Connected Learning – what Term One taught us

Our Connected Learning approach to education for 2020/21 emphasised ‘digital first’, consistency, a limited range of platforms, and a steer away from solely live online teaching.

There’s been fantastic engagement from teaching and teaching support staff, and the network of faculty learning technologists, departmental Connected Learning leads, and input from content developers and online PGTAs has made a real difference. The Students’ Union published an open letter in December thanking the teaching community for their hard work.

Only have 2 minutes? Click to read a quick summary of our key takeaways

Our learning	Key takeaways
Workloads are a worry, for students and staff	Remind staff to indicate how long learning activities should take (and potentially to reduce student workloads). Reassure staff that students don’t expect perfection for recorded lectures – authenticity (and a good mic) matter more.
Live teaching is loved	Staff should be confident about running live online classes as technical issues seem to be rare. Seek help from your Faculty Learning Technology Lead if you need help with live classes. Remember that too much time in any of these live platforms can be tiring for students and for staff – best advice is to use judiciously and build in breaks. Record live classes where possible and appropriate – especially the staff-led elements.  Be attuned to the needs and personality of your students, which has implications for how you encourage engagement online. Be prepared to reorganise content, shift deadlines etc.
Recorded lectures receive a mixed response	Your Faculty Learning Technology Leads can help you to determine which platforms and tools to use for different purposes. Students may struggle to engage with a long presentation-style recording.  Best practice is to limit duration to 15 minutes max, and use questions or other activities to check and reinforce understanding. There are shortcuts: if you find it easier to record a longer form video, explicitly outline some timecoded pause points for your students and direct them to any questions or activities at those times. Here’s some guidance on creating engaging and effective videos for online teaching.
Creative staff in problem-solving mode	Celebrate creativity and share good practice (contact teaching.learning@ucl.ac.uk to share a case study on the Teaching and Learning Portal). Identify areas of potential confusion and duplication. The Connected Learning Live programme of short online sessions is a good source of inspiration and guidance for effective online teaching.
Hands-on learning opportunities underused	A lot of additional software and facilities are available. Guidance on the virtual teaching PC clusters is available.
It's not all about formal experiences	Think about what might work for nurturing informal student communities.
Moodle continues to improve	Subscribe to the Digital Education blog to keep up to date with recent enhancements to Moodle.

1. Workloads are a worry, for students and staff

Students are reportedly doing more work, but some struggle to engage with asynchronous materials ahead of a live class. Staff estimates of the time students need to engage with materials can be optimistic, and some students feel overwhelmed.

Many staff are feeling overloaded, spending large amounts of time preparing materials and resources. Pre-recording lectures seems to be a particular challenge due to the desire to produce a polished recording. In addition, they are finding some of our technical services and workflows less than intuitive…

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2. Live teaching is loved

Students seem generally pleased with the quality and quantity of teaching and learning. Some report preferring online lectures to sitting at the back of a crowded lecture theatre. Some appreciate having asynchronous content and activities that help them to grapple with tough topics when it suits them.

But the main message is, students really value live classes.

And staff are finding that live sessions are best used for flipped learning: for example, using  discussion forums to reveal what students haven't understand, and then focussing live sessions specifically on those areas, and on outstanding questions.

We advised against too much dependence on live sessions, due to students learning in different time zones, and uncertainty about connectivity, but happily, we have seen very few reports of students having difficulty joining live classes.  The best way to include students who cannot make live sessions is to record them, and this is easy to do using Collaborate, Zoom or Teams. The recording can be uploaded into Lecturecast.

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3. Recorded lectures receive a mixed response

Lecturecast, UCL’s lecture capture platform, has some excellent active learning tools that some departments have used to great effect this year.

We recommended Lecturecast’s ‘universal capture’ function for pre-recording chunked lectures.  Some staff have found this difficult to use and used alternatives recording tools before uploading them to Lecturecast. Others have published recordings elsewhere, such as Mediacentral, YouTube, Microsoft Stream, Zoom or directly into Moodle.  As a result of this mix of approaches some staff have been confused, the student experience is inconsistent, and ISD teams have had to do rapid and unforeseen work to increase the capacity of our media services.

Some students really value having access to pre-recorded lectures; others find them less engaging. It’s difficult to know what issues might be in play here but undoubtedly short recorded sessions, interspersed with activities or challenges, will be more digestible than a 50 minute uninterrupted recording.

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4. Creative staff in problem-solving mode

The transition to a very different approach has confirmed that UCL is full of very committed and creative people who are discovering that technology can really help support collaboration and learning. Staff have redesigned their modules to incorporate asynchronous methods and some are considering continuing to replace traditional lectures for short lectures interspersed with activities and quizzes.

Our teaching staff often solve problems locally rather than seeking help, but the downside can be multiple and local approaches which can lead to support challenges if things go wrong, and a confusing student experience.

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5. Hands-on learning opportunities underused

Some things are difficult to do online – notably labs, practicals and studio work, problem classes.  A lot of effort has gone into alternative approaches for labs and practicals including creating send-out kits to students, providing licences for software, and creating videos of practical demonstrations.  Additionally, ISD’s new ‘virtual teaching cluster’ service allows classes that would have taken place in a cluster room to happen online.  Not all of these facilities have been fully taken up which suggests that some staff may not be aware of everything that’s on offer.

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6. It's not all about formal experiences

In normal times students would also benefit from being part of a learning (and social) community at discipline level. Isolation is a challenge – students expect and need a social, human dimension to their university experience, and this is more difficult to provide online.  Virtual common rooms for students have been set up using Teams but work is needed to maximise their effectiveness. There does seem to be a particular need for ‘community spaces’ for students to help them to form connections – and this may need to be actively supported by academics.

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7. And finally...Moodle continues to improve

We’re continuing to develop Moodle – find out about recent enhancements via our blog. Why not subscribe so you’ll always be up-to-date!

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