Salome Essuman | University Of Education, Winneba (original) (raw)
Papers by Salome Essuman
EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo
Journal of Education and Training, 2014
Journal of Education and Training, 2015
Over a decade now, Distance Education (DE) has become ubiquitous in the Ghanaian educational syst... more Over a decade now, Distance Education (DE) has become ubiquitous in the Ghanaian educational system. Four public universities in Ghana are currently running DE programmes in addition to a few private universities. Effective DE programme demands that strategic planning be made at all times. Such planning could be done well if challenges confronting learners on the programme are identified and addressed. This paper sets out to explore and provide an up-to-date picture of the challenges faced by DE students in their quest to study at the university level. Specifically, the study focused on students of the University of Education, Winneba (UEW) as a case study. UEW is one of the nine public universities in Ghana which has been involved in distance education for teachers at the pre-tertiary level. The study adopted both qualitative and quantitative research designs with interviews and questionnaire as the data collection techniques. One hundred and fifty-six students comprising sixty-eight males and eighty-eight females responses out of initial three hundred were received which is equivalent to a response rate of 52%. This constitutes the sample size for the study. Among the challenges identified were - institutional, instructional, social, psychological, and financial. The findings of the study, it is expected, will be utilized instrumentally and conceptually in informing policy directives by public universities presently involved in DE programmes. Further, private and potential providers of DE programme in the country stand to gain a lot from the findings and recommendations of the study.
Keywords: Distance Education, barriers to DE students/learners, institutional and psychological barriers
Journal of Education and Training, 2014
Understanding the importance of the changing role of tutors about the skills needed to achieve an... more Understanding the importance of the changing role of tutors about the skills needed to achieve an effective online teaching and learning is paramount to a successful online course and programme at large. This paper explores the new roles and responsibilities of some faculty members of the University of Education, Winneba (UEW), who have been engaging in online tutoring activities for two years. There is an increasing quest to bring everyone on board for the growing interest in e-learning at UEW. However much is not known about the experiences of e-tutors regarding the roles they have been playing in online facilitation. The successful stories, the challenges and what mechanisms exist for improving the practice are very key. In the paper, we discuss the success factors and challenges and approaches required to support lecturers. A qualitative approach using a semi-structured interview guide was employed in collecting data from ten (10) purposively sampled lecturers who teach different courses at UEW. Among the key findings are that it is the tutors' role to initiate the learning processes, moderate students' participation and lead students in discovery mode of learning. Further, as managers and leaders in the learning process they bring students together through 96 group work and other forms of social interaction. However, it emerged that special support and communication systems should be established for both tutors and students to enable them interact effectively. There is the need to provide tutors with continuous professional training and counseling as most of them are new to this mode of education delivery. Again, it emerged that there is ample opportunity to give diverse materials to students to read before any interaction either face-to-face or online. It was proposed that potential tutors should be IT savvy, sharpen their skills and think within an IT context. It is recommended that there should be motivation and recognition for lecturers who tutor online since this mode of teaching is time consuming and very demanding.
This paper looks at the reflective learning experiences of primary school teachers, who were enco... more This paper looks at the reflective learning experiences of primary school teachers, who were encouraged to engage in reflective activities as a way of improving their pedagogical practice during the use of Open Educational Resources (OER). The assumption of the study was that OERs have the potential to improve teachers' pedagogical content knowledge and skills, as well as their networking and collaborative activities and impact on their professional practice. Ten (10) out of forty-two (42) primary school teachers, who participated in a training workshop focused on the use of OER, were purposively sampled to keep a reflective journal of their learning experiences and share the outcomes with their colleagues. Interviews were used in collecting data from the cohort. Using phenomenology as a methodology and content analysis as a tool for analyzing the data collected, the 'stories' of these teachers were analyzed manually and presented in a report at a seminar. The findings indicated that teachers acknowledged the added values that OER have had on their pedagogical practice; the influence that the new knowledge and skills have had on students' learning and the enthusiasm that students exhibited when active learning strategies were used in teaching. However, the reflective learning elements that teachers were expected to exhibit in their writing were lacking. The deep thinking and learning from their critical analysis of their experiences were not evident in their responses. It is recommended that sessions on reflective teaching, learning and writing should be incorporated into pre-and in-service teachers' www.macrothink.org/jet 163 Journal of Education and Training ISSN 2330-9709 2015 training sessions. Skill building in reflective writing and learning should be introduced to teachers early in practice and during training for them to build the culture of reflection in teaching.
EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo
Journal of Education and Training, 2014
Journal of Education and Training, 2015
Over a decade now, Distance Education (DE) has become ubiquitous in the Ghanaian educational syst... more Over a decade now, Distance Education (DE) has become ubiquitous in the Ghanaian educational system. Four public universities in Ghana are currently running DE programmes in addition to a few private universities. Effective DE programme demands that strategic planning be made at all times. Such planning could be done well if challenges confronting learners on the programme are identified and addressed. This paper sets out to explore and provide an up-to-date picture of the challenges faced by DE students in their quest to study at the university level. Specifically, the study focused on students of the University of Education, Winneba (UEW) as a case study. UEW is one of the nine public universities in Ghana which has been involved in distance education for teachers at the pre-tertiary level. The study adopted both qualitative and quantitative research designs with interviews and questionnaire as the data collection techniques. One hundred and fifty-six students comprising sixty-eight males and eighty-eight females responses out of initial three hundred were received which is equivalent to a response rate of 52%. This constitutes the sample size for the study. Among the challenges identified were - institutional, instructional, social, psychological, and financial. The findings of the study, it is expected, will be utilized instrumentally and conceptually in informing policy directives by public universities presently involved in DE programmes. Further, private and potential providers of DE programme in the country stand to gain a lot from the findings and recommendations of the study.
Keywords: Distance Education, barriers to DE students/learners, institutional and psychological barriers
Journal of Education and Training, 2014
Understanding the importance of the changing role of tutors about the skills needed to achieve an... more Understanding the importance of the changing role of tutors about the skills needed to achieve an effective online teaching and learning is paramount to a successful online course and programme at large. This paper explores the new roles and responsibilities of some faculty members of the University of Education, Winneba (UEW), who have been engaging in online tutoring activities for two years. There is an increasing quest to bring everyone on board for the growing interest in e-learning at UEW. However much is not known about the experiences of e-tutors regarding the roles they have been playing in online facilitation. The successful stories, the challenges and what mechanisms exist for improving the practice are very key. In the paper, we discuss the success factors and challenges and approaches required to support lecturers. A qualitative approach using a semi-structured interview guide was employed in collecting data from ten (10) purposively sampled lecturers who teach different courses at UEW. Among the key findings are that it is the tutors' role to initiate the learning processes, moderate students' participation and lead students in discovery mode of learning. Further, as managers and leaders in the learning process they bring students together through 96 group work and other forms of social interaction. However, it emerged that special support and communication systems should be established for both tutors and students to enable them interact effectively. There is the need to provide tutors with continuous professional training and counseling as most of them are new to this mode of education delivery. Again, it emerged that there is ample opportunity to give diverse materials to students to read before any interaction either face-to-face or online. It was proposed that potential tutors should be IT savvy, sharpen their skills and think within an IT context. It is recommended that there should be motivation and recognition for lecturers who tutor online since this mode of teaching is time consuming and very demanding.
This paper looks at the reflective learning experiences of primary school teachers, who were enco... more This paper looks at the reflective learning experiences of primary school teachers, who were encouraged to engage in reflective activities as a way of improving their pedagogical practice during the use of Open Educational Resources (OER). The assumption of the study was that OERs have the potential to improve teachers' pedagogical content knowledge and skills, as well as their networking and collaborative activities and impact on their professional practice. Ten (10) out of forty-two (42) primary school teachers, who participated in a training workshop focused on the use of OER, were purposively sampled to keep a reflective journal of their learning experiences and share the outcomes with their colleagues. Interviews were used in collecting data from the cohort. Using phenomenology as a methodology and content analysis as a tool for analyzing the data collected, the 'stories' of these teachers were analyzed manually and presented in a report at a seminar. The findings indicated that teachers acknowledged the added values that OER have had on their pedagogical practice; the influence that the new knowledge and skills have had on students' learning and the enthusiasm that students exhibited when active learning strategies were used in teaching. However, the reflective learning elements that teachers were expected to exhibit in their writing were lacking. The deep thinking and learning from their critical analysis of their experiences were not evident in their responses. It is recommended that sessions on reflective teaching, learning and writing should be incorporated into pre-and in-service teachers' www.macrothink.org/jet 163 Journal of Education and Training ISSN 2330-9709 2015 training sessions. Skill building in reflective writing and learning should be introduced to teachers early in practice and during training for them to build the culture of reflection in teaching.