In the early-days of the pandemic, academics expecting another year of in-person classes all of a sudden had to talk to techs about taking everything on-line.
Pandemonium prevailed, but not for long-term as people built their pedagogical airplanes while they were airborne. But while flight manuals are now written, the experience of teachers who piloted on-line classes needs to be recorded, if only to demonstrate how the experience helped improve teaching.
As Uni Queensland’s Kelly Matthews told Campus Morning Mail last year, “ how do we experiment with this, how do we learn, how do we ask all the questions that we need to be asking?”
Victoria U authors are here to help. Gayathri Rajaraman, Rudi Klein and Puspha Sinnaya all taught health science during Covid, using the University’s Block Model, which uses 35 student classes, meeting three times a week for three hours each. It is demanding in the classroom, daunting when moved online.
The three use narrative analysis to report their experiences in a new paper.
Ramjaram sets out the extraordinary challenge of moving everything on-line, and fast; “Within one week, all six laboratory classes were filmed, prepared via editing, and integrated into the VU Collaborate LMS prior to the teaching block commencing.”
But the researchers make clear that tech was not the trouble, that students could be logged-on, but with their video and audio off, not engaged.
What works is students with a “trifecta of traits,” discipline, motivation and tech savvy. What does not is trying to engage students who do not respond.
Ramjaram surely speaks for every academic who taught through the pandemic, “investigation of evidence-based research into this topic is highly warranted.”
Klein notes that teaching anatomy is best done with cadavers in labs, but with that not possible, classes used on-line resources for learning and assessment. It worked; “promotion and enhancement of student learning can be achieved by increasing engagement, with a key factor being a clear relationship between on-line activities, the unit content, and assessment tasks.”
But block-teaching needs trust and contact in small in-person groups. Which the Zoom classroom does not develop.
Sinnayah found that as a team-leader the first challenge was to help staff teach and learn remote tech simultaneously. First up was learning circles to “promote a community of practice” and peer assessment of on-line teaching, with de-briefs at the end of a four-week block of classes.
a take-out: “it is imperative to embrace a higher awareness of the benefits of both cognitive and social engagement in the classroom, and thereby a place of belonging, to achieve successful outcomes for both the student and the teacher, through collaboration, interaction, and engagement.”
