Online Classroom Instruction

Faculty perceptions

Faculty who teach online can often feel positive about it (Bollinger, Inan, & Wasilik, 2014; Orr, Williams,
& Pennington, 2009; Windes & Lesht, 2014) and feel they can learn how to effectively adapt to it
(McGowan & Graham, 2009). However, faculty with negative initial experiences tend to resist further
online teaching, making support and training critical so that they “do not give up on teaching online
before they gain this self-efficacy” (Horvitz et al. 2015, 314). Furthermore, faculty in general are more
critical of online teaching than face-to-face for some similar and some different reasons than students
(Mansbach & Austin, 2018; Orr, Williams, & Pennington, 2009). Like students, faculty feel lesser social
presence, as they sometimes feel moved from the role of professor (e.g., sage-on-a-stage) to that of
learning facilitator. Like students, they often miss the richness of face-to-face student presence and
reactions. In addition, they also feel students are more passive, expect more, and the workload (Orr,
William, & Pennington, 2009) is higher (Freeman, 2007; Bollinger & Wasilik, 2009; Bollinger, Inan, &
Wasilik, 2014), but the appreciation they experience is less. They also frequently feel the organizational
and logistical challenges are substantial, and they neither want to make the changes, nor is there
sufficient support to do so (Baran & Correia, 2014). Junior faculty sometimes fear the consequences of
online teaching evaluations for promotion and tenure (Bangert, 2008). Finally, many faculty members
are unconvinced the learning achievement is equivalent.

Present Cases of online teaching in the Philippines

Ann Abacan of Sophia School in Meycauayan, Bulacan, said the Internet has allowed them to continue
their operations. “Our teachers meet online once or twice a week using Zoom or Google Hangouts.
Members of the school administration meet around three to five times [a week] to follow-up on tasks,”
said the principal and owner.

Sophia School launched a Facebook campaign, called “Share Ko Lang,” a series of creative videos
featuring Sophian students, parents and teachers sharing their experiences during this time.

Staying connected with her students is also a priority for Marj Palmares-Cruz, a business professor at the
Polytechnic University of the Philippines-San Pedro Campus and PUP Open University.

Palmares-Cruz’s priority was to finish the remaining sessions for the semester after classes were
suspended due to the Covid-19 outbreak. “The challenge lies in the students’ access to the Internet,
because not all of them own computers.” Palmares-Cruz  thought of utilizing Facebook Messenger, an
app which everyone can access freely. She designed her instructional materials in such a way that there
would be lesser online meetings, which easily eat up data. “Outputs are submitted through Facebook
Messenger as a group, in consideration of the students who don’t have gadgets and have limited
Internet access.”
In addition, Cruz uses Google Classroom for individual submission and tracking of student’s work for
courses that require monitoring of each student’s progress. “I also make sure to post contents that are
relevant to my students on my personal Facebook account. That way, their learning never stops.”

Teacher Oliver Lara thought of ways to still do therapy sessions with his students from Kids Home
Intervention. As a center that uses a skills-based system to address children’s developmental delays, he
knew his learners need to continually receive treatment for their courses to be fully effective.

“Our team decided to have online classes in order to ensure that our students continue to receive the
intervention they need, and to facilitate skills across different platforms and settings,” said Lara, adding
that they use Microsoft Teams to run their daily Virtual Classroom Management activities. “Technology
is very essential especially during this ECQ because it enables us to be of service to our clients and
students regardless of the current situations. ”Even prior to the Covid-19 health crisis, there have been
several teaching methodologies that have proven to be disaster-resilient.