To think Higher Education must move courses online that could be done as distance learning?

[PersonaNonGarter]

The world is changing and the old style teaching requiring everyone to be in a lecture theatre or tutorial is over.

Social Distancing, Impact on the Planet, Widening Education - whichever way you look at it Universities should not be expecting their students to commute in.

So why aren’t they doing this? And why are people just accepting it?

Sorry, loading up your lectures onto the internet is not teaching. Otherwise why bother with school or university at all and just use a textbook - a far cheaper option.

As a user of online material the biggest problem for me was maintaining concentration and not having a sneaky view on mumsnet when things got boring.

As a teacher online the biggest problem was knowing when students switched off either through lack of understanding or boredom because you don't have the instant feedback from facial expressions and body language you have in a classroom. Getting the students to actively participate rather than just being there was also much harder than in a classroom.

One of the reasons the open university moved to online tutorials was that participation was low at face-to-face sessions & they could not justify the cost for the few that did attend but I would have said that it was even lower for the online sessions (for my course anyway).

Your inability to understand the meaning of critical thinking is disturbing OP.

Well, I haven’t addressed critical thinking here because I don’t think that it is dependent on in-person HE or in fact on HE at all, so I guess you don’t need to be so disturbed.

You are welcome to define it for discussion, if you want.

Fine for arts and humanities subjects but anything with a practical element still needs face to face teaching.

Arts and Humanities subjects need face to face teaching. Those subjects require discussion and debate. That's hard to replicate online.
I teach a course that is a mix of practical work and theory. The theory modules are the ones that require the most face to face interaction.....I need to hear the students discuss the theories, break them down and critically analyse them. This works best in small groups and doesn't work online. I've taught it both ways and the face to face cohort get better marks every time.

So, we have students, lecturers and academics and parents of students posting on here to tell you that you are wrong, but you still won't believe anyone

It's not the same and doesn't allow for interactions between students for group work, seminars etc short changing the arts & humanities students even more. Not everyone copes with distance learning - needs must at the moment but university is far more than courses

Are we talking about in general? Basically all lectures that can be done online would be done as distance learning? My bf is doing his whole degree online and he is typing away next to me. I chose to go face to face lectures. So why not have both like now and students can choose?

BECAUSE STUDENTS DONT WANT IT! PLEASE COMMENT ON THIS IVE SHOUTED IT TIME AND TIME AGAIN AND YOUVE IGNORED IT. THERES NO POINT SPENDING ££££££ (AND TO DO IT PROPERLY IS VERY EXPENSIVE) WHEN STUDENTS DONT WANT THIS!!!!!!!

BECAUSE STUDENTS DONT WANT IT! PLEASE COMMENT ON THIS IVE SHOUTED IT TIME AND TIME AGAIN AND YOUVE IGNORED IT. THERES NO POINT SPENDING ££££££ (AND TO DO IT PROPERLY IS VERY EXPENSIVE) WHEN STUDENTS DONT WANT THIS!!!!!!!

Just in case you missed this

Posters that disagree with me obviously have sincerely held views based on experience, knowledge and feeling. That’s why I engaged with those views in my posts and have read all of the answers. I don’t dismiss them or I wouldn’t keep replying

You've been very picky about what you've engaged with OP.
You've ignored the fundamental point that students don't want it. That's not based on a 'feeling' or my reluctance to develop online courses. It's based on experience, knowledge and research.

My son was going to go to Uni in September to do a maths degree. Most of the reasoning was the Uni experience. Now he's applying for accountancy apprenticeships locally instead. He won't be the only one. He's not remotely interested in online/self teaching at a cost of £9.5k per term when he can do the same via an apprenticeship scheme with the employer paying his study materials/costs, and earning a wage at the same time. I think Uni numbers will fall through the floor and that the Uni "bubble" is about to burst.

I find these threads so depressing atm (working, studying from home etc.) Is the future basically everyone just sitting alone in a room experiencing life through a screen? And no I'm not a technophobe; I work for a tech company and often WFH, I think there are loads of online resources which are really helpful for teaching and learning. But f2f should never be taken away imo. I absolutely loved uni, every bit of it and part of that was getting away from my small town and meeting new people plus the interaction of learning and the library etc. No way could online have replaced that.

If your OP is about access, maybe its time to look at student funding which is a different issue. Though student numbers have not fallen since fees went up from what I can see so clearly ppl still want to go to uni enough to take on that debt.

The issue of widening access is so complex and multi faceted and it will not be solved by putting course online. In fact, it's likely to have the reverse effect.

When I did my degree (bricks and mortar) the drop-out (either voluntarily or by failing exams) was very small - less than 10%.

When I taught for the Open University (distance learning) the drop-out was high. It was a good year if seventy five percent of students who enrolled finished and passed the module (might have been better in non-science subjects but not much). Bearing in mind the students had to do six modules to get a degree you can see how this means that an even lower percentage of students actually managed to complete the degree they started.

The Open University put in a lot of work on how to increase student retention but basically it comes down to the fact that it is very, very difficult to keep up motivation when you are studying remotely.

The Open University put in a lot of work on how to increase student retention but basically it comes down to the fact that it is very, very difficult to keep up motivation when you are studying remotely.

MOOCS (those online, accessible-to-all courses that were supposed to put bricks and mortar universities out of business) have a dropout rate of somewhere between 87 and 96%.

As for the widening access issue, the students who come to us through that are students who need particularly high levels of support and benefit most from face-to-face interaction with staff.

A high drop out rate at the OU will also be related to no entry requirements and people necessarily studying part time whilst balancing work/families though. It is an apples and pears comparison.

YANBU but they need to lower tuition fees

Back in the day when DH did quite a lot of OU courses, he did the whole MBA but that was never remotely the intent with various other modules (he has a BSc and PhD already, he's got more initials than a card can accommodate.) He did specific modules for specific 'professional development' type of objectives, learning specific content, paid for by his company. I may have got this wrong but I think the OU changed its policy/charging structure from this really useful continuing adult education role to wanting people to do full degrees. If so that was perhaps a massive mistake.

If you don’t think teaching critical thinking skills is a matter for HE what do you think is the purpose of entire disciplines like philosophy?

even attending tutorials face to face and being a class which is all people who already have a degree, the level of "debate" in any tutorial is generally minimal. maybe at oxford/cambridge but i've not yet encountered it on my course.

So whatever i am getting out of my degree, Academic discussion is not one of those things!

I don’t dismiss them or I wouldn’t keep replying

Yet you're happy to continually dismiss what students actually want.

Are you in fact Mrs Michael Gove trying to help your dh get the Eduction brief?

Did anyone notice OP is still ignoring the issue of student choice - it's becoming quite amusing!

OP do let us know where and what you're planning on studying next year.

If you don’t think teaching critical thinking skills is a matter for HE what do you think is the purpose of entire disciplines like philosophy?

You may be asking this of someone who hasn't yet had the opportunity to develop their critical thinking skills.
Maybe it can be achieved by the online teaching tool of MN?though I don't think there's much evidence of that