IDeL Builds Capacity of Tutors for Quality Online Teaching
The Institute for Distance and e-Learning (IDeL) of the University of Education, Winneba (UEW), has started an exercise to equip tutors with the capacity to be able to offer quality online teaching in the Distance Education (DE) programmes.
On Monday, 12th October, 2020, a three-week trainer-of-trainers workshop started in Kumasi, Ashanti Region, for a total of 240 of the tutors selected from IDeL’s 40 Study Centers spread across the country. The participants have been divided into groups of 60 tutors to have a four-day session each within the three weeks.
Opening the workshop, the Director of IDeL, Prof. Francis Owusu-Mensah, explained that the Management of UEW has made available the necessary resources to enable participants of the Kumasi workshop to replicate the training at the respective Study Centers for all other tutors.
Director of IDeL, PRof. Francis Owusu-Mensah delivering the welcome address
“We are determined that before the next academic year commences, all our tutors would be adequately equipped with knowledge and the needed resources to offer excellent online education, and also, be in a position to support our teeming students via official orientations and on a one-on-one basis,” he stressed.
Participants at the workshop
He said that the training, which is focused on the fundamentals of online tutoring, included topics such as “Teaching Online,” “Multimedia – ICT Toolbox, videos, images, among others.,” “Introduction to MOODLE,” “Teaching with MOODLE,” “Accessing Tools in MOODLE,” and “Managing Courses in MOODLE.” MOODLE is an open-sourced Learning Management System (LMS) UEW has set up for its online activities.
He said UEW had procured modems for distribution and made provision for a regular supply of internet data to the tutors to facilitate their work. Prof. Owusu-Mensah explained that the move is also in response to government’s directive to all educational institutions to incorporate distance learning approach as an integral modus of offering education in the country, with the COVID-19 Pandemic still impacting gravely on the country.
Director of ICT Services Directorate, Dr. E. Kwaa-Aidoo
Distance Learning Institutions like IDeL of UEW, he said, are expected to give guidelines and promote the DE across the board. Therefore, he described the ongoing training as an initiative that puts UEW on a high-level leadership pedestal in the country’s efforts to achieve quality distance education.
He announced happily that UEW had managed to apply its Learning Management System (LMS) to the regular, distance, and sandwich programmes to bring the 2019/2020 academic year to a logical end since the COVID-19 induced closure of schools, sometime in March 2020.
He said UEW would be offering about 70% online teaching across all programmes in the next academic year, and therefore, encouraged lecturers, tutors, and students to brace up for the new normal the country finds itself.
Cross-section of participants
Again, he asked participants to apply themselves diligently to the knowledge being given and encouraged them to be ready to share with colleague tutors so that the efforts and investments made by the University would yield the anticipated results, ultimately.
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