Online STEM Education Approaches during the COVID-19 Pandemic

The 2019 COVID-19 Pandemic has had a tremendous effect on education. This paper focused on how teachers of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) delivered content via online distance learning while face-to-face teaching was not possible during the Pandemic. The study was set in the Jempol district in Malaysia and was a meso-scale longitudinal study. This study identified suitable delivery platforms for Science content knowledge (STEM) via distance learning during COVID-19 pandemic. Also identified were suitable teaching aids, Science activities suitable for students to master the standard STEM content knowledge, methods of online laboratory learning and finally suitable online assessments. Fuzzy Delphi analysis was carried out using 10 experts in order to arrive at a consensus. Findings revealed that 84% believed that WhatsApp, Zoom and Google Meet were the most favourable online platforms to deliver STEM content knowledge. 88% stated that the most suitable teaching aids are YouTube modules due to their high accessibility among students. Meanwhile, 76% agreed that the most favourable assignments are module-based activities, writing reports or notes and online presentation. 80% of respondents felt that modules and sample experiments from YouTube would be favourable choices to teach laboratory skills. Finally, 89% of participants saw video presentation and online quizzes to be satisfactory assessment methods for STEM students. It was concluded that additional research should be carried out on challenges faced by teachers in conducting distance learning, which will be helpful when digitalization and virtual learning take place on a wider scale in the future.