Digital Literacy Training for Teaching Assistants

Teaching Assistants are pivotal in helping students succeed in the classroom. As technology continues to rapidly evolve to become an ever-increasing part of day-to-day life, it is more important than ever for Teaching Assistants to have a strong understanding of digital tools for teaching and learning online.

The Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology as part of enhancing online teaching and learning organized a digital literacy training for all Teaching Assistants, which aimed at providing them with the necessary skills to help them in conducting tutorials online. The Vclass, which is the Learning Management System of KNUST, was the focus of the training. Teaching Assistants from the various Colleges of the University were taken through how to upload course materials and assignments and also facilitate forums and discussions. Participants were also taken through some theories and concepts of online teaching, netiquettes and the various video conferencing technologies available as online learning media.

The program which came off on the 12th and 13th of January took place at three different centers concurrently. Teaching assistants from the College of Engineering and College of Arts and Built Environment had their training sessions at the University library’s computer lab, another session was held at the e-VBAB Learning Centre for teaching assistants at the College of Health Sciences and College Agriculture and Natural Resources. Training for teaching assistants at the College of Science and College of Humanities and Social Sciences came off at the Casely Hayford IT lab. At the end of the training, Teaching Assistants expressed their satisfaction with the level of organization. They thanked management of the Centre and the facilitators of the training for the good work done. They, however, called for more of similar training to beef up their competencies in the use of e-learning tools.

TThe Centre, therefore, plans to hold refresher training sessions online so that teaching assistants can become seasoned users of the VClass and conduct tutorials effectively using modern tools.

Published:13th January 2023   Source: KNUST E-Learning Centre