Bridging The Tech Gap : Growing Pains of Virtual Learning
At the end of March as a precautionary measure against the COVID-19 Pandemic, for the student’s safety, campus closed, and the girls went home. AkiraChix took a leap and introduced codeHive Lite — a virtual low-tech learning model conducted on WhatsApp. Great! Super exciting! But it hasn’t been easy.
My classes, like all classes, are three hours long. Classes were moved online, we use Whatsapp as the main medium to teach. I send my class slides via PDF on the class WhatsApp group. But some girls still have challenges opening them. I then take screenshots of each slide and share with the class. At times that’s 32 slides or more.
There are a couple of class dynamics I hadn’t fully understood which started to be a bit problematic virtually. I am a relatively new instructor of the course, I was still learning the students, their personalities and learning styles and needs by the time the shift happened. This hadn’t quite solidified. Now I am trying to figure that out virtually as I teach.
I normally run the class by typing on WhatsApp and from time to time switch up the monotony with voice notes. I prefer voice notes at the beginning of the class to give a quick brief on the class format and let the girls know what to expect of the class. In the middle of the class, I also nudge girls by name who aren’t communicating in the group, just to make sure they are OK.
I have noticed the girls don’t ask questions in the class WhatsApp group. They do ask me questions directly through direct messaging. I do answer them, but I encourage them to share the questions with the class to benefit students with similar questions. But they seem hesitant, I am not quite sure why that is. I am trying to figure that out.
Twice a month, Instructors meet virtually and share insights; I get a lot of help. I am picking a lot of notes from them. I liked Antony’s style; instead of throwing a question to the class to the response of cricket sounds, I can randomly tag someone in the WhatsApp group, that way the girls are more alert and engaged. He would also give random pop quizzes and incentivize the students; like the first to ace the test, gets KES 50 (USD 0.50) airtime for their phones. That small incentive fires up the class engagement for some.
Jeff uses emoticons in his classes; if someone has a question, they use the hand-raising emoji, and if they understand something, they use the green tick mark.
I have tried the emoticons and random question asking in two classes, the girls are asking more questions, and the class is more interactive. I always remind girls in class it’s OK to say they don’t understand something. It’s a new concept they are learning, and that’s why it may not make sense now.
But even with this progress, there are incidences of plagiarism. When I ask questions to students, some responses, I can tell, are copy-and-paste responses from the internet. It’s just the cheekiness of feeling one can get away with being naughty. I learnt the best way to navigate this is to rephrase my questions in a way that provokes them to think and apply the basic knowledge they have.
It’s important to understand what my students believe will work even though it’s very different from what I think will. I conform to how they would like to be taught. It is a win-win for us all.
I realised, for instance, that they respond best to assignments typed out and not in voice note format. For some unusual reason, when I submit the same written assignment in voice note format, some students don’t understand it’s just human nature. Some are visual, reading, and other audio learners.
There are moments I pull my hair out; we all do as instructors, but it helps to have each other bounce off our ideas and frustrations as we learn together. The few moments the feeling sneaks up to throw in the towel after a tough day, I remind myself this is what I signed up for.
I know it’s not easy. We need to keep the struggle to find ways to make this work. It’s breaking barriers, whoever said it would be easy?!
