Dea Oktaviana

2010731021

Lectures during the COVID-19 Pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic in Indonesia began when there were positive victims in Depok
City in March 2020. After this case, the spread of COVID-19 began to spread to other areas,
namely the Greater Jakarta area, so that it became a "red zone" area. Therefore, on March 17,
2020, regulations began to be set to conduct online learning and work from home in order to
prevent the spread of the COVID-19 virus. So it was noted that from that date, lectures were held
online. Learning that is still being carried out even though it is being hit by COVID-19 is an
effort by the government to ensure that the nation's generations continue to receive proper
learning. The government has also implemented a physical distancing policy that aims to reduce
the spread of the COVID-19 virus.

When activities at school are "closed," this does not mean that teaching and learning
activities are not carried out. The Minister of Education and Culture firmly stated that learning
activities were moved from school to home so that learning would continue as usual. One of the
ways in which distance learning is carried out is by using online or online learning. The
existence of technology in the era of globalization can be utilized optimally in this pandemic
situation. By utilizing the internet network, there are many platforms and online media that can
be accessed by students and lecturers to carry out learning activities. Online learning has a fun
strategy because students can listen to learning only through smartphones, laptops, or computers
and not just read books. Online learning can be done synchronously or asynchronously using
web services or learning applications. Synchronous learning is carried out through video
conferencing so that students and lecturers can meet and communicate in real time using the
Zoom or Google Meet applications. Asynchronous learning can be done using applications such
as Google Classroom, Whatsapp, and other chat applications. Students are also required to be
able to use existing gadgets to carry out learning. If previously, students only used their gadgets
for communication and entertainment purposes, during a pandemic like this, students and
lecturers are required to be able to use them for learning media. Online learning has a significant
influence on students' language literacy skills. Students can be considered to have literacy, if they
have basic language skills, namely reading and writing. Reading and writing sources in the
current era cannot be separated from the internet network through smartphones, laptops,
computers, and so on. Using technology can improve reading skills, generate positive reading
perceptions, encourage class discussion, and develop reading and critical thinking skills. Due to
the increasing number of internet users, it encourages people to upload their work, including
written works. People like to search for reading on the internet and upload writing. This means
that reading and writing literacy automatically increase. Therefore, literacy really needs to be
fostered so that the next generation likes to read and write. Especially in this digital era,
everything requires literacy skills, including language literacy. The COVID-19 phenomenon
presents its own challenges for the world of education, which demands that be ready to teach and
learn online so that lectures are full of competence, precise, accurate, and fast. On the other hand,
the competence, system, and technical support have not fully supported it. Because so far,
learning has been carried out by teachers and lecturers accustomed to the old pattern of teacher-
centered, online learning has only arrived at discourse as a technical tool and has not led to
media changing ways of thinking and acting, as a paradigm of student-centered learning to make
students creative, innovative, and lifelong learners.

But unfortunately, several things become obstacles in the implementation of online

learning, including the limited internet quota and some lecturers and students who are still not
used to applying it. And also, online learning still confuses students. Many students complain
about the many assignments without sufficient material, saying that they are a bit overwhelmed
by the learning process. Not only that, the emergence of boredom and laziness is due to the
learning method that only uses learning videos. Lecturers who only provide material in the form
of writing and videos make students passive, less creative and less productive in developing their
potential. The students also cheat a lot and copy material from the internet without trying to
understand the material, so they make a lot of assignments carelessly and have the principle
"what is important is that the task has been completed and the task has been submitted".

It cannot be denied, that the concept is a very important thing, but the problem does not
lie in the concept itself, but in how the concept is understood by students. The importance of
understanding concepts in the teaching and learning process greatly influences attitudes,
decisions, and ways to solve problems. Therefore, the most important thing is the process of
meaningful learning and thinking processes for students. In general, those who learn at school
often find it difficult to apply the knowledge they have gained to problems that occur in the real
world, so that the knowledge they acquire seems to be useless in everyday life. This is a
challenge faced by educators to improve their competence, especially in online learning. This is
because online learning is not just giving assignments but how the learning can be meaningful so
that it can lead students to become reliable human beings in solving problems in life. meaningful
and thought-provoking processes for students. In general, those who learn at school often find it
difficult to apply the knowledge they have gained to problems that occur in the real world, so
that the knowledge they acquire seems to be useless in everyday life. This is a challenge faced by
educators to improve their competence, especially in online learning. This is because online
learning is not just giving assignments but how the learning can be meaningful so that it can lead
students to become reliable human beings in solving problems in life. Information overload has
been shown to cause social media fatigue because it strains individual cognition. Social media
fatigue is the subjective feeling of social media users who feel tired, irritated, angry,
disappointed, lacking interest, or lack of motivation related to interactions in various aspects of
social media use due to the large amount of content found on social media. Social media fatigue
causes individuals to lose concentration and focus on what to do. This triggers another negative
consequence, namely a decrease in learning performance.

Students can also experience stress due to the COVID-19 pandemic, influenced by the
emergence of fear of contracting COVID-19, worries when going out of the house, boredom
when doing social distancing, and difficulty understanding material during online lectures. The
limitations of doing activities outside and the anxiety of contracting the COVID-19 virus shown
illustrate that this outbreak causes its own stress for students. The implementation of physical
distancing certainly requires adaptation for various parties. especially for students who have had
to conduct lectures online since the coronavirus outbreak. Difficulties arise not only in terms of
skills in using technology, but also in relation to a large workload, considering that there are
many courses that must be taken during this COVID-19 pandemic. This change in learning
patterns presents its own problems for students. Distance learning students are subjected to a
great deal of pressure and stress. At this point, the pressure certainly becomes heavier, so
students do a lot of stress coping, one of which is being involved with the use of social media.
 Students who initially study face-to-face with friends and lecturers must conduct lectures
online. This online lecture is considered ineffective because our focus is divided into several
things, namely lectures and homework, so that online lectures become unfocused. Students also
do not fully understand the material given by the lecturer because their focus is divided.
Assignments may also be given more because we are online and the burden feels heavier so that
it makes students stressed. Then new students also have to adapt to conditions as they should
start this lecture period face-to-face but it must be carried out online only. Lectures are also
surprising because they are very different from what they do at school, plus this pandemic period
may stress new students too.

As a result, it is possible to conclude that online learning has advantages such as

increasing the level of learning interaction between students and lecturers, enabling learning
interactions anywhere and at any time, reaching students in a broad range, and facilitating the
refinement and storage of learning materials. Student learning activities with online learning can
make students feel bored, more interested, and active in participating in learning. The meaning of
learning, ease of access, and improvement of learning outcomes. Besides that, in addition to the
benefits, there are also negative sides to this online learning, namely increasing student laziness,
students who are not creative, students who are also unproductive and passive. Students can also
experience stress.