‘What’s working?’ provides an outline of key issues raised in cross-institutional student feedback from the the BluePulse Survey.
Feedback indicates that there is a lot of excellent practice right across LJMU, and that students appreciate the efforts that academic staff are making to support their learning. The focus of ‘What’s working?’ is on those elements of online teaching and learning practice that students find particularly helpful and supportive. These ideas reflect a broad picture, but you might want to think about how they relate to your own area. Ideas on how specific issues can be managed are available on the Learning Technology site. Please contact the Academy if you can’t find what you are looking for.
Live lectures
Students appear to appreciate the availability of timetabled online lectures. Many suggest that this offers a more useful experience than prerecorded lectures. The live nature of the sessions affords a sense of immediacy that maintains motivation, offers structure to their day and helps them to access support, advice and clarification more easily when they need it. Students say that they are more engaged in live lectures when interactive or knowledge testing elements (e.g. quick Vevox polls, quizzes, managed discussion etc.) are included.
Recording of live lectures
Students have indicated that they like to be able to review a recording of a live lectures to help them better understand content and ideas.
Clear instruction
The availability of online materials can be overwhelming, so students like to know what they should do with the materials that are presented: which of these are mandatory? which are advisory? and which are supplementary? In addition, they like a clear indication of how long they should spend engaging with a task. This enables them to organise and prioritise their time. It also avoids the risk of information overload.
Breakout rooms
Students tell us that breakout groups work well when group members know exactly what is expected of them. Explicit questions, clear instruction and short activities seem to work best. For more information see our tips on managing breakout groups. You can also find general information on breakout rooms in the Zoom help pages.
Variety
Undertaking a range of different tasks helps keep students interested and stimulates their learning. This appears to the case for both live and asynchronous activity. However, they always like to know roughly how long they should spend on a specific task.
Case studies
There are more Inspire Technology Case Studies of what is working well for your colleagues.