Online Education: Issues Facing Domestic And International Learners And Strategies To Mitigate Them (Essay).

Type of Issues Domestic And International Learners Face With Online Learning

Online education has become one of the current trends in education and the adverse effect of Covid-19 infused the world to opt for several online educational courses where students from national and international levels join the courses and different education providers are concerned with enhancing the diverse course design to keep the learners engaged in the course. The educational institutions are inventing flexible delivery methods to provide the learners with several pathways and chances for students to check further educational courses (Teymori and Fardin 2020). These diverse course opportunities enable the students to avail the of multiple educational courses from their comfort zone. But the online education can be difficult to navigate for the student and it leads to several issues for the learners. Here in this assignment, the organization, AusEducation is planning to launch a wide range of online educational courses for the national and international students and this report will help to strategize the organization to mitigate the problems occurring for the learners and also provide recommendations accordingly.

The covid-19 has severely disrupted the education system in all over 150 countries and adversely affected 1.5 billion students (Aliyyah et al. 2020). As a consequence, many emerging educational institutions have come up with different courses for the remote learning process. These initiatives were taken to connect with the learners but it was not always successful.

According to the data of OCED, in different parts of the world, the learners are facing issues with reliable internet and technological issues. The students from the international level are facing problems in connecting with the digital learning facilities. This technological gap in the educational system has been identified in countries in different parts of the world. There is the problem of the unequal and insufficient practice of networks and technology. For an instance, the data represents that 95% of the students in Switzerland, Austria, and Norway are having their computers while only 34% of the students in Indonesia have the same (Sari and Nay?r 2020). It creates a hindrance for the learners to cope with an international course. This will create a problem for AusEducation as they are planning to launch online courses for domestic and international students.

It is quite a common problem in online education programs that there is a significant gap between the privileged and underprivileged background students. The data from OCED has a clear reflection that nearly 25% of the learners in the US do not have a computer to access the educational program which is the main disadvantage of being underprivileged background. The government and many educational institutions in Australia have taken several initiatives to provide the student with digital equipment for the under-privileged student (Hernandez and Roberts 2018). It is also evident that 15 years old privileged student has their computer to work on. So, it can create a problem for the organization to design the course for students.

Communication has become complex and a barrier for an international student to join courses. But in face-to-face settings of education, the students get the opportunities to clarify their doubts and get solutions for their confusion on any particular topic that cannot be solved online (Suri 2021). But in the online learning settings, communication has become in an e-learning setting, communication is often causing allochronic that creates a gap between the education providers and the students. It creates misconceptions and sometimes leads to a snowball effect that can be corrected in the traditional mode of learning.

Availability of Network and Technology

Source: (Suri 2021)

The student should have a clear idea of expectation which will lead them to perform the task and subjective project works correctly. Sometimes in the physical classroom, it creates a problem for the students to set expectations and it becomes challenging but in the online educational course, this will become even greater for the students to understand the problem (Ferri, Grifoni and Guzzo 2020). This is also a potential problem for AusEducation as they will target international students.

Being a consultant of the organization, AusEducation, in this part of the research, some strategies will be suggested that will help the organization to mitigate the issues that can arise for the domestic and international students who will be enrolling in several courses in the organization.

To solve the issue of communication barriers, the organization can take the help of countless technological tools that are available and also there to solve the problem of the teachers and the students. With the help of technology, teachers can directly communicate with the student on a real-time basis. Several video conferencing software is available to assist the learners on a group or one-to-one basis (Hashim 2018). This will help the students to raise their queries, and also help to solve the complex subjects. AusEducation can also provide their students with an additional benefit to assist the students individually and also give post assistance after the completion of the course.

Source: (Hashim 2018)

For securing higher grades and good performance, the student needs to get regular feedback from their assessors. AusEducation can implement several methods to mitigate the problem of clear instructions. The faculty of the organization needs to schedule for giving feedback on current assignments weekly or twice a week. The faculties of the organization can also provide the students with verbal feedback that can save the time of the assessors as well as the student will be getting a clear idea of the subjects. And another method could be peer review which engages the students in providing feedback on each other's work. An example can be given from Duke University, it is evident that 100% grading has been given through peer review and it represents the result by increasing the satisfaction of students and also lessening the stress of the education providers (Filius et al. 2019).

AusEducation can provide the technological backup for their domestic students who will be enrolling in the course and as a consequence, the underprivileged students will be getting the benefits of online education. And for the international students, the organization can provide needed assistance the students so that they can avail the course from their comfort zone. And the organization can include a problem-solving session and IT assistance and post-course assistance so that it makes it easy for the international students to avail the course of the AusEducation.

During the covid-19 outbreak, there is barely any chance to meet the students and the learners thus many organizations are enforced to implement strategies for an alternative solution to accomplish the problem of education. It is evident from the research that the usage of laptops and computer system causes high costs for the educational institution to promote online education and governments are trying to provide the solution to the students to assist them with providing the technological equipment (Simamora 2020). An online education system can be an educational method created by learning technologies that permit the creation of a clear communication system between assessors and learners through online interaction. According to the study, all level of learners faces issues with online learning as the academicians could not identify the exact solutions to be adopted for the employees (Doyumgaç, Tanhan and Kiymaz 2021).

The above-mentioned strategies will be helpful for the organization if they could implement those strategies into their course structure. The extra beneficial attributes for the domestic and international students of adding features to the course structure will help the organization to promote its brand internationally and students from different countries can be able to avail the course. The post assistance of the course will clear out the problem of communication barriers and students can be able to solve their queries. Another solution of peer reviews will help the students to become more engaging in the course so that they will get a clear idea of the course and regular grading will improve their performance.

Conclusion

The main findings of the report are challenges and problems that the learners from domestic and international students face in the current scenario of Covid-19. The main problem is associated with the technological and communication barriers in online education. As the students from the international background will be enrolling in the course, they might face the issue of the communication gap during the course. Apart from that, another problem that has been identified is the problem of peer review and the grading system.

Based on the findings of the report, there can be several suggestions that can be provided for AusEducation in terms of mitigating the issues in online education.

• The organization can develop a course in more engaging ways so that the students get engaged in the course and can get subjective input for their careers.
• The faculty of the organization should be highly efficient so that they can address the problem of the students and can revert with proper solutions.
• The organization can provide an original web portal of their own so that they can use track the activities of the enrolled students and assist them to overcome the problems caused by the digital technology.

References

Aliyyah, R.R., Rachmadtullah, R., Samsudin, A., Syaodih, E., Nurtanto, M. and Tambunan, A.R.S., 2020. The perceptions of primary school teachers of online learning during the COVID-19 pandemic period: A case study in Indonesia. Journal of Ethnic and Cultural Studies, 7(2), pp.90-109.

Doyumgaç, I., Tanhan, A. and Kiymaz, M.S., 2021. Understanding the most important facilitators and barriers for online education during COVID-19 through online photovoice methodology. International Journal of Higher Education, 10(1), pp.166-190.

Ferri, F., Grifoni, P. and Guzzo, T., 2020. Online learning and emergency remote teaching: Opportunities and challenges in emergency situations. Societies, 10(4), p.86.

Filius, R.M., de Kleijn, R.A., Uijl, S.G., Prins, F.J., van Rijen, H.V. and Grobbee, D.E., 2019. Audio peer feedback to promote deep learning in online education. Journal of Computer Assisted Learning, 35(5), pp.607-619.

Hashim, H., 2018. Application of technology in the digital era education. International Journal of Research in Counseling and Education, 2(1), pp.1-5.

Hernandez, K. and Roberts, T., 2018. Leaving no one behind in a digital world.

Sari, T. and Nay?r, F., 2020. Challenges in distance education during the (Covid-19) pandemic period. Qualitative Research in Education, 9(3), pp.328-360.

Simamora, R.M., 2020. The Challenges of online learning during the COVID-19 pandemic: An essay analysis of performing arts education students. Studies in Learning and Teaching, 1(2), pp.86-103.

Suri, C.S., 2021. Challenges to online education: A review. Journal of Contemporary Issues in Business and Government Vol, 27(1).

Teymori, A.N. and Fardin, M.A., 2020. COVID-19 and educational challenges: A review of the benefits of online education. Annals of Military and Health Sciences Research, 18(3), p.e105778.