Online lectures are likely to continue because the COVID-19 pandemic has not subsided yet in Indonesia. This was also confirmed by the Minister of Education and Culture Nadiem Makarim (15/6), who stated that online lectures will continue to be held in the new semester.
With this condition, Universitas Muhammadiyah Yogyakarta continues to carry out development in supporting online lectures, one of which is by providing online training to its lecturers through a webinar organized by the UMY Educational Development Institute with the theme ‘Reconceptualization of Online Learning in the Middle of the COVID-19 Pandemic’ on Wednesday (6/17). This training was held to refresh the understanding of the concept of online learning and to enhance the creativity of lecturers in providing lecture material and how to maintain social interaction with students, which is a crucial part of the educational process.
Since the application of online lectures for the past three months, many students have complained about the online lecture system. Almost all students in Indonesia have experienced problems, such as lecturers giving too many assignments and the lack of clear feedback. However, when viewed from a different perspective, the lecturer also experienced the same problems, as they are not accustomed to sudden full online learning, even though in reality UMY had promoted online learning long ago.
One of the problems that rose is that lecturers were only focused on what tools or applications that they will use to facilitate their students in online learning. That was considered wrong by Dr. Gumawang Jati M.A. a lecturer at the Bandung Institute of Technology who was a speaker at the UMP LPP webinar event through the Microsoft Teams network and UMY YouTube channel.
“When designing online teaching materials, lecturers should not only focus on the application tools that will be used, but also the object, namely their students. The lecturer must know the character of the students. Any application can be used as long as the teaching material that has been designed can then be easily understood by students, “he said.
Of course, the teaching material should not only be a task without student-teacher interaction. “What makes a lecture effective is not the tool, but the lecturer. I have included several methods that you can apply, such as dividing 80 students into four groups. Then, to activate the interaction, I experimented with making some kind of talkshow. From each group, I made two teams, with one team explaining something to me as a moderator then the other team respond through the comments column. This can make students who are embarrassed to express their opinions, and it can be done through comments,” continued Gumawang.
The principle of teaching is the same between offline and online. There must be preparation, there must be an interaction between lecturers and students, and there must be good feedback. However, when it comes to online, more technical matters can become a big challenge for lecturers. For this reason, UMY aims to provide more than theoretical training as support to lecturers to prepare them for online lectures in the coming new semester.
“For now there are no other alternatives besides online learning, so on Saturday (6/20) we will hold another webinar that focuses on how lecturers compile teaching materials, how to make activities in their teaching materials, and how to make video learning, “Closed Eko Purwanti Ph.D. Head of UMP LPP Development Division. (Hbb)
