Abstract
The COVID-19 pandemic and its connected lockdowns, preparing students who had to stay home to study online in unusual and sometimes unfavorable circumstances, was one of the many issues facing the higher education system in March 2020. First Year Seminar (FYS) at the University of Johannesburg (UJ) was facilitated entirely online in 2021. This case study investigates the experiences of the education tutors in an online extended orientation program aimed at preparing first-year students during the transition to remote teaching regarding education as a result of a national shutdown. This study utilized three categories: first-year students (pre-entry attributes), boundary spanner/tutor experiences (academic and social integration), and boundary crossing model as a conceptual framework. The objective was to identify the challenges experienced by tutors, how they facilitated the scaffolding, the general issues they were dealing with during the transition, and the type of support the first-year students required via remote learning. Data for this study was gathered from the 2021 tutor cohort using semi-structured interviews with a sample of 15 tutors. Findings indicated that tutors quickly adapted to supporting first-year students in an online environment to enable their academic and social integration, even though they continued to express anxiety due to the many unresolved issues. The intervention proved to be a practical method for helping students in need and support to transfer to remote teaching and learning quickly. The lesson learned shows that social integration-focused interventions are the most effective.
KEYWORDS
COVID-19, education tutors, tutors experience, extended first-year student orientation program, First Year Seminar, first-year students, higher education transition, first-generation students, first-year students’ diversity, remote teaching, and learning; student support.