TITLE:
Online STEM Education Approaches during the COVID-19 Pandemic
AUTHORS:
Nagalaxmy Markandan, Kamisah Osman, Lilia Halim
KEYWORDS:
COVID-19, STEM, Fuzzy Delphi, Online Learning, Distance Learning
JOURNAL NAME:
Creative Education,
Vol.14 No.12,
December
11,
2023
ABSTRACT: The 2019 COVID-19 Pandemic has
had a tremendous effect on education. This paper focused on how
teachers of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM)
delivered content via online distance learning while face-to-face teaching was
not possible during the Pandemic. The study was set in the Jempol district in
Malaysia and was a meso-scale longitudinal study. This study identified
suitable delivery platforms for Science content knowledge (STEM) via distance
learning during COVID-19 pandemic. Also identified were suitable teaching
aids, Science activities suitable for students to master the standard STEM
content knowledge, methods of online laboratory learning and finally suitable
online assessments. Fuzzy Delphi analysis was carried out using 10 experts in
order to arrive at a consensus. Findings revealed that 84% believed that
WhatsApp, Zoom and Google Meet were the most favourable online platforms to
deliver STEM content knowledge. 88% stated that the most suitable teaching aids
are YouTube modules due to their high accessibility among students. Meanwhile,
76% agreed that the most favourable assignments are module-based activities,
writing reports or notes and online presentation. 80% of respondents felt that
modules and sample experiments from YouTube would be favourable choices to
teach laboratory skills. Finally, 89% of participants saw video presentation
and online quizzes to be satisfactory assessment methods for STEM students. It
was concluded that additional research should be carried out on challenges faced by teachers in conducting
distance learning, which will be helpful when digitalization and virtual
learning take place on a wider scale in the future.