From PowerPoints and PDFs to interactive lessons delivered online in Nairobi, Kenya

Edith Murugi is an assistant lecturer in the Department of Information Science at Kenya Methodist University (KeMU). Her area of specialization is information systems and automation. Ms Murugi has worked at in various roles at KeMU for over 10 years but has been an assistant lecturer since 2017.

Following the interruption to teaching as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic, Ms Murugi began to develop new content in response to the learning needs of her students.

Initially, she was using PowerPoint slides, and PDF copies of her notes to teach. She has subsequently developed more interactive content, which is hosted via the university’s learning management systems, and includes video recordings of her lectures, curated links to other resources to cover more practical aspects of what she is teaching, and a series of activities, which are embedded in her live online sessions and can also be accessed later.

The creation of video lecturers was prompted by training that the university provided in videoconferencing. Ms Murugi decided that it was important to convert her classes to a similar format, so that students could follow them on their mobile phones, or could catch-up with their studies later if they weren’t able to follow the timetabled sessions.

Having begun to record her lectures, she then began to gather links to other online resources, including openly available videos. During the live sessions she directs students to the additional content and time is made to watch the video during the lesson, and a discussion then follows.

She describes this exchange — directing students to follow a link to a video, which they watch together, as helping them to “feel like we were in a physical class.”

The online classes were still missing something from her former sessions. “In in-person classes, you walk around, you pose, you want to gauge whether what you’re teaching has been understood, or you need to rephrase or use another method,” she explains.

As a result, she sought to introduce some activities into lessons. “We were able to create group activities,” she explains, “and some of those group activities could take [the] dimension of a debate”. During the live session she would ask learners to try something out and then share their experiences. This approach ensured that there was feedback, and an opportunity to clarify what she was teaching.

Interview conducted by Dr Augustine Mwangi, University of Nairobi.