From lecture to story-telling

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During my schooldays and even at university I believed that I would be assessed on how well I remembered what the teachers told us in class. We were lead to believe that anything the teacher "went through" in class could come up in the exam. What we read in our textbooks was supplementary knowledge. The teacher probably also felt obliged to cover all possible questions to avoid accusations after the exam that "you never mentioned that in class". I taught for many years using this model and tried to cram in as much useful information as possible into my lessons in the belief that this was how the students learned best. So we were all locked in this information transfer illusion of learning that is still very common in education all over the world. Even if active learning and flipped classroom have become accepted and widely used, the default is still the traditional lecture.

This is discussed in an article by Harald Liebich in the Norwegian higher education news site Khrono (just use a translation tool), Er forelesningen et ritual eller en læringsarena? (Is the lecture a ritual or a learning arena?). Whenever the media or popular culture want an image to represent higher education it is nearly always the lecture hall with the professor on stage. He describes how lectures simply repeat what is much better described in a textbook and that students remember very little of value. A method with such limited impact on students' learning must be questioned. 

The time invested by lecturers and students does not correspond to the intended outcome; the enhancement of learning. The limited impact of initiatives to implement innovative teaching methods can be linked to the lack of incentives for pedagogical development in the whole university sector. [My translation]

Forelesers og studentens tidsbruk står ikke i forhold til hovedintensjonen; læringsutbytte. Manglende drivkraft til å fornye undervisningsformene, kan ha sammenheng med at undervisningsarbeid gir begrenset merittering innen universitetsfeltet.

The lecture is indeed a ritual and should in most cases be transformed into an arena for group work and discussion. At the same time, I wonder if the ritual element still has relevance in terms of creating and cementing a sense of belonging. Attending a lecture every week reminds students that they are part of the university as an institution and reinforces a sense of pride and tradition that should not be underestimated. You may not learn so much but simply being there gives you a sense of identity just as walking about the campus or chatting in the cafeteria. I know that many people prefer to study in the library even if you could easily do so more comfortably at home. Somehow the library feels more academic, more inspiring, more serious. Also you can see lots of other people studying and you want to blend into the studious ambiance. This was transformed into an online setting during the pandemic with sites like StudyStream where you could join a silent video meeting, watching other students studying at their desks. 

Lectures have a role to play but only is used sparingly. Liebich quotes an article in the journal Health Professions Education, On the Use and Misuse of Lectures in Higher Education, that reviews research in the value of the lecture and describes the methods limitations. However, there are times when a lecture can be valuable, especially as inspiration. The lecturer's role is not to provide content but to offer different perspectives and insights into their own research process. The vital element is to offer reflection, experience and inspiration - basically to tell an engaging story. 

Articles describe only the end product of a scientific endeavor and do so in a static and formal way. Students however deserve to hear the whole story; the story of how the researcher developed a particular hypothesis, the story of the difficulties the researcher encountered, and his or her emotions when a cherished hypothesis turned out to be false. Who can tell these stories better than the researcher him- or herself? These narratives should be told and the lecture is a good place to do just that, in particular if the lecturer knows how to tell a good story.

The lecture may be an academic ritual but if the speaker can offer this story-telling element and convey enthusiasm and commitment to the subject matter it can also play an important role in the students' development.

Offline learning in focus as energy crisis looms

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The prospect of power cuts and major energy saving measures this winter highlights the need for digital resilience and offering alternative access to educational resources. Up till now we have simply assumed that electricity and internet access were ubiquitous and unlimited, at least in privileged economies. One lesson of the pandemic was that many students did not have unlimited connectivity. Some were learning on pay-as-you-go mobile subscriptions and couldn't afford to watch heavy video files or attend long Zoom sessions. As a result many educators have learnt to offer alternative low-bandwidth formats such as text versions of videos, podcasts and downloadable files and these will be vital if the threats of power cuts come true this winter.

James Clay covers this in a post called When everything goes dark. Low-bandwidth formats are not simply emergency solutions but also smart solutions that offer greater accessibility even when all the lights are on. 

When the power goes out, this means no lights, no power, potentially no heating and no broadband. Of course a blackout also means as well no mobile signal, so no 4G. So though you may have a mobile device with enough battery power to use it, it you won’t be able to use the internet.

Universities should already be planning to provide digital resources that are available offline. He suggests contingency training for teachers on how to offer alternative formats and provide support for students. Even if the crisis is avoided these measures will be not be wasted. A lot of video content can and should be replaced by audio, especially when it is simply 30 minutes of talking head video, and a text version is essential for those who have difficulty hearing the speaker.

If you’re not using video, you don’t have to be constrained by text, downloaded audio recordings and podcasts are possible options. Audio also means that the screen can be turned off (or turn the brightness down) again increasing battery life.

Of course this situation is a typical first world problem. In many parts of the world power cuts and poor connectivity are simply part of everyday life and so work and study need to be adapted round the blackouts. We can learn a lot about resilience from all the educators and students in countries afflicted by crises and war. Many Ukrainian universities have managed to continue their courses in spite of horrific destruction. I don't mean that we have to prepare for such extremes but we certainly need to have alternative strategies ready for implementation when needed. Maybe it's time to reach out and learn from them about how to provide education in times of shortage and crisis.

Conference conclusions part 2

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Following my previous post I would like to summarise some takeaways from the two conferences I attended recently, NU2022 i Stockholm and EDEN2022 in Tallinn, Estonia. I didn't make detailed notes this time so here is a list of themes that made an impact for me. There were of course many sessions about the perils of hybrid teaching but generally the focus was on improving teaching and learning rather than about using tools and platforms. I don't think that the pandemic has fundamentaly changed education but I do believe that we have finally realised that technology is now fully integrated into all pedagogical discussions. Here are a few themes I noted, in no particular order.

The changing role of the campus.

If we can deliver content, discuss, collaborate and network very well online and in some cases better than on-site the awkward question of the future role of the campus emerges. We need to offer sound reasons for being there and identify the unmissable elements of the campus experience. This is clear for the traditional target group of young students but the benefits are much less clear for the growing ranks of older online students. An interesting perspective on this came from the head of the Stockholm School of Economics who talked about the importance of appealing to all the senses - not just what your campus looks like but also trying to capture the feel, smell, sound and taste. We had an evening event at that institution and saw how they had cooperated with artists to have thought-provoking paintings, photos and sculptures in the corridors and learning spaces.They also ran very popular book circles to emphasize the importance of the humanities even in an economics degree. 

In Tallinn a presentation by a student raised the need for us to develop a coherent digital campus that allows students and teachers to interact, form groups, network and socialise. Today's digital campus consists of closed and often incompatible silos and the presentation showed that during the pandemic lockdown students at Tallinn University had to negotiate 11 different platforms as part of their everyday course work.

Students as partners

Nobel Prize winner Carl Weiman of Stanford University made an interesting online presentation at the Stockholm conference. Not about his research in physics that won him the prize but about the theme of the conference - pedagogical development. What struck me most was the fact that he presented in such down-to-earth terms and stressed the need to have students as partners in the learning process and in course design. Admittedly he was preaching to the converted but he reinforced the advantages of active learning and of peer feedback.

Discussing with a fellow student is more effective than listening to an expert instructor.

Pia Lappalainen, Aalto University in Finland, reinforced this theme by showing evidence for how regular small-scale feedback promoted learning more than detailed summative feedback.

New initiatives for promoting digital literacies

A representative from the European Commission presented news of further initiatives to promote digital literacies in education and in society in general through the updated version of the European Digital Competence Framework for Citizens, version 2.2. There was also enthusiasm about the launch of the Digital education hub. The hub is an ambitious venture to offer professional development for teachers as well as a store of learning resources and lesson plans.

The open online collaborative community for digital education stakeholders in Europe and beyond.

Even if there are excellent guidelines and criteria for assessing and developing teachers' digital literacies there are unexpected issues in trying to gain an objective assessment within an institution. Linda Helene Sillat and Mart Laanpere of Tallinn University showed the dangers of self-assessment where some teachers over-estimated their competence levels whilst other did the opposite. Objective tests at the university failed since teachers simply refused to take the tests, seeing it possibly as an affront to their professional abilities and suspecting that poor test results would negatively affect their career opportunities. 

Quality perspectives

Quality in the field of online education is a complex issue. Despite a plethora of quality frameworks (over 100 different frameworks according to Mark Brown of Dublin City University, there is still a reluctance to address the issue in higher education. Maybe this is due to universities being daunted by both the bewildering variety of frameworks and the diversity of overlapping terminology in the field. The question remains of whether quality in the use of technology in education should be assessed as part of the regular educational quality framework or as a separate feature.

My final takeaway was a presentation by Lesley Gourlay of University College London, questioning the use of the word virtual in an educational perspective. This opened up a wider theme that deserves a longer post to itself. I will break new ground on this blog by creating a cliff-hanger. 

To be continued ...

Clouds on the horizon

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Once again it's time for one of the most widely read reports on the opportunities and challenges facing higher education around the world, the 2022 EDUCAUSE Horizon Report, Teaching and Learning Edition. This year's report comes in the wake of the pandemic that has had a profound effect on education and has lead to a major reappraisal of how we teach and learn in an increasingly uncertain and unstable world. As usual the report features a number of trends in educational technology that are having major effects on education as well as overarching societal and environmental factors. It also describes a number of plausible scenarios for higher education, and even society in general: growth, constraint, collapse and transformation. An added value is the wealth of links to relevant examples of the trends described and inspirational solutions. To provide a global perspective there are chapters written by experts from Australia, Canada, Mexico, Saudi Arabia and the USA as well as a corporate view. Sadly voices from Africa and South America are not represented.

The report has been criticised over the years for repeating the same trends each year but to be fair these trends are seldom short-term or transient. Some of this years trends have been on the Horizon lists for many years but each year new details become visible as they mature and new factors come into play. The old tradition of looking at technologies that will impact higher education on a short-, medium- and long-term basis has now been thankfully dropped. In the past some short-term impacts took much longer to materialise (or simply died) and long-term trends developed more quickly than predicted. Such is the fate of most predictions. One thing is clear however:

Higher education likely will never be the same again, for these and many other reasons that have emerged just within the past two years.

Not surprisingly, the word hybrid is used a lot in the report. Universities are spending a lot of money on technology to equip classrooms for hybrid teaching with sophisticated systems with multiple cameras, screens and microphones to allow everyone to participate as equitably as possible. However, no amount of high-tech will work unless teachers and students are confident in using it and the teaching is suitably adapted. Similarly, the rise of hybrid working will lead to changes in campus design with fewer teachers, administrators and students on site. 

Remote work is making its way into job descriptions and contracts on campus, and institutional leaders are having to rethink important aspects of their culture and operations, such as interpersonal staff and team communications, the use of facilities and on-campus office and desk spaces, and staff and faculty training and support for their device and connectivity needs.

This in turn opens up questions on the value of the campus. It is certainly a great place to be for many who gain networks for life and a stimulating academic environment, but it also excludes many others. The report also describes a major shift in interest away from traditional degrees towards skills-based learning with shorter focused courses offering microcredentials. These are being increasingly recognised by major companies and some universities are already partnering with the corporate sector to offer such credentials.

Some students will simply conclude that they cannot afford the cost of a degree, particularly in regions and at institutions where rises in tuition and other related expenses simply seem unmanageable. Other students will conclude that the traditional college degree no longer meets their personal and professional needs, or they will seek alternative opportunities for acquiring the knowledge, skills, and credentials they need for successful job placement and career advancement.

Learning analytics, artificial intelligence and cybersecurity also feature heavily in the report but earlier tech-optimism is now clouded with concerns in terms of how student data can be used in a responsible and ethical manner. The full potential of learning analytics and AI has not been realised yet, often due to the fact that most institutions have so far failed to integrate all their systems to be able to tap into the vast resources of data they possess. Even the data available in the learning management system is seldom exploited. Will students accept that their data is analysed and profiles created that might not always be to their advantage? 

As previous EDUCAUSE research has found, for example, students may be more or less comfortable with their institution collecting and using their data depending on the type of data being collected and used. And many students may not fully understand why or how their data are being collected and used, eroding their trust and confidence in the institution’s use and protection of their data and subsequently eroding their trust in their institution overall.

Although the report shows the potential of the trends it describes it does not hide from the storm clouds hanging over all of us in terms of  the climate crisis, increasing political instability and the global rise of misinformation and anti-scientific thinking. We already see an increase in political control of what is taught at universities and a decrease in the public funding of higher education and the report does not see this ending in the short term. This can lead to universities seeking more private funding and risking that major benefactors influencing policy and strategy in ways that limit academic freedom.

Of course there are other issues or trends not mentioned in the report but I still think this is the most accessible summary of the challenges facing higher education today and one that you can certainly send to decision makers at your institution. If you'd like another perspective as a complement, then please have a look at Mark Brown's excellent article from December 2021, What are the Main Trends in Online Learning? A Helicopter View of Possible Futures (Asian Journal of Distance Education. Vol. 16 No. 2, 2021) 

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Hybrid classrooms - impressive solutions but are we asking the right questions?

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Educational institutions all over the world are busy redesigning their classrooms and buying lots of hardware to facilitate hybrid teaching. The pandemic has revealed a need to offer more flexibility in how courses are run, offering students the choice of whether to attend classes on site or online. Many institutions have been doing this for many years but suddenly hybrid has become mainstream and there is a frenzy of ed tech investment. The challenge is to ensure that the online students are not simply passive observers but can participate as fully as their counterparts on site. This inevitably involves more advanced technology in the classroom with multiple screens, microphones and cameras so that everyone can be seen and heard clearly and that slideshows, whiteboards and collaborative tools can be easily shared. 

Some excellent examples of hybrid classrooms are described in a detailed post by Zac Woolfitt, The future is bright - the future is hybrid. He describes how four European universities are redesigning their classrooms for a hybrid future: University of Amsterdam, KU Leuven, Imperial College London and Oulu University of Applied Sciences. All are very impressive and I urge you to read the article to get the details. Online students are visible on large screens, cameras automatically focus on the speaker in the classroom and high quality microphones ensure that everyone is heard. Not only have they upgraded their larger lecture theatres to cope with hundreds of students at a time but they have also equipped smaller classrooms and group rooms for hybrid sessions. Some solutions are like sophisticated TV studios and each lesson will require careful planning between teachers and production staff. Others are less complex but still demand that teachers rethink their teaching to adapt to the technical affordances.

However, all of them admit that they have still not found the best solution and that hybrid teaching still presents many challenges. Complex technical solutions demand qualified staff to assist the teacher, or require teachers to be well trained in using the equipment; resulting in an almost impossible juggling act trying to focus on both teaching and on managing the technology.

Finding ways to combine collaboration online and on campus remains a challenge. Those presenting here thought that there is more hybrid collaboration than every before. The solutions provided currently work, but it is expected the demands and context will change in a few years. Some have only been running Hybrid classrooms for less than a year. The feedback from students will provide lots of input. Creating really good hybrid breakout rooms has not yet been achieved yet and requires improvements in the technology. For some students, it is not easy to learn remotely, and they want to be in class, in contact with fellow students.

They are all impressive initiatives that aim at providing all students with a high quality experience no matter how they choose to participate. However, I wonder if we are asking the right questions here. These solutions are expensive and unrealistic for many institutions, especially in less developed countries. I also wonder if we place too much importance on synchronous events. No matter how much technology you have in the classroom, any gathering of more than 30 students means that the majority of them will not say a word during the session and that interaction will be limited. Large lecture theatres, no matter how much technology you buy, will always favour lecturing with the teacher in focus. Of course there is value in gathering all students in a synchronous event from time to time. It reinforces a sense of community and common purpose. But I would like to see a greater emphasis on group work, investigating, analysing and solving problems, and this is done in a combination of synchronous and asynchronous collaboration rather than in large class meetings. Maybe the hybrid classroom does not need to be so sophisticated. Shorter focused hybrid sessions to set up the task and then let the students work together in hybrid groups. This requires lots of flexible group rooms on campus but those require often only a screen, webcam and microphone. Learning to work in virtual teams to solve problems and find solutions are also vital skills to learn for most professions in a world where international travel is likely to become increasingly unfeasible.

Challenging assumptions about learning

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Do you have a clear idea of how you learn and what teaching methods help you most? I certainly don't and I'm close to retirement. However we continually ask students to evaluate their courses and draw conclusions from their feedback. Student course evaluations form the basis for future course design and administration but I wonder if we are asking the right questions. 

This is a topic discussed in a post by Zach Groshell, Do Students Have a Good Idea of What Helps Them Learn? We are asking them to evaluate a complex process that they have limited insight into and often the benefits of good teaching become clear months or even years later. He refers to a recent study, On students’ (mis)judgments of learning and teaching effectiveness. Journal of Applied Research in Memory and Cognition (Journal of Applied Research in Memory and Cognition, 9(2), 137–151), that investigates the hidden biases and subjective impressions behind student course evaluations. They found for example a mismatch between what the students thought they had learned and their test results. They preferred traditional content-rich lectures to more active sessions despite studies showing that active participation leads to deeper learning. They were also highly influenced by subjective perceptions of the teacher's status, enthusiasm, gender, ethnic background and accent (as we all are). I hasten to add that we are all subject to these biases.

As we have seen, empirical research has provided a wealth of results showing that students are poor evaluators of their own learning, and that their subjective impressions of teaching effectiveness are vulnerable to many biases that are unrelated to teaching and learning… Does this make it risky for instructors to use effective learning techniques? Particularly early in their careers and in teaching-focused positions, instructors may find themselves faced with the difficult decision of whether to incorporate teaching practices that gain them recognition as effective instructors, even if such practices do not positively impact students’ learning.

This poses a tricky question to teachers - do you teach for student satisfaction or teach for learning, even if it may lead to dissatisfaction and poor evaluations? An ambitious teacher who decides to promote active learning and student collaboration runs the risk of students misunderstanding their pedagogy and even a reprimand from the head of department when the poor evaluations emerge. Most of us can remember a teacher we hated at the time but with hindsight realise had pushed and challenged us to a higher level of understanding. What we think we want is not always what we need.

On a similar theme of assumptions and biases is an article by Perry Samson in Educause Review, Students Often Prefer In-Person Classes . . . Until They Don’t. We often assume that students prefer classroom teaching and student surveys show a clear preference for this. However, in this study the students were offered three levels of participation, the hyflex model of on-site, online or asynchronous interaction. Although they at first preferred to be in class, physical attendance declined as the course went on.

Given reasonable options, students in my class did not prefer the in-person mode of course delivery. In fact, the number of students who physically attended class dropped precipitously to an average of around 20% by mid-semester (see figure 1). At the same time, about one-third of students opted to participate synchronously during class time (see figure 2), with a growing number, reaching about 30%, participating asynchronously. The number of students who didn't participate any given day was relatively consistent throughout the semester at about 15%.

The test results showed that the on-site students performed no better than the others, in fact the first-year students who studied asynchronously (recorded lectures, forum discussion etc) had better results than those who attended classes in person. The study is of course limited and offers no exploration of the students' preferences but it does show that students appreciate the choice of participation modes more than we might assume.

My conclusion here is that we need greater dialogue with students about teaching and learning, explaining in advance why we are using a particular approach and getting them to buy into the method through together discussing rules of engagement and building a framework for feedback and reflection. Expectation management is so important and so pre-course information is so much more than just presenting a syllabus. It's setting an agenda and helping students understand how to succeed.

Back to the classroom - risk for a post-pandemic backlash?

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Over the last year or so there have been countless articles and blog posts about how the pandemic has finally brought online education to the forefront and how education will now be able to take a leap forward as we fully integrate more collaborative and active learning with the help of digital platforms and tools. This is linked to similarly optimistic forecasts of how work culture will change radically as working from home becomes mainstream. Of course there will be changes in the way we teach and learn but don't underestimate the power of tradition and the desire to return to familiar ingrained practice. 

Several posts in the past week have featured the risk of a backlash against the online transformation narrative. Politicians in many countries are increasingly focusing on the need to get students back on campus and return to traditional teaching. This is understandable but it is often combined with a bias against online education as a poor substitute - the assumption that education is always best in the physical classroom. This point is discussed by Martin Weller, Why do education secretaries hate online learning? with reference to recent remarks by UK politicians.

I mean, it’s weird, right? On the one hand, all Governments like to berate education for not fully preparing students for the modern workplace. They unveil plans about how they will be a modern, 21st century, digital economy. And yet, successive education secretaries have berated online learning, which one would think was an essential component in realising both of the previous aims. And not just offer up some valid criticisms around issues of retention or engagement, say, but they use terminology that portrays online learning as, at best, a lazy, cheap option and at worst, some form of abuse.

I wish we didn't always play off the one form against the other. It would be nice to hear that the progress in online teaching gained during the pandemic will now be integrated into classroom practice in order to offer greater flexibility and active learning opportunities for students. But somehow the rhetoric of back to the traditional classroom appeals to voters and any changes to the well-worn system are viewed with suspicion.

On a similar theme is a post by James Clay, Predicting is hard, and we can get it wrong, commenting on an article from HEPI (Higher Education Policy Institute), Five common predictions about COVID and education that now appear to be wrong. It outlines how several predictions have been proved wrong: the number of students has not been reduced because of covid, test results in most subjects have not suffered, drop-out rates have not increased significantly and the graduate work market has not suffered either. Despite all this, Clay notes that attitudes to online education from those in power have not responded.

One prediction made at the start of the pandemic by many involved in education technology was that the forced working from home would (post-pandemic) be a catalyst for more blended and online learning in higher education. The prediction was that following people being forced to use tools such as the VLE, Teams, Zoom, lecture capture, that this would embed such technologies into future teaching and learning. Well we know from the press this week that this may not be the case, with Nadhim Zahawi talking in the Daily Mail that “Students made to pay tuition fees for Zoom lectures should revolt”. This kind of rhetoric makes any (current and future) use of online technologies challenging for universities.

Will the experience of the pandemic period simply be seen as a temporary diversion? If we really want to change education it will require major investments in professional development as programmes are redesigned to integrate more flexible and collaborative models. Institutions will need to change their organisation and strategies, teachers will need to learn new methods and students will also have to adapt. This all costs time, effort and money as opponents will be quick to point out. With many institutions under financial pressure, the temptation is strong to return to familiar practice. 

The age of the educational technologist

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I always enjoy reading Tony Bates' posts that always offer a balanced and informed view of current trends in education. This week's post is a review of educational technology trends of the past year,  A Review of Online Learning in 2021, and has the sub-heading bad but still better. The lessons learned this year are the same as those learned in 2020 only more nuanced. There is the realisation that almost all courses are now blended in some way and this is changing how we design our courses as well as how we design our learning spaces, both on-site and online. There are plenty of new buzzwords in this field and there's a lot of learning by trial and error but we have come a long way since early 2020. 

There are all kinds of new terms for these moves toward blended learning, such as flipped, hyflex, hybrid, and these terms will continue to evolve and confuse, because there is no dominant pedagogical model or even theory for blended learning. Everyone is learning by the seat of their pants, and this may not be a bad thing, at least initially. What is important is that these developments are encouraged, recorded and evaluated, so that eventually best practices can emerge.

One group that has moved on to centre stage during the pandemic is the educational technologist (there are many other names for this role as it is still developing into a profession). Institutions who already had centres of teaching and learning to support staff in using technology handled the transition to online education much more smoothly than institutions who lacked formal support. Today we see a realisation of the need for comprehensive support for teachers in designing and running courses.  Before covid this support was mostly aimed at a minority of teachers - early adopters. That meant there was time for individual support and guidance. But now, when all teaching staff need support, the role of educational technologists and pedagogical development specialists has become a core function. 

When only 10 per cent of courses were online, one-on-one support for faculty was feasible. However with everyone moving toward some version of blended learning, the challenge of quality control and agile course design, especially for blended learning, has become urgent. How do we scale up support for instructors to ensure quality blended learning? The challenge of blended learning means moving from an ad hoc model of faculty development, based on instructors, often reluctantly, opting in, to a more systematic faculty development model that ensures everyone has exposure to best practices in blended learning.

What is important now is that support for teachers is strengthened and professionalised. In some institutions this kind of support is still offered by either the IT department, who seldom have pedagogical experience, or rely on the goodwill of more experienced colleagues, who have to combine their regular duties with being unofficial and unrecognised educational technologists. The recognised educational technologists in turn need career paths, professional development and recognition of their contribution to the institution's core business. Even if we don't really know where we are heading it would seem to be safe to predict that most if not all educational institutions now realise the vital importance of professional support to teachers in managing the transition to a more digitally dependent university.

Active uninterest and the power of storytelling

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One of the highlights of this week was listening to an excellent keynote speech by Jo Røislien, professor of medical statistics at the University of Stavanger, at a Norwegian conference on motivation for learning (FuNKon 21 – Motivasjon for læring). He introduced the concept of active uninterest to describe popular attitudes to his field (maths, statistics). Whenever these subjects are mentioned people seem to almost take pride in how little they know. It's similar for most technical subjects as well as economics. People almost boast about how boring they think these subjects are and how little they remember from school. This is curious considering that our entire society and understanding of the world around us depends on these sciences but whenever they are discussed most of us automatically switch off. I admit to falling into that trap when it comes to financial matters. It's a defense mechanism but has become a dangerous myth that prevents people from engaging in and understanding the world we live in. 

Røislien is certainly not the stereotype "stats nerd". He happens to be a major TV personality in Norway thanks to his successful popular science TV series on Norwegian TV, NRK, Kampen om livet. The programme deals with difficult subjects like medical science, statistical analysis and molecular biology, but has become so popular thanks to its use of story-telling and eye-catching experiments rather than going into scientific detail. It's a classic case of  getting people to see the subject in a new light, to awake interest by seeing connections with things we understand (or think we do). In advertising terms it's not about selling the sausages, it's about selling the sizzle. 

He talked about the need for teachers and scientists to find compelling storylines to raise public interest in their subjects illustrated by his struggle to sell his idea of a documentary series to the TV company. As educators, it's not enough to deliver the facts, we need to break down people's barriers to learning, to activate curiosity and bring those facts to life. A good story helps us to remember and motivates us to find out how the story ends. We need more compelling stories to promote education and inspire curiosity. 

At the same time, I can't help noticing that not all stories are positive and that one reason for the growth of populism and conspiracy theories lies in the power of the stories they concoct. Even if they are shown to be misleading, the stories are stronger than the facts. Many traditional political parties have failed to realise the power of story telling, for better or for worse. Of course, the myth that subjects like maths are boring is also a compelling story, leading me back to the start of this post. 

Emotion and self-belief in online education

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Confidence and self-belief are crucial elements in education. Your emotional attitude to what you are studying can strongly influence your chances of success. We all remember subjects we hated at school and how that attitude was often formed by a simple dislike of the teacher who taught it or maybe the way the subject was taught. Or the classroom, or your classmates; the list goes on. Even the most pedagogical and well-planned lessons can go wrong if the student simply doesn't feel like working today. It's a wickedly difficult factor to influence since emotion is so often irrational and unpredictable.

There has been considerable research in the role of emotions in online education, for example the work of Martha Cleveland-Innes and Prisca Campbell, relating emotional presence to the wider community of inquiry model (see Cleveland-Innes, M., & Campbell, P. (2012). Emotional presence, learning, and the online learning environment. The International Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning, 13(4), 269-292.). They define the concept as:

Emotional presence is the outward expression of emotion, affect, and feeling by individuals and among individuals in a community of inquiry, as they relate to and interact with the learning technology, course content, students, and the instructor.

Online learning can be very emotional, especially when tools and resources don't work as expected and when technical problems outweigh the actual learning experience. It's important therefore to build a community of trust in the group and acknowledge the emotional ups and downs. The teacher can turn frustration into more positive emotions by tackling issues with respect, humour and understanding. Timely support can also soothe student nerves. Students can also learn to help each other and offer emotional support - even a well-timed smiley can help.

Another aspect of emotion comes in a new report from College Innovation Network, The New Digital Divide: How EdTech Self-Efficacy is Shaping the Online Student Learning Experience in Higher Ed, showing how students' perception of their proficiency in using digital tools and platforms, their EdTech self-efficacy, determined to a large extent their experience of online education during the pandemic. Those with a positive experience of and attitude towards educational technology also felt positively about their online learning experience during the pandemic. Furthermore, those who attended institutions where online education and the use of digital tools and platforms were already established found the transition relatively simple and were very positive to how online teaching had contributed to their learning process. Those who lacked experience of online education or had low confidence in their ability to learn in an online environment struggled.

The results of the survey further show the impact of EdTech self-efficacy on the student learning experience. Students’ reports of their EdTech self-efficacy was the most robust predictor of how they reported on a variety of aspects of their online learning experience this past year, including whether they felt they were learning effectively in an online environment, and how academically prepared they felt for next year.

Another digital divide mentioned is that of access to and ownership of digital devices and broadband internet access. Here there is a clear divide where less privileged groups had difficulty accessing course material and were unable to fully participate in online activities because they couldn't afford the necessary subscriptions and devices. They suffer from both the lack of necessary technology and the lower self-esteem that results in.

When students are required to use new tools and software in their courses, they are not only learning new course content, but they are also learning how to use new EdTech. Our data show that substantial portions of students struggled to learn how to use new EdTech in their courses. It’s important to realize that the introduction of new EdTech results in a dual learning experience for students. This can be beneficial as students are learning how to use new technologies, but it is important to design courses to incorporate proper instruction of new technologies to students, and ensure that all students have the digital literacy skills they need to succeed in courses.

This may seem obvious but we need to be reminded of the digital divide that is present in most institutions and how this links to self-esteem and confidence. How many students drop out due to low self-esteem and lack of experience? How does previous bad experience of online education affect future performance? When faced with a difficulty a common reaction is to say "I knew I wasn't good enough to do this sort of course" and drop out. We need to learn to meet these pre-conceptions from the start and create a sense of trust in the group where concerns can be raised and resolved with understanding and respect. Often it's not simply technical issues but emotional responses that can be most damaging to the student's learning journey.

An article in Inside Higher Ed, Who Are the Students Struggling With Online Learning?, comments on the CIN report by advising that teachers spend time with a class discussing previous experience of educational technology and making sure that there is adequate support in helping them get familiar with the platforms and tools used on the course. Obviously this also means designing the course to avoid tech overload and providing scaffolding and support for the technology that is used on the course. Many students face a double learning load - the course content plus the course platform and tools. Recognition of the power of emotional presence can be decisive.

Online versus campus - comparing apples and pears

Photo by Melanie Dijkstra on Unsplash

My last post reflected on why we should stop trying to prove that online teaching is more or less effective than campus teaching. A more detailed discussion on this theme is provided in an excellent review of recent comparative studies by Tony Bates, Research showing that virtual learning is less effective than classroom teaching – right? He lists 14 recent studies comparing student performance in online and in-person courses, some of which were carried out during the pandemic period. Most show that students' test results were lower in online courses and especially so for students from less academically prepared students. However the differences were not substantial, often 5-10% lower in online courses and most importantly there is little attention paid to the sort of online teaching that was offered. 

Most studies describe online courses that mirror the campus version with a predominance of recorded lectures and asynchronous discussion forum interaction. However, there are so many more variables to consider in both delivery modes: expectations management, scaffolding, community building, group work, social interaction, teacher presence, course structure, clear objectives, feedback methods, assessment, use of media, accessibility etc. Poor course design and lack of timely feedback and support can damage both online and in-person learning. It's not about a face-off between one delivery mode and another to see which is best.

These papers looked at many different variables, such as type of student, differences between subject areas, even how far from the campus students lived, but none of them looked at the most important variable: the method of teaching. How were the online courses designed? What teaching method was used in the classroom? Are we comparing online video lectures with the same on-campus lectures or are we comparing asynchronous online courses with synchronous classroom lectures? 

The cited studies are all serious research and will no doubt be cited by many especially when assessing the results of the emergency online teaching during the pandemic. However, Bates advises caution on reading too much into the findings since the studies omit so many important factors in the quality of online education. 

The studies clearly suggest that if you just move traditional classroom teaching online, many students, especially the most disadvantaged, will do less well than if they were in class. The results overall are not disastrous, though. Performance or retention is about 5%-10% poorer in most cases, although somewhat higher for some disadvantaged students.

During the past year the choice has been between online education or no teaching at all and the results should be seen in that light. Given that the online teaching on offer was not always fully designed for online delivery and that both teachers and students were unprepared for the challenges of such a transition, there results were actually rather impressive. We also have to remember that online education opens the door to higher education to millions of people who are unable to move to a campus city. For them there is no choice. We must make sure that the online education we offer is fit for purpose and designed professionally. 

But read Tony Bates' article for more insight.

 

Instruction or inquiry-based learning - it's not a choice

Photo by Brendan Church on Unsplash

Why do we keep believing in simple solutions to complex problems or that there is one best way to do something? This is sadly true in education where we should really know better by now. What is the best method/platform/tool for learning? Is online better or worse than classroom? Is group work better than self study? The answer is nearly always "it depends" but the comparisons and competition go on anyway. 

One of these debates is about the value of collaborative learning compared to the more traditional individual approach. Genuine collaboration, where a group works together to solve a problem by sharing knowledge, peer reviewing and discussing issues, is a powerful learning experience. But at the same time there are many pitfalls with many groups failing to reach the required level of mutual trust and respect to collaborate effectively. Groups who lack the critical level of knowledge and experience will often fumble, argue and fail or arrive at completely false conclusions. Learning to collaborate effectively is a lengthy process and needs to be guided and scaffolded by examples and feedback. Far too much group work in education can be seen as ineffective "busy work" that may look creative and engaging but does not really foster learning. 

There's an interesting critique of collaborative learning in a post by Zach Groshell, Do We Learn Best Collaboratively or Individually? He examines in particular a study from 2017, Can collaborative learning improve the effectiveness of worked examples in learning mathematics?, comparing students' performance in maths using traditional worked examples with individual study to collaborative problem-solving. Here the traditional approach was found to be more effective though collaborative work was sometimes effective for low complexity problems. 

Once again it's not a competition between two approaches; it's about when and how to use them. Collaboration requires experience and knowledge and is probably not going to work in an introductory course unless very clearly guided. Once the students have learned the basics and know how and where to search for more information as well as how to critically assess the quality of the search results, then collaborative learning can work very well. However they also need to be guided through the skills of team building and group dynamics so that they can establish the trust and common purpose that is necessary to collaborate.

Providing students with examples is effective, withholding examples from students when they could benefit from them is bizarre and irresponsible, and if teachers want students to have a shot at making sense of the examples they’re provided, it’s probably best that they study them individually, away from the attentional competition and extraneous noise that is the group dynamic.

Another problem with criticism of collaborative or inquiry-based learning is the idea that the students are simply left to their own devices and the teacher takes a more or less passive role (guide on the side). Collaborative work is described several times as unguided and this is surprising since most research into collaborative learning emphasizes the need for careful management, scaffolding and feedback from the teacher. Collaboration is a skill to be learned, not a spontaneous activity and this means careful guidance.

There's a good summary of the advantages and the pitfalls of inquiry-based learning in a couple of posts by Kath Murdoch, Inquiry learning: Pitfalls and perspectives part 1 and part 2. She recognizes the arguments in favour of a traditional approach but also demonstrates the strengths of inquiry when it is well-supported and scaffolded by the teacher. 

When understood well, inquiry learning actually demands careful design of authentic learning experiences, attention to existing schema, deft questioning, ongoing assessment, the cultivation of curiosity and the ability to plan and teach through concepts. The teacher’s role is critical.

The key once again is that learning is a complex process with so many variables and there is never only one "best" method no matter how much we wish for one. Teaching involves being able to choose the right mix of methods and tools for each learning situation, often offering alternative paths. Traditional instruction might work very well in certain situations and with some students, but will certainly not work for everyone, neither will any other method. This is well expressed in an article by Alan Reid (University of South Australia) in The Conversation, Teachers use many teaching approaches to impart knowledge. Pitting one against another harms education.

There’s a variety of useful teaching models — and this includes explicit instruction — which have been designed for different purposes. It is the educator’s task to select the most appropriate given the context.

Creating simplistic binaries in a field as complex and nuanced as education impoverishes the debate.

We need more discussion about the art of designing courses using a broad template of methods and tools and less needless comparisons between A and B.

MOOCs in study circles for teacher professional development

"Workshop" (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0) by Global Landscapes Forum

A return to an old theme this week of how we can use MOOCs to complement on-site training. Even if many MOOCs offer opportunities for forum discussions, many people would benefit from face-to-face discussions around the course material, especially in their own language. There are many examples around the world where groups of people decide to form a support community to help each other through a MOOC (MOOC meet-ups, learning hubs etc). This community can meet weekly either online or better still face-to-face. The community offers a safe space for asking question and discussing course topics and can be the difference between completing the course and dropping out in confusion.

The idea of self-organising study groups is firmly anchored in the Nordic tradition of study circles developed in the 19th century by pioneers like the Danish pastor N. F. S. Grundtvig. The principle here is also collaborative learning, a kind of community of interest. None of the group is necessarily an expert or teacher so the group decides together how to structure the course and one course can inspire a new one. Generally one of the circle acts as a facilitator but the study form is collaborative investigation and discussion. This form of study has spread internationally and can today be applied to studying a MOOC. The general principles and generic examples of the MOOC can be adapted by the study circle to local and specific cases thereby adding relevance and practical application.

One area where MOOCs can make an impact is in professional development. There are, for example, plenty of courses aimed at teachers and the study circle approach can work very well. To encourage this the European Commission’s Teacher Academy initiative on the School Education Gateway has published  a guide entitled Using Massive Open Online Courses in Schools. How to set up school-based learning communities to improve teacher learning on MOOCs. This is a step-by-step guide to organising a study group at a school or college to study a MOOC as professional development. Studying individually is challenging for many: finding time and maintaining motivation as well as the challenges of adapting to the course technology and learning in a foreign language. The moral support of colleagues adds a dimension that is not available in many MOOCs and the group can discuss how to apply the lessons learned in their own practice.

The study groups therefore offered a framework to support colleagues with low levels of digital and self-regulated learning competence to help them benefit from a MOOC, while at the same time contextualising and localising what was learned on the MOOC and facilitating a transfer to practice. Feedback from study group participants and the eight pilot teachers suggests that the study groups successfully addressed all of these areas. 

Here's a short film that gives a clear overview of the project and its outcomes.

The power of grades - student resistance to collaborative learning

"Ellis Hall Active Learning Classroom" (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0) by queensu

The concept of the flipped classroom, where lecture input is recorded and classroom meetings focus on discussion and problem-solving, has become extremely popular, not least during the pandemic as a way of making online classes more participatory. However, like all attempts to diverge from traditional practices, there is often opposition, especially from the students who may see new methods as a threat. The key issue seems to be the perceived withdrawal of the teacher from the centre stage as the students are given the freedom to take control of their learning and learn through collaboration. This can be seen as an unwelcome imposition by many students and leads to insecurity since traditional roles and models have been disturbed.

This sense of threat is clearly described in an article in the journal Teaching in Higher Education, What does it mean to do teaching? A qualitative study of resistance to Flipped Learning in a higher education context (sadly not open access). It describes the implementation of a flipped learning approach in a teacher training programme at Macquarie University in Australia. The main benefit of flipped learning is that by switching the delivery of content to recorded lectures and demonstrations this will enable teachers to devote contact time to providing timely feedback, guiding, challenging and encouraging. The problem is that students have high expectations of the teacher as performer and see the flipped model as an abdication of responsibility. The stand-up lecture is seen as the definition of teaching - that's what teachers do. When that is withdrawn, the students feel cheated.

As indicated in the title of this paper, the Flipped Learning trial was met with resistance – in fact vociferous resistance. As I analysed data from the study and also reflected on my engagement with students during the delivery of the flipped course, a ubiquitous refrain emerged. Students drew persistent attention to an absence. In absenting from the traditional stand and deliver tutorial presence, I had denied my student’s access to the sage on the stage. My student’s indicated fear of missing out on critical information, discomfort of engaging in core content in asynchronous environments and resentment of what they understood as my absence in the tutorial (i.e. I was no longer sage on the stage but a guide to the side).

The students saw the method as at best interesting, but most commonly useless, time-consuming and confusing. The traditional lecture-based approach is seen as a way of guaranteeing that the necessary course material has been "covered" and that the students know what they have to learn for the exam.

The need to get the best exam grades to enhance future job prospects is the hard currency of higher education and pedagogic innovation sometimes clashes with these very pragmatic needs. This clash is demonstrated in another interesting article: Mediating Students’ Fixation with Grades in an Inquiry-Based Undergraduate Biology Course. Here students on a year one course in biology at Borealis University were studied as they worked through a redesigned course based on inquiry-based learning. Instead of the traditional lecture-based format, the students were expected to collaborate to investigate the main topics and reflect on the process.

... the curriculum required students to work cooperatively in groups to design and execute experiments that are authentically novel, gather and analyze data, and present their findings orally and in writing. Evaluative criteria included rubrics for transferred skills, and summative assessments for acquisition and application. Scientific concepts of uncertainty, peer review, and self-reflection were explicit parts of the design.

This approach has been shown to lead to deeper learning as well as learning vital skills of search skills, source criticism, collaboration and self-reflection, but the results show a serious mismatch between the teachers' well planned approach and the students' perception of teaching. As in the first example, the students were vociferous in their criticism of the course methods and were especially critical that the experiment seriously threatened their chances of getting the top grades they need to progress in their career path. The teacher expected them to work things out for themselves and that was seen as an abdication of responsibility - the teacher is expected to go through the syllabus and make it clear to students exactly what they need to know to get a top grade.

Instructors who did not give explicit directions or answer questions directly were perceived as obstructionist. One student framed her professor’s response to her repeated requests for directions as adversarial, saying, “[The instructor] said, ‘You’re not gonna have a step by step. You need to figure it out.’ And I said, ‘Well, I’m sorry, but I’m not paying tuition to figure it out myself.’”

The article concludes that the extrinsic motivation of grades has a negative effect on the intrinsic motivation needed for an inquiry-based approach to succeed. The inquiry-based approach was designed to enhance student autonomy but the effect was the opposite - students felt cast adrift and powerless whereas in the traditional setting they felt more autonomous because it was clear what they had to do to achieve desired results. It's hard to be creative in a world governed by grades.

The key takeaway here is that any changes in course design have to be clearly communicated to the students and they need to know why the changes have been made and how it will benefit them. In this case the student expectations were completely at odds with the teachers' methodology. Maybe if you want to implement more collaborative methods you should introduce them in stages though the first year, slowly working towards collaborative learning rather than throwing the students in at the deep end. This means that all teachers in a programme have agreed on this progress and that each course is part of a progression towards greater autonomy and active learning.

References

Wilson, K. (2020) What does it mean to do teaching? A qualitative study of resistance to Flipped Learning in a higher education context, Teaching in Higher Education, DOI: 10.1080/13562517.2020.1822312

DeFeo, D.J., Tran, T.C. & Gerken, S. Mediating Students’ Fixation with Grades in an Inquiry-Based Undergraduate Biology Course. Sci & Educ 30, 81–102 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11191-020-00161-3

Hybrid teaching - the new normal or yet another stress factor?

"Spinning" (CC BY-ND 2.0) by lissalou66

As universities prepare for a post-pandemic future, there is a lot of discussion about hybrid or even hyflex teaching where classes are held both on campus and online and students are able to choose how they wish to access the class. Hyflex even includes the option of being able to participate completely asynchronously but with exactly the same learning outcomes and examination requirements. It sounds great but doing this well will demand considerable effort and there are many pitfalls to beware of. Few classrooms are equipped for hybrid teaching for a start. Many institutions have already started converting classrooms for greater flexibility, generally involving the purchase of multiple screens, microphones, cameras and other hardware, much to the delight of the tech industry.

The idea of offering greater flexibility to students is fine but there are also dangers of taking a simplistic approach to a complex issue. Hybrid teaching is nothing new and many institutions have been doing it for years. It works relatively well for traditional large-scale lecturing since the students are largely passive regardless of location. The problems emerge when you add more interactivity. The classroom students then tend to dominate the discussion sessions and online students are often reduced to passive spectators since they are not as visible and it is hard to get the teacher's attention. Managing group work both in class and online is quite demanding on the teacher, especially if you want to have mixed campus and online groups. 

This all adds to the stress levels of already overstretched teachers after the past year's intensive pivot to online education, discussed in an article by teacher Amanda White in Times Higher Education, Upskill fatigue: will hybrid and hyflex tip academics over the edge? Despite her experience in online education, she admits that the past year has been very tiring and is worried that poorly implemented hybrid solutions will put even greater burdens on teachers. New teaching methods and skills will be required to ensure pedagogical quality and avoid falling into the trap of simply offering dual mode lecturing. Some institutions will be able to install expensive technology and provide essential support for their use but most will not, leaving teachers to rely on their multitasking skills, or lack of them.

While hybrid may seem like a panacea for the educational limbo we find ourselves in, implementing it poorly as a stopgap measure is likely to cause our educators more harm than good. Having educators without adequate training, learning design assistance, facilities and workload support is likely to pave the way for activities that do not engage the class, leaving online students cut adrift as observers.

Large lecture-based classes, often for first year students, are a tempting area for hybrid adaptation and Tony Bates warns against this in a new post, Teaching large lecture classes online in the fall? He advises universities to take the chance to change the model of teaching first year students and simply drop the large-scale lecture format except for a few exceptional occasions. Instead of lecturing, teachers need to help students find the information themselves and assess it.

When an instructor prepares a lecture, at least in first year, they are often doing work that the students could be doing: searching for information, raising issues, making a strong case or argument, coming to conclusions. These are skills that students increasingly need to develop themselves.

He also suggests that many first year classes could be smaller allowing for more collaborative group work and a teacher role more focused on facilitation and tutoring. If that is not possible then a more interactive and collaborative approach can be applied by a better use of prerecorded shorter lectures and a focus on asynchronous collaboration in the learning management system. In all cases we need to redesign our courses and review what technology we need. 

Without substantial re-design, moving large lectures online will increase the workload and stress on instructors, and/or will lead to poorer results for students. So now is the time for administrators and Deans to start asking whether we should be moving the large lecture classes online, or instead, finding better ways to deal with first year courses.

So should campus teaching become hybrid by default and if so, how do we deal with practical workshops, lab sessions and so on? I think we need to look carefully at which spaces to use for different types of activity. Sometimes we will have to insist on students coming to campus for essential hands-on training in fields like medicine, engineering, visual arts, music etc. Flexibility is fine but in some cases it can be dangerous and students need to be aware that although they can study online for some of the course there will be obligatory on-site training. At the same time we will definitely move to more hybrid solutions but they will demand course redesign and professional development for teachers if they are going to succeed.

Hooked on lecturing?

Photo by Alexandre Pellaes on Unsplash

Even if we know that lecturing is not a very effective way of teaching, it is so hard to stop doing it. I find myself often in the absurd position of lecturing about why we need to move away from lecturing and every time I fall into the trap I promise to be better next time. My excuse is that people ask me to lecture so that's what I do. The problem is that I do enjoy it and I think I do it quite well and that makes it even harder to kick the habit. Sometimes I think I have made the session open to discussion and tried to stimulate interaction, but afterwards I realise in shame that it was 90% monologue, again. Of course I also run workshops and use lots of tools and methods to increase interaction but I keep falling back into traditional formats. How to escape from an irresistible force?

When educators get together in conferences and seminars we tend to give lectures on research work or methodology with pretty traditional questions-and-answers sessions. I once attended a conference on innovative pedagogy that consisted of many long and rather dull lectures from experts in the field. There are exceptions, but we seem to have great difficulty escaping the gravitational pull of tradition. It's what people expect teachers to do, especially at university, and it's so easy to oblige. A well-structured and lively lecture can be inspiring but the majority fall short. We try to throw in a few polls or buzz group discussions but in the end it's still a lecture.

Do you have this problem or have you managed to do a lecture detox? When you get an invitation to give a lecture at a big conference what do you say? 

Turn down the volume - Silence as a vital element in online teaching

How silent are your online classes and meetings? Probably not at all. We fill our synchronous meetings with talk and noise and feel awkward when no one wants to speak. But silence can help communication and stimulate reflection and has an important role to play both in the physical and digital classroom. In classroom teaching we often ask the students to work silently for a while but somehow in online sessions we feel the need to fill every moment with activity. After all the hectic online meetings and classes of the past year it's time to think more about how we can refine our online meeting skills and learn to embrace the power of silence. I've written about this theme several times in the past but it's always worth revisiting.

The simplest use of silence is to ask the class to switch off their microphones and cameras and spend a few minutes writing ideas on paper before starting a discussion. In this way all participants must try to formulate their ideas and everyone has something to say in the following discussion. For example, after such a silence they can be put into pairs in breakout groups where each person reads or explains what they have written in silence. Then they can form larger groups for a more structured task. In this way, everyone has contributed to the activity, not just those who raise their hands and are not afraid of speaking.

The concept of silent meetings has been around for some time in the business world, as explained in an article in The startup by David Gasca, The Silent Meeting Manifesto v1: Making meeting suck a little less. This was designed for on-site meetings but can apply equally well to online meetings and even in education. The idea is to start a meeting by letting the participants read a short document (3-4 pages) outlining the topic for the main discussion and spending the first half of the meeting silently reading and commenting on the document using a collaborative tool such as Google Drive or Office 365 etc. Everyone can comment and reply to comments and there is often a very high level of activity even if the room is silent except for the pitter-patter of keyboards. The moderator or teacher monitors these comments and identifies the main points to be discussed when the "noisy" part of the meeting commences. In this way everyone has actively contributed to the discussion instead of only the most vocal members. The moderator's job is not easy especially if there are lots of comments and discussion in the document so you have to follow the comments very closely and try to narrow down the points of discussion. This could of course be achieved before the meeting as part of a flipped classroom approach but as we all know it is very rare that everyone gets involved in this way and there will always be participants who turn up without having had time to prepare. This way everyone is on the same page from the start.

I have tried this in some classes asking the students to write ideas and reflections on a shared document during an online lesson and it is always a fascinating experience. No cameras or microphones but lots of writing and you see the discussion in real time as the page gets quickly covered in comments in different colours. As a teacher this gives you time to identify themes for discussion later on or misunderstandings that require explanation. Most importantly you can see that everyone is contributing, in contrast to a regular speech-based discussion. A similar approach to silent meetings in education is described in an article in the Chronicle of Higher Education, To Spark Discussion in a Zoom Class, Try a ‘Silent Meeting’. An added value of the method is that the collaborative document becomes a useful resource for the students and teacher after the class is over and the discussions and comments on the document can continue for days afterwards.

The students’ notes in the silent-meeting documents offer a transcript we could return to for guidance and inspiration as we prepared for exams, developed paper ideas, and guided future discussions. Threads in the margins of the main discussion often invited further exploration, as students noted areas of the course material that they found interesting and wanted to explore further. This record from the silent meetings was at once a set of discussion notes for students and a built-in survey for me as I sought to understand what excited students about the course.

Of course this method is not always appropriate but there are surely many other ways of using silence in online meetings. It's really about creating balance in our meetings, reducing stress and giving people space to think.