ISRRT_COVID-19_book

Enhancing student engagement during online learning: a South
Riaan van de Venter
African experience
Introduction
After the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the novel coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2)
outbreak a global pandemic on 11 March 2020, a national state of disaster was declared in
South Africa four days later. 1-2 Following this declaration, South African universities briefly
suspended academic activities and subsequently shifted teaching and learning operations to
digital spaces. With this transition, students had to vacate their university residences and
return to their homes, and academics had to continue to facilitate and mediate teaching and
learning from their places of residence. But, this transition was not necessarily a smooth and
easy one. 3
From a theoretical premise, the digital learning and teaching space is collaborative where
different actors (i.e., students and academics) form a community and interact with one
another in a variety of ways. These interactions are between the academic and students,
peer-to-peer among students, and students’ interactions with the module content. These
interactions can be structured or spontaneous as well as synchronous and asynchronous. But,
for effective learning and teaching to take place the academic must consider the learning
outcomes to be met, how these can be best met, and be mindful of any factors that may
hinder effective learning and teaching so as to mitigate these. This requires designing the
module in such a way that the type of activities used, and presentation of the content,
contribute to achieving these learning outcomes. 4
This chapter therefore aims to provide insights regarding the challenges that impacted
effective online learning and teaching and how I tried to circumvent these to optimise student
engagement.
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