DD wants a RG Uni that does F2F teaching - which will?

[mugglewump]

My DD is in the process of choosing which universities to apply for and wants Russell Group. After hearing Manchester say that blended learning will continue indefinitely, she has decided that F2F learning is (unsurprisingly) important to her. She is interested in Leeds, Sheffield, Newcastle, Nottingham, Bristol, Kings, Cardiff and Southampton and would like to know which of these have declared an intention to return to face to face learning for 2022. If you have a DD or DS at any of these and know the uni's intention in terms of course delivery, can you share it please? She wants to study geography. TIA.

Yes it could mean a big saving for some students and let them consider unis they wouldn’t before.

This was happening anyway. More and more students are staying local.

My old uni has been in a building frenzy. They might want to encourage students to be there!
Again, this has been happening for a while. The increase in fees put pressure on universities to update their facilities. I've visited dozens and dozens of universities over the last few years and pretty much everyone was a building site!

Yes but this move to more online doesn’t quite match does it? We will see how it plays out. Like the OPs student they will vote with their feet.

@Newgirls

Yes but this move to more online doesn’t quite match does it? We will see how it plays out. Like the OPs student they will vote with their feet.

Doesn't match what?

The trouble with all of this is it’s all very well listening to feedback from the service user and acting on it (which HEAS 10000% DO from the USS!). But it’s a bit like patients choosing how they want their surgery to go or what dressing they want isn’t it? What students are paying for and deserve is high quality education. No where in pedagogy does it state people learn better when they choose whether it’s face to face or delivered online etc. There needs to be a balance. Students the last 2 years have had a poor experience (largely not the HEAs fault they have been following guidance). Covid has just expedited blended learning which was bound to happen. It’s far more important to get a good quality education from a well regarded university than going somewhere with hours of face to face teaching just to prove a point.

I think unis are over estimating how students choose based on course ratings/lecturers. Students tend to choose on city vibe, what the course does in the first year, if people get jobs and the general vague reputation of a uni. Location and the social experience is still very much key!

Doesn’t match - wanting income from new build accom but not needing students to be on campus. If students only need to be somewhere for 2-3 days many more will commute. Resulting in loss of income for unis who provide accom.

I doubt applying students could make any lecturers on a course before starting?

Name (not make)

@Newgirls

I think unis are over estimating how students choose based on course ratings/lecturers. Students tend to choose on city vibe, what the course does in the first year, if people get jobs and the general vague reputation of a uni. Location and the social experience is still very much key!

This is my main area of research. I'm not underestimating anything!! I'm an expert on student career decision making behaviour in relation to university choice.

@Newgirls

Doesn’t match - wanting income from new build accom but not needing students to be on campus. If students only need to be somewhere for 2-3 days many more will commute. Resulting in loss of income for unis who provide accom.

But for many courses/universities that's how they ran pre-pandemic. Switching a couple of hours of on campus content to online will not make a significant difference.

Don't you think this is all factored in to the planning? We're not stupid.

Skinny you said your own uni doesn’t have accom. So why is this relevant to you?

@Newgirls

Skinny you said your own uni doesn’t have accom. So why is this relevant to you?

Because this isn't a thread about university accommodation.

And given its turned into a thread about how students choose a university and the student experience I think it's very relevant to me as that is my specific area of expertise.

With the exception of a few Oxbridge colleges, no university owns enough property to offer accommodation to anywhere near all its students for the whole time they are there. Demand massively outstrips supply.

If more people stay at home (which is unlikely to be triggered by having a few less hours of on campus teaching) it will be the private student rental sector that is more likely to lose out.

My twins left Bristol University in 2020. One did the same course as his older sister from 13 years before. There were 100% more students in his year than 13 year before because the state changed the rules that used to say numbers were capped to a new rule that for people with AAB grades there was no state cap on numbers (so then the de facto cap became things like spaces in halls of residence for year 1 students, space in the lecture theatres etc)

Anyway we are now where we are. Why students choose universities will differ widely. My 5 children wanted ideally top 5 or 10 universities in terms of difficulty of entrance, grades required so like a lot of children from academic fee paying schools were choosing for places like Oxbridge, Durham, Bristol, Warwick, Exeter. One went to Nottingham, 3 to Bristol and one got in in clearing - to Reading ( had he got his grades he had a place at Exeter).

The 3 Bristol ones chose between Durham and Bristol (none tried Oxbridge even). Durham is families to us as I am from the NE and my father and uncle went there but as we live in London my 3 chose Bristol - convenient to London and quicker to get home and all 3 loved it by the way. Why? Mixture of things -like the people, made really good friends, activities available, academic reasons of course too. Anyway how a different family or people will choose will be different.

For us (and my parents) leaving home at 18 and living elsewhere, bonding with other students, getting some independence, seeing a different place, having that gap between school and working life was and is very important.

@Etulosba

Same here a DS attended a Russell group uni - most lectures were on line, he watched to suit himself (when he woke, his hangover had gone and he could be bothered) I can remember saying to him that he could have actually just lived at home and only commuted occasionally (but that would have stopped his social life!)

I’m surprised that the teaching on his course consisted solely of lectures.

I run a 15 credit module. Equivalent to 150 hours of student engagement. There are five one hour lectures and 45 hours of labs and tutorials etc. The lectures account for just over 3% of the total module hours.

Lectures aren’t the be-all and end-all of university teaching.

@Etulosba it didn't only consist of lectures - I said and only commute occasionally - which would have been for his lab time.

@Xenia

My twins left Bristol University in 2020. One did the same course as his older sister from 13 years before. There were 100% more students in his year than 13 year before because the state changed the rules that used to say numbers were capped to a new rule that for people with AAB grades there was no state cap on numbers (so then the de facto cap became things like spaces in halls of residence for year 1 students, space in the lecture theatres etc)

Anyway we are now where we are. Why students choose universities will differ widely. My 5 children wanted ideally top 5 or 10 universities in terms of difficulty of entrance, grades required so like a lot of children from academic fee paying schools were choosing for places like Oxbridge, Durham, Bristol, Warwick, Exeter. One went to Nottingham, 3 to Bristol and one got in in clearing - to Reading ( had he got his grades he had a place at Exeter).

The 3 Bristol ones chose between Durham and Bristol (none tried Oxbridge even). Durham is families to us as I am from the NE and my father and uncle went there but as we live in London my 3 chose Bristol - convenient to London and quicker to get home and all 3 loved it by the way. Why? Mixture of things -like the people, made really good friends, activities available, academic reasons of course too. Anyway how a different family or people will choose will be different.

For us (and my parents) leaving home at 18 and living elsewhere, bonding with other students, getting some independence, seeing a different place, having that gap between school and working life was and is very important.

The removal of the student number cap did see some universities expand and increase their numbers but it didn't quite work the way people thought it would. There was a concern that it would see some of the less elite universities fall by the wayside ( I think that was part of the governments plan!) but it didn't work that way.

Firstly, there is a limit as to how much a university can expand and some had more scope than others and some were quicker to build new facilities than others!

And secondly, I don't the the government took into consideration the fact that certain groups of people are unlikely to apply to elite universities even when they have the required grades. First generation students and those from lower socioeconomic backgrounds are more likely to choose a local, less elite university over an elite one.

I work at one of the RG unis mentioned. The vast majority of teaching will be face-to-face, however some modules will remain online as they work better that way. For example, I support one module with 350 students. The students come from 6 degree programmes. They have to complete a group project with a student from each discipline. It's much easier to get students into online breakout groups than to get them to move around in the only lecture theatre large enough to accommodate this cohort. Students loved this module last year and felt it worked well. All of their other lectures, seminars, tutorials and practicals will be delivered face to face. They will also be able to meet up with the six people in their group project. The lectures will be highly interactive with polls, quizzes and discussion questions.

@Cornishmumofone mentions another benefit of online tuition which I will miss when we return to F2F (lots of other non-benefits which I won't miss).

When you want - knowing the learners will benefit or it is a requirement of the module - people to work together in a pair or group, we have found it massively more productive and efficient to assign them to appropriate break-out rooms, introduce the task, ask for questions then open the rooms for the required time.

In F2F that would usually be the cue for massive disruption as students all moved round. Most trying to find the people they needed to work with, but struggling to do so, but somenot movi g at all, somejust taking the hance to chat to friends or nip to the loo or whatever. Others asking for a chat about something nothing to do with the current task etc. Really not productive.

With clearly defined tasks and expectations, students have 99% just got on withthe job and have benefited as a result. It is also much easier, if there is a problem, for them to call on me to visit their breakout room to give extra explanation or help sort out whatever the difficulty is.

Just an aside, really, but it just occurred to me as it was a benefit I would never have predicted pre-pandemic.

@Phphion

With the exception of a few Oxbridge colleges, no university owns enough property to offer accommodation to anywhere near all its students for the whole time they are there. Demand massively outstrips supply.

If more people stay at home (which is unlikely to be triggered by having a few less hours of on campus teaching) it will be the private student rental sector that is more likely to lose out.

Unless private undercut the uni-owned flats. Will depend on the location and offering.

[quote Scarby9]@Cornishmumofone mentions another benefit of online tuition which I will miss when we return to F2F (lots of other non-benefits which I won't miss).

When you want - knowing the learners will benefit or it is a requirement of the module - people to work together in a pair or group, we have found it massively more productive and efficient to assign them to appropriate break-out rooms, introduce the task, ask for questions then open the rooms for the required time.

In F2F that would usually be the cue for massive disruption as students all moved round. Most trying to find the people they needed to work with, but struggling to do so, but somenot movi g at all, somejust taking the hance to chat to friends or nip to the loo or whatever. Others asking for a chat about something nothing to do with the current task etc. Really not productive.

With clearly defined tasks and expectations, students have 99% just got on withthe job and have benefited as a result. It is also much easier, if there is a problem, for them to call on me to visit their breakout room to give extra explanation or help sort out whatever the difficulty is.

Just an aside, really, but it just occurred to me as it was a benefit I would never have predicted pre-pandemic.[/quote]
Oh yes. I love online breakout rooms. They work so well and mean the students often get to work with people outside of their friendship group.

Poor lecturers will no longer be required once everything recorded as only needs doing once and then same stuff can be used for years.

Oh please I'll remember that when I'm rewriting my Afghanistan lecture tomorrow.

My advice to OP is to contact Geography departments specifically at those universities, as each department is going to implement university rules in its own way.

@Newgirls

I think unis are over estimating how students choose based on course ratings/lecturers. Students tend to choose on city vibe, what the course does in the first year, if people get jobs and the general vague reputation of a uni. Location and the social experience is still very much key!

Not necessarily at all. My son spent a lot of time researching league tables, comparing the detail of the courses/modules, etc., when choosing his course/uni.

He didn't give the "social experience" a second thought as he doesn't drink and has no interest in night clubs either.

My ds is pretty laid back but he definitely considered league tables, academic rigour, tracing methods etc . But to be honest this is probably because his school encouraged them to think of all these factors , although with city vibe etc

@Cornishmumofone

I work at one of the RG unis mentioned. The vast majority of teaching will be face-to-face, however some modules will remain online as they work better that way. For example, I support one module with 350 students. The students come from 6 degree programmes. They have to complete a group project with a student from each discipline. It's much easier to get students into online breakout groups than to get them to move around in the only lecture theatre large enough to accommodate this cohort. Students loved this module last year and felt it worked well. All of their other lectures, seminars, tutorials and practicals will be delivered face to face. They will also be able to meet up with the six people in their group project. The lectures will be highly interactive with polls, quizzes and discussion questions.

I call bollocks.

Every break out group I've been In online has been utterly fucking useless. All the lectures complain, most students even interact.

Utterly fucking pointless but universities will happily be creaming in extra funds by renting out lecture theatres to corporate bodies.

University mangers and lectures need sacking now.

Utter wankers. My daughter is so pissed Off with you lot right now.

Every break out group I've been In online has been utterly fucking useless. All the lectures complain, most students even interact.

You aren't even making sense.

Utterly fucking pointless but universities will happily be creaming in extra funds by renting out lecture theatres to corporate bodies.

Every university?

University mangers and lectures need sacking now.

All of us??

Utter wankers. My daughter is so pissed Off with you lot right now.

All of us??

I call bollocks.

Yep, I call bollocks on this entire post