During the pandemic period, the methods and channels of distance education improved a lot. Pointing out the importance of students' participation, especially in live lectures, experts point out that the pandemic period offers an important opportunity, especially in terms of time. Experts emphasize that students should benefit from this period to improve themselves. Experts underline that personalized teaching management systems will gain importance in the future.
Üsküdar University Faculty of Engineering and Natural Sciences Software Engineering Department Head Assoc. Dr. Türker Tekin Ergüzel evaluated the development and success of distance education in universities during the pandemic process.
Instructional materials need revision
Assoc. Dr. Türker Tekin Ergüzel said, “When we look at the future course of distance education systems in our country and in the world, especially with the change of teaching method, it becomes necessary to revise the teaching materials and evaluation system accordingly. Provided that they are subject to the same curriculum, feedback-based, adaptive and smart teaching methods will be developed that will apply the teaching method appropriate to the learning method, speed and skill of the student. Because in this regard, we see that especially LMS software developers also evaluate their technical infrastructure and knowledge in this direction ”.
Personalized teaching management systems will come to the fore
Stating that personalized teaching management systems will gain importance in the future, Assoc. Dr. Türker Tekin Ergüzel said, “Although the distance education systems claim to be interactive after a while, the method that will provide the student's learning motivation and contribute to their academic development is personalized teaching management systems, and these systems have recently been introduced as smart teaching management systems with their data-intensive infrastructure. they will go out ”he said.
Communication channels enriched under pandemic conditions
Stating that it is important for students to participate in the lessons in this process, Assoc. Dr. Türker Tekin Ergüzel said that as Üsküdar University, all courses are conducted live on the Teaching Management System (ÖYS-Perculus) in order to enable students to participate in the course.
Noting that student participation and satisfaction is at a high level thanks to the system, Assoc. Dr. Türker Tekin Ergüzel said the following:
“In this way, student engagement and satisfaction have been provided at a high level by both teaching the lessons to the students on the smart board and conducting them simultaneously and interactively in virtual classrooms. Of course, instead of comparing face-to-face teaching with distance education, our faculty and students will experience this transition process of all communication channels (such as ÜÜTV, STIX, Zoom, Perculus) that we use to ensure the academic knowledge that our students need to acquire and the academic culture, accumulation and socialization they will gain in the current pandemic conditions. we should mention that it makes it more efficient and manageable. "
We have adapted to distance education
Stating that the adaptation of students to distance education is provided above expectations, Assoc. Dr. Türker Tekin Ergüzel stated that students can see this in their exam performances and student satisfaction surveys at the end of the semester and said, “Of course, the most important issue that our students rightly feel lacking is the relative decrease in the interaction with the lecturers and socializing with their friends. I think we will overcome this over time as the course in the epidemic becomes normal. However, we can say that the technical adaptation skills of our lecturers and students regarding the application and use of physical systems in distance education processes are quite satisfactory ”.
Visual importance gained importance in lectures
Assoc. Dr. Türker Tekin Ergüzel noted that compared to the previous semesters, the methods used to attract students to the class differed because of the decrease in physical presence, attendance and eye contact in the teaching process. “I can count increasing the visual stimuli that will attract the attention of our students in the course materials and sharing the content by interacting more during the live lesson as our changing content presentation methods,” said Ergüzel.
Communication channels increased
Stating that in general, it can be said that the courses are efficient and the academic performance of the students is high in the distance education process. Dr. Türker Tekin Ergüzel emphasized that these findings are not only their own, but also the issues highlighted in the students' feedback. Assoc. Dr. Türker Tekin Ergüzel said:
“However, some areas that can be improved are also drawing our attention. From time to time, it has been observed that the servers of our students and application developers that we receive service cause technical problems during high demand and traffic. This problem was overcome by applying make-up exams to our students in order to overcome this, especially during exam periods. The sound design of the system and the establishment of a separate hierarchical structure for distance education and the provision of all information to our students on time and through many different channels made the process more manageable and enabled our students to take a constructive and active role in the process.
Advice for success in distance education
Stating that all the lessons are conducted live at Üsküdar University, Assoc. Dr. Türker Tekin Ergüzel emphasized that participation in the lessons is very valuable both in terms of ensuring communication with the instructor of the course and answering the incomprehensible issues. Assoc. Dr. Türker Tekin Ergüzel also made the following recommendations to students and their families:
- Live participation in the lessons is absolutely important. Although lectures can be watched asynchronously later, the opportunity to interact is only possible in live lectures.
- It is possible for our students to access and watch the course materials of many international content providers such as Coursera and EdX. Our students can also contribute to their academic development and improve themselves with these contents that can be accessed from alternative sources.
- It would be beneficial to see the pandemic process as a time period that allows their academic and cultural development, not a lost time to be completed. They may not find another opportunity to devote that much time to themselves in their next life.
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