Manchester University - permanent move to ‘blended learning’??

[BramStoker]

The article below implies that lectures will no longer be face to face unless there is an interactive element

www.theguardian.com/education/2021/jul/05/manchester-university-sparks-backlash-with-plan-to-keep-lectures-online

Very worrying for current students at Manchester and those hoping to go there in September (my DD)

There is no official statement on the University website or social media

@Birthdaysybother

In my dept (not Manchester), we've been making recordings especially for online delivery. However, we've had no support from the university to do this. I had to buy myself a new laptop, headset and webcam last year for online teaching and lecture recording, none of which my employer would fund. I even asked if I could use my personal research allowance that I hadn't spent to partially cover these costs and they said, no, they would be recalling that as I obviously couldn't use it due to Covid. That is what we are up against.

she is feeling massively disheartened by Manchester'a statement. It's not the case that she expects to be spoonfed but the prospect of all her lectures being delivered via a laptop makes her heart sink.

But what all the arts & hums lecturers have been saying in this thread is that online lectures will be only a part of her degree. She is likely to have small group teaching and in her third year, individual dissertation supervision, throughout her degree, and the small group teaching is likely to be at least equal, and probably more than (in terms of time) the lectures.

She shouldn't be totally disheartened!

@Birthdaysybother

I think on line lectures definately have a place in university. My issue is the quality of them. It’s great for Manchester Uni to declare online lectures but what are they using . Lectures prepared for an online audience or what my DD has watched all year which is pre recorded live lectures with the low level disruptive audience noise. Also her recoreded lectures had been interactive so there was break out groups half way through which obviously watching by herself in her room she couldn’t participate in so had to just sit there. I watched one myself probably great if you were there yourself in the lecture theatre but like watching a movie someone had recorded in a cinema on their phone nowhere near the experience at home. She has also been given just the slides from a lecture (nothing else!) so not even an attempt at a lecture for one lecture By all means update lecture performance but make sure the quality is there otherwise all the advantages for dyslexics etc can’t be accessed (My DD is dyslexic) I know a lecturer upthread mentioned regulation regarding making course material online will Manchester Uni be using these if their plan is for online lecturers long term to ensure quality

All my online lectures were delivered 'live' and the vast majority will be live next year either on campus or via Teams ( my course will have a mixture). I will do some recordings this year but they will be minimal and will be covering more generic information that is suited to be reused across all my courses. In order to run a blended learning course I had to prove that I have completed a module on developing/delivering online teaching.

@Thedevils is that the case for all lecturers is it standard they do a module on developing/delivering online teaching?
Last year was obviously firefighting and govt regulations so use what you can but I do think that If unis are actively making decisions to teach online contrary to govt guidelines which allows face to face then quality of online material needs to be maintained and 2 year old recorded lectures won’t cut it. They need to be either live lectures online or pre recorded material designed for online audiences

All my online lectures were delivered 'live'

Yes, most of mine were live, with time built in at various points for students to ask questions. They could also write questions into the Teams chatbox if they preferred not to ask 'out loud' - a boon for the less-confident student. Plus, one thing I really noticed was that students helped each other out as well, posting links etc in the chat, which was brilliant. They can't do that in a f2f lecture in a lecture theatre. All of this, including the chat, is then available afterwards for them to review in their own time.

I get that it's not the same as being in a lecture theatre, but I do get disheartened by the automatic assumption that it's worse. We'd all like to get back to more f2f teaching believe it or not but a well-structured and prepped online lecture is definitely not second-best. It's just different.

@MaudBaileysGreenTurban. I absolutely agree but unfortunatley resources /time/Technology etc prevented it this year which is understandable as no one could have predicted a pandemic
But if a university is pushing an online resource as Manchester is as an alternative to F2F I would want some reassurance that the standard is there and this resource was designed specifically for an online audience and is of equal quality otherwise why switch
This is what I would be asking if my DC was heading or at Manchester

[quote Birthdaysybother]@Thedevils is that the case for all lecturers is it standard they do a module on developing/delivering online teaching?
Last year was obviously firefighting and govt regulations so use what you can but I do think that If unis are actively making decisions to teach online contrary to govt guidelines which allows face to face then quality of online material needs to be maintained and 2 year old recorded lectures won’t cut it. They need to be either live lectures online or pre recorded material designed for online audiences[/quote]
At my university it is - if you want to deliver any online content from September you have to have completed the specific module.

I can only speak for my institution though.

I get that it's not the same as being in a lecture theatre, but I do get disheartened by the automatic assumption that it's worse. We'd all like to get back to more f2f teaching believe it or not but a well-structured and prepped online lecture is definitely not second-best. It's just different.

Absolutely. It was certainly better than the socially distanced teaching with masks we attempted in October/November.

I don't think my university is requiring us to take a course in online delivery but there is certainly an enormous amount of support being offered to help us do it well. Expectations are quite high at least in our faculty, we would never be able to do some of the things I've read about on here.

We are also setting up a kind of peer review before next term so we will have a look at each other's modules and can suggest improvements.

They need to be either live lectures online or pre recorded material designed for online audiences

At the risk of continuing to sound pissed off and defensive, I can assure you this is how all of the academics on this thread feel as well.

I don't doubt there is the odd chancer, somewhere, who thinks they'll get away with just posting up the odd Powerpoint from 2 years ago, but they wouldn't last long in my place. Our jobs and reputations tend to be quite dependent on good feedback from our students about our teaching.

In all honesty I think that in 5 years time we will wonder what all the fuss was about, and why we ever thought that plonking a lecturer in front of 100+ students in a lecture theatre to talk to some slides for 2 hours was a good use of anyone's time.

@ShortBacknSides

Most humanities courses are heavily lecture based , say 21 lectures and 7 tutorials . In effect a monthly tutorial may be your only contact for that course

What's your evidence for this @GlencoraP? Certainly not the case anywhere I've taught (mostly research-led UK, US, and Australian universities). Always more seminar/tutorials than lectures.

We have this in law.

Was 2 hours of lectures and 1 hour of tutorials per subject per week but in final year it went to mostly 2 hours lectures per week then 1 hour of tutorials every other week.

I’m intrigued now , have just done a straw poll of dc and friends ( couple here ) all either at or recently graduated from selective U.K. universities and all said the 2:1 or 3:1 lectures to tutorial/ seminars was the norm except for maybe an optional paper in second year and special papers in third year. I myself have recently completed an MA and have access to the undergraduate course catalogue and it’s the same there for first years in particular , it’s true there are a few seminar courses for third years .

Let’s hope all of this means that courses will move more to the model you describe @ShortBacknSides as it certainly sounds more suited to the ‘new normal’ .

Dd has 3 or 4 lectures to every seminar or tutorial.

Glasgow University is doing blended learning until at least January

Gosh , just been reading the University of Manchester’s own Twitter feed and it gets worse . Apparently for next year and beyond ( not clear for how long and I accept that the pandemic affects this ) there will be a mixture of ‘online lectures , online seminars and classes, and recorded video material’ so very little, if any ‘physical’ contact.

This is their definition of ‘blended’ and herein lies the problem because most students and their parents will see that as ‘online’ not blended because it’s physical face to face they want , not face to face in a computer screen

@GlencoraP

Gosh , just been reading the University of Manchester’s own Twitter feed and it gets worse . Apparently for next year and beyond ( not clear for how long and I accept that the pandemic affects this ) there will be a mixture of ‘online lectures , online seminars and classes, and recorded video material’ so very little, if any ‘physical’ contact.

This is their definition of ‘blended’ and herein lies the problem because most students and their parents will see that as ‘online’ not blended because it’s physical face to face they want , not face to face in a computer screen

Why would anyone want to go there?

@GlencoraP

Gosh , just been reading the University of Manchester’s own Twitter feed and it gets worse . Apparently for next year and beyond ( not clear for how long and I accept that the pandemic affects this ) there will be a mixture of ‘online lectures , online seminars and classes, and recorded video material’ so very little, if any ‘physical’ contact.

This is their definition of ‘blended’ and herein lies the problem because most students and their parents will see that as ‘online’ not blended because it’s physical face to face they want , not face to face in a computer screen

Have you got a link to that? I can't find that specific quote indicating only online activity.

Generally speaking, when you return to campus for the next academic year, your studies will be a mixture of in-person on-campus activities, live online lectures and classes, and new recorded video content and other materials from your lecturers

To me that sounds as though all academics are online.

"in person activities" sounds like clubs and socials

It's the first tweet on their feed?

I suppose ‘in person activities’ could include seminars /tutorials but as they go on to talk about online classes I am not sure you could be certain.

Whatever they mean it’s been a communications disaster for them

They have left it deliberately ambiguous

‘Generally speaking, when you return to campus for the next academic year, your studies will be a mixture of in-person on-campus activities, live online lectures and classes, and new recorded video content and other materials from your lecturers. Some of your activity will be “synchronous”, where you learn live with your lecturer / peers and can interact as appropriate – helping you get support and feel part of a community. At other times it will be “asynchronous”, where you access materials like presentations, video content, online discussion boards or collaborative documents in your own time (within a framework provided by your programme).’

At least they are being clear and upfront about it and frankly if we are going to be at 100,000 cases a day there’s not likely to be people available to teach anyway .

Sounds awful. Am very glad dd3 has deferred until 2022 - if things aren't even worse by then!

"in person activities" relates to "your studies", rather than clubs, so would suggest that this means there will be in-person teaching. I agree it is vague, however.