Higher education blog

If, like everyone else, you have been required to shift to online teaching this year, you will no doubt have researched the best approaches to doing so.

Add the word ‘live’ to TV, sport, or performance, and there’s an added sense of excitement at the element of the unexpected, where there’s, as performers know, a risk of things going wrong.

So it is with live classes - to some, a struggle with unfamiliar technology and distracted multi-tasking students; but to others, a great way to interact with your students.

It can be hard to imagine what it’s really like for our students starting university in the time of Covid-19. After all, it’s never been done before. What should be an exhilarating, exciting and energising experience may feel anything but.  

In a recent BBC Radio 4 programme on this year’s university experience, one student caller complained that there was not enough contact in his new ‘blended’ course. But, the interviewer countered, the (leading) university in question told us they have been communicating a great deal. Yes, they have, the student replied, but this was, ‘just lots of emails with links to videos’.

I’ve been fortunate to have the chance to work with a wide range of institutions amid the shift to online learning, most recently by supporting academics who have had some experience of online teaching as a result of the pandemic.