Hello David,

 

I work at a fully online university and the concept of dual lecturing also exists here (allbeit without the on-ground aspect). Students can attend their webinar lectures and seminars in real-time or via asynchronous methods. I also have some experience of incorporating on-ground lectures into online settings, simultaneously.

 

• To support dual on-ground and online live participation polling tools are an incredibly powerful and a simple intervention. They let you break up the lecture to ask questions, test understanding, ask if there are any muddy points etc. Engagement tends to increase as responses are anonymous and enables more student voices to arise. It’s then possible to adapt teaching on the fly in repose to the students. The polling tools are available as apps or via a web browser and can be used by students in the room and who are remote via their own devices. At my previous institution which was a large traditional Russell Group Uni, polling was one of those things that was really making a positive difference in lectures. See: https://www.ctl.ox.ac.uk/know-what-your-students-are-thinking
• If your live sessions incorporate more student-led activities such as group work, using breakout room functionality which many video conferencing solutions provide means that students can work in small groups both on-ground and online. Afterwards, online students can share their work via the video conferencing tool you are using.
• You can collect questions throughout the live session via a polling tool, via the video conferencing Q&A tool, chat, a Padlet board etc to respond to in a Q&A at the end, or following the session.
• To support students who are unable to attend a live session that contains interactivity the same exercises can be run asynchronously via the VLE forums or other collaboration tools via a set period. Timing this is the key - you could give students the opportunity to engage up to the live session to incorporate their work, their questions etc into the live session (we have a Padlet board running entitled ‘your questions for this weeks lecture’ which students can post to). Students could continue to use the asynchronous tools for a period of time following the timetabled event to extend the discussion. There’s no reason why both on-ground and online could not engage asynchronously.

 

Some considerations:

• Where I work now we are phasing-out timetabled lectures. We define lectures as 30 minutes + academic talk followed by Q&A. Lectures are incorporated into the module design (ie recorded and made available throughout the module, often in smaller chunks). This does not impact the amount of contact time with timetabled sessions moving towards more seminar style (less than 30 minutes of academic talk with student led activities), Q&A session, invited experts and surgeries. Students can participate either asynchronously and synchronously.
• Our research over Covid-19 where we have implemented more asynchronous teach has show that students really value this. This is different from research we undertook in my last institution where the social on-ground aspect of the lecture was important. This can’t be replicated online but there are other ways to build student community and co-presence. Reflecting what happens on-ground online often isn’t the answer.
• Considerations around recording sessions that have student input need to be made. We do not record non-lectures and instead make it possible to participate in the session asynchronously. It’s quire easy to record just the academic talk part, but issues around student personal information and data arise outside of this context. Students need to give express permission to have sessions that are more student-led recorded and made available.
• Some practical tips that we have arrived at:
• It is very helpful to have someone working with you to moderate the online activity whilst you focus on the onground. For instance a TA, a learning technologist or a student from you class.
• A couple of slides at the start of the session are useful to outline if the session is being recorded and how students can participate, what is expected of them etc.
• A heads up before hand on your VLE or lecture timetable enabling students to prepare for an interactive session.
• It’s important to put a time limit around activities. Not necessarily for student participation but to tell students at what point their work and questions will be addressed by the lecturer. Workload wise, you do not want to be revisiting weeks worth of activities as you near the end of the module.

 

Feel free to reach out if you would like to discuss more.

 

Best wishes,

 

Kate

 

 

 

 

 

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