Online lectures - good or bad?

[breeze77]

Hi there,
we went to the Aberystwyth open day yesterday and were really disappointed to hear that the English lectures are all online. The seminars for the lectures are in person so they do have contact hours there, but all actual lectures are virtual.
This felt like a bit of a red flag for me but they were selling it as if it was no problem at all, a positive part of the experience and the future of lectures.
So I was just wondering if anyone has any experience of this way of doing things and what your thoughts are?

This generation of students find being asked questions in large groups quite confrontational for some reason.

I also have students with learning disability or mental health accommodations which preclude me from asking them direct questions or calling upon them in class or expecting them to speak in seminars.

And I teach a discipline which partly requires them to work in public speaking situations!

Wow, these replies are really interesting. Thank you all.

Dd would hate it - hers are in person.

A couple of years ago I clearly remember a few posters insisting that online lectures were far preferable and one adamant that the students wanted everything online. So Mumsnet might be a bit odd about this.

Well, they probably are.

From the other side, dd has pretty severe dyslexia and needs that in person interaction and to watch body language to really concentrate and understand. She finds that harder when people are online.

My department still records all lectures since Covid — now given in person, but are required to be recorded and posted on our VLE. This has resulted in me regularly lecturing in a big theatre to 15 bodies, on a module that has 80 students registered as taking it.

I would imagine in a Uni like aber a lot of the students are 'local', so not living in halls but within a hour or two drive. The travel distance / cost / time for these students may be a big consideration for the Uni largely being online. I'm in a similar situation myself and whilst I do actually think face to face lectures are better, the cost and time involved in a 4 hour round trip to Uni has me voting for online lectures every time.

My DD prefers in person lectures, it gives structure to her week to attend and she sits with friends and catches up with them afterwards. All lectures are recorded which is handy for adding to notes, when revising or clarifying a point. I think it must be very easy for some to disengage with uni if they don't attend live lectures.

Online only is a bit of a cop out if students are paying full price. DD has had a mix of online/face to face lectures and has said the quality of the face to face lectures is much better. Many of the online lectures have been hampered by technical issues, especially where a guest lecturer has been involved. They sound quality is often dreadful too.

On the contrary, Aber is a small town surrounded by rural areas - there isn’t a larger town within two hours drive. Students stay in the town and don’t go home at weekends.

I find that there is a bit of a contradiction between students wanting value for money - involving have a lecturers physically in the room - and what they want when it comes to actually turning up.

This x 100! Attendance at lectures which are also recorded is shockingly poor, but heaven forbid you don’t record the lecture and suggest that students need to turn up in person to participate.

The town of Aberystwyth has 12,000 to 20,000 depending on area included. The university has nearly 8,000 enrolled students.

It's those students who live in the surrounding rural areas I am thinking of I guess. I'm studying at a different Welsh university and students living at home (rurally) travel up to 3 hours each way to get onto campus. Personally it's a 2 hour commute for me (plus 2 hours home). Online lectures are making University more accessible for people like us.

This is very much the experience of many academics.

At the start of the academic year, over-invested parents emailing departments to demand that everything is face-to-face. They receive a confirmation that this is indeed the plan.

Later in the year, the same parents threaten legal action when recordings were not available. This was a problem as their DC rarely went to lectures and encountered difficulties preparing for exams.

If you imagine that about Aberystwyth @Hairyfairy01 then you couldn’t be more wrong.

but heaven forbid you don’t record the lecture and suggest that students need to turn up in person to participate.

Well, quite! And note what @JocelynBurnell says - it's not unknown ...

There are pros and cons of both.
With online lectures, there is a risk students can delay to watch "later" and then end up with a backlog.
The advantage is that they can watch the parts they already know about at double speed, and then slow it down when they need to. They can also use online lectures to manage timetable clashes (DD is doing joint honours, and some modules clash).
They need some in person activities to meet other students, but realistically no-one is going to ask a question in a packed lecture hall unless they are very confident/ extrovert.

I found the tedium of when lectures were hybrid, SOOOO much time was wasted with people at home complaining about not hearing/not having a link to the class/whatever.

Much easier to just say - its in person, its recorded to watch later if you want. Trying to do both was very frustrating.

(i always watched live when we could, and always had camera on so lecturer wasn't speaking to a void. also helped me focus more).

When we had lectures in person, with 300 people in a lecture threatre, and 5 mins between us leaving/next group arriving, zero time to ask a question anyway.

No, they really aren't.

One of my DC is on the autistic spectrum with other health issues and being able to access lectures on line is very helpful. They use a wheelchair and quite a few of the lecture theatres are not really accessible (sore point) and they have a verbal processing delay so being able to stop and start or go over points is a great assistance.

My party going extrovert prefers online as he too is dyslexic and prefers being able to stop and start to take accurate and meaningful notes.

He fortunately had the luxury of in person lectures that are also recorded to watch at his leisure and the more personal interactive small groups/seminars in person which is the right mix for him.

I do have to roll my eyes though when people say they should get a discount for online without actually realising what else the tuition fees cover and that most courses the fees don't even cover the overheads.

Mine isn't great with staring at screens unfortunately

Students do want online lectures as it means they don't have to attend.

When we went back to physical lectures, we were also "strongly advised" to record and post it for them. I refused, despite students complaining I was the only one not doing it and my line manager telling me we were required to do so.

I do a lot of interaction in class. That is a huge part of the learning process. Watching a recording means students miss out on that. Funnily enough, I have very high attendance on comparison to my colleagues who provide recordings.

That said, the largest class I teach is about 70 students. For larger classes, recordings coupled with smaller group interactive elements can be more effective than in-person.

We had appalling engagement in general last year when lectures were in person but recorded "for revision". Appalling pass rates too.

This year we're in person only and it's been better. Another year of growing up for a student cohort who came in very immature after the lockdowns won't have hurt either.

Do not miss online teaching at all. Have had to do it a couple of times since (when I had covid and similar) and it's awful for everyone.

I do have to roll my eyes though when people say they should get a discount for online without actually realising what else the tuition fees cover and that most courses the fees don't even cover the overheads.

Indeed. Tuition fees for Home students don’t cover the full cost of even the “cheap” to run Arts degrees. International students subsidise UK students. Academic staff subsidise UK students through working around 50-60 hours per week.

And fees pay for libraries books and expensive digital subscriptions, well being and health services, academic assistance services, sports services etc etc etc.

Health services? What health services do you think university fees pay for?