VIEWS & OPINION
“£9k for this?” – student lockdowns, remote learning, and future value in higher education
Comment by RACHAEL CURZONS, Chief Partnerships Officer, Aula
The UK’s second lockdown has considerably sharpened the situation facing the nation’s 7million university students. The University and College Union has called for all courses to be shifted to online, and there are growing numbers of students calling for tuition fee refunds. We’ve already seen images of students confined to halls, with assembled post it notes to draw attention to their plight. One infamous image shows a window with the message, “£9k for this?”.
Many are asking just this question. How can universities justify fees for an experience which is not as advertised? One study has put student dissatisfaction with this year’s experiences at over a quarter of the student body (26.1%). Much of this displeasure comes from a lack of feeling of community, inconsistency against expectations, and isolation from peers and academics. In many cases, the key to the solution lies in the success or failure of these institutions’ remote learning experiences – which currently vary in approach and functionality widely from one organisation to another.
The pandemic has forced the hands of many universities when it comes to acceleration of their online educational approaches. Many had already been exploring tech-enabled remote and distance learning for the sake of flexibility, but it had not yet been widely adopted. There’s also little consistency - you would be hard pushed to find similar approaches adopted from one academic to another, even within the same institution. This has always resulted in varying experiences for students, but at the moment where the learning experience is the primary day to day offering from the university, this is creating greater struggles and frustration than ever before.
The quality of teaching and learning approaches have become, overnight, the prescient factor in the student experience. The variances from course to course and even educator to educator, when it comes to how courses are structured and delivered through digital solutions can leave students in a very uncertain position when it comes to evaluating the overall value of the education they are receiving.
Many organisations are looking to hybrid models which can be flexed as needed depending on circumstance. This raises further questions. How can an academic, who has never taught in this way before, be expected to design high-quality hybrid learning experiences with limited support? Ideally, the role of technology here is to create an environment in which students feel seamlessly connected to their peers and educators through regular interaction, guidance and feedback, engaged in module content because they are easily enabled into dialogue by the technology.
We stand at a fork in the road - and the shouts are getting louder for higher education to decide on its course. For those institutions who believe that increasing flexibility, and enabling inclusion, they will engage with the learnings of 2020 to develop a digital learning experience for the future. Given student satisfaction scores play an ever-increasing role in some of the best regarded international university rankings, there is a lot riding on getting this issue right. 2020’s student will influence the success or failure of these approaches through their feedback, their engagement, and their results overall. The long-term question of the value of their university experience is hanging in the balance.
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www.education-today.co.uk
Outdoor learning needs to come back Comment by CHRIS RAYNER, Colchester High School
Outdoor learning is not a new thing. For decades our teachers, parents and guardians have inherently agreed that getting children outdoors is a good thing. Fresh air, exercise, physical challenges and social interaction/engagement are all necessary components for a young person’s physical and mental health and wellbeing.
However, as teachers of the digital age we have a constant battle extolling the virtues of the great outdoors as opposed to the immediacy of their phones and pull of their Play Stations, but this is a battle we must win. This isn’t just an observation about general behaviour or peaky complexions – this is about their resilience, their mental and physical strength, their future health and wellbeing.
Today, we know that one in nine primary school children suffer from mental health issues, and one in five are clinically obese. This has certainly been exacerbated during lockdown months, with a fraction of the time spent outside. According to the initial COVID-19 Impact Surveys* – over 70,000 under 18s and 20,000 over 18s have been missing out on valuable outdoor learning experiences since the first quarter of this year. Today, just 47% of children and young people currently meet the Chief Medical Officer’s Physical Activity Guidelines and participate in an average of 60 minutes or more of physical activity a day, with boys being more likely than girls to meet the recommended levels. Figures within the report suggest there’s been a sharp rise in anxiety, sleep problems, eating disorders and self-harming. This is a prime example of why outdoor extracurricular activities are vital, now more than ever.
Outdoor education, in and outside of school (either residential stays or day trips), must be a vital part of their
learning – and for the last six
months, children across the UK have suffered considerably, both physically and mentally, because of the restrictions. Fact.
In addition to improved skills and general fitness, outdoor learning has mood-improving, stress reducing benefits and we’re pleased to have been working with Active Learning Group both before the pandemic and during to communicate this. We stand together as we strive to improve opportunities and outcomes for our pupils, and we take responsibility for their lifelong learning and experiences. We must look deeper into developing resilient children that will be able to withstand the ebbs and flows of life and the complexity of challenges ahead. We need to build confidence, curiosity, compassion and creativity and instil a sense of belonging in the world. Outdoor learning gives our pupils just that.
Whilst we fully support the measures and guidelines that have been put in place to protect our children, it is possible to create safe environments outdoors in our schools and there is an abundance of outdoor centres desperate to welcome our young people now. The one thing we know for sure is that for education providers, the health and safety of their wards is paramount.
One thing we don’t want to do is lose the highly skilled outdoor teachers and providers that have skills and provisions, as a number of reputable smaller companies have been forced to close for good. That is a disaster for the sector, our schools and, most importantly, our children long term.
December 2020
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