COVID-19 report: No thanks to hybrid teaching, yes please to digital tools
Following another winter of converted activities, teaching once again takes place on campus. But Aarhus BSS must not forget its COVID-19 experiences. A new report summarises the experiences with digital teaching and aims at further developing the offers at the school.
Since the first COVID-19 lockdown in spring 2020, lecturers at Aarhus BSS have delivered a lot of livestreams, Zoom exams and sessions of online supervision. This has prompted a wealth of new experiences with digital teaching at the six departments.
Recently, these experienced were gathered and presented in a ‘COVID-19 report’, which is to support further development of the school’s teaching activities in the coming years. Even though in-person interaction between lecturers and students is back per February 2022 and students may once again raise their real hand, ask questions face to face and chat about this and that after their class ends.
“We are a campus-based university, and as a general rule, teaching at AU is based on in-person attendance. Fundamentally, we believe that on-site teaching offers the most exciting and inspiring learning experiences. But the past two years have taught us a lot about what digital teaching may offer as a supplement – or even as a replacement during extraordinary circumstances. This report allows us to combine the best qualities of on-site and online teaching when there are pedagogical grounds for doing so,” says vice-dean for education Morten Rask.
No thanks to hybrid teaching in the future
One of the most significant findings in the report pertains to hybrid teaching. That is, classes which some students attend in person while simultaneously, the lesson gets livestreamed to students participating online.
This format is not attractive to neither lecturers nor students at Aarhus BSS. It fails in comparison with both on-site teaching will full in-person attendance and pure online teaching on a screen.
Morten Rask comments: “It has become clear that there are several technical and didactic issues with hybrid teaching. Going forward, we will only use this format if a lecturer has particularly good reasons for it.”
Yes please to digital tools and individual assessments
“We can see that the transition into online formats impacts the academic quality of teaching in a negative way. Especially in the case of classes with a high degree of interaction and dialogue. If we are to make use of digital teaching in the future, it has to reflect the form, content and methods of the courses in question and be based on the lecturer’s own specific assessment of the learning situation,” Morten Rask says.
According to the report, digital tools for teaching have gained ground and may act as a supplement to standard teaching formats. For instance, about half of the lecturers in the report expect to use digital tools in their teaching ‘to a greater extent’ or ‘to a significantly greater extent’ compared to what they did before lockdown.
This makes it relevant to focus on digital tools for teaching rather than pure online teaching. And these tools must be used in moderation, depending on the context and desired learning outcomes.
A baptism by fire has prepared lecturers
Even though the experiences with digital formats vary and depend on many different considerations, the report shows that lecturers at Aarhus BSS generally agree that they have become better equipped to conduct online teaching.
"Our lecturers have received a baptism by fire, and they have taken great personal responsibility for making converted teaching activities work. I am very happy that despite this, they feel more ready and motivated to use digital tools to develop their in-person teaching in the future. We will have to see what external circumstances as well as pedagogical considerations give grounds for in practice,” Morten Rask concludes.
About the COVID-19 report
The report deals with the transition to online teaching at Aarhus BSS during the COVID-19 lockdowns in 2020 and 2021. Based on reflections from the boards of studies at the school as well as a survey among the individual lecturers, the report depicts which aspects of digital teaching that worked well and less well.
The report contains figures from the survey as well as comments from the lecturers and boards of studies which address the different practices and experiences in more depth.