 My name is Bella Abrams. I'm the I.T director from the University of Sheffield and the trustee of all. I'm today's session chair. I'm really pleased to introduce you to our session. How are students experiencing their learning online with our two speakers, Sarah Knight and Claire Cillin? I will be monitoring the chat for any questions that come up. I'd like to ask participants if you have a specific question that you'd like to ask, could you process it with a cue? I can have a look and get everything ready for the five minutes questions at the end. Without further ado, I'm going to hand over to Sarah who will do our presentation. Thank you, Bella. We're really delighted to be with you here today, and I'm co-presenting with Claire Killan. We're going to be doing a double act and we're absolutely delighted that you'll be hearing out from our newly launched experience inside students surveys ac y gael y ymdillมau sy'n helpu eu gwirio ar-sharrog mae'n ynatorio'r ffordd fan hesffa adulti o rodyn ei vernibl gweithio o y ffordd i diturw Ministry sy'n startedu y Review drwy ei h fe bryddo y gall!(eu- piwyddeidwyr confusion cymfожur cwrtiadau iechelio Cymru Rhyw ddim yn derbyn yr adiad ehmwys vom i i ddim yn yr ffordd ac yn意edig mae'nau chi ify flwyddyn wrth sy'n gallu du yn eivryd y buswr sy'n gallu ymddir y greith Anglo mae'r data i ymchwil ymddir i'r Ysbyg gael y darpar, y byddwch ar gyfer oeddeithasio ac yn y gŷtall, a yn fwy gydag, ysbyn nhw'n fath o'r mewn clyw, sy'n fyddwn i'w gweld i'r cyffredinol ar gyfer y gyrfaenau ar hyn o ddweud ymellodol a'r bwysigol a'r gweithio gŵr i'w ddweud i'r hynod o'r cyffredinol i'r cyffredinol. Oherwydd mae'n gweithio fyddwch, mae'r gweithio'n gweithio'n du i ddweud i ddweud i'r gweithio a'r ddweud i'r ddweud i'r ddweud. o'r traffodi cyfan sy'n cymaint ar gyfer y Llywodraeth Llywodraeth. No yn ddadig wedi cael ei wneud e fan i'r cerddillau a'r cyfans yw'r cyfrannu i ad entirelym a'r onlinnol. Dechreuwch chi ddechreu iawn i gynnwys o'r llwyddiad ym 16 i ddym ni arnynwys i ddyniaeth wedi gweld a chaelngos i'r ddweud. Roedd yng Nghymru yw'r ffigureddau o ddweud o'r 3,9,000 ddechrau'r ddweud a ddweud 24,000 ddechrau'r ddweud o'r ddweud. Yn ddweud o'r cyffredin o'r gweithio, ddweud yr wych yn ei gallu'r bobl ac yn ei wneud am y clywed o'r cyfnodol. A ddweud, dyma'r sefydliadau bod yna'r cyfnodol wedi bod yn ysgolwch yn 2016 a'n allan. a wnewch chi ddiwrdd ymnwysolicau rhywbeth yn eistedd hon i'w bod y dwylo yng ngyfyniadau a dw i'r cyfnod llinwladau shouldnodd ar gyfer tuwnol a'wn cyfnodd ac ymddindig iawn ond y gallwn cyfeiri gwestiwn ar gyfer consider ar gael eu cyfleidd, ond y cyflym cynoedd yma i ddechrau i chi gafodd yr unrhyw i gyflwyno'r cyfnodd ar gyfer te librarydd ym blwyddyn yn iawn i'r bobl ychydig fel yng Ngwybod i'w teimlo maen nhw'r ein bod ychydig i'r Emperor years or skills, our surveys this year focus very much on the online learning experience and participants were asked to focus on their experience and their last two weeks of learning immediately pr·iit o take in the animal survey. I hope you enjoy some the snippets we're gonna share with you. I hope you'll be encouraged to go off and have a look at the reports and delve in to them in more detail and particularly think about what you can use in terms of informing your planning for the year i'w bwysig yn ddweud y byddwch i'w cymryd yn ddweud i'w cymryd ymwneud. Felly mae'n gweithio ychydig yw'r cyllid yn ddweud i'ch gael y gweithio. Mae'n gweithio'n gweithio a'n gweithio y byddwch chi'n gweithio a'r cyllid yn ddweud. Mae'n gweithio i'ch gweithio i'ch gweithio i'u gweithio. Mae'r hyfrifysgol wedi gwneud ei wneud i'r falch i'r cyfryd. Mae'n ddweud i'r parwod o'r lliwn amser yng Nghaerloedd. the efforts that colleges and universities have made and with their staff in actually ensuring that learning online has continued in the way that it has. Students have told us that what really helped them to learn, as well as some of the barriers that they have faced. I don't think any of those will be a surprise. I think those are themes that we're seeing across all sectors, both in schools as well, and higher and further education. But there are, apart from some of the barriers and some of the challenges, there were some notable benefits that students were reporting, enabling them to review the resources and work at their own pace, around other commitments and having that flexibility to where they studied, facilitating, encouraging independent learning and they felt safe and save both time and money in learning online. But there were also, as we can see on that slide, the challenges there and for some major barriers in their participation in accessing their learning. So I'm going to share with you some snippets from Theme 1 to start with, just to set the context in terms of how students were learning and really how their expectations perhaps change from what they originally thought when they had signed up and started learning in September, at this time last year, to what they actually experienced. So, as you can see from that slide, there was quite a great contrast in expectations of students, and this was then reflected that not all students were prepared, all when equipped, really, for online learning. We know that there's huge efforts made by colleges and universities to try and address some of the digital poverty issues, but very few students really expected to be studying entirely online. The majority is still expected to blend and substantial numbers really expected to be fully on campus despite the ongoing pandemic. And certainly more could be done to make students aware of the value of assistive technologies and accessibility features brought into everyday software, but we'll pick up on that theme as we go through the presentation as well. And problems that students encountered when learning online. There's some interesting similarities and differences there on that slide in relation to those students that were studying in HE and those students who were studying in further education. FE learners studying at entry level, or from a Black African Caribbean backgrounds, were more likely to have experienced problems. Learners who did their learning online from student accommodation, or from public spaces, were also more likely to cite issues in doing so compared with all learners, although the absolute numbers of those doing this so was low. I think it's no surprise there that we're seeing issues in relation to poor Wi-Fi connection and of course the mobile data costs coming through quite strongly there. HE students from Black African and Caribbean backgrounds were more likely to say they had no access to a suitable computer or device and the overall survey data also, sorry, than the overall survey data and also cited issues with mobile data costs along with students from Indian, Pakistan and Bangladeshi backgrounds. Students studying online on on campus or in public spaces were also more likely to cite problems within range of issues. I'm going to hand over to Claire now to talk through some of the stats that we're coming through from theme to in relation to digital platforms and services in colleges and universities. Thank you. So in the interview we looked at the learning environment and the platforms that they were using and how students felt about that and we asked them to agree, remain neutral or disagree. I've only given the agree options here so you can see the stats there, you know, they're fairly standard, they're sort of hovering between sort of 40 and high 60s for most apart from one or two. So, and the last stats about being given the chance to be involved in decisions about online learning. I'd like you to know that although these may look lower than is desirable, they are actually significantly higher than we have seen to a similar question in previous years. Interestingly, we found that students have been studying at their organisation for less than a year for both further and higher education were more likely to give positive responses than others. In further education, they were more likely to say that their learning environment was well designed and easy to navigate than students who'd been studying there for more than four years. But students who had been there four years or more were more likely to agree that their online learning materials were engaging and motivating. So, you know, there's a slight difference there in the higher education, they were more positive about their learning environment than students as a whole, but there are some that you can see that are lower. Could you move on from me, Sarah, please? So, I think three is about technology in your learning and here we looked at the quality of online and digital learning and, you know, again, we've got what might appear to be similar questions, but this is specifically about the quality of online and digital learning. And there was, you know, good synergy between further and higher education, 67 and 66% of students rated it as either being the best imaginable, excellent or good. But some of the things that were picked up were the pace. Less than half felt that the learning was at the right level and pace, and that there was less collaborative, interactive, engaging online, and there were quite a lot of comments on those aspects in the free text statements that we'll come to later, could you move on from me, please, Sarah? So in the range of learning activities, the full set of variables we asked here was 10 variables, I've just picked some of the highlights there. You can see that live lecture and teaching sessions were fairly high. For higher education, more were accessing recorded lecture sessions, but I think before COVID it would be fair to say that far from the standard, there were a lot of questions about the quality of online and digital learning. But fewer FE learners would have experienced recorded lectures than they have in the pandemic, so there are some differences. I was a little surprised by the lower stats in that not more than 60 odd per cent had submitted coursework, that only 40 to 50 per cent had had online discussions, and the low numbers for receiving feedback. So, and the stats I haven't shown on screen here, in higher education only 70 per cent had participated in virtual lab practical or fieldwork, and for further education that was down to 6 per cent. And I know that's a sign of the pandemic, but these are maybe targets to aim for. Could you move on for me, please, Sarah? I think we're back to you. Thank you Claire. And this theme, in the last theme, we were looking at the skills and the support that students had received. And here students felt fairly positive around the support they'd received for online learning on their course. But you will see from some of the stats on this slide that there are still areas where students in both further and higher education are requiring further support. I heard in this morning's keynote the importance of ensuring that digital literacy, digital capabilities, media literacies, those skills were, data literacies were all embedded into the curriculum and were in order for students to be able to develop those skills in an ongoing manner. Unfortunately, we'll see there that despite the heavy reliance on technology over the past 12 months, students still felt they did not necessarily know the digital skills that they were needed for their course and also did not have a way of being able to assess their digital skills and training needs. So those figures still remain low and those figures have remained fairly at a constant level over the past few years despite the growing importance and the growing need for students to have the awareness of the digital skills they need and the ability to develop those. Interestingly, with the theme of data literacies, students only 21% of higher education students felt that they were able or had the support needed to know how to keep their personal data safe. So there are areas there which we do need to work on and ensure as well that at the start of the academic year there is support for students in these areas and that continues throughout their journey. Students sort of offering an assessment for digital skills and training needs at the start of a program can really ensure that students are aware of the areas that they need to develop going forward. So Clare, I'm going to hand back to you now because we're going to hear from your work that you did around the qualitative data, which was, as you can imagine, with the volume of data, listening to the student voices gave some very powerful insights into their areas that they were enjoying and also the challenge areas. Thank you. This is the bit that I enjoy the most, the reading of student comments. It really is gold dust. I'm going to just sum up. I'll leave the comments there for you to look at, but there were lots of similar comments across both. There was talk about more efficient use of time when you're studying online and that it actually gave you extra time for study, the time you weren't travelling. The flexibility and pace was another big feature. Being able to stop, record if you don't understand something, go back, do your own research and then pick it up again. Learners really valued small group work breakout rooms and the interactive aspects. Found it easy to access resources, felt supported and felt safe and comfortable at home. If you move on to the less positive aspects for me, Sarah. So the negative aspects, it's very marmite. What some learners like, others will not. So students reported a lack of interactivity, difficulties for practical subjects. Difficulties accessing the platforms or the learning which we looked at in Theme 2, not being able to find things so VLE is not well structured. Interestingly, a lot of work overloads and felt they were asked to do much more. And the general impact on the learning experience as well as some reported fatigue, lack of concentration and motivation. If you could move on for me, Sarah. So we asked what one thing could we do to improve and we were given an awful lot of feedback here. In the centre you'll see, ask the students what sort of teaching they would like online and what activities that aligns very neatly with the OFS Gravity Assist report. It is some asked for support for the teaching staff, some asked for the learner environments to be more streamlined. There are thousands and there are over 60,000 individual comments. So it's a rich list. I'm going to hand over to you, Sarah. And you might want to show. Thank you. Thank you, Claire. And I think from all of that analysis and from that, you know, the question can give some really or can some highlight some really key areas to really delve deeper into and focus down into what we have done and what we have taken from that analysis in consultation with students within universities and colleges has been to develop our benchmarking the online student experience toolkit. Which was an update on the work we did with NUS and relation to benchmarking the student digital experience. I know many of you have sort of referenced over the years and to be able to provide a tool kit at a point really to look at the different areas of experience. Focusing on sort of access to online learning, looking at the online learning environment, learning and teaching assessment and well-being online. And to your practice at the hospital. So where you are. So we hope that in attention reports that this will be a really valuable tool kit for you to be able to take to have conversations and just within your college or within university. And to really make sure you're having that ongoing dialogue with students. For us, the whole premise and the whole purpose around doing these surveys is very much to support you with our ongoing dialogue with your students to really help you to look at ways in which another approaches in which you are drawing together. Not just the quantitative data, but the really rich conversations that you can have with your students around really co designing and working in partnership with your students in their online learning experience. So, you know, as a point of reflection, please do think about the practice that you have locally and what opportunities are there for you to really engage your students moving forward. Clare, I hand over to you for our ending the session. I think we are probably going to questions. Are we Bella? Yes. Yes, we've got a few questions for you. So our first question is. Effie appear to be outperforming he in the stats. Do you have any thoughts about why that might be? I can answer that to some extent Sarah may have other views. At the time, you know, during last autumn, October to December, at least Effie learners were allowed to go into college. Where maybe would not. So they were having quite a different experience. Generally, the Effie sector seems to have a loyalty towards their staff and feel they are being well supported. But the worst, you know, some differences between there. I think you're just looking at different audiences and different experiences. And I think just to add to that, Clare, I think different expectations as well. As you say, you know, students very much were expecting, you know, their provisions happen on campus. So, so yes, some interesting areas, but I think also perhaps shows the journey that Effie have been on in relation to the developments that they have put in place for using technology across the board. It's brilliant to see, actually. It's been a couple of years since I worked in Effie, but that's where my heart is. I know. I'm absolutely ecstatic that they've moved on so far. I had a question which was actually around pace. It wasn't clear to me from the slides the issues that students were experiencing around pace. Was it too much or was it too fast or too slow? It was all of those. So, for some students, it was too fast. And some students, high around further education, gave comments like, In a lecture, I can do one of two things. I can either pay attention to the lecture or I can make notes. I can't do both. So having the recording allows me to go back, listen to it again, stop it and pause it whenever I want, make my notes, review my notes, improve them. And if I don't understand something, I can go and research it. On the other hand, some said it was too slow and they weren't doing as much learning as normal. So there's something about, you know, just as in the old days and I've done, I've learnt my strengths in Effie too, Bella. You know, differentiation. You need to do that online as well as in person. And I think the other point to add to that is that it is about knowing your students. And I think, you know, we know that one size doesn't fit all and that there will be differences that students will be experiencing. But I think it's also encouraging students to think about their study approaches and giving them different strategies to come in the different ways that they are being experiencing sort of the learning online, as you would be sort of in a face-to-face environment as well. Yes, some students recognised that it was very hard for their lecturers and tutors to read the room online. And one of their suggestions there in what could we improve were to have regular check-in points, you know, how you're doing, what do you need. You know, those were some of the suggestions they came on. That's great. I've just had feedback that I'm a bit quiet, so I'm just going to shout a bit louder. Hopefully that's okay for everybody. Question three comes from Laura. How did we, how did you guys select the universities and the colleges who were invited to take part in the survey? So it was the universities and colleges applied to participate. So the surveys are open to all the colleges as part of their sort of subscription offer. And likewise for universities, universities were having to subscribe to participate. So it is open to all and it's open to, you know, not just thinking about student voice, but very much bringing on board professional services, teaching staff and researchers. And the team are currently analysing those different groups and we'll be sharing those reports in due course. So you actually have a holistic view across the organisation in relation to their experience. Okay. We need to let Claire do the final slide, but we've just got one final question, which is how is accessibility being handled in recorded lectures? I don't have any further information on that. One of the advantages of the survey is that all the organisations who participate own their own data, we take an anonymised view of it and gather it together. But the beauty of the surveys is that organisations can interrogate their own data and look at particular things. And also I'm going to let Sarah say it about involving the students because I know you're passionate about this Sarah. I will, but I'd also say join our GISC accessibility teams community because within there there has been a lot of discussion, a lot of great practice shared around the accessibility issues in relation to recording of lectures. So I can pop some links or I can tweet some links later around that. There's a wealth of guidance that our accessibility team can support you on as well with that. OK, thank you. So I'll just, Claire, you were going to do a wind-up, weren't you? So I'll just hand over to you to do that. Thank you ahead of that for both Sarah and Claire for doing this presentation. It's been great. OK, over to you, Claire. Thank you. It can be very brief then you can all have your lunch. So just to say that we're starting our next round. So we have other surveys that we're in the process of analysing the teaching staff. One will come out in November. We're working on that at the moment and we have professional services staff and researchers which will follow that. We're about to start the 2021-22 surveys and you can find out all you need to know about it on the website. We do have an event coming up which is open to everybody, not just those subscribed. We've got a community of practice event on the 17th of November and we'd love to see anyone who's interested in this work there. That's it. Thank you. Thank you to all the participants. Thank you for the questions and thanks to you both. Thank you. Bye.