Defining a digital future for teaching, learning and assessment: What do our students want? [A-027] Members : ALT's Summer Summit 2020

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Thu, Aug 27 2020, 1:00pm – 2:00pm

Authors: Nathan Page, and Richard Walker

Room: Bell Seminar Room

Type: Parallel Session (30mins)

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Description

Session Description

This video accompanies our workshop session at the ALT Online Summit 2020

The Covid 19 emergency has underlined the mission-critical nature of digital services within higher education in support of the student experience, but has also highlighted the gaps in our current provision (Marginson, 2020). It has challenged us to think about how we offer alternative and equitable learning, teaching and assessment opportunities for flexible learners and those remotely located from the university campus through online delivery.

Looking to the future, how will we ensure that our institutional digital services meet the full spectrum of student needs? This session will share findings from focus groups conducted with campus-based and remote learners at the University of York – initiated before the emergency – which were tasked with exploring future digital requirements for teaching, learning and assessment over a 10-year timeframe, and will invite contributions from participants on the priorities that institutions should be addressing in their preparations for the future.

Barnett’s ‘conditions of flexibility’ (2014) offers a useful frame of reference to guide our thinking about what the future might look like. The focus on learner flexibility underlines the increasing choice that students are seeking over the learner experience – and recent Jisc research has shown how HE students wish to engage with learning, teaching and assessment activities through the use of digital tools and services (Jisc, 2019). But what does student choice mean in practice? How do students interpret themes such as personalisation and flexibility in their learning experience and how might they be supported through the use of technology?

Working in association with the University of York’s Students Union, we sought to explore these issues through a series of semi-structured focus groups with representatives from campus-based and fully online programmes over a period from November 2019 – March 2020, inviting them to:

reflect on their student journey, noting any challenges to their learning experience, touching on institutional systems and services and their contribution to preferred ways of working;
comment on how these challenges could be overcome in the future through service improvements, with technology placed at the core of value in learning and pedagogic support.

Our findings from the focus groups have demonstrated the need for in-built flexibility within programme delivery, offering students choice over the pace, place and mode of study engagement. Students also highlighted a requirement for peer-led networking and knowledge-sharing activities to be supported beyond their immediate cohort, with the aim of fostering a broader sense of academic community, joining up fully online and campus-based cohorts across different disciplines. Entitlements such as access to open and internal on-demand courses addressing interdisciplinary themes were also flagged as key priorities.

A short video summary of the research output will be made available to delegates via the conference networking site prior to the session, as part of a flipped reporting approach. The session will focus on an active discussion of these findings, considering the implications for institutional infrastructure and systems integration, as well as the role of digital engagement in programme design and online course provision.

Session content

The session will be delivered with a live tweet chat stream, enabling remote participants to contribute to the discussion.
A detailed summary of our findings will be released to participants before the session in the form of a pre-recorded presentation.
We will use the first part of the session to recap our headline findings around the 3 key themes of flexibility, personalised learning and connectivity / community. We will then open up the tweet chat inviting participants to reflect on each of these themes and what they mean in terms of institutional digital provision and support to learners. We will also have a wildcard theme to draw in different perspectives and priorities. In the final part of the session we will draw together the key discussion points and idea, with a view to presenting a synthesis of key issues emerging from the face-to-face and Tweetchat discussions.