Issue 2 | Article 5
Abstract
The COVID-19 pandemic has forced the higher education sector in Australia to move from mainly face-to-face to wholly online delivery. In this article, the author uses her own experience as a lecturer at three different institutions to highlight the variety of ways in which the sector has managed the transition, including with the provision of support for lecturers and the use of student feedback on the effectiveness of teaching.
Introduction
The pandemic-induced change from face-to-face to online delivery has led, unsurprisingly, to a sharper focus on change management including the need to support lecturers as they adapt to a new and unfamiliar mode of delivery and to consider the change in learning environment when assessing student responses to teaching. In higher education an important vehicle for obtaining information about student responses is student feedback surveys. Students are invited to respond to an anonymous questionnaire about their learning experience. The questionnaire includes questions on unit content and assessments, student resources, and the lecturer’s teaching performance. This article describes the author’s experiences with institutional support of lecturers and the use of student feedback during the early days of the pandemic in New South Wales (NSW).
Institutional Responses
In mid-March 2020, the NSW government ordered a complete or partial lockdown of all but the most essential businesses. Education was severely impacted. Students were only allowed to attend face-to-face classes if they could not learn from their homes. Since virtually all students in NSW have access to computers and the Internet, the lockdown effectively brought an end to face-to-face delivery. However, the approach and effort put into the transition to online learning differed markedly among institutions, including three at which the author was teaching.
Institution 1
This higher education provider, referred to as Institution 1, sent an email to all academic staff telling them to stay at home and, from the following Monday, commence teaching online. There was no support offered to help lecturers make the transition to online learning. Lecturers were simply informed that they were to access the Zoom platform and use their own personal devices to deliver their lectures and learning materials.
Institution 2
The second provider, described here as Institution 2, also took the initial step of sending an email to academic staff. However, this email advised staff that classes would be suspended for two whole weeks, to give both lecturers and students sufficient time to prepare properly for the move to online learning. Lecturers were advised that they would be required to deliver their lectures on-campus, where they would be provided with purpose-designed studios equipped with state-of-the-art facilities and cameras. Thus, students would be assured of high-quality delivery and staff would not be pressured to upgrade home-office equipment, which was in short supply following announcement of the lockdown.
Institution 3
The third provider, referred to as Institution 3, informed lecturers that at the beginning of the following week all classes would be moved online. Lecturers were directed to use Microsoft Teams and to upload their course materials to Google Drive. No additional support was offered.
Student Feedback Surveys
Institution 1
The classes at this institution were delivered on a free-of-charge Zoom platform, and in the first class delivered by the author Zoom cut out after 45 minutes. Fortunately, the author was able to direct students to an alternative platform and complete the session. Later, on their feedback forms, the students complained about the online learning platform, noting that it had not provided a pleasant experience for them or the lecturer. Many students complimented the lecturer for providing an alternative platform and for her innovative ideas such as establishing a YouTube channel and using Google Hangout. The lecturer received the highest ratings across all classes offered by the Institution in this teaching period.
Nevertheless, the lecturer’s overall experience with the student feedback from this particular class was very disappointing – and quite bizarre. One student out of the 35 in the class used the feedback form to direct complaints against her. This student criticised the lecturer’s hairstyle, her accent which was deemed too Australian, and her behaviour towards this student, which the latter characterised as unprofessional. The Dean then asked the lecturer to attend a one-on-one session to discuss the complaints. The lecturer asked for a copy of the student’s feedback form but was told that it could not be given to her because of ‘privacy concerns.’ Instead, the lecturer was told to come back for a later meeting.
The lecturer decided to push for a copy of the feedback form anyway and sought the support of senior management. She stated, correctly, that the allegations made in the feedback form had nothing to do with her teaching style or any other objective matter that related to effective learning. Rather, they reflected the student’s subjective perception of the lecturer’s appearance and behaviour. The lecturer asked how changing her hairstyle could improve the student’s learning experience.
The senior academic leaders then questioned the lecturer about the accusation of ‘unprofessional conduct’ which, they advised, could be construed as bullying by the lecturer of a student from a culturally and linguistically different background. The lecturer pointed out that no other student had made such a complaint. She also reminded the Dean that one student in her class had approached for her for free legal advice about a matter affecting the student and a family member. The lecturer had notified the Dean of this request and had been told to ignore it. Fortunately, the lecturer had kept copies of the emails the student had sent asking for the legal advice. The emails had continued throughout the semester, even after the lecturer had referred the student to other sources of legal advice. It became apparent during the meeting with senior management that it was this student who had complained about the lecturer and that the complaint had nothing to do with the effectiveness of her teaching. Rather, it was about her refusal to provide the student with free legal advice.
It took three months to resolve this issue. By that time, the next teaching session was well under way and, not surprisingly, the lecturer had not been invited back to teach. This is not an unusual occurrence in the sector. The whole experience for the lecturer was extremely unpleasant, very confronting, and totally unfair.
Institution 2
As noted earlier, lecturers at this Institution were required to deliver their material from fully equipped lecture-studios located on campus. Each studio was equipped with tracking cameras, excellent audio, and live-chat facilities. Instead of Zoom, which is a general-purpose, video-conferencing platform, the institution used Blackboard Collaborate, which is a dedicated, virtual classroom tool. Teaching and learning materials were uploaded to the student platform in real time. All staff were provided with training on how best to teach in an online environment.
At the end of the trimester, Management informed lecturers that it was fully aware that that the teaching period had been extremely challenging for both staff and students and that this might be reflected in some aspects of the student feedback. Thus, any lecturer who received a poor result was invited to meet with their program director, discuss the feedback, and together derive learnings from it. The lecturers were very appreciative of this supportive approach.
However, the feedback from students at this institution was very positive. They reported that the online learning environment had strongly mirrored that of the traditional, face-to-face classroom environment. Further, about 90% indicated that they would prefer to stay online in later teaching periods. In this case, the lecturer was congratulated for her cooperation in continually coming to campus to teach the students and for the quality of her teaching. This has motivated her to put even more effort into improving the quality of her teaching materials and delivery.
Institution 3
While this institution required academic staff to teach using Microsoft Teams, it also told them not to use Microsoft Teams when recording their lectures. The reason given was that Microsoft Teams was not compatible with the Institution’s learning management system.
Unfortunately, this led to an almost comical scenario where a lecturer would open the learning management system on one device and record the lecture using another device. The lecturer would then upload the recorded lecture to the Learning Management System Platform. All learning materials had to be uploaded to both the Learning Management System and the Cloud as some students were living overseas and could not access the Learning Management System. The time taken for such administrative activities was an additional 1-2 hours per week. The lecturers were not compensated for this additional demand on their time.
Predictably, at the end of semester the students complained about the ad hoc nature of the teaching. Most students in the author’s class could not manage to work out the Teams System. The lecturer repeatedly asked the Institution for additional support for students (especially those who were overseas) but this was denied on every occasion. The student feedback surveys indicated that students were extremely dissatisfied with their learning experience. The overseas students also expressed considerable anger that the timetable had not been adjusted to take into account the different time zones of the online students, and a large proportion had to be ready at 3am to access their class.
What was also surprising was that the author was asked to attend a meeting with management to explain the poor student results for her subject. The lecturer pointed out that the criticisms of the students were not in relation to her teaching style or the learning material. Rather, they were in relation to the poor technical support provided to the students by the Institution. This was not agreed to by the Institution’s management, which claimed that the lecturer ‘should have done more’. At this point the lecturer was informed that due to the negative student feedback she would be replaced.
Conclusions
Student feedback is an important tool that can help managers of educational institutions evaluate the quality of the teaching provided to students. However, it is important that the feedback relates to teaching effectiveness. Some students use student feedback simply to criticise characteristics and behaviours of lecturers that have no relationship with teaching effectiveness. Giving credence to these criticisms does not serve the interests of either the student or the lecturer.
References
https://www.ubss.edu.au/articles/2021/may/online-teaching-a-tale-of-two-institutions/
https://www.ubss.edu.au/articles/2021/september/alternative-delivery-options/
Biography
Anurag Kanwar is Director of Compliance and Continuous Improvement at Group Colleges Australia (GCA), Executive Secretary of the GCA Board of Directors, and a member of the UBSS Academic Integrity Committee, Audit and Risk Committee, and Workplace Health and Safety Committee. Anurag is also a practicing lawyer in NSW specialising in the areas of corporate governance and risk. Anurag is a prolific commentator on matters relating to international education on LinkedIn with over 5000 followers.
