Engaging Students Through Flexible Learning Design

Richard Walker, Assistant Director (Digital Education) at the University of York

Richard Walker, Assistant Director (Digital Education) at the University of York

The focus on learner flexibility is not new – we have been talking about the role of technology in providing students with greater control over the pace and place of their learning for many years now, especially so in the realm of distance learning. But with the return to campus-based teaching, do we need to give greater attention to flexible engagement measures and how they apply to class-based (in-person) teaching, taking into account the increasing diversity of learners and their preferred ways of learning? Arguably the impact of emergency remote teaching on the learner experience has changed student expectations on how they wish to participate in class-based teaching on campus, and there is a need to define and embed a re-worked understanding of contact time, reflecting learner preferences for location and patterns of study.

Staff development initiatives at the University of York (United Kingdom) have explored how teaching might be adapted to support flexible modes of student engagement online by rebalancing the volume of ‘real time’ in-person attendance over asynchronous participation to give students greater control over when they engage in study activities. This has involved the ‘unlearning’ of campus-based teaching practices, which have traditionally been centred around attendance at timetabled lectures and seminar sessions, looking instead at how we can draw on the affordances of technology to do things differently. This has had a profound effect on some staff and their conception of what effective teaching with technology should look like, challenging module leaders to consider new approaches to instructional design that they had not previously experienced as a tutor or learner.

Notably, the university’s Department of Environment and Geography replaced a field trip to Tenerife (Spain) with an online module exploring pollution in York during the emergency remote teaching phase, delivering this instead through the institutional virtual learning environment. The revised module design focused on addressing a similar set of learning objectives around experimental design and data collection and analysis but was delivered in a flexible design, using a combination of pre-recorded talks with research experts and 'live' Q&A sessions, an online workshop with breakout groups, and individual project support sessions. This also led to a one-day virtual research conference at the end of the module when students presented their own research project plans back to the expert audience, which was comprised of York academics and international researchers joining the session via the blackboard collaborate conferencing platform. Innovations such as this one represent a model for future fieldwork and research collaborations to follow, employing technology to redefine and enhance study activities whilst remaining true to the targeted learning outcomes. 

"Institutions should plan their digital service provision accordingly to offer more flexible learning pathways to accommodate the full range of learners within the design of their study programmes"

We have also seen flexibility and choice being incorporated within the design of assessments across York study programmes, encouraging more creative ways of measuring and providing feedback on knowledge, skills and competencies. This has prompted a move away from ‘closed’ to more ‘open’ assessment formats, which in some cases have invited students to determine their preferred assessment format – such as an essay, composition, performance etc. Examples at the University of York include the design of online practical assessments on interviewing techniques and staff development activities for human resource management modules, enabling students to use a web conferencing tool (blackboard collaborate) to demonstrate their knowledge and understanding of key concepts through performative tasks, replacing the traditional written assessments. This has helped to reduce assessment anxiety whilst recognising the different strengths and approaches to learning that individual students bring with them. 

The lessons that we have learned from the emergency teaching phase on flexible modes of student engagement have relevance for the future design of learning, teaching and assessment activities. Technology will inevitably play a key role in supporting the predicted diversification in new modes of course delivery - i.e. ‘flexible academic programs that can be packaged and bundled to meet the need of current and future learners who are preparing for workforce needs that may not have been defined yet’. Flexible course models indicate a future direction of travel, offering students a choice at the beginning of each individual course as to whether they wish to undertake it on-campus or fully online. Institutions should plan their digital service provision accordingly to offer more flexible learning pathways to accommodate the full range of learners within the design of their study programmes. This suggests that traditional models of campus-based teaching, focusing exclusively on in-person contact and ‘presenteeism’, will not remain suitable for the future of higher education, and institutions should plan their digital service provision to meet altered student expectations on how they wish to engage in learning activities, in this way maximising the opportunities for effective student engagement.

Human Resource