Teaching in Times of Crisis - Teachers and Students Report
At the beginning of March 2020, hardly anyone could foresee the coming extent and consequences of the Corona pandemic. The OVGU Quality Assurance Department therefore conducted two surveys among lecturers and students on scenarios, technologies and changes for the digital summer semester 2020. We would like to publish an overview of the results here.
A total of 414 teachers participated in the survey. More than half of the respondents have more than 10 years of teaching experience. The most commonly used online resources for digital teaching are Moodle, Zoom and the open-source software Big Blue Button. Two-thirds of respondents were also using digital teaching methods before the transition. And almost 90 % of the teachers feel confident to very confident overall in using digital resources. Almost all teachers can be reached by their students via email (99 %). The next most common ways are telephone, Moodle and Zoom. Most can be reached on request without fixed office hours. More than half say they have already received helpful feedback from students through these channels. For almost 80% of the teachers, the conversion to digital teaching meant an additional effort, which resulted primarily from the digitisation of existing teaching material and the creation of new material. A large proportion said they had produced presentations or teaching videos set to music on their own. An overwhelming majority (95%) are at least adequately coping with digital teaching.
Many teachers express the desire for more support in digital teaching (technical, further training, joint exchange) as well as for direct appreciative communication specifically directed at teaching staff.
Survey_digitale_Lehre_ZusfaA total of 1680 students (50% of them in a Bachelor's degree programme) at OVGU took part in the survey. Almost half of the students felt sufficiently informed about the changeover. Almost all students feel confident in using digital resources. Not all of them have the appropriate technical equipment. First and foremost, there is a lack of a fast internet connection and printer access. Technical problems with digital teaching are also reported. The most frequent problems are with live streams/conferences. Most students cope rather moderately with learning, and for the majority, online teaching means extra work.
Communication between students themselves takes place particularly via messenger services and chat rooms, as well as social media. One third of the respondents would not like any further support from the university in networking with fellow students. Satisfaction with the implementation of online teaching is widely spread. The main On the other hand, the quality of the teaching material and the teaching style are considered to be in need of improvement. More than two-thirds of the students would like to keep online elements (e.g. mixture of live events and retrievable materials) even after returning to regular teaching.