Thailand’s classroom learning practices at secondary level: Are we ready for learning in the 21st-Century?

Abstract

Sanit Teemuangsai, Chuthamas Meesook

Based on data from a survey of students and teachers in 933 Thailand secondary schools in the Northeastern area of the country, this study explores students’ and teachers’ perspectives of current-, issues and needs of the classroom practices towards 21st century learning. The majority of the reported current instructional circumstance is traditional. The results found unsteady and slow internet connection, lack of technology, and uninteresting teaching methods as major problems in classroom practices. Responses to the needs of improvement suggest implementing new teaching strategies, more fun and relevance, better quality of internet connection, and enough devices and technology provided in schools. Additionally, digital behaviors of the students and teachers showed that they spend a couple hours a day online, mostly during 6pm to 10pm at home. The purpose of internet use is searching for information, whereas the most frequently used device accessing the internet is the Smartphone, and Facebook is the most-used social media. The delay of internet connection is found to be the most severe problem of internet usage through the experience of students and teachers in Thailand.