Chapter 6: conclusions and recommendations

After COVID-19 struck China, the government directed all social places, including
schools to be closed temporarily to slow down the spread of the virus. The closure of
schools, however, did not mean the end of learning for students as the Chinese
government required schools to shift from the conventional physical classes to online
modes of learning. As such, teaching continued as usual even though children were not
attending schools physically as they used to do before.
The adoption of online teaching meant that teachers and students had to encounter
new ways of imparting and gaining or exchanging knowledge respectively. Going by the
findings of this study, teachers do not generally have experience teaching online before
COVID-19 since teaching was predominantly conducted in physical classrooms.
However, teachers expressed the notion that they did not have any problem changing
from face-to-face to online methods of teaching. Since most teachers started online
instruction for the first time after COVID-19 pandemic, majority of them lacked the
experience. As a result, teachers faced numerous challenges in their attempt to
transition to online teaching abruptly after the pandemic hit.
There was overall lack of technical skills in teachers to effectively facilitate online
learning. It was clear that the biggest problem with the transition was tied to the fact that
it happened abruptly, leaving no room for adequate training of teachers in preparation
for online teaching. The demand for teachers to hastily shift to online instruction further
compounded to their workload hence stress. Online instruction gives teachers new roles
to play in educating the students. Ideally, teachers conducting classes online assume
the role of an instructor as well as designer of online materials to be used. Designing
teaching materials such as videos, presentations, and readings and arranging them in
the appropriate order that will be delivered to students requires a bit of technical skills of
the online tools in use. Teachers need to also consider different types of students like
the slow learners while designing online materials. For teachers with no experience, this
is an overwhelming task that can greatly undermine the efficiency of online teaching.
Unlike the conventional classroom teaching, online teaching requires significantly
more time to plan, organize and conduct a lesson. On average, online teaching may
consume twice the time needed for teaching a physical class. Additional challenges
unique to online teaching include connection problems, difficulties communicating with
one other, and difficulties monitoring the students. The home environments also cause
a lot of destructions to students and lack of concentration becomes apparent in the
online class setting. However, all these challenges have not stopped teachers from
delivering education to students as they continue learning and mastering the use of
technology for education.
The study indicated that teachers generally held a positive perception regarding
online methods of teaching. However, teachers were clear to point out that they only
preferred online methods as a means of supplementing the teaching process,
maintaining that face-to-face is their ideal method of teaching. The reasons for disliking
online teaching were cited as lack of technical skills to utilize online tools of teaching,
difficulties monitoring students, high destructions of students while learning remotely,
and poor interactions between and among the students and the teacher. Nonetheless,
online learning had a unique set of advantages including flexibility and convenience.

1.1 Recommendations
The first recommendation is that teachers should be adequately trained on how to
use online teaching tools to deliver instructions to students. Only through providing
students with quality teaching that the education system will be assured of sustainability
even amid the pandemic. Additionally, the government should encourage and equip
schools with technological infrastructure, including internet connection and digital
devices necessary to propel online learning. There is also the need to restructure the
curriculum to accommodate online methods of learning not just because of the
pandemic but also as part of advancing learning to match the dynamic world of
technology.
Secondly, parents, students, teachers and all stakeholders in education need to be
considered and involved in training about technology used in online learning. This will
ensure that parents can understand how online classes are conducted and can,
therefore, help monitor the progress of their children, Furthermore, it will be easier to
carry out online classes when students are fully trained on the use of technological
tools.
 Online classes will increase the number of vulnerable children online. As such, the
government should tighten the existing cybercrime policies and implement new ones to
protect the many children that will be present in the online space. Additionally, children
should be protected from destructive and harmful websites using softwares that restrict
devices from accessing such websites or alerting an adult when kids attempt to access
unsolicited sites.
Finally, schools should require teachers to provide feedback about online teaching
that should be used to improve the process. Clearly, online teaching is a new
phenomenon that is rapidly gaining ground in all parts of the world. Therefore, there is
need to constantly monitor and improve this new mode of teaching to make it even
better in the days to come.

1.2 Limitations
This research was limited by the fact that information obtained was from teachers
teaching a single school in the Republic of China. Therefore, it follows that the results of
this study cannot be generalized to the entire population of teachers. Future studies on
this topic should consider obtaining data from a wide variety of teachers across schools
spread on a larger geographical location to get new insights of the general population of
teachers.