‘Blended Learning’ to Continue in 21/22

12 IMPACT 96 percent of students demand University refund for ‘blended learning’

The University of Nottingham has announced that some teaching is to stay online for at least next semester. But as night clubs reopen and vaccines continue to be rolled out, students are voicing their frustrations.

A mixture of in-person and digital teaching is to be used throughout at least the first semester of the 2021/22 academic year, it has been announced by the University. The decision, communicated to students on the 14th July by Deputy Vice-Chancellor Andrew Long, has been followed by a number of other universities across the country, including the University of Manchester and University of Leeds.

Though the University of Nottingham has said it will increase the proportion of in-person teaching in the Spring term, it was confirmed that a ‘blended learning’ approach will continue. There has been no confirmation as to whether full in-person teaching will resume for the Easter term, although the University website did note: “by being cautious now, we can be more flexible later”.

In March 2020, at the start of the pandemic, teaching moved entirely online and the University continued this strategy into the following academic year of 20202021. Since April, this blended approach has been rolled out more comprehensively, with the intention that a mix of in-person and digital teaching would vary by course, according to necessity and suitability.

However, many students have been disappointed with the execution of this kind of teaching. In a survey conducted by Impact, 96.4 percent of the Nottingham students who took part felt they deserved a refund of tuition fees due to online teaching. An overwhelming 86 percent also said that they would rate the value for money of online teaching as ‘poor’. Some worried about how genuinely ‘blended’ the learning would be, as one student added: “All lectures [for] my course were carried out online since March 2020, and I did not experience blended learning.” Another commented: “Humans need social interaction. Online teaching is absolutely ridiculous and goes against everything educational psychologists say… I am very angry about the decision.”

Students also expressed their disappointment at the University’s response to problems and questions regarding online learning, with the survey showing that 43% thought the University had been ‘not at all responsive’ to their online teaching concerns.

The University has claimed that the decision to continue blended learning was due to the complexities of timetabling more than 100,000 teaching sessions, as well as allowing for contingency in the event of autumn outbreaks.

All of this comes as sport and social event restrictions have been lifted by the University, enabling students to enjoy these activities in full. There are also no remaining restrictions on the number of people who can compete in sporting events or attend social club nights.

Whilst teaching experiences will continue to remain limited throughout the first semester, therefore, the University remains hopeful that they will see a return to some normality by the Spring term.

*28 University of Nottingham students took part in this survey

Features