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Online learning: Is it really that hard to deliver what students want?

In a progressively competitive Australian higher education environment, with rapidly shifting student demands and industry expectations as well as educational disruption progressively evolving, current university learning and teaching models are being tested. One of the key drivers of this challenge is that students are increasingly demonstrating consumer-like behaviour and insisting on more value from their education institution. In response to these challenges, higher education providers are continually seeking ways in which they can reform the design and delivery of learning and teaching.

In response to the COVID-19 disruption, Macquarie University conducted an extensive student investigation to identify strategies to enhance online learning and respond to the aftermath of the pandemic in a way that would re-engage and retain students.

This presentation will share insights that have been gleaned from the investigation and discuss how online learning could be designed and delivered to meet future student needs. The insights will also be presented in consideration of the work that has been undertaken by ASCILITE to develop a set of National Standards for Quality Online Learning (TELAS).

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About the speaker

Professor Dominique Parrish is the current Pro Vice-Chancellor (Learning and Teaching) at Macquarie University.Ìý SheÌýhas more than 30 years’ experience in designing and implementing education programs in the school education, tertiary and private sectors.

Her research interests include technology-enhanced learning, learning-oriented assessment, student experience and engagement, and leadership and emotional intelligence. She is the current President of the Australasian Society for Computers in Learning in Tertiary Education and until recently was a Senior Editor of the Journal of University Teaching and Learning Practice.

The pandemic, the recovery and the longer term implications for learning and teaching in an Australian research university

We know there are differences between remote teaching in an emergency and carefully planned online learning.Ìý We also know that we are going to have to teach some students on campus and others remotely for some time to come.Ìý This is not blended learning as we know it.Ìý So we need to think about hybrid forms of teaching and distributed learning communities that do not privilege those students we interact with face to face.Ìý At the same time, most universities are facing a serious shortfall in their income, especially those that have become dependent on fees from international students. Some universities are likely to lose further from the Government’s ‘Job-ready Graduates’ fees and funding package and the greater competition for students that will likely ensue.Ìý

So, in reinventing our approaches to education in the short and medium term, we are going to have to think carefully about efficiency and productivity as well as ensuring student learning and success.Ìý

This will have implications for who our educators are and whether we can offer them employment security, job satisfaction, career progression and a positive work-life balance.Ìý In Go8 universities, it also raises new questions about the relationship between teaching and research, who does what and how their contribution is recognised and rewarded. Some of these are new challenges; some are old chestnuts viewed afresh through a Covid-tinted lens.ÌýÌý

ÌýHowever, the crises caused by the pandemic should encourage us to look beyond new business models to the longer term and rethinkÌýwhatÌýwe teach andÌýwhatÌýstudents learn, as well asÌýhowÌýwe teach and assess this.Ìý In short, it is an opportunity to reconsider the purposes of education and the pedagogies better suited to unpr