Cambridge University Cancels Lectures Until 2021

The University of Cambridge (UK) has suspended mass face to face lectures until the northern summer in 2021. Small group teaching will continue in person. I suggest this is a prudent move, as mass lectures are likely to be the highest risk educational activity for COVID-19, as well as the least useful form of education. Lectures are easy to replace with video, and research shows the videos are just as useful in terms of student learning.

In 2015 I was asked by the Office of Scholarly Communication at University of Cambridge to talk to staff about how to teach students online. Dr Danny Kingsley, then Head of the Office of Scholarly Communication took some notes. At the time, the University of Cambridge was using the same Australian developed Moodle learning management system, as I used at the ANU. So Cambridge had the technology to provide online learning, if not the training or motivation to use it. 

There were some technical deficiencies: I has assumed that Cambridge lecture theaters would be equipped for video recording, as is common in Australia. But one bemused local pointed out that some of the buildings did not have indoor plumbing, let alone video. However, that is a problem easily solved. I assume that with the COVID-19 lock-down, staff now have been equipped with laptops and web cameras, adequate for recording lectures in a theater, as well as at home. 

A bigger problem than technology is teacher training, and the motivation for teaching staff to undertake it. As I was explaining at how to support students online at Cambridge , I noticed part of the audience nodding. These were teachers from a nearby polytechnic. To them e-learning was routine, as it was essential to an institution which had to provide education as cost-effectively as possible. In contrast, a research university such as Cambridge, has a business model built on research output. Teaching is important, but just part of what they do. 

For the last few years I have been considering how to the problem of improving the quality of teaching at research universities. I suggest it requires making teaching part of the syllabus for students who wish to tutor, and go on to a career in academia. This needs to be done before the student graduates, and becomes too important to be told to do teacher training. ;-)

Cambridge University does not appear to be alone with students asking for a refund, when they found themselves studying online, rather than in the hallowed halls. However, it is the small group teaching, which will continue, where the magic of Oxbridge is supposed to happen. Australian universities are also likely to first return to small group teaching first, with large lectures much later, if ever.

Even with large classes, there are ways, face to face or online, for students to get to know each other. One commonly used icebreaker is to have students form small groups to find out about each other. They then introduce each other to the whole class. This is one of the techniques which university teachers are routinely trained to use.

For those with good social skills, this can seem a very trivial and artificial. However, I was once enrolled in a course, face to face, where I never met anyone. I went to the lectures, listened to the lecturer, and went home. There was no get-to-know-you: the lecturer lectured and we were supposed to just listen, no questions, no discussion.

Icebreakers can be done online, where video conference system puts participants into small groups for a set period. Online text forums can also be used. This was done last weekend for the ANZDF logistics hackerthon, where teams were formed using Slack.

It will be interesting to see to what extent such icebreaker exercises can be held face to face, while maintaining social distancing. The Canberra Innovation Network (CBRIN) had very successful First Wednesday Connect events with hundreds of people crammed in. These events have moved online. But when they can again be held in person will it work, if everyone has to keep their distance in a mostly empty room?

On my last visit to Cambridge I also dropped in to the business faculty (where the MBAs are) and talked to the equivalent of CBRIN. One insight was that most students do not participate in these activities if they are not required to. They tend to turn up shortly before they graduate, when they realize they might need to network to get a job.
 

Universities Should Not Plan a Return to Lectures-as-Usual

Recently US colleagues asked about plans for the return to the university campus for students, after COVID-19 lock-downs. The consensus emerging seems to be to provide for students remote online, as well as in the class at the same time. Classrooms would be equipped with microphones, cameras, screens and computers (many already are), so remote students could see and hear the instructor, as well as those in the room.

However, I will still be taking the laptop and web camera I have been  using for teaching at home, along as a backup. That might be a useful  approach for institutions which don't have all classrooms equipped for live video.

In Australia we are fortunate to receive reasonably consistent advice from local, state and federal authorities on COVID-19 measures. Some of this has the force of law, through health and safety legislation, as well as specific COVID-19 emergency regulations. However, there are currently no specific guidelines for universities (the ones for schools are clearly not applicable), so the closest is for workplaces.

A prudent approach, I suggest, would be to have staff return to work first, then small group teaching, and lastly large groups. However, there are some difficult legal and ethical dilemmas, particularly with large group teaching.

Conventional lectures, with large numbers of students, in a cramped lecture theater, probably pose the highest infection risk. Also this is the least effective form of teaching. A conventional face to face lecture is no better for student learning than watching a video. So there is no good reason to resume lectures, ever (I stopped giving lectures ten years ago). There will still be scope for a presentation by a celebrity guest speaker, and for interactive learning with a group of people,. However, I suggest universities do not plan a return to conventional lectures, with someone speaking for an hour to hundreds (most students gave up attending these years ago, anyway). Instead universities should start decommissioning, re-purposing, or demolishing, lecture theaters, to make way for flexible learning spaces.

ANU Marie Reay Teaching Centre

The ANU Kambri complex, opened in February 2019, provides an example of an alternate approach to large university teaching spaces. The Marie Reay Teaching Centre has six floors of entirely flat floor classrooms, with movable chairs and tables. This allows occupants to be more easily spread out, than in a fixed seating lecture theater. If conditions allow, the tables can be pushed aside and chairs arranged close togehter lecture style. During construction, I asked the engineers if the prefabricated manufactured wood panels allowed the building to be modified more easily modified than in a concrete building. The reply was that this would need just a structural engineer, and a chainsaw: in other words the building could be easily modified.

The adjacent Culture and Events Building has multipurpose rooms with retractable theater seating. At the push of a button the tiered seating retracts into the wall, leaving a flat floor space for chairs and tables to be placed. The foresight of those who planned these buildings is to be commended.

Compulsory Attendance at University Lectures and Tutorials

There appears to be a requirement for many Australian educational instutions for students to attend at least 80% of classes. A search on "attend at least 80%" produces 35,000 web pages at Australian educational institutions. Some of these refer to "scheduled contact hours", some just to "tutorials" and some to lectures and tutorials. This 80% rule appears to be derived from the English Language Intensive Courses for Overseas Students (ELICOS) government rules, even though providers are not required to monitor attendance for higher education courses.

In my view, requiring attended is not a good idea, as not assessing what the student can do (apart from the ability to turn up). If there is a low attendance rate at classes, then the university needs to address the reason for that. It may be the students do not perceive any value in the classes (and there may be little value).

If an institution does have a rule requiring a minimum level of attendance, then it must put in place a system to record attendance and check it. If an institution has such a rule then it would be unfair (and most likely unlawful) to arbitrarily apply it to some students and not others. If the intention is that students with good marks are not required to attend class, then the rule needs to be rewritten to say that.

A better alternative is to conduct some form of assessment in the class, or which depends on the class, so students will at least see that if they don;t attend, they will not pass.

In my "ICT Sustainability" course students are assessed on their answers to questions in the on-line forums for about 20% of the overall assessment.

In the ACS version of the course students are required to pass this part of the assessment to pass the course overall. So students have to participate in at least half the forums to be able to pass the course. The ANU doesn't impose this requirement in their version of the course, but students still participate at about the same rate.

In practice no more than about 10% of the students miss a forum (very few miss more than one forum). Each student gets a report on the class average mark and their own mark each week, along with feedback. I suspect is not the loss of marks so much as the regular reminders to participate and also seeing what their peers are doing which encourages participation.

But the requirement to participate in every forum can be a burden for the student and the teacher (I have to consider requests for exemptions from students who miss a week). So this year for the ANU version of the course I am changing the assessment to the best 10 out of 12 weeks. The idea is that the student can miss two weeks without worrying too much.

Give Students Things to Do in Lectures

In "What to do about laptops in lectures?" (08/19/2013), Daniel Willingham discusses the research by Sana et al, 2013 on the effects of laptop multitasking on classroom learning. The research found that the sort of web browsing students do in lectures not only reduces their learning, but that of people around them who are distracted.

However, I suggest that the methodology of the study provides the answer to
Willingham's question. In the study, some students were given a list of tasks to do, not related to the topic of the lecture. One typical task was the student looking up the TV guide. But what if the students were given tasks to do on-line, which were related to the topic of the lecture?

I am one of those students who sits with a laptop on during lectures and seminars. But I am paying attention. What I am doing is making notes, and looking up the materials the lecturer is talking about.

The idea of sitting passively for an hour while someone talks at you seems bizarre to me.  Students need to be actively engaged and for many, answering the occasional question asked verbally is not enough. A list of tasks to be performed would be useful for people who need to be more active.

Many of the events I attend are  Unconferences, where there is an on-line conversation taking place between the participants in the room and sometimes also remote participants. At events such as  Bar Camp Canberra and GovCamp, conversations takes place via text chat, in parallel with the presentation. Some events have a screen showing this conversation to the audience during the presentation. As a presenter it took me some time to get used to the idea that the audience was discussing what I was saying, as I was saying it, but at least they were paying attention.
 
The use of a text chat channel is routine for on-line webinars. This is used for administrative purposes, such as reporting the sound is not working and for participants without microphones to ask questions of the presenter. However, the text channel is frequently used for participants to have a parallel conversation. This works well where there is a moderator to help keep this conversation on track (as the presenter is usually too busy presenting to read the chat). 

Something similar to the text channel and moderator happens in large scale Interactive Engagement, in active learning  TEAL Rooms (Technology Enabled Active Learning). With this the presenter gives a short lecture and sets a task for the participants to perform in tutorial/lab mode. The tutorial assistants then engage with the groups of students. However, this mode of learning may be too active and fast paced for many people.

I have noticed that lecturers and fellow students are far less bothered by someone taking paper notes, or using a tablet computer, than a laptop. This may be partly because paper and tablet computers are smaller and do not have a keyboard which can make noise. However, it may just be that people are used to paper note taking.