Converting a pandemic into educational opportunities: Lessons yielded from college students’ experiences during the first months of the COVID-19 lockdown

Abstract

The second week of March 2020 marked the beginning of an unforgettable experience for students and lecturers in a pre-university college in Malta. For the next four months, the college adopted an emergency remote learning programme, which allowed immediate access to education. The authors of this paper, intrigued by the new challenges, sought to understand the novel issues faced by the students, listen to their voices, and comprehend their lived experiences through the use of a questionnaire which afforded the collection of both quantitative and rich qualitative data. The students’ responses provided a lens on the infrastructural, technological and learning-related issues which affected learning. A variation in student experiences involving self-management, management of the environment, technological and learner-related issues and need for support was observed. The COVID-19 pandemic disrupted the normal education programme, but this research indicates that this chaos has presented the college community with valuable opportunities for evolving and transforming with a lens focusing on the development of new communication, teaching and learning skills and on innovative infrastructural and learning strategies.