Student Opinions On The Online Teaching-Learning Process During The SARS-COV-2 Pandemic

Possibility to attend courses from anywhere. Given that most of the respondent students are not permanent residents of Cluj-Napoca (76%), such an advantage cannot be denied. The presence in the middle of the family, the renunciation of the rent payment during the return home period, as well as the state of comfort, relaxation, and financial economy are related elements mentioned by the respondents. Regarding the access to courses in more varied and relaxed contexts than in the classic version, through learning platforms, we consider important to validate the well-being that the student feels as a result of his return to the family and, we consider that it can lead to increasing the student's willingness to participate in courses and their motivation for learning. The less rigid learning environment, the renunciation of known academic customs, can also have beneficial effects, leading to the presence of a more relaxed attitude in academic activity, both in terms of the student and the professor.

The possibility to re-listen to the information transmitted by professors and recorded during the course is another advantage perceived by respondents, who consider that the deepening of knowledge can be made easier since the courses on the platform are recorded and each student enrolled in the platform has unlimited access to it. The repetition of an audio-video fragment is considered by students as the second most important advantage of online teaching, being mentioned with increased frequency in the answers provided. By repeating, the ideas become clearer, the differentiation between the elements becomes clearer and the loss of information through oblivion is greatly slowed down. The Latin saying repetitio mater studiorum est must be understood in the sense that repetition should not be used at random, but to increase memory productivity. To reach the desired result, an optimal number of repetitions is necessary, supported, in the case of online teaching, by the materials recorded during the courses, knowing that each repetition must lead to the establishment of new, meaningful connections between the various elements of the stored material.

It is a good opportunity to accommodate students with new learning situations, in didactic contexts different from the classical ones. The use of online teaching-learning platforms, depending on the choice of professors or school, although requires students, on the one hand, more accommodation time and better IT devices (or at least larger screens than a smartphone), also brings the possibility to experience learning and teaching in the most diverse ways possible. Given that respondents are preparing to become future teachers, it is an additional chance for them to experience online learning, as a student, and then to perceive it, in the future, as a teacher.

There is no downtime in relation to academic activity, such as travel from home to faculty and vice versa, free hours between classes, travel to libraries that are in locations other than classrooms, and thus efficiency is higher and the extra time is more consistent. The students' answers indicate that this time is used either as free time, for relaxation, time for solving homework, preparing for the exam, or recovering lost courses.

The students consider that materials provided by professors are easier to access, both in terms of content, and in terms of accessibility and the materials are more essential. There are students who claim that the materials projected in the classroom were less visible, compared to how they now can access it on the screen of a device. In fact, in relation to this advantage, it is also mentioned that in the situation of online teaching, the professors' materials are more comprehensive, trying to supplement the explanations offered in the face-to-face meetings. Suplimentary supporting materials are made, to compensate for the lack of direct interaction between professors and students, materials found, as stated above, in the portfolio of the student, to be reread and analysed in detail at the most convenient time.

Multitasking or the ability to do several things at the same time is another advantage mentioned. The students state the fact that they can participate as an audience of the course, having the possibility to close their camera, contributes to the reduction of the state of physical and mental fatigue installed quite quickly when they spend 6-8 hours on a chair. In the case of online teaching, they can carry out several actions at the same time, without losing focus on the online teaching activity that takes place and having the opportunity to move in different spaces, without losing the course they attend.

Communication with professors is much easier and the feedback provided or the response to the email requesting clarification is much faster. The respondents state that the educational environment built in the online space brings new openings regarding the ways of communication with professors, especially in terms of the speed of the response received. Statements such as the professors were very kind and gave us directions whenever we needed or, if I have a question and send an email I receive a much faster response to the situation in which I would schedule an audience with that professor or I would send him an email, in classical teaching conditions, or the professors now respond much faster to emails and help us now with any kind of explanation, which does not happen before are evidence of changes in the professor-student relationship, perceived as a result of moving activities in the virtual environment.

Improving technological skills has been repeatedly mentioned by students as an additional benefit, which completes the picture of the positive aspects mentioned above. Computer-assisted learning (IAC) refers to the use of electronic multimedia and technology-assisted strategies to support learning. Computer-assisted learning can take two forms: technology for students when they use specific programs or applications to solve problems and to perform school tasks, and technology for professors when they use materials such as interactive whiteboards and screens or teaching platforms /learning. Sometimes considered the most important technological innovation of modern pedagogy, IAC contributes to the efficiency of training and is a result of the gradual introduction of computerization in education. Also, this type of training can allow the development of a personalized learning and assessment process depending on the level and potential of each student. In cases where it is implemented correctly, the IAC provides widespread interactivity, providing the student with permanent feedback that is immediately displayed instantly on the screen.

Insufficiency or lack of human face-to-face interaction, not mediated by technical means is the major problem identified in most of students' responses. The changes that took place determined us to approach the teaching process from another perspective by completely replacing the face-to-face interactions with students and colleagues with the meetings mediated by the applications in the virtual environment. The transition from the instructive-educational process carried out within the educational group and based on direct psychological relationships, of the face-to-face type, to the development of teaching activities, exclusively through modern means of online communication, can lead to perceptual changes of the paradigm. educational, the impossibility of physical interaction making it difficult to learn in the peer group.

The teaching has a much lower interactive character, tending to turn into a monologue, which prevents the active participation of the student in the course and can prevent the understanding of the contents taught. We believe that in order to increase the interactivity of courses, we need to take action to adapt learning methods to the digital age. Decreased interactivity may be associated with the installation of the lack of interest, decreased interest and motivation for learning, which subsequently significantly affects students' academic performance. The educational reality of the days we live in shows us that changes in the educational environment must necessarily bring about changes in the educational paradigm, at the level of teaching methods and techniques, assesment and interaction with other educational actors.

The increase in the number of academic tasks, to compensate for the cancellation of practical activities, of the face-to-face type, is frequently mentioned as a negative consequence of the activity carried out exclusively online. In this context, overcrowding may occur, which students perceive as a complementary consequence, along with intellectual fatigue, decreased interest in the discipline, difficulties in forming a team and collaborating in order to solve a task in a group or too much effort to solve all this tasks on time. Too many activities makes the student tired, stressed, with less time available for other activities, family time, or personal development activities that complte his or her education.

Frequently encountered technical difficulties can be a problem that is part of the shortcomings felt by students regarding participation in online courses. The multitude of platforms used, at the choice of professors, represent factors of additional stress that students perceive unconditionally. The lack of a stable internet signal, the instability of the platforms used, their inability to cope with the large number of students accessing it at the same time, are all recorded by respondents as possible difficulties in the proper conduct of teaching activities in the virtual environment.

Fatigue installed as a result of spending time in front of the computer is also mentioned in the category of disruptive factors installed in online teaching Students say that although the connection with the faculty through online courses is very important, they feel they have become this period exactly what they do not want: computer addicts, and this translates into a phenomenon of mental and mental fatigue. The multitude of practices and applications has generated fatigue and confusion among both professors and students. If in some universities it was decided to use certain applications, in others each professor used different platforms. You need not only resources, but also assistance in organizing your work with their help. The students stated that they felt the need for coordination and work according to an organized plan, but also for assistance.

Lack of feedback in the formula they know can lead to confusion and dissatisfaction. This is because feedback aims to improve learning among learners. Feedback reorients the actions of the professor, or of the student in the direction of achieving specific goals of the learning process by aligning the effort and the activity with a certain expected result. It can be offered regarding the results of the activity, the process itself, the way the student manages his learning or self-regulates in the learning activities, having a strong effect on learning. However, feedback can have a very wide range of effects, and some studies show that there are situations when, when not given properly, feedback produces negative effects. For this reason, it is important to have a good understanding of both the benefits and potential limitations of online feedback as an integral part of pandemic-specific teaching and learning process.