What Worked This Spring? Well-Designed and -Delivered Courses

The conventional wisdom holds that most students and instructors alike were deeply dissatisfied with their experiences with emergency remote learning this spring. Numerous surveys of students and parents have said as much, and many college leaders seem to be taking those attitudes to heart in their planning for fall. In announcing that they will return as much as possible to in-person instruction, more than a few have cited dissatisfaction with virtual learning as a factor, along with significant financial and cultural reasons.

As is often the case, though, a more thorough and nuanced look tells a somewhat different story.

Two new studies out today add to our understanding of how students and professors viewed their experiences with remote learning last spring after colleges were forced to close their campuses in response to COVID-19.

The nationally representative surveys of more than 1,000 undergraduate students and 4,000 instructors from 1,500 colleges reinforces the prevailing view that many instructors and students were not happy with how the spring went. The proportion of students saying they were highly satisfied with their experience in a course important to them fell from 51 percent pre-COVID to 19 percent post-COVID, and three-fifths of instructors said they struggled to keep students engaged.

But as is true of classroom instruction, too, not all courses are made the same. As instructors abruptly adapted their in-person courses to be delivered virtually over a matter of days in March, some more than others incorporated a set of practices widely embraced as contributing to high-quality virtual learning. And when courses were designed or delivered using significant numbers of those practices, students and professors alike were much likelier to express satisfaction with their experience, to feel engaged.

As I'll try to explain in more detail below, the implications for fall -- especially if, as seems likely, large proportions of students will be learning virtually, whether they're on campus or not -- are significant: making virtual learning better isn't an insurmountable mountain to climb. It's about making each course a little better, a bit more based on proven practices and a little more likely to keep students feeling connected and engaged. (And to put it in language that campus administrators might appreciate, maybe, just maybe, less likely to demand a tuition refund or to drop out.)

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The studies released today by Digital Promise and Tyton Partners, both of which are part of the Every Learner Everywhere network, are arguably the most comprehensive surveys to date of student and faculty perspectives on the spring's remarkable and abrupt transition to remote learning by the vast majority of the country's colleges, students and professors.

The surveys were conducted independently, and each has freestanding findings worth exploring on their own. For purposes of this column, though, I'm most interested in where they intersect and how those findings can inform how professors, instructional staff members and campus administrators approach instructional delivery this fall.

(An up-front bias I'll admit right here: while I understand why many students, parents and college leaders are eager for students to return to physical campuses this fall, I fear it's not going to go well and that, for COVID-19-driven reasons, many if not most students will end up studying heavily if not entirely online this fall. Now back to our originally scheduled programming.)

In "Suddenly Online: A National Survey of Undergraduates During the COVID-19 Pandemic," Digital Promise and Langer Research administered their “Survey of Student Perceptions of Remote Teaching and Learning” to 1,008 students in credit-bearing courses that were delivered in person at the start of the spring and remotely by March. Respondents were asked to focus on one course for purposes of the survey -- either a science, technology, engineering or mathematics course if they took one (because "STEM courses are typically the most challenging for students") or the course "they thought was most important for their future goals."

Key findings of the student survey include:

Despite the widely caricatured sense that all professors did this spring was sit in front of their computer camera and lecture to students on Zoom, nearly two-thirds of students reported that their online course included live sections to ask questions and discuss content (67 percent), recorded lectures (65 percent), and frequent quizzes and assignments (64 percent). Three in five said their courses included live lectures, and a quarter (25 percent) said their course used breakout groups during live classes.
Student satisfaction absolutely dipped after the move to remote. The vast majority of students described themselves as either very (51 percent) or somewhat satisfied (36 percent) with their courses pre-COVID, and just 59 percent said they were satisfied (19 percent "very") after the move. In general students didn't blame their instructors: 76 percent said they were satisfied with their professor's preparation (37 percent very satisfied) and 68 percent with the quality of instruction, but 57 percent were satisfied (17 percent very) with their overall learning. Asked to say specifically what diminished their experience with the remote courses, students were most likely to cite lack of interactivity, with 65 percent saying that "opportunities to collaborate with other students on coursework" were lacking in the online course.
Hispanic students were disproportionately challenged by the shift to remote learning. Students were given a list of potential problems stemming from the transition, and Hispanic students were more likely than their peers to characterize them as major in almost every case, as seen below.

To continue reading, please visit: https://www.insidehighered.com/digital-learning/article/2020/07/08/what-kept-students-studying-remotely-satisfied-spring-well