During the pandemic, distance education methods and channels developed significantly. Experts, pointing to the importance of students' participation in live-streamed lessons, emphasize that the pandemic period offers a significant opportunity, especially in terms of time. Experts stress that students should use this period to develop themselves. Experts underline that personalized teaching management systems will gain importance in the future.
Üsküdar Üniversitesi Faculty of Engineering and Natural Sciences Software Engineering Department Head Assoc. Prof. Dr. Türker Tekin Ergüzel evaluated the development and success of distance education at his university during the pandemic process.
Revision of teaching materials is necessary
Assoc. Prof. Dr. Türker Tekin Ergüzel said, “Looking at the future course of distance learning systems in our country and around the world, it has become essential to revise teaching materials and evaluation systems accordingly, especially with the change in teaching methodology. Feedback-based, adaptive, and intelligent teaching methods will be developed that apply teaching methods suitable for the student's learning style, speed, and skill, provided they adhere to the same curriculum. In this regard, we see that LMS software developers, in particular, are evaluating their technical infrastructure and knowledge in this direction.”
Personalized teaching management systems will come to the fore
Stating that personalized teaching management systems will gain importance in the future, Assoc. Prof. Dr. Türker Tekin Ergüzel said, “Although distance learning systems claim to be interactive after a while, the method that will provide students' learning motivation and contribute to their academic development are personalized teaching management systems, and these systems, with their data-intensive infrastructures, will soon emerge as smart teaching management systems.”
Communication channels enriched under pandemic conditions
Stating that students' participation in lessons is important during this process, Assoc. Prof. Dr. Türker Tekin Ergüzel said that as Üsküdar Üniversitesi, all lessons are conducted live through the Learning Management System (LMS-Perculus) to ensure students' participation.
Noting that student participation and satisfaction are at a high level thanks to the system, Assoc. Prof. Dr. Türker Tekin Ergüzel said:
“Thanks to this, student participation and satisfaction have been ensured at a high level, both by explaining lessons to students via smart boards and by conducting them synchronously and interactively in virtual classrooms. Of course, instead of comparing face-to-face education with distance education, we should state that all communication channels we use (such as ÜÜTV, STIX, Zoom, Perculus) to provide our students with the academic knowledge they need, and the academic culture, experience, and socialization they will gain under current pandemic conditions, have made this transition process more efficient and manageable for our faculty members and students.”
We adapted to distance education
Stating that students' adaptation to distance education was achieved beyond expectations, Assoc. Prof. Dr. Türker Tekin Ergüzel expressed that this could be seen in students' exam performances and end-of-semester student satisfaction surveys, adding, “Of course, the most important issue that our students rightly feel a lack of here is the relative decrease in interaction with instructors and socialization processes with their friends. I believe we will overcome this as the course of the pandemic normalizes over time. However, we can say that the technical adaptation skills of our faculty members and students in using applications and physical systems in distance learning processes are quite satisfactory.”
Visuals gained importance in lesson delivery
Assoc. Prof. Dr. Türker Tekin Ergüzel noted that the methods used to engage students in lessons have diversified because physical presence, class participation, and eye contact decreased within the teaching process compared to previous semesters. Ergüzel said, “I can count increasing visual stimuli to attract our students' attention in lesson materials and sharing content through more interaction during live lessons as our changing content delivery methods.”
Communication channels increased
Assoc. Prof. Dr. Türker Tekin Ergüzel stated that, generally speaking, it can be said that lessons were efficient and students' academic performance was high during the distance learning process, emphasizing that these findings are not only theirs but also points highlighted by students in their feedback. Assoc. Prof. Dr. Türker Tekin Ergüzel said:
“However, some areas for improvement also draw our attention. From time to time, it has been observed that the servers of the application developers we use, which serve our students, caused technical disruptions during periods of high demand and traffic. Especially during exam periods, this issue was overcome by administering make-up exams to our students. The healthy structuring of the system, the establishment of a separate hierarchical structure for distance education, and the timely provision of all information to our students through many different channels have made the process more manageable and enabled our students to play a constructive and effective role in the process.”
Recommendations for success in distance education
Assoc. Prof. Dr. Türker Tekin Ergüzel stated that all lessons at Üsküdar Üniversitesi are conducted live, emphasizing that participation in lessons is highly valuable both for ensuring communication with the course instructor and for getting answers to unclear points. Assoc. Prof. Dr. Türker Tekin Ergüzel also gave the following advice to students and their families:
- Live participation in lessons is absolutely important. Although lessons can be watched asynchronously later, the opportunity for interaction is only possible in live lessons.
- It is possible for our students to access and watch course materials from many international content providers such as Coursera, EdX. Our students can further contribute to their academic development and improve themselves with this content available from alternative sources.
- It is beneficial for them to see the pandemic process not as a lost time period to be completed, but rather as a time period that allows for their academic and cultural development. They may not find another opportunity in their future lives to dedicate such extensive time to themselves.