Multimodal Literacies MOOC’s Updates

Challenges in Synesthesia in the current global pandemic (Wk 1, Update 1)

Working as a trainer for my company, my primary objective is to ensure that trainees will be equipped with the right amount of skills and knowledge once they've finished classes with me and have been transitioned to the actual work.

As my company is a multinational and hires people of different cultures, educational backgrounds, work experiences, etc., I have to ensure that nuances and cultural differences will not be an issue when I deliver my classes. In connection, the ongoing pandemic situation forever changed the classroom landscape so instead of classes being held in classrooms at work, all of them are now held online.

Synesthesia has become more relevant than ever to address, specifically these challenges of holding classes/training online plus the differences of students in terms of culture, background, etc.

Recently, I facilitated a class consisting of different nationalities and work experience where there was a Brazilian who speaks Portuguese and was her first time to work in a fast-paced tech environment, an American who speaks English with some serious background in tech, and some young Filipinos who had relatively long tenure in their previous companies but were not exposed to a work environment where processes and procedures easily change depending on the business need as compared to their previous companies with rigid structures.

EDIT (Feb 20, 2021): Based on a study from Universitas Indonesia wherein dental students whre surveyed their acceptance of distance learning (online learning) (Amir, L.R., Tanti, I., Maharani, D.A. et al. Student perspective of classroom and distance learning during COVID-19 pandemic in the undergraduate dental study program Universitas Indonesia. BMC Med Educ 20, 392 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12909-020-02312-0), I can deduce that the challenge faced by my trainees echo other learners's challenges globally of which the teacher can address by utilizing different teaching techniques and multimodalities.

In my own class, to address the above-mentioned issues, I had to utilize the usual meanings - oral (while explaining the subjects and topics); written and visual (through the deck of slides I present while discussing); visual (through videos I created to demonstrate topics); - yet because of the "associations" or "feelings" of people toward (or against) online learning e.g. learning through videos, providing them online docs to review, my primary objective seems not achieved or perhaps, achieved but only at a certain level wherein students have not fully grasped the knowledge and skills they should have acquired after finishing the class.

Therefore, in concurrence with the conclusion of the study, utilization of new teaching techniques and methods, along with regular check-ins with students to motivate and keep them engaged in learning, should be applied not just with the current Covid situation but in teaching structures in the future, regardless of setting, corporate or school/university.

  • Tania Rahman
  • Julie Leppert
  • Julie Leppert