CETL Workshop for Students Series 2: Ways to Better Online Learning in GUB

Online learning or education is a form of learning or education where students use the internet with their devices to educate themselves. Due to the COVID-19 online education has reached the peak of demand for it as COVID-19 has resulted in schools shut all across the world and education has changed dramatically. This led to the distinctive rise of e-learning, whereby teaching is undertaken remotely and on digital platforms. Keeping the situation in mind, all the educational institutes in Bangladesh are trying to cope with and doing all the educational activities through online platforms. 

As a part of this journey Green University Center of Excellence for Teaching and Learning (CETL) organized a training session titled "Ways to Better Online Learning in GUB" for the Students of the Green University of Bangladesh. The program was held on 12 April 7:30 pm to 9:00 pm using the zoom platform. The session was facilitated by Dr. ASM Shihavuddin and Hasan Al Zubayer Rony. To attend the session participants had to register themselves through Google Form provided by CETL. More than 300 people responded to it. But only the first 100 registered students got the chance to attend the session. The goal of the session was to educate students on some major areas to survive the online learning in GUB, How to complete online assignments, How to submit within a time frame, How to do better in the assignment of Google form, How to use Google docs in assignments and How to be a better performer in online education.

At the beginning of the session, Dr. ASM Shihavuddin, director of CETL  highlighted the insightful thoughts on online education and the purpose of the session. Afterward, Mr. Hasan Al Zubayer Rony, Assistant Professor, and Unit Facilitator, CETL  conducted the session by interacting with the participants and showing the absolute ways to better online learning in GUB where the five steps mentioned above were focused. It was an interactive and hands-on practical session for the participants. Before jumping on the focal points Mr. Hasan Al Zubayer Rony tried to lift up the mood of the participants by asking them how they were feeling at that moment and measured that with a Mentimeter. Afterward, the main session started and the resource person tried to understand how confident participants are with submitting assignments, using Google Form and Docs. In the meantime, participants were asked to join an associate Google Classroom for further activities. A pre-test and post-test took place by using Google Form which indicated the before and after situations, learnings, and understanding of participants as an assignment, instantly. In this part, the respected resource person showed how to join Google Classroom, how to attend the assessment in Google Classroom, shared some tricks such as letting the faculty know about any kind of problem immediately through private comment and how to turn it in. He also explained why turn in is important and its consequences. In between discussion of this step Mr. Hasan Al Zubayer Rony sir gave the floor to the participants to clear up any kind of confusion. In the next part, the resource person tried to show how to submit the assigned assignment. Here participants were assigned to an assignment and the topic was “ My Challenges in Online Classroom of GUB ''. They had to complete this assignment as practice. 

Mr. Rony mentioned the importance of Google docs along with how to work in it, described its benefits, and how it makes the task easy for the users. Also pointed out the option that faculties use for checking plagiarism to warn participants not to do copy and paste in their assignments as in the classroom it can be detected easily. Another point he tried to clear out some to do and not to do and showed how anyone can submit their assignment easily with a mobile phone if it is handwritten through a video. In the last part, participants expressed their gratitude to the resource persons and organizing team for conducting such an insightful and helpful session for them. Participants learned all the things and tricks. They also added that it was an amazing session and this will help them to be a better performer in GUB. They also requested to do more informative and advanced level sessions like this in the future so that they can improve themselves with the guidance of experts like our resource persons. Dr. ASM Shihavuddin  shared some of his thoughts in reply to some participants' questions and discussion where he said that both teachers and students can face challenges in this online system and the ways of possible solutions to do better in online learning.