those in rural areas. This trend has resulted in inequality in instruction effectiveness between communities living in rural areas and urban areas (Dorn et al., 2020). The difference has also been evident between the rich and the poor, since the poor lack access to E-learning methods, while the wealthy students can enjoy such facilities. Such inequalities make the effectiveness of college campus education to remain uncertain during the COVID-19 pandemic. As a solution to the differences between the rich and poor and the rural and urban communities, the government should facilitate online learning by providing college campuses with the facilities that they require for E-learning. This move would strike a balance between the rich and the poor in getting an education during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Although the COVID-19 crisis and lockdown have made college campuses to utilize their ICT resources fully, some institutions cannot deliver the content online effectively. Collages with a well-developed ICT infrastructure could continue teaching effectively (Chen et al., 2020). On the other hand, colleges that lacked such infrastructure found it challenging to strive during the pandemic. The collages that could fully deliver online also had challenges as they targeted the well-up class of students who might be rarely available for online courses (Chen et al., 2020). The difference has negatively impacted college education in most developed countries as it made the education system less effective. This problem requires the colleges in conjunction with the government should work to enrich their ICT resources. The move would make E-learning a success and therefore make instruction easy during the pandemic.

When college campuses and universities turned to online teaching and learning due to the COVID-19 crisis, online content delivery's effectiveness became questionable. It is not clear how video recording of a lecture and sending lecture notes to students can be effective (Holmes et al., 2020). The preparation of the materials and the tutors have not been adequate due to lack of time (Holmes et al., 2020). The tutors' unpreparedness and the hastily made materials of online teaching have resulted in low-quality online teaching. Therefore, the quality of education in underdeveloped and less-developed countries has deteriorated significantly during the COVID-19 pandemic. As a solution to this problem, the collages can establish a specific department that would deal with developing the E-learning materials. This step would make it possible for the quality of instruction to remain high even during crisis times by delivering high-quality materials online.

The closure of schools due to COVID-19 has made collages turn to online teaching, learning, and assessment. E-learning has a tremendous negative impact on academic integrity. It is now not easy to monitor the fairness of assessment processes since students are doing their exams online, and some might cheat in the exams. Although some institutions have used surveillance to monitor the examinations, interested parties have raised significant concerns about the students' privacy during the assessment sessions (Özer, 2020). Some students have even protested against the surveillance system that institutions are using during the pandemic to monitor the academic assessment process. The colleges can solve this problem by involving the students before making decisions on evaluating them.

The lack of tutor-student contact after schools' closure has put the teaching and learning processes in great concern. Students from low backgrounds have suffered as they may not be able to learn through the Internet, and therefore, E-learning is not as effective as physical teaching and learning (Özer, 2020). Learning has also become expensive and uneconomical as one must have devices that can access the internet and connect to the internet. The colleges and the government should cooperate in making instruction affordable, economical, and practical. The cooperation between the government and the institutions would help them maintain quality learning during these crisis times.

Conclusion

COVID-19 has very devastating effects on the effectiveness of instruction in college campus education. The pandemic has made most college campuses to close down and opt for E-learning. This learning system's impact has significantly lowered education quality, making some programs completely unable to proceed. Inequality and unevenness of the delivery have also considerably influenced the education system's quality during the pandemic. The integrity in academics has also deteriorated substantially due to the online testing system. Generally, COVID-19 has very devastating effects on the effectiveness of college and general instruction. The colleges and government should cooperate to solve problems that have emerged during the COVID-19 pandemic concerning instruction effectiveness.

References

Chen, T., Peng, L., Yin, X., Rong, J., Yang, J., & Cong, G. (2020, September). Analysis of user satisfaction with online education platforms in China during the COVID-19 pandemic. In Healthcare (Vol. 8, No. 3, p. 200). Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute. https://doi.org/10.3390/healthcare8030200

Dorn, E., Hancock, B., Sarakatsannis, J., & Viruleg, E. (2020). COVID-19 and student learning in the United States: The hurt could last a lifetime. McKinsey & Company. https://fresnostate.edu/kremen/about/centers-projects/weltycenter/documents/COVID-19-and-student-learning-in-the-United-States-FINAL.pdf

Holmes, E. A., O'Connor, R. C., Perry, V. H., Tracey, I., Wessely, S., Arseneault, L., ... & Ford, T. (2020). Multidisciplinary research priorities for the COVID-19 pandemic: a call for action for mental health science. The Lancet Psychiatry. https://doi.org/10.1016/S2215-0366(20)30168-1

Özer, M. (2020). The contribution of the strengthened capacity of vocational education and training system in Turkey to the fight against Covid-19. Journal of Higher Education, doi, 10, 1-7. http://www.yuksekogretim.org/Port_Doc/YOD_2020002/YOD_2020002002.pdf