Switching face-to-face education to online education requires adjustments in course design

Practical education was fortunately allowed to continue running on location after the first lockdown from March through June 2020. However, with all the restrictions in place, we could only accommodate 24 students per session on site. With about 150 students, that came down to six groups. In this lab we always do two experiments in a row on location, so when the first experiment is finished the next one starts. We would have preferred to do both experiments on location, but if you have 6 groups you need six half-days on location. And if you want to do that times two, you need twelve day parts, but they are do not fit in a working week. So the practical argument for why we went partially online with the labs was because we couldn’t place all the students on site for two experiments. 

Different universities have made different choices about practicums during lockdowns. I know of examples of students who have had to do experiments at home, but we didn’t really get beyond high school level experiments with that. I got feedback from colleagues that they didn’t get to the level they wanted to get to that way. That’s also the reason we didn’t opt for it. Of course, we could have chosen to scrap one experiment, but we thought that we could still give students something online if we changed the formula a bit.  

After consulting with the exam board, we switched to what seemed like the best option: a blended form, in which students did one experiment on site and the other experiment online. And in this blended form, the experiments ran simultaneously, parallel to each other rather than one after the other. Students were scheduled for one half-day practicum twice a week. One of these day parts they were on site and the other they followed the course online in simultaneous breakout room sessions. Both parts consisted of seven four-hour sessions. One group worked on site on their experiment and another group received simultaneous online instruction (working on the online assignment), later in the week this was reversed. So there was no synergy between the on-site and online groups during such a half-day session, but it did take place simultaneously (and this of course x 3 to end up with six groups). In terms of content, in terms of topic, the 2 parallel experiments had nothing to do with each other, but in terms of skills they hopefully reinforced each other. 

We didn’t want the online experiment to be just a fill-in-the-blank experience; we wanted to achieve learning goals with it as well. Our main learning goal in the course is for students to learn to design and conduct their own research so that they can join a research group as a junior researcher for their undergraduate research project. This means that the design of our labs are open-ended. So, not in the way that many students know from high school: you get a manual that tells you which steps to perform and something comes out of that. Those are great ways to run a practicum, but it doesn’t align with the end goal we have at the end of the 2nd year. We give the students a setup on the hall and then the first question is what does the student want to investigate with that? They are free to do that. That goal was not possible online and was dropped for us. So we did not insist on translating the goals we have on site also one-to-one to online teaching. We focused on data processing and looking critically at results in the online labs. So we gave students a data set and they started analyzing it. 

In the new format for the online experiment, the freedom to set up your own research was gone, which students found unfortunate. We did focus on thinking for themselves in the online experiment. There was no roadmap laid out for them but we threw them in the deep end: this is the question and these are the data you have, there’s some background information, how would you solve this? They spent almost 10 hours on this and afterwards students sometimes said to me: did this have to take so long? We could have done it much faster, couldn’t we? And then I think: yes, of course, if I had told you how you could tackle it you could have done it in four hours, but we focused on the thought process: why are you doing what you’re doing, why do you make this choice? And now something comes out of it, how sure are you of that, where does that show up? So we wanted to encourage their inquisitive attitude online as well, without imposing too much on them from the course.  

We noticed in another course that the cookbook form, in which the step-by-step plan had already been written out, meant that students didn’t really understand how the experiment was structured, why they had done what they had done. They then couldn’t reason it out themselves very well. And the course wants students to develop skills such as insight and an investigative attitude, which is why we also threw them in at the deep end with the data analysis and did not choose the cookbook form. 

The two main considerations for the online experiment were “that the experiment needs to be clear to students” and “how can we complete it in such a way that we can get a good assessment out of it? It was an experiment that we could transfer well to students, where students could get a feel for how the experiment had been conducted, even if they had not conducted it themselves. We also very deliberately chose data measured by our teachers themselves and we left the crazies, the anomalies in that data as well. We could have manipulated the data, of course, but we deliberately didn’t take out those deviations because we could have instructive discussions about those as well. Online everyone did the same experiment, but on the hall everyone came up with their own research questions.  

Normally, much of the assessment on the hall is based on experimental and academic skills. On the hall, the student demonstrates how to conduct and analyze such an experiment and all of that adds up to a certain grade. We noticed very quickly that we couldn’t pull that off online, because those students are in a breakout room, so you’re further away from them. You can’t see what is happening in all the breakout rooms at the same time, while if I am having a conversation with a student in the lab I can also see half of what is happening to my right or left and which student is struggling with what. So online assessment became much more difficult.  

The question was: what do you want to assess from what students do online? One of the learning goals we have is that students learn to communicate about the experiments they have done, both orally and in writing. So we ended up choosing the online experiment very specifically to train those communication skills in the form of a written report. Not as a precursor towards an article, but an analysis report in which they just had to write down neatly what they had done, what choices they had made, why they made those choices, what came out and what that meant. They then had to have a discussion about that. 

We made the online experiments last four hours per session, just like in the hall. That may be long and can be tiring, but we wanted to keep the same structure. Structure helps students in general. It gives peace of mind to know: these are the four hours that we’re going to work with each other and engage in conversation. Traditionally, we have had mandatory attendance on hall practicums. Online, we didn’t make that so official, but we did state that you are just expected. I also actively talked to students about that at the hall: hey, you weren’t there last week online, we need you. It’s also just nice for your group if you are there. So I tried to reinforce that feeling that they were expected.  

We didn’t completely cram the online sessions from the beginning to the end of the sessions. I also got feedback that the majority of the students had gotten everything done during class time and didn’t really have to do anything after that, so that was time-saving for them, which is also a nice touch. They had already started writing the report during the online sessions and just needed to complete it further. The on-site experiment required some preparation, some figuring out at home and so that was not necessary for the online part.  

Furthermore, the long sessions also gave me the space to visit all the breakout rooms. I just dropped in every now and then to hear how things were going in the different groups. If they were stuck, I said: now it’s time for coffee first. There was plenty of room to take a break and then get back to work recharged. But if you give me the choice of giving a practical session online or in the classroom, I still choose the classroom. 

Tips from Tabitha:  

“Don’t hold on to all existing learning goals at all costs if you have to teach online. The learning goals are important and there is an education director who will keep an eye on whether the learning goals are being met, but there is quite a bit of room to build in a goal at a different place in the program if another learning goal is much better suited to your online teaching. Don’t stick too strictly to what you wanted to achieve in face-to-face teaching if you have to deliver your teaching online but look at what you can achieve in an online situation so that it’s not just a fill-in but real learning goals are achieved. You can also choose a different type of learning goal, for example not just gaining knowledge but choosing to gain experience with skills or vice versa. And talk to students, so you have an idea of what they think of it. I talked to students a lot, both during and after the course. I never know to what extent all students express themselves as easily during the course. In the course in Physics and Astronomy, we always organize a wrap-up meeting with students.”

On Wednesdays, we had four hours of lessons on location with a larger group split up into smaller groups with one instructor per group, but because you are in the practicum hall, you can still see everyone and you can indirectly catch something of what others are doing. On Fridays we had four hours of online classes with smaller groups split into breakout rooms and one facilitator. You mainly only see your own group and notice less of the other groups.  

During practicums in the room, you get a global set-up and then you can think up your own research, which I really enjoy. But carrying it out is also fun and then you collect all the data and you analyze it. You are very free to do that and that is extra fun. In the online practicum, that first part was completely dropped and the focus was really on the data analysis itself, so we were just given a few photos, data and research questions that we were going to analyze. So that whole research part, which is exactly what I like so much, was dropped. But you just don’t have the opportunities at home to really do a good challenging research and then it gets stuck at the high school level. So I understand that it was a logical choice to give a ready-made investigation to analyze for the online labs. 

Of course you have to pick an experiment that the student can understand, without having done it themselves. We didn’t quite succeed in doing that, because at one point I was a bit lost. At the beginning we were given a video of about 7 minutes with an explanation of the set-up. I understood the data analysis, but exactly what research had been done I didn’t really know. During a discussion in my breakout room it turned out that someone in my group had a completely different idea about it.  

If you have not done the research yourself then you have also missed the steps of ‘this is what we did and this is what we specifically measured and how that was measured’. You don’t really connect with a study if you haven’t done it yourself, it’s not “your” study then. Certain logical reasonings have already been made, whereas if you have to make them yourself then there are certain things you have to think about all the time and discuss with each other: did I do this measurement correctly? Did I think this up correctly? Then it becomes more alive and you learn from mistakes. It grows under your hands. 

This online experiment was quite long, 4 hours in a row, but long zooming sessions were pretty standard during the corona lockdown period. Everything started online back in early September , so I was used to spending hours at a time online in working classes. Sometimes you’d have three different courses in one day and you’d end up with a total of eight hours of zooming. If you have eight hours of online classes in a row, sometimes it kills you, you just can’t keep up, but four hours online for this practicum was doable.  

For us, analyzing the data went fairly smoothly. We figured out what to do in three hours and then the rest of the time it was just very slowly working out a little bit. So unfortunately the challenge of doing the research ourselves was gone, which made it less challenging. And because we were on the right path pretty quickly there wasn’t a whole lot more to accomplish. We could just take it very slowly, take frequent breaks. It’s also an advantage that you don’t have to do anything at home afterwards. You didn’t have to prepare anything and you did almost everything during those long sessions, because they weren’t crammed full of work.  

Compared to online, the experiment on location is much more fun and if you like it you are also much more involved, then you will do more and then it is not bad if you encounter a challenge once. I didn’t really like the online experiment; you’re just sitting in your room analyzing a bit of data. But data analysis can be done online and at home. Incidentally, it was not clear to me that this choice was made to use the online practical to achieve the learning objective focused on skills and that it was not so much about acquiring knowledge. Perhaps it would be good to make this explicit to students. 

Tip from Pim:

“In this course, the contact with teachers was well organized, so I just knew the student assistants and the supervisors well. But I’d like to pass along that with online education, the contact with students and tutors is more vague than when you’re on location. So my tip is to make that contact a little more approachable. Make it easier to contact teachers, because that’s extra difficult online. With online education you have less of a personal connection and you quickly think, I’ll figure it out myself instead of asking for help and I think that’s a pity, I missed that. With many online courses that contact was poorly arranged. You didn’t know who to ask your questions to, then there is not one face you can ask. On location it is easier to walk by for a question if you have had personal contact with a teacher and so it is clearer who you should ask. If you have never seen lecturers or student assistants in real life, it feels much less approachable.” 

 

Comment from Tabitha:

“We were in a luxury position, because we also saw the students on location and you could feel that effect when we worked online. You already know the students and they know you, so contact is also easier online. I always look for real contact with the students on location, I almost bother them so to speak. I learn names off by heart and stand at the door in the morning to welcome everyone. I consciously try to be visible, hoping to be approachable and that they know they can email me if they have a question. And online I tried to stop by every breakout room to be visible. Online everything is less visible than on the room so I always actively ask how things are going, how they are doing, what they think of it, how busy is it in the training in terms of deadlines? It is nice to hear that I have achieved my goal of accessible contact. Pim says that the visibility of the tutors and student assistants in this course was successful.”   

Literature: 

Meij, M., Pareja Roblin, N., Van Dorresteijn, C., Cornelissen, F., Voogt, J., & Volman, M. (2021). Didactische strategieën van UvA-docenten in het online onderwijs tijdens de pandemie (voorlopige titel). Research team ‘Online education during COVID-19’. University of Amsterdam.

Philipsen, B., Tondeur, J., Pareja Roblin, N., Vanslambrouck, S., & Zhu, C. (2019). Improving teacher professional development for online and blended learning: A systematic meta-aggregative review. Educational Technology Research and Development, 67(5), 1145-1174.

Van Dorresteijn, C., Fajardo Tovar, D., Pareja Roblin, N., Cornelissen, F., Meij, M., Voogt, J., & Volman, M. (2021). What factors contribute to effective online and blended education? University of Amsterdam.