I assist with the facilitation of two sessions today at the Ara Institute of Canterbury Kick-off series of professional development workshops.
Firstly, session #8
with Marion Hale revisiting students perspectives on ‘distance learning’ and then session #9
with Alan Hoskin to introduce the concept of flexible learning - see later blog.
#8 ran from noon to 1 pm. We began with reiterating the
importance of the student voice as it is part of Ara strategic focus to have
the learner at the heart of learning.
3 vignettes from the session we ran in May were replayed.
These were recorded statements from students on how their courses went. In the
main, the students appreciated the pastoral support provided from their
lecturers and the wider Ara team. They were happy with the many ways lecturers
restructured their courses, the use of zoom to run synchronous sessions and
access to zoom recordings and resources via Moodle. Challenges were
individualised to the contexts of students. Finding resources for learning was
difficult for trades student; students with young family found it very
difficult to carve out time and space for their own study over the lockdown;
most found there was too much communication from Ara coming their way – a
balance would have been good.
Statements from student advisors were then played. Our student
advisor team support students with outside of course pastoral care. Their
perspectives were enlightening with respect to two important items. The first
is the issue of digital equity. Many students did not own a laptop or have
access to a PC. Mobile phones were not sufficient for distance learning
structured around using a laptop or PC. Access to WiFi/mobile data was also
difficult for some students. The other issue was the implication of
withdrawal/deferment. Lecturers advised some students to defer or withdrawal
last semester and these now impact on students’ eligibility for student
allowance and entry back into programmes. These implication need to be better
understood.
We then went through the common themes and discussed how Ara
has responded and what needs to be still done to address the themes.
The themes indicate the need to be prepared by ensuring learners and Ara knew the types of digital devices learners had with them to access learning. Lecturers need to introduce the tools likely to be used if distance learning is required. Resources (videos, online quizzes, learning activities etc.) require preparation or finding before distance learning needs to be started up.
Therefore prepareness are keys to ensuring the next time around (hopefully not!) the online learning experience is less stressful and more enriching for all.
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