Are lectures really going to be online post-pandemic?
University Senior Leadership team (SLT) have confirmed that lectures will not be permanently online post-pandemic. This week The Mancunions Ella Robinson spoke to April McMahon (Vice President for Teaching, Learning and Students) and Dan George (Associate Vice-President for Blended and Flexible Learning) about the shift to blended learning. The interview, which was livestreamed on The Mancunions Facebook page, took place following outcry from students after word circulated that lectures were supposedly set to remain completely online at UoM. Heres a breakdown of what the future of blended learning really means for students. SLT confirm in-person lectures will return post-pandemic  In response to the pressing question of whether in-person lectures are a thing of the past, Dan George said: Let me be very, very clear. It is not and has never been our intention to move lectures or teaching permanently online.  April McMahon said: Nobody in this University is saying we are outlawing on campus lectures, nobody in this university is saying we are moving our lectures or any particular type of teaching, or all of our teaching online. Weve got so many bookings for the big lecture theatres next year that were juggling to fit everything in. So were not abandoning our spaces.  In fact, 70% of all teaching on campus is the minimum aim for most courses. April explained that the Humanities department had emailed their students with a 70% in-person minimum figure in June, But I would say thats [70% in person] kind of the minimum that we would be aiming at so the great majority of teaching next semester, unless weve got to put more coronavirus safe stuff in place, its going to be on campus.  She suggested other courses such as Medicine are likely to have more than 70% of teaching on campus. In-person contact hours will not be reduced. Many students have expressed fears of reduced in-person teaching even after the pandemic if blended learning is continued. A University of Manchester spokesperson said: Blended learning is about augmenting in-person lectures, seminars, labs, Q&As and discussions, and workshops with high quality online materials for self-study. The University was very clear that this could vary for different degree courses, and for some courses what we do already will be the right way to do it and nothings going to change. However, they gave some illustrative examples from the Engineering and Humanities departments. For Engineering, Dan suggested that typical lecture content could be moved to pre-watch material so in the lecture theatre they can do problems based on what questions you have got on that material. For Humanities, April McMahon explained, Were going to have our lectures on campus, were going to have our discussion sessions on campus, our small group teachings, theyre going to be on campus. A significant concern for many students, particularly after the sudden shift to online learning increased workloads for many, but Dan assured: there is no need to increase student workload with this. Although April acknowledged the SU can have a referendum on anything that fits its conditions, she said, To have a referendum I think it would be really important to be comfortable that youre familiar with what would be being proposed. We dont have concrete proposals yet for exactly what learning would look like. Whilst it initially seems that this permanent blended learning has come out of the pandemic, it has in fact been included in public Our Future strategy documents since January 2020. Dan George said, Were very much in a digital world so it would be quite remiss if we didnt have that conversation around well what, how should we use this digital content and thats what were doing.  The Mancunion spoke to student representatives from the School of Biological Sciences and the Alliance Manchester Business School who said: The word blended learning has a sort of negativity associated with it now, and thats not how the university intended it to be.  Particularly, the student reps explain, as the phrase blended learning was used during the pandemic when the university thought that you could come in, but then stuff went really bad at the start of the year in terms of cases, so students are associating this [lockdown learning] with blended learning. A number of calls have been made for tuition fees to be reduced if the University does move to blended learning, but they argue that costs will remain high even after the initial set up  We still need to update that content [] it isnt just that you make it once and its done.  Dan further reiterated that costs will not go down as the face-to-face experience will continue: But remember, this is, this is the material that augments that face-to-face on-campus experience. So, we need people to do that. After second and third years have had much of their degrees so far affected by strikes, a number of students raised staff support as an issue. A particular concern was that, under the existing system, the University owns the intellectual property rights to lecturers content: We as employees of the University, create material as part of our jobs, and the IP is currently owned by the university (Steve Pettifer). Following the scathing Accessibility Report that demonstrated that disabled students had been left alone and unsupported during the shift to online learning in 2020, Dan Geroge agreed: The accessibility should be embedded in the course design right from the outset, and then to support this clear guidance is going to be produced to make the provision uniform across all the different programs that weve got as well. So, its sort of embedded in everything we do, whether were talking about assessments, whether were talking about sort of lecturing material, whether were talking about study budgets, whatever it is, accessibility and inclusiveness is absolutely embedded right from the beginning.  How to have your say:  The student representatives emphasised the importance of students getting involved in the blended learning decision-making process whilst it is still at the planning stage  If we come together like we are doing now, our voices will be heard. The student reps specifically suggested contacting your individual school about blended learning proposals as much of the blended learning decision-making process is to be made at a school level. The University of Manchester centrally are also running two open meetings where you can raise your concerns, one of which took place today 9 July (12-1pm) and the other which is due to run on 15 July (12-1pm). You can also contact April McMahon (Vice President for Teaching, Learning and Students) and Dan George (Associate Vice-President for Blended and Flexible Learning) at [email protected]. You can watch the full interview on The Mancunions Facebook page.