Blended learning of mathematics during covid19 pandemic, Busitema university, Tororo district, Uganda:

Abstract

The outbreak of covid-19 pandemic resulted into closure of schools including higher institutions of learning in Uganda. This made most institutions including Busitema university to adopt blended learning approach to teaching/learning process. This kind of learning was new to most students and therefore was not easily adopted by students of Busitema University at Nagongera campus since it was their first to use Zoom for online learning especially in Mathematics class. Most students were used to face-to-face lectures whereas during online lectures, they could campaign to the lectures. It seemed that they were some difficulties on how to use Zoom which called for a comprehensive study. This study assessed the responses of third year students of mathematics class of Nagongera campus on the effectiveness of blended learning based on Zoom online platform, like/dislike of zoom and blended learning, challenges students faced in blended learning during covid-19 pandemic era and gave the suggested solutions to the challenges. This research included surveying and describing the responses of 50 third year mathematics students of faculty of science and education at Nagongera campus. Responses were obtained by questionnaire method and the results were further collected, sorted and categorized on tables. My finding reveals that zoom was disliked by 68% of the sample population and as a result making blended learning of mathematics a dislike to about 64% of the students. This was as a result of several challenges the students during zoom lectures such as poor internet, high rate of data consumption, lack of training among others. The like/ dislike of Zoom and blended learning was compared using two-way Anova as in the results and discussions. On effectiveness of Zoom for online lectures, 4% of the sample population said that it works effectively,8% said that zoom works effectively, 24% less effectively, majority said that zoom was not effective for online learning of mathematics since it consumes a lot of data and also requires good internet within an area whereas 6% said that they totally dislike zoom since it was very ineffective. They further explained that this made blended learning especially online lectures to be less effective. According to general analysis, about 70% of the sample population would like to use traditional face-to-face method of learning mathematics, 5% wanted online lectures and 25% needed blended learning of mathematics courses. Also, on the challenges faced during blended learning, 42% of study population faced poor internet coverage, 18% lacked power, 10% lacked devices which were needed for online lectures,24% lacked data and 6% responded that there was shortage of seats and buildings during face- to -face interactions and the suggested solutions were given on results and discussions. According the results obtained, the use of blended learning requires an online learning platform which attract students’ attention and also motivational especially 0n teaching and learning of mathematics courses. This will enable students to solve challenges they faced such as low motivation and this would later improve on their performance in Mathematics.