Embedded Files
University of York Library, October 2020
The Spring term session took place on December 2nd, with a group of around 80 staff and students from across the University taking part.
The session was divided up into three 30 minute panels of staff and students loosely organised by themes of student engagement, teaching practice and planning for teaching under COVID.
You can view the programme details below and follow the links on the page or in the menu to the left for recordings and resources related to each panel.
At the bottom of this page, you can also click to view the comments of participants who provided a response to the questions:
What have we learned from our experiences of teaching and learning during the Coronavirus Pandemic online and on-campus?
What positives can we take forward and share from these experiences in the immediate future and in the post-COVID University?
The programme
The programme
Steve King, Jill Webb, Tom Cantrell (Faculties of Sciences, Social Sciences and Arts and Humanities): Reflections of Associate Deans in dealing with Covid19: working with departments in our Faculties, and at institutional level.
Sally Quinn (Psychology): Structure, communication and transition; a whole cohort approach for years 1 and 2 in the pivot to online learning.
Richard Waites (Biology): Working with students to develop COVID teaching plans - The student engagement experience in Biology.
Heather Buchanan (Education): TESOL Cafe - MA cohort community building.
Daniel Hobbi (Education): Student experiences of online engagement and inclusion: Let’s flip the conversation.
Sue Russell (Learning Enhancement), Jessica Hargreaves (Maths), Lucy Crawshaw and Max Howell (PAL leaders): Experiences of Peer-Assisted Learning in Maths.
Thomas Ron (Politics): Experiences of teaching synchronous seminars
Aishwarya Vidyasagaran (Health Sciences): The Infection and Disease module 20-21: Teaching Practices in the Coronavirus Pandemic
Sue Porter (Management): Taking a face-to-face module online
Lexie Fields (Year 1 UG Biology): Experiences using the VLE as a first year student during the COVID-19 pandemic
Nicola Sinclair with Gabriel Vyvyan, a third year student (History of Art): Student and teacher experiences of using google doc and padlet asynchronous activities in place of, and in preparation for live discussion seminars in the History of Art for final year students.
Penny Spikins (Archaeology): Developing opportunities/strategies for accessibility and inclusion
David Gent (ASO): The importance of Community for Engagement in Learning
Phil Martin (IPC): Using Xerte to enhance asynchronous learning
A view from the session Participants
A view from the session Participants
Attendees were asked to give their views on the two key questions for discussion as part of the sign up form. Some key themes were as follows:
Lessons learned
Lessons learned
Reflections on the similarities and differences between on-campus and online T&L and the blend between them
We can be creative, agile and responsive – Rapid upskilling in online approaches
The importance of community and clear communication: Contact; communication; engagement
Well-being and mental health are essential considerations
Tactics for engagement online – structure; clarity; organisation.
That it takes a long time to do this well and this needs to be acknowledged and resourced
Positives to take forward
Positives to take forward
Online approaches, flexibility, breaking out of geographical limitations, blended/flipped approaches
We know how to do this now!
Online alternatives to lectures leaving more space for engagement and communication
The importance of feelings, support and the emotions involved in learning – more structured approaches to student involvement and feedback.
Better accessibility and inclusive approaches
You can view the responses in full by clicking on the headings below.
What is the most important thing you have learned from your experiences of teaching and learning in the Autumn term 2020 online and on-campus?
What is the most important thing you have learned from your experiences of teaching and learning in the Autumn term 2020 online and on-campus?
Teaching online and on-campus are extremely different and one can't be mapped onto the other!
The value teaching staff get from face-to-face contact with their students
That the majority of things that need to be done are the same and that all good and bad is amplified.
Student mental wellbeing is paramount. Sometimes they need to talk about their insecurities and feelings of unsafety and uncertainty rather than power on with the learning content.
The importance of students feeling engaged in learning and part of a learning community
It's challenging to engage ALL students online.
That although many of the things we used to do in person can be transferred online it is hard to replace 'the human touch', the informal chats, sense of community online
On-campus: masks are a serious problem for teaching, which no one ever seemed to really acknowledge. Apart from the fact that you can't teach in a mask without your glasses fogging up, you can't see the students' faces and I, for one, for the most part, couldn't hear them (this is also partly due to social distancing). Online: you must convince the majority of students to turn their videos on. The dynamic is still a bit weird, even when you can see them, but teaching to black boxes is unbearable.
Making students feel comfortable in the first few minutes of an online lesson by talking and asking them all to say hi in the chat and using polling features during the lesson, improves engagement.
That effectively careers learning can easily take place online and the students like this way of working. However this method is not as fulfilling for me.
A bit about technology and a lot about how to package/ to present and to re-organise content for online learning.
Need to approach teaching and assessment from a pedagogic redesign perspective, rather than simply imitating online how we have taught and assessed in campus. Rethinking the lecture - breaking down teaching into small chunks of video as a stimulus for reflection and discussion - is one such redesign approach that appears to have worked well. Developing a sense of community amongst staff and students online is equally important though.
I've learned that teaching remotely means less is more - trying to cover the same amount of material as in face to face sessions does not work and often overwhelms the student. Also students are taking 2-3 times longer to watch and take notes on lecture casts.
Covid has put a magnifying glass on the willingness of staff and students' resilience and willingness to adapt.
Gauging student understanding is hard! Not being able to see them in lectures means that I have fewer opportunities to meet students and see how they're responding to the material.
Developing quality online teaching resources is hard, and takes a lot of time.
We can.
That we can be agile, fast, responsive in our approaches when we need to to deliver high-quality teaching in difficult circumstances.
We still need a better mechanism for sharing examples of best practice.
To think outside the box in terms of engaging students in new ways.
Good quality pre-recorded material is more effective than live lectures, but nothing can replace lab work.
I've learned how to manage my time effectively and efficiently with great usage of both online lectures and sessions. Furthermore, I very much appreciate and commend how well the University of York implemented both in person and online teaching: although most students of my course that I've asked agree that they'd prefer in-person teaching whenever possible for more effective learning, we agreed that this system was a great substitute considering our current predicament.
How to encourage students' independent study and communicate with them during and between lessons
Flipped classrooms worked well. Students really appreciated face to face teaching and loved working in teams
That engagement is harder than ever and that not everybody can keep on top of the work.
Adaptability and the value of communication with colleagues and students
There are times when asynchronous pre-recorded teaching may be the best thing for both staff and students
Making lecture recordings is difficult, and most of us do not have the appropriate training and experience to do this effectively and efficiently.
Teaching online takes time - not just in terms of preparation, but also delivery - it is slower than face to face because communication is slower, and the technology takes time.
It takes a lot more time than normal preparation for teaching, and this is not properly recognised by leadership
One of the best things I have done is to ask students to discuss questions & leave them to talk among themselves for a bit. Then come back. Repeat...at first I was trying to teach & talk the whole time. But students need this peer to peer contact that they would normally have...whether they unmic to chat or use the text chat function.
It's a completely different experience having almost everything online and that you need to completely adapt your way of learning to make the most of your time.
Team work and collaboration with students and staff.
A community of trust is everything, from both the learning and the teaching sides, when everyone is more isolated than they would normally be, and communications are less clear.
I am passionate about the possibilities of distance/ digital education. I believe it offers multiple pedagogical benefits for our students, including a more personal and flexible education. I have taught online only in the Autumn term 2020. My experiences and student feedback support my belief that high-quality, research-based online education is pedagogically advantageous.
Transparent communication (with staff and students)
Taking better advantage of flipped learning solves a lot of classroom problems.
Screencasting can be an appreciated tool, but it is hard to do them well and takes an enormous investment of staff time. I think I have a good idea of how to screencast well.
Student engagement in and attendance at large online Zoom workshops is much worse than if the class was physically timetabled, and I am still unsure of the best format for these.
Organisation and signposting of materials are key.
Students value personal contact and discussion of their own learning
I already teach fully online with distance learning students, and this term has reinforced for me the importance of proactive communication at a cohort and individual level, including setting expectations in a clear and open way.
Keep it simple
Providing clarity and structure for the students is important and helps them better organise their learning.
how well we adapt and how we have the student at the focus of what we do
Recording lectures takes longer than you think! Give yourself plenty of time to do it!
Attendance is still poor even in a lockdown with minimal distractions!
Online teaching pushed me to move away from traditional classroom lecturing and to design the teaching in a way that is more engaging for student learning
that we are all human and need to think of each other as individuals rather than making assumptions. Everyone has put in a superhuman effort to get us through this term.
What positives (if any) do you think we can take forward from this in the post-COVID University?
What positives (if any) do you think we can take forward from this in the post-COVID University?
It's made me more creative with my teaching!
Not everything has to be bound by the confines of physical geography.
All the benefits of teaching online (no commute and time spent in a crowded office). If in small groups, the synchronous sessions are also quite effective, though all the benefits are lost in synchronous live sessions with more than 15/20 students. Incredibly ineffective.
Blended learning approaches and the role of technology in teaching and learning
Uses of technology to engage students in learning.
Our students apparently really liked the recorded lectures, so maybe we can make that the norm and spend more time teaching students in smaller groups without the big lectures. This will only work, however, if we can re-use lectures every year to free up the time for more small group teaching. Otherwise it just adds to already too heavy staff burdens.
It will be easier now to offer online options in situations where they work, such as 1 to 1 meetings, and are actually more convenient for some students. We've got the skills to do this now.
That a blended approach to delivery going forward can only bring positives to my area of work, student engagement has been good and it has become a little easier to arrange aspects of my work that in the past were reliant on a physical visit to campus. They can now be completed online (e.g alumni talks)
There has been a massive increase in the skill set of academics, putting them in a stronger position to implement more blended forms of learning. At the same time, the long-running issues around student engagement have been thrown into sharper focus.
Opportunities for flexible engagement have benefited a wide range of learners.
The shortening of lectures into more bite sized lecture cast chunks - this has improved the narrative of the material being delivered to students.
Ensure we capture all the innovative ways people have addressed challenges to help move the nay-sayers along.
There are some nice aspects of blended learning which I would be keen to consider keeping post-COVID.
Lots of high quality online teaching resources have been developed - these need to be taken forward into a blended offering for students (which will benefit staff and students).
Flexible working and digital engagement.
Continue with agility but consider blended education as the new standard, and thus take forward an approach towards transformation of education where appropriate.
Many colleagues have reported advantages to teaching online seminars, particularly for group work.
A refinement of our online teaching spaces on the VLE - it was long overdue!
Teaching online works well!
Use the pre-recorded material, and with the time freed up, expand workshop and lab provision.
I love the current system of online lectures: I have no knowledge of whether previous years had a similar system for recorded lectures. Furthermore, I love the feature in Algebra in which the lecturer has a file of worked examples for each chapter: allowing students to gain further knowledge of how to structure answers for those styles of questions (and it helps those who struggle to answer such questions).
Better organisation of course materials and use of technology in teaching
New ways of teaching, more creative ways of engaging the students
I don't know honestly.
Considering how to support inequality amongst students, recognise support that is important for staff even in non-Covid times and approaching work and people with compassion
Working from home can be less stressful for staff and students.
Having a healthy work life balance, taking time for yourself and the importance of asking people 'how are you'.
Delivery of lecture material via recording may be good. Face-to-face teaching can then focus on more interactive learning via workshops etc.
Flexible delivery
Improved use of collaborative technology
That students and staff can work together in maximising the potential to learn new ways of leanring through this period.
Better accessibility practices - making transcripts, using CC, using subtitles. Breaking down the learning for each week into clear step-by-step chunks.
That it is possible to run things online and that although things can be improved upon it has been a good term - particularly with the additional things that the department added midterm.
Flexibility. Some activities are appropriate to do online. We now have the skills!
I think there are lots of positives! We know now that content can be packaged well and delivered effectively online and asynchronously, and there are lots of examples of good practice in this area that can be used to improve even further. That means we can shift our contact time to be more active, and to support learning in different ways than we have done before, and to be accessible to students (and staff) who aren't able to be present in person at times. We have had to think more explicitly about what students are learning, rather than what we are teaching - i.e. design for the whole module rather than the contact time. (I know many of us did this anyway, but even the ones who did it well have no doubt learned something about how long it takes students to do tasks and activities, and what works best for skills and consolidation.) We've had to move away from closed exams to open/online assessments that test the learning outcomes without relying on memory at all, which reflect real world experiences and life after graduation more faithfully. We can better see the value of peer groups and staff-student relationships for working together, to create good learning environments that aren't just 'people in a room talking to each other,' so that no one gets left behind or forgotten. We can see how all important professional skills are to students becoming independent learners, in terms of time management, people management, communication, and we can build these into our programmes more effectively in the future. I hope that we can hold onto all of these when we go back to 'normal life.'
I hope the post-COVID University will pursue the growth of online education. It does require a different approach and skill set (I was trained to teach by the Open University, so the emphasis was on distance learning), but it has many advantages. For example, it offers inclusive education and enables students to interact with learners around the world. (I set up https://www.szwg.co.uk/ which has over 200 academic and postgraduate members worldwide and is continuing to grow rapidly). Online learning offers an opportunity to reach huge numbers of learners globally who - for a large variety of reasons - would otherwise be excluded from higher education.
Lots! Moving to blended learning allowed us to roll out more consistent and better organised teaching materials across all modules in all years. Students have been really appreciative of this and it is a template we will continue to use. It also made us more aware of the balance of workload across weeks during the term.
We are now really questioning the value of in-person didactic lectures (and I LOVE lecturing!) and we will no doubt move to a more flipped model post-Covid where we use valuable in-person staff-student interactions to consolidate understanding rather than deliver material.
We thought it would be a good idea to poll staff and students weekly to see what's working and what isn't. This regular feedback has given us an up-to-date view of the big picture and allowed us to be agile in adapting when things aren't working. We will certainly keep this good practise moving forward.
The developments in online teaching and course writing have the potential to allow us to reach more students.
I hope that there will be a greater use of blended and flipped learning where they are appropriate and pedagogically beneficial for students.
Greater knowledge of how to use the VLE to enhance teaching and learning.
Blended learning could allow us to provide more time for close contact with students by allowing larger group lectures to happen online
That the transition to a new mode of study has provided an opportunity to rethink the underlying pedagogy.
How to use online teaching tools
I think that going forward that we can make better use of the online resources that have been created to give students a wider range of learning options and to enable different, more interactive, and more effective use of face-to-face teaching time.
Produced lots of resources (e.g. the video lecture content) that will be useful in future.
A lot of students really like learning at their own pace.
Some of the activities/techniques employed for engagement online might be worthwhile taking forward to the on-campus teaching in future, such as preloading with lecture material, use of discussion boards for critical thinking and student centred discussions in synchronous sessions (in-class time)
That some online learning and flipped content can add value to face to face time.
Image credit: University of York/Alex Holland
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