SOCIAL EMOTIONAL � ACTIVE LEARNING DURING THE CORONAVIRUS PANDEMIC

Abstract

Teachers should be proud of their students for their resilience, patience, and successes during this unique challenging learning environment. Teaching quality varied substantially and adaptations for remote learning were inconsistent. There were different forms of inequality in access and opportunity for students of disadvantaged and/or marginalized groups (e.g. internet connectivity, parent support, different time zones). How could this context influence the proportion of students who could be classified as underprepared for virtual education? There have been increased disparities or disproportionate learning loss for disadvantaged or marginalized groups. Take the example of my students who come from Africa and did not have a laptop with them while living in the campus. At first, they complained it was very hard for them to get familiar to the platform we used for teaching. Education technology may be a key resource in addressing a potential influx of under prepared first-year college and university students with a wider range of academic ability. In this particular context of international students enrolled in the program for learning Romanian as a Foreign Language, it is evident that all teachers wanted to be the best for their students only to end up frustrated and exhausted at the end of the day. I often felt that I was more concerned for their success than they did and, when I was discussing with them, they could not understand why I was so worried about their progress. Handing in projects or assignments was more of a begging process and I did not understand where I went wrong and why it was so hard for them to realize the importance of timely submitting a project. I was constantly making exceptions and this made me unable to adhere to course policies.