Introduction
Professor Becki Bennett
- I am Professor of Bioethics and Associate Dean for Teaching Learning and Student Experience in Faculty of Humanities (Distance and online learning)
- I have over 20 year's experience developing and teaching online and distance learning - fully online masters developed in 2002, online CPD courses in 2011, and more recently a FutureLearn MOOC.
- In April 2020 I developed an online course for University of Manchester staff to help to take teaching online. This course has now had over 5k views.
In this session I will explore what we did during the pandemic, what worked and what was a challenge and what we have learned so far from both teaching online and dual teaching. I will then be looking into what is next for teaching and learning drawing on University plans on flexible learning and consider how teaching may look in the future.
The Pandemic and teaching
Before March 2020 We (myself and the Humanities elearning team) had already been working on developing platforms for online learning that were accessible for staff to use and scalable in order to develop online materials to enhance campus teaching and create online CPD courses. We chose Adobe Spark as a central tool and developed templates and assets that could be used to create materials with a similar look and feel. We chose Spark as it is free, cloud based and easy for academic to use themselves. This presentation is made with Spark and you can get a licence, training and the use of templates on our Adobe Spark site (you will need to log in using your University username and password).
In March 2020 when we locked down we needed to support staff to move online and to manage the anxiety of staff and students in doing so.
In April 2020 I used the work previously done in collaboration with the Humanities elearning team to create an online course in Spark to help our academic staff in this quick move to online. This course has now been viewed over 5k times. You might still find this course useful, particularly the list of resources and FAQs in parts 5 and 6.
What did we do?
Our general approach to moving teaching online can be seen in that early Spark course I developed. It focused building the confidence of our academic staff in a stressful situation by focusing on their existing expertise and experience as teachers rather than bombarding them with new online 'tools' (e.g. see the reflection exercise.)
Instead of being very prescriptive about what our teaching staff could offer we instead developed Faculty Principles for online and blended learning to guide our staff. We hoped that these Principles would provide support, reassurance, and guidance with some flexibility. These were:
- Teacher presence: Regular staff-student contact in and out of class is possibly the most important factor in student motivation and involvement. As part of blended teaching, you should be visibly present and engaged with the class, even more so than during face-to-face teaching.
- Develop a community of learners: Online environments can result in students feeling isolated, hence building a community and ensuring students have opportunities for communication, interaction, sharing and support from peers and academic advisors is a vital part of effective blended learning.
- Active student learning: Online teaching is a new experience for many students; hence active learning will be important to ensure students are kept engaged and feel part of a community of learners. It is recommended that some element of active learning (eg, quizzes, discussions, note taking) be incorporated into all lectures.
- ILOs should be defined: In addition to specifying intended learning outcomes at course unit level, defining ILOs for each teaching week or session helps you to design teaching activities that support students’ learning, and to identify methods for students to obtain regular formative feedback and to demonstrate their attainment in summative assessment tasks.
- Feedback for learning: In an online context, students benefit from frequent opportunities to assess their performance and receive suggestions for improvement. Therefore, giving students opportunities for regular formative feedback (eg. online quizzes and self-assessment) is an important part of blended units.
- Contact time: You should continue to follow Faculty guidance regarding contact time as part of the blended offer. It should be noted that time for students to read materials in preparations for seminars will be in addition to this contact time.
- Consistency: Analysis of student feedback highlights how important it is to offer students a consistent experience of the online environment. In order to support this, you are strongly encouraged to use one of the selection of templates developed by the e-learning team.
- Accessibility, inclusivity and student support: Recognising a student’s need for additional support in online environments is much more challenging than in face-to-face teaching. In line with principles 1&2, you should give extra consideration to ensure students are adequately supported. Materials must be accessible in a way that reflects a student’s individual needs and circumstances1 and in accordance to DASS teaching inclusivity requirements. Embedding and signposting material to support employability within courses is good practice and should continue in the blended environment.
- Data protection and copyright: in line with GDPR regulations, you must follow university guidance for data protection. This includes seeking the relevant permissions to record sessions that involve student participation, or sharing contact details. You should continue to follow copyright guidance.
In addition we:
- Created a Faculty elearning site with practical help, templates, explanation of tools etc.
- Developed a network of 'champions' to support other staff.
- Adapted pre-covid support available to the new context – offering from online drop-ins and range of training to consultations to designing effective learning online.
- Purchased of a great deal of equipment and software in a very short time frame and on an unprecedented scale.
How did we do?
Humanities survey 2020/2021
- Semester 1: 1,199 students
- Semester 2: 505 students
What went well?
From the free comments it was clear that students valued:
- Flexibility: Pre-recorded and live recorded lectures are flexible, being able to pause/break, replay, rewind, at own pace.
- Teacher Presence: Having opportunities to ask questions, staff responding quickly to emails.
- Clear instructions and expectations.
- Engaging learning materials
- Active learning in the form of online Activities in the VLE: forums, quizzes increasing engagement, Padlet, Notice boards.
- Open book online exams: less daunting, less stressful, less reliant on memory, more flexible.
- Activities to develop a community of learners: Introductions start of the year; quizzes on subject matter, making activities into a game; group study sessions with a lecturer: Buddy system e.g. ‘Families’ where Y2/3 student ‘adopt’ Y1 students; visits, Team building activities; Group chats: What’s App groups, allowing time for general talk and catch up, using social media without lecturer, timetabled social Zoom chats, Informal not graded discussions, Coffee mornings, Conversation Cafes, Friday Movies, Anonymous Whiteboards.
What could be improved?
The things that students were less happy about were:
- Workload
- Feeling disconnected/isolated
- Lack of organisation e.g. not being clear about what students need to do and when
- Assessment bunching
- Issues with accessibility e.g. transcripts for videos missing.
- Inconsistency: Large differences in some of the ways in which courses are being delivered. Presentation of materials varying within a course and across courses. Inconsistency across Bb sites.
Interestingly these are all issues that students raise consistently as issues pre-pandemic.
Where are we now?
Most teaching has now moved back onto campus. However, we recognise that our students have had a very different experience from previous years:
- First year undergraduates come to us with a different skillset that previous years - they are used to online learning, have had a lack of social interaction and are keen to be on campus. They may also not have covered the breath of the curriculum that is ususally covered in A level studies. For more information listen to our Podcast from A level teacher Dan Foulder talking about these issues (episode 5 October 2021).
- 2nd and 3rd years have had a long period with no on-campus teaching and may feel more isolated. They also have had the experience of online exams and extra safety nets such as the 'Assessment Pledge'.
Semester 1 2021 - including Dual teaching
Given that many of our students could not make it back into the classroom for the beginning of this semester we introduced what we called 'Dual teaching'. This is where teaching takes places as normal on campus but some students are online and engage in this session via Zoom. Most of you will have had experience and training with dual teaching.
There was, understandably a great deal of anxiety around the implementation of Dual Teaching this semester. With Wifi issues and new ways of working to be overcome there was concern that Dual Teaching would have a negative impact on the student experience. With this in mind Humanities elearning created another student pulse survey to find out how students experienced Dual Teaching.
Humanities survey Semester 1 2021/2022
- UG = 1,259 students - On Campus 926 (74%), Remote 333 (26%)
- PGT = 1,052 students - On Campus 671 (64%), Remote 381 (36%)
What is going well?
As you can see from the charts above, the majority of responding students did think that their lectures and small classes/seminars were delivered well. Other things that students felt went well this semester included:
Campus based students:
- In person teaching, student life. Face to face interaction with staff and students vs isolation (most frequently mentioned)
- Good teaching and useful engaging materials
- Flexibility of lectures being in person first but also online (either recorded or dual).
- Balanced workload: ‘Lectures take the right amount of time rather than when it was online it was far longer’
- Teachers friendly and approachable. Effort from staff.
- Organisation, clarity on deadlines
- Engaging seminars
- Variety of modules available
Remote Students:
- Having a remote study option, good learning and engagement – hoping available in semester 2
- Recordings are useful (especially the automatic recording system in the lecture hall for better sound quality than live Zoom broadcast).
- Support for online students from staff, easy to contact
- Useful online materials
- Workload manageable
- Online seminars with only remote students are going well
- Evident effort from staff to dual deliver and engage students
- Well organised
What could be improved?
Of course, there are things that the students felt could be improved and these included:
- High workload and expectations
- Technical issues: connectivity on campus, audio in live lectures, in seminars audio of other students and in recordings poor, Zoom issues, in-class set up issues results in lecture starting late and lecturer speeding up pace of teaching. For remote students - difficulty in hearing instructors voice clearly, Whiteboards hard to see.
- Option of joining Zoom classes being available to all – not only for remote students
- Not all lectures are recorded across courses
- Pace of lecture, students not following’ Lecture content delivered too fast, ‘packing too much’
- Organisation in Bb spaces: difficult to find, structure simplified, weekly task
- Clearer communications on assessment deadlines, marking criteria needed.
- More connection with staff and students
- For remote students: Accommodating different time zones for live online lectures difficult
- Release of materials too late to engage
- Some teaching using old pre-recorded lectures instead of live teaching
- More support for the transition to University
- Timetables: late classes, spreading classes better (large gaps or cluttering)
- Availability of books in the Library or online
As well as our website on Dual Teaching you can also hear Podcasts on this issue featuring staff from Humanities talking about their experience of dual teaching:
Where are we going? Semester 2 and beyond
As you will have heard by now a decision has been made not to use Dual Delivery of teaching for semester 2 based on the feedback we have had from staff and students about this mode of delivery.
However, this does not mean that for those who want to we do not want to use this mode of delivery and the huge amount of new skills and expertise and online materials that staff have developed since the start of the pandemic.
Since March 2020 teaching staff in Humanities have developed new skills and ways of working. While many of us are very happy to be able to be back on campus and teaching face-to-face, it is important that we learn from our experience and keep some of the good practice and different ways of working that we have developed during the pandemic.
The University of Manchester is embarking on a process that aims to build on the experience during the pandemic of more flexible online and blended learning through an initiative called the Flexible Learning Programme. As part of this process those involved are currently consulting with staff and students about what the Flexible Learning Programme will involve. You can get involved in this process by signing up on the Flexible Learning Programme webpages. There are also workshops for the Digital Learning Environment review coming up in January and February you can get involved in.
The general idea of this approach is to enhance the student experience through supporting flexible ways of teaching and learning. This experience is likely to build on what we already do when we combine active, on-campus learning with a high-quality digital learning environment and materials to support interaction between staff and students and between students in a learning community. Many of our students already learn in this way but the idea is to make this kind of learning more widespread across the Faculties and provide the resources needed to support this kind of learning effectively.
As part of this process, work will continue in creating a more flexible approach to learning at the University of Manchester with opportunities to create more online and blended award bearing courses and programmes and short online (award bearing and non-award bearing) for continuing professional development and similar. If you have an idea for an online or blended course or programme do get in touch (Rebecca.Bennett@manchester.ac.uk) for a chat about how we can help you to develop this idea.
Alongside this University approach, the Faculty of Humanities continues to support new initiatives in this area, to share good practice, provide training and to support staff to deliver excellence in teaching and learning. As part of this process we have developed a website 'What Works in Teaching' (based around the Faculty Teaching and Learning Principles), a Library of Good Practice (where you can find lots of examples of good practice in teaching), a workshop series and more recently a Podcast series.
We are always looking for examples of good practice to feature on these sites so if you have something you think went well or you know of something that a colleague has done that they would be willing to share with us do get in touch (Rebecca.Bennett@manchester.ac.uk) so we can keep adding to these case studies.
Do share your thoughts on thinking about our way forward either in this session or using this Padlet discussion board which asks:
Tell us what you would like to keep, and what you would like to change about teaching and learning
More online teaching, really?
They may well be many of you who have survived the move online and are now dual teaching wondering why you should engage in initiatives to increase the online and digital nature of some of our teaching. There are a number of reasons why you might be interested in doing this:
- As you have seen from our surveys while students like being on campus they also find the flexibility of recorded lectures and other asynchronous material helpful.
- A more flexible mixed approach may help teaching be more inclusive in situations where students are unable to attend on campus teaching sessions.
- You may find that creating online materials frees up your on-campus time for more discussion-based, activity driven sessions which may be a more effective use of time.
- You may want to develop online or blended courses or programmes in order to enrich existing teaching or reach new students.
- As expanding online, flexible and digital learning is something that is high in the University priorities, work that you do in this area will provide good evidence for promotion (see promotion criteria).
A last thought on what works in teaching
When we set out to try and support staff with moving their teaching online in March 2020 one of the things we emphasised the most was that the thing that makes the difference when it comes to a good teaching and learning experience is you - the teacher. Whenever we talk about online and blended learning there is a concern among staff that this means that we don't need them as teachers anymore. But the truth could not be further from this. Good teaching, whether online or on campus needs you as teachers to engage with students, bring materials and subjects to life and build their confidence. Students need to be able to interact with staff and their peers and to be guided, supported and challenged to enable learning and keep them motivated.
The huge significance of the role of the teacher in the success (or otherwise) of any teaching and learning experience including online and blended learning was confirmed when I read through the over 300 student nominations for teacher of the year for the year 2020/2-21 in our Faculty of Humanities.
Reading these many nominations, it is clear that students appreciated clear, well-organised online materials and sessions. They occasionally commented on the tools used such Padlet, Piazza, Adobe Spark, VoiceThread, etc. But what is overwhelming from these nominations is the importance of their teachers as human beings and their interactions with students. Students appreciated the huge effort that teachers have gone to be supportive, approachable, dedicated, generous with their time, understanding of special circumstances, concerned with students' wellbeing, responsive to student feedback, fostering students' confidence with a sense of community and humour.
If you were the person who organised work-together Zoom sessions, or did a mental health check in before lectures, or made sure sessions were inclusive and accessible, or you built the confidence of students to help them to take part in discussions, or gave clear instructions and set clear expectations, or listened to student feedback and acted on it, or if you were the person who had a fancy dress day, or a movie day, a bake off day, or the person who wore the 'legendary' Christmas jumper on the last session before Christmas, rest assured your students valued your efforts and appreciated the huge amount of work that goes into teaching.
Any questions/comments?
If you have any questions or comments after this session do get in touch with me directly (Rebecca.Bennett@manchester.ac.uk)
Acknowledgement: Massive thanks and appreciation to Anna Verges, Stuart Phillipson and all the Humanities elearning team who did all the hard work on all of the things described above.