“Challenge or Opportunity?” The Shift to Online Teaching and Assessing

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has led to many challenges and changes for institutions to shift their learning online. This presentation focuses on these challenges and solutions in the context of an intensive university EAP pre-degree programme. Initial challenges focused on adapting staff and students to an unfamiliar environment. For instructors, transferring their material into a learning management system was a challenge. Later challenges focused on student learning and feedback. A final challenge was dealing with the problem of student wellbeing. The solutions were seen as opportunities to make positive changes for the benefit of staff and students.