Case Study: Blending Asynchronous and Synchronous

Abstract

Many staff have had different responses to working online but Simone has “enjoyed online teaching and learning and found it did not impact on the quality of my interactions.” Her approach was to swap the lecture time (1 hour) with an online live chat in Canvas, which she later delivered via Zoom with its in-built screen share option so she could show PowerPoint slides. For the remaining 2 hours contact time, she had prepared a pre-recorded Panopto lecture of around 20 minutes, which delivered the lecture materials in summary. She uploaded this in the weekly session along with additional study materials, including embedded documentaries (on YouTube) and reading materials.

Simone explained that “I asked them at the end of the first hour to spend the next 60 to 90 minutes engaging with these materials, after which I met with students again in the online live chat or (later) Zoom to summarise the session and let them ask questions about the materials.” This way, she kept to the timetabled delivery time, which was good for students who liked the formal timetabled structure, as it allowed them to maintain their usual learning and stay in touch with Simone and other students.

“So, in short, I found that this blended approach to teaching (including live chat/zoom, pre-recorded short lectures, and additional material available in each week in Canvas) during the actual timetabled session worked very effectively. I appreciate we are not a remote university, however this came pretty close to physical contact delivery.”

Student engagement

Simone found the student engagement “excellent”. See believes this was connected to staying within the normal 3 hour slot. However, there was one student who was classed as shielded (even within his own home) and emailed to say he suffered from extreme anxiety and stress, and as a result did not take part in the live online learning, but read up all the materials and achieved very good results in the assessment. Simone acknowledged that a key issue for online learning is mental health caused by the pandemic, plus technical equipment requirements, as some students found it tricky to access the different technology.