Abstract
Based on anecdotal evidence as a District ICT Coordinator for 162 schools in the Tshwane North District (TN District) of the Gauteng Department of Education (GDE), the TN Further Education and Training (FET), teachers have shown insufficient knowledge of integrating the Information Communication Technologies (ICT) with teaching and learning since the inception of the GDE ICT project in 2015. My observation is consistent with findings in the literature that there has been low adoption and under-utilisation of ICT in the teaching of for example, Physical Education (PE) by Gauteng teachers before the COVID-19 pandemic. However, under COVID-19 restrictions, there appeared to be widespread educational use of social media among teachers. To explore this phenomenon, this study specifically focused on the FET Phase (Grades 10-12) teachers of Science Technology Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) subjects in the TN District of Gauteng Province (GP), and their use of social media for teaching. The study examined the TN FET STEM teachers’ extent of access to social media platforms and their use for teaching under COVID-19 conditions. The study pertinently asks three research questions: 1) What social media platforms have TN FET STEM teachers accessed and used to teach learners under COVID-19 restrictions; 2) Why have TN FET STEM teachers preferred to use specific social media platforms to teach under COVID-19 restrictions; and 3) How have TN FET STEM teachers accessed and used their preferred social media platforms to teach under COVID-19.
The research is framed within a hybrid of two theoretical models namely the Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge Model (TPACK) Koehler & Mishra, (2005) and Van Dijk’s (2005) model on the digital divide. The combination of these two models allows for analysis of the conceptual underpinnings related to social media access from a digital divide perspective and use for teaching from a teachers’ knowledge and skills perspective. The study employs a constructivist and post-positivist approach and adopts a mix of quantitative and qualitative methodologies. The study draws on secondary and primary data sources through a quantitative survey and
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qualitative focus group interviews of a sample of TN FET STEM teachers. It is the researcher’s view that the hybrid of the concurrent triangulation strategy and sequential transformative strategy (Creswell, 2014) is the most suitable approach for the study. The study has found that of the 56 TN FET STEM teacher participants, 54 (96,4%) of them indicated that teachers at their schools have cell phones;32 (57,1%) were social media users; and 31 (55,4%) participants had used WhatsApp™ as their preferred social media platform. 33 (%) participants indicated that teachers and learners respectively in the FET phase have used cell phones to access the internet and social media. 27 participants indicated that they have used a combination of cell phones and laptops to connect to the Internet and up to 28 participants have used them for social media. The study also reveals that most learners and teachers already were using WhatsApp™ as a chat platform, and they had already formed WhatsApp™ groups for STEM subjects pre-COVID-19 restrictions. The main challenge though was the cost of data. As a result, teachers could not share big video files with learners. Although teachers could use social media to facilitate learning, give assessment activities and feedback to learners, 45 participants indicated that they struggled to use social media for collaborative activities among learners. 42 indicated that they did not send feedback to parents on learners’ progress.
These findings suggest that: 1) mobile phones were the most widely used digital device by learners and teachers; 2) Chat platforms were the most popular social media adopted by teachers; 3) In the context of digital inequality, low end social media platforms such as WhatsApp™ can be used pedagogically by teachers to support their learners in general and more specifically to enable curriculum learning continuity under lockdown conditions. 4) The range of pedagogical activities to enable STEM learning remotely include facilitation of learning (teaching new content) and assessment (using short tasks and past question papers to assess understanding). The use of social media to teach has the following implications: 1) that school policy makers such as the school governing body (SGB) and school management team (SMT) should develop a school ICT policy that accommodates teaching with cell phones and using social media. For instance, the study has also found that 20 out 56 teachers strongly felt that their schools did not encourage the use of cell phones. This then indicates that schools that did not use social media to teach under COVID-19 conditions had ICT policies that
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prevented learners from bringing cell phones to school. The study concludes that teachers would need training and continuous support from district subject facilitators and the teacher development unit in the GDE, on how to make use of learners’ cell phone in lessons and how to integrate social media in their teaching practice. This is important to effectively integrate social media to their teaching practice in the light of future pandemic eventualities.
It is hoped that the findings and analysis will 1) make a small and hopefully more nuanced contribution to the emerging body of knowledge on social media use for teaching among teachers in Gauteng; 2) assist Gauteng education policy makers to better understand the conditions under which Gauteng’s TN FET STEM teachers have been engaging with social media under pandemic conditions that can promote the use of social media to teach. Lastly, 3) it is hoped that the findings will point to further research that may be required for a more in-depth understanding of teacher adoption and use of social media for teaching. Key words: COVID-19, STEM subjects, TN FET Phase STEM subject teachers, TN District, social media platforms, resource-constrained schools, policy-level intervention, ICT integration.