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The questions run too deep . . . for such a simple man
151 Plays11 days ago
This conversation explores the evolving landscape of online education, focusing on student demand, preferences, and the implications of recent trends. The discussion highlights the complexities surrounding the perception of online learning, the impact of OPM relationships, and the need for universities to adapt to changing student needs. Phil, Morgan, and Neil analyze data from various reports, emphasizing the importance of understanding student choices and the potential for blended learning models.
The discussion raises two questions not often addressed: at what levels will online eduction plateau and stop growing, and do any institutions actually market blended or hybrid course experiences?
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Transcript
Introduction: Online Education's Trajectory
00:00:10
Speaker
Hello and welcome back to Online Education Across the Atlantic. We're getting into the warmer season and it's great to have Neil back from his ah from his vacation and as we're looking forward to our summer travel plans.
00:00:25
Speaker
Today, what we wanted to talk about is Building on what Morgan's written about with online education and the perceptions that are coming out from research and other areas on, is online education on the decline because students really want to go back to on-campus or is online education growing? Is that a good or a bad thing?
00:00:47
Speaker
And so what's the recent data showing about student demand, I guess is the best way to look at it, student interest and demand and online learning.
Drake University's Strategic Shift
00:00:56
Speaker
So we're going to explore that today.
00:01:00
Speaker
But before we get to that, just a one, there was a very interesting news article that you shared this morning, Morgan. So if you can ah share what that is, and I think it's worth a little bit of discussion.
00:01:11
Speaker
Was that the cricket one? Sorry, no. No, it was about um Drake University ending their relationship with Wiley, which is now off Rise Point.
00:01:22
Speaker
um you know and And I always think of OPM those kinds of ed tech company relationships with universities as sort of being like marriages or engagements. you know You see the ad you see the the notice in the paper when when people are getting engaged or getting married or whatever.
00:01:38
Speaker
You don't see it when you when they're getting divorced often. and you know um and and And the same with OPM relationships. you know So it's it's seldom I see things saying, yeah, they're splitting up, but they're bringing all the marketing and recruitment in-house.
00:01:52
Speaker
um there It was also striking because they mentioned the the the revenue share percentage, which is 30%, which was lower than I would have. But the 30% was confusing to me because they said we pay them for X and and thirty percent we pay 30%. And I wasn't quite clear. Does that mean they have a split contract that's fee-for-service plus a small revenue share? So I wasn't quite clear. That would make more sense in a way, I think.
00:02:20
Speaker
Yeah. But to me, the part of the reason that jumped out one is it's eight, I believe, eight master's online programs. They've been doing it for a while. So here's a university that does have real experience. They've had success.
00:02:35
Speaker
um but they're definitely going there different ways. It'll be interesting to track how well they do because doing online marketing is not a strength of a lot of universities. I mean, yes, they're Arizona State. Some others have pulled it off and are doing online quite well without any help.
00:02:55
Speaker
But bringing that in-house, I'd really be interested to see how they do over time. So I'm not trying to say they shouldn't do it. I'm just saying great test case. Yeah, no, absolutely, because that's like the one thing you'd want to sort of go out.
00:03:07
Speaker
I also was speaking with another university today, and they were saying that, you know, there's a big centralization push on their campus. So the the main campus wants to pull online marketing into into the mainstream marketing department, which I also think is a little iffy.
00:03:24
Speaker
Yeah, it's such an interesting area, isn't it? i find that particular area fascinating when thinking about strategies to compete with, um you know, OPMs or those that have much higher budgets. And I i think there are certainly universities over here who have um gone through divorces with OPMs who are now looking at kind of different approaches and different ways of competing um with others in the market, um but not necessarily on the same terms that and the same budgets that you know an op OPM would. But um I was just interested in um
00:04:02
Speaker
whether there was any kind of causes given or uh i mean i guess i guess it's not the sort of thing that the you kind of find out in the press really it's sort of whispers in the background isn't it when you hear about those things there would most likely be reference to a ah we need to get out of the contract or there's a dispute. So my assumption is this is a it's the end of a 10-year contract and we're essentially deciding not to renew.
00:04:31
Speaker
That's an assumption of mine, but there was nothing referencing potential negotiations involved. There was a comment from the provost or something about we're losing a lot of money um with that revenue share and things like that, you know, um but it, and and it was time to to do it themselves, but...
Trends in OPM Contracts
00:04:49
Speaker
But if it is the end of a 10-year contract, another reason this will be interesting to track is because a lot of the OPM contracts in the U.S. really were signed up in the mid-2010s.
00:05:02
Speaker
And that raises a lot of question. As more and more of these universities come up for renewal, are we going to see an increasing amount? I think it has to be increasing compared to what it used to be.
00:05:13
Speaker
But how many of them are going to try to do the same thing as Drake? Okay, we no longer need you. We can insource this. And can they do it? I mean, it makes me really nervous when I hear things such as a school saying, we're going to pull the online marketing into the main marketing. You know, my initial reaction is, oh, great. Instead of hours to respond to a prospect, it'll be within a week or two and we'll mail your brochure. That's going to work great for you.
00:05:41
Speaker
so Yeah. i yeah I mean, I have similar um a alarm bells ringing in my head around that kind of thing. But I equally have seen evidence that things as things are moving in a better direction um in terms of some marketing capability in some universities. But yeah, um I hope they understand.
00:06:03
Speaker
it feels like when you say, look, that they were losing money in this kind of talk about the kind of revenue share. I hope they understand what it means for them to then take on and to perform in a similar way themselves.
00:06:18
Speaker
um I'd like to think that ah if they're like 10 years, then they they hopefully have got a bit of a hunch on what they need to do. By and large, chances are that money was not going straight into profits. It's going into marketing expenses. Well, now the university's picking up. so It might be a net positive for him. But again, that's why I think this is a great test case to watch over the next few years of how Drake actually does this transition.
00:06:44
Speaker
And they'll have missteps. There might even be sort of a playbook if they pull it off. Hey, we they screwed this up. They did this well. They adjusted. So I just find that a very interesting news item ah that is worth us tracking.
Summer Conferences Preview
00:07:01
Speaker
The other thing we're getting is now that Neil's back from quasi-vacation and we're getting into the summer months, um I'm going to be going to the Open edX conference in Paris that I think is July 2nd through 4th. I know.
00:07:18
Speaker
And yeah, I couldn't get the hotel I wanted out near the conference, so I'm staying in the Marais district. And yeah, it's a Yeah, I'll make it work. I'll make it work. But thank you for your sympathy. But they're doing that in conjunction with the eMOOCs conference. And that'll be very interesting. I've written about that case recently. And it's also, it seems like the AXM Collaborative, which is what happened with all the edX acquisition money, became a nonprofit organization.
00:07:47
Speaker
they seem to be putting a lot more effort into promoting or pushing Open edX. so So that I don't know that I would fully add this to a one of the LMS users conferences, but that's what I'm going to find out.
00:08:01
Speaker
and between coffee and cigarettes and everything else. Then the three of us are heading up to LEADS for the Digital Education um Conference, and we're really excited that we'll be doing this podcast, doing it live as part of the conference.
00:08:17
Speaker
And we're also going to be, or some combination of us is helping out with the session. So we're really looking forward to that LEADS Summit, which I think is July tenth and 11th. Are we going to have to adopt to sort of a cat to sit on Morgan's lap?
00:08:33
Speaker
a someone i feel like you know that's going to be one important missing element. That would be. Somewhere near the microphone purring, we can get that. Yeah, we need to we we'll chat to Margaret about maybe adopting a cat for the day.
00:08:46
Speaker
ah Before you joined, Neil, I was telling Phil that my cats wanted me to tell Phil that they hate him because I had to throw them out of the room before I started this recording.
00:08:58
Speaker
cats are not but Cats and kids are not very conducive to podcasting from home, I think we have to admit. True. So we're we're very much looking forward to that. Hopefully anybody who has the chance or in Europe, we'd love to have you definitely um come to the Leeds Conference. And if anybody's going to the Open edX conference, I'd love to connect with you there as well.
Student Demand & Learning Modalities
00:09:20
Speaker
um So with that, let's actually get into the subject at hand. And obviously online learning, there are a lot of topics around it, but there seems to be a growing discussion, at least that we're aware of, of Where is it going in terms of student demand, but also in this moving from a binary online face-to-face to more of a blended spectrum type of um issue? But to set it up, why don't ah Morgan, if you could summarize the two posts that you've recently written and why this has been interesting to you.
00:09:55
Speaker
Yeah, so you know i sort of came across it. One was, EduCourse put out their their student technology report, ah which they do sort of semi-annualish,
00:10:07
Speaker
and which I had a role in starting. But anyway, ah they They put out the report and one of the sort of take homes, they covered I think six topics, but one of the take homes was that students are increasingly not enthusiastic about online learning. They want on campus experience or on site experiences, but um As you sort of start to read through the data and sort of think about it more, it becomes a much more complicated question question than than than how they presented it.
00:10:37
Speaker
And the the danger of that sort of presentation became clear to me sort of soon afterwards when I found an article in Forbes magazine by Derek Newton saying, see, I've been telling you students hate online learning um and and here's the the statistical proof. Like they're all...
00:10:55
Speaker
going away from from online learning. ah And at the same time, I came across an article, several articles ah about the University System of of Georgia Board of Governors um had a meeting and Sonny Perdue, the chancellor of the University System of Georgia, had sort of been on a rant saying, you know, um how come Enrollment was generally going up, but a lot of that was driven by online enrollment, which was going up.
Analyzing Student Preferences
00:11:22
Speaker
the The on-campus enrollment was actually dropping a little bit. And you know he said, is this being driven by students or is it being driven by faculty? The insinuation was that it was being driven by faculty looking for convenience.
00:11:33
Speaker
um And he said, we're spending all this money on these campuses. Why are we having them do online? you know we we We really need to get a grip on this. He did concede that The research that they have shows that students do just as well online as they do in person. So it's not about outcomes.
00:11:47
Speaker
So those sort of three things all mesh together. And I wrote a small post on Saturday and a longer post yesterday about it. um ah You know, I think there's a lot of complicated nuance in there that that should be unpacked.
00:12:01
Speaker
And one thing i would I would just add from the EDUCAUSE report and your coverage of it is the fact of, I think the phrase they kept using was a preference, like there's an increasing preference for on-campus activities.
00:12:14
Speaker
Yet the way they ask it is, for synchronous activities, such as a lecture, such as this type of group work, do you prefer online or on-campus?
00:12:26
Speaker
And their conclusion was, oh, it's gone up from two years ago so there's for on-campus. So that students prefer on-campus. But it's not like students choose individual activities. They choose at a course level is where they make the decision.
00:12:43
Speaker
And second of all, when you frame it as... synchronous, well, you might be using courseware, and an asynchronous method for online. So if somebody's asking you, how do you do a lecture? Well, most people hate an online lecture, but that doesn't mean i'd prefer to take this course on campus. So it's data worth looking at, but just the way they framed it was frustrating from my standpoint.
00:13:11
Speaker
Yeah, it's it's interesting. i mean, it's funny reading and reading your analysis, Morgan, because I was kind of reflecting on these kind of things and in more general terms in higher education. So we have um probably our equivalent is maybe the JISC Digital um Education ah experienced Student Experience Survey that we have that kind of asks similar questions around preference. And I think In the absence of a lot of um a lot of reporting of this nature, obviously it's kind of valuable and and helpful, but um I think in a similar way, i often have...
00:13:49
Speaker
questions around what this is really telling telling us. And I think in the kind of survey preference approach is not without value, but it doesn't it it doesn't delve deeply enough for me. And I think in general, one of my quibbles in higher education in the UK certainly is it's I always think about that, think is it the Neoson Normal group mantra where it's like, don't ask the user what they want, you know observe what they do.
00:14:23
Speaker
And I appreciate that's really difficult to do on a large scale when you're doing this kind of thing. but I just think about it in terms of thinking about these preferences side of things.
00:14:35
Speaker
I worry that the surveys aren't that an effective instrument. And I think when it comes down to thinking about things like online or blended or on campus, for me, the the most telling thing is like, who's who's, if I can put in these steps, who's buying what?
00:14:51
Speaker
You know, who's who's actually enrolling in online or who's actually enrolling in blended or who's actually... enrolling on on on campus and you know not wishing to kind of oversimplify it. But I think those are the, i don't know, that's such a strong metric for me oh over and above you know i prefer this and that especially when it's kind of um um sort of segmented down in the way that you're describing phil around synchronous and and that kind of thing so so there's a there's a famous anthropological study where they went around and asked people in a community men and women what proportion of the housework do you do
00:15:30
Speaker
And, you know, it came out roughly 50%. And then they actually did ah an observational study. And it was more like the men were doing 25%. I'm sorry. But, um you know, that that that and and I think, yeah, that's the the same sort of thing with with with online learning. You've got to look at actual patterns.
00:15:48
Speaker
If the question had been more around when you've chosen a course and then dive in to why you've chosen a course, like if you set the context with what you're saying, Neil, what have you actually done?
00:16:01
Speaker
Start with that. Now you're in that. And if you start to ask, well, why is it? So. to ah Not to defend Sonny Perdue, other than the fact that he has a wonderful hairstyle like mine, but if his point is being concerned that faculty are pushing people to online because because of faculty comfort or something that's not really student demand, then ask that question.
00:16:25
Speaker
Boy, our online enrollments are going up and doing really well. Let's ask students, why are you doing more online? So add the preference after you have sort of their action, I think is an approach that would have been much better served. So maybe put those two cases together.
00:16:47
Speaker
But you also have asked the right questions, such as if you're really trying to get to preferences, don't limit it to synchronous. But then the other one, and you guys were talking about this before we got into the recording, recording was that it's no longer in purely online versus purely face-to-face world. So be careful with your question.
00:17:07
Speaker
Students might choose to do some online courses, some face-to-face, or they might like courses that are heavily, and this is where we don't have the right terminology, blended, hybrid, whatever the appropriate case may be. So ask them the appropriate questions as well.
00:17:24
Speaker
Yeah, i think it's I think that's a really important point. I mean, I was i was looking had a quick glance at the JISC survey because I thought it'd be useful to just think about this alongside and alongside that. And um yeah, there's there's that kind of sense of preferences around how you learn and where you learn and all those kinds of things. But I think...
00:17:47
Speaker
For me, the kind of online on campus um um contrast is also to do with, you know, do you want to study in a way where, you know, your traveling to a campus is reduced?
00:18:02
Speaker
For me, that's often where these things, the crux of these things, you know, it's not necessarily about just about preferences.
00:18:13
Speaker
It's about you know people's individual circumstances and whether that would be kind of valuable to them and whether there's enough people, just taking the blended learning example, that that would be valuable enough for them to do. Because I think that's you know that's often the kind of motivation for online learning. It's it's a kind of a choice for flexibility or it's a need for flexibility.
00:18:34
Speaker
And so some of the kind of discussions that get into, you know, on-campus students' preferences around the use of technology or online, I think, yeah, yeah don't get into those kind of those kind of areas as well. that And and you you kind of end up getting a bit of a vague reading of things about preferences and, um and yeah, less about kind of circumstances and demands and needs.
00:19:02
Speaker
And there might be alternative solutions. Like I remember our discussion when we were doing more of a global survey around ah online and ah digital education. i forget the name of it, but the private university in Africa, that they were looking at that flexibility where there's a lot of their students who really would like an on- a face-to-face experience, but they can't get to campus.
00:19:30
Speaker
So they were building up a whole grouping of local little learning centers that you could come into to do your classwork, get somebody face-to-face who can help you. So it's sort of some sort of hybrid method, but they were responding to that flexibility need, which isn't always solved by fully online.
00:19:52
Speaker
yeah And i so I think it's so crucial to actually understand what is the need. Why are you making that decision to do what you do? I'm interested as well in, um and maybe this is too strong a way of putting it, but kind of the the agendas that sometimes lay behind the interpretation of survey results. Because, um you know, there's there's the kind of hint there, and obviously it's being picked up by other news agencies in the in the US about what what this is telling us, and this is telling us maybe a decline in online enrolments. And I just wonder,
00:20:27
Speaker
you know, is is that part of a general climate at the moment? You've talked in the past around online being the target, and I know that's a slightly different area of kind of government and think tanks and stuff, but is is is there almost this kind of broader climate amongst groups of people almost one and that want there to be a decline and want that to be the story and to tell that story? Do you realize how dangerous a question this is that you're asking, Morgan? No.
00:20:53
Speaker
ah just I'm just throwing the hand grenade over.
00:20:59
Speaker
Yeah, you know, I think there is. And, you know, earlier today, Kevin, our our colleague and I werere were talking a little, the three of us were talking a little bit about some of these sorts of agendas. And they and you know they do seem to be multiple of them. You know some people just want to return to campus, you know, um and and then others seem to see online as being predatory, you know, ah because of the disparate results or or whatever. And so some of those things come together in some different kinds of ways, you know. um And honestly, part of my thing with the Georgia example was I did notice that Sonny Perdue went to college in 1965. You know, perhaps we're we're dealing with things a different, you from a long time ago, but I think they're just such a lot of different things
00:21:49
Speaker
agendas going on there and also just a very a way in which a lot of people because of the pandemic think they know what they're talking about with online and they don't because they just had that one particular experience.
00:22:02
Speaker
Yeah, so getting into the politics of it, Sonny Perdue used to be a Republican governor of Georgia. He's definitely on the conservative side or I assume
Influence of Agendas on Education
00:22:10
Speaker
so. um His comment at the board implied, it didn't imply a deep understanding of, you know, the nuance behind this.
00:22:20
Speaker
But he also explicitly mentioned the investment in campuses. So that gets into sort of, hey, we've spent millions on these campus buildings. I am a politician by nature.
00:22:33
Speaker
Damn it, we should be using all these things that you guys asked me for years ago. ah So i'm my I'm putting words in his mouth, but they're sort of, From a conservative side, ah you do hear back to campus, the shutdowns were a disaster.
00:22:50
Speaker
um And you also get this type of institutional view. Hey, we've invested in this. We're not really using the campus. And you have those things.
00:23:01
Speaker
The online is predatory, is primarily ah more on the liberal side. So the author of the Forbes article, I mean, he admitted it, give credit for it. He said, I've been telling you that online was a mistake, and I thought I would get the proof, you know, earlier, but I have it now from this Educause article. He completely has an agenda.
00:23:24
Speaker
It's the opposite from a political spectrum standpoint, but it's ironic They come to the same conclusion. you know Too much online is a bad thing, and it's coming from different agendas.
00:23:37
Speaker
um So I guess my point is they're absolutely – how people use the agenda How people use the survey results is absolutely driven by agendas, particularly right now in the U.S. But there's a separate question, which is part of the dangerous one. Why didn't, but you know, Derek Newton, to his defense, he quoted the analysis in the report quite extensively.
00:24:02
Speaker
He wasn't just making up his own phrasing. He got it from the report. So there's that potential question. Yeah, i think I think one of the things I find over here is that because I think online learning in terms of um kind of press coverage over here is even more niche. You know, I think it comes to the surface a lot more. It seems to come to the surface a lot more in the US than it does in the UK.
00:24:26
Speaker
But there's a sense in which whenever online is reported ah on, it's kind of the only real angle is... it's its failure or its inadequacy or debating its legitimacy. And I know that happens over there as well, but because it's kind of even even and even less reporting over here, there's those kind there's those kind of things that that kind of happen. And it's almost a bit like, well, we'll only report on this if there's something negative to say about it um in terms of enrolments or efficacy.
00:25:01
Speaker
um And I think that's a problem amongst the higher education press over here. um But just reflecting on the kind of agendas actually, um the JISC one always feels to me like they they want to to want to be able to tell more positive things about online and digital. They want to say more. I mean, like, I think in the most recent one, there was a sense in which and um some online teaching had kind of declined a bit and it was kind of moving back onto campus, kind of, and it's sort of a post-COVID peak to coming down a little bit.
00:25:34
Speaker
um But i I actually get the opposite from them, of them them really wanting to be able to show more um that's happening. And maybe that's a little bit kind of because of the nature of the work that they're doing. But yeah, it was just an interesting difference when I read that.
00:25:50
Speaker
Well, isn't that a challenge? I mean, I'm looking at you, Morgan, in particular, with all research. you then You need proper research design because you're always going to have biases or preferences. So you need to come up with research instruments that separate that out so you can do an honest analysis. So it's it's an age-old problem in one way. But with online, you combine that with what you're pointing out, Neil, the Here's how we understand online.
00:26:18
Speaker
In the UK, when we talk about it, it's in this terms. In the US, you know, it's not as niche, but quite often it's predatory versus expanded access. Like there is a playbook of how to talk about it and what gets the press trade press and national press interested in it.
00:26:38
Speaker
um And that's the way media works as well. So I guess with both of those, there's sort of a, hey, this is human nature. It's not that ah that it's not a problem, but we have to understand and deal with it.
00:26:50
Speaker
I mean, I feel like a Pollyanna or something like that, but in in in this area, as well as like in in talking about um some of the changes and challenges that are happening to higher ed in the U.S. at the moment, there's sort of an unwillingness to sort of to to take an honest look in a way, to say these are good things, these are bad things.
00:27:10
Speaker
Both things can be true, you know, at the same time. It's it's like there's polarization in people's thinking. You either have to be pro online or anti online or something like that. And there's not a sort of sense like, yeah, there's a lot of crap online learning and there's a lot of crap on campus learning, you know?
00:27:26
Speaker
It's... ah So like actually, given all this, let me put you on the spot, Morgan. All right, what is your interpretation of the data? I don't know that you've seen the GIST data, but certainly the EDUCAUSE data.
00:27:39
Speaker
Is there a retreat, ah move a shift in desire towards on-campus? At the same time, the numbers, I think, are pretty consistent, pointing to increases in online. Is that a good or a bad thing? So how would you interpret the data?
Online Education Growth Post-2020
00:27:55
Speaker
I mean, to me, it's fairly clear that, yeah, they have retreated since 2020, but they're at a higher point than they were in 2019, and and they're growing they're continuing to grow. The interesting question is, at which point will they stop?
00:28:08
Speaker
you know um yeah what what what What will that percentage point be? But yeah to me, it's fairly clear that online is growing, but you know there was a mass there was that whole period of of COVID, which was weird, um and we can't really think about that in a way, except...
00:28:24
Speaker
to to sort of think about the the the sort of impact. But everybody went online and now more people are coming on campus and some really like it and some don't. But, you know, and and the age and the point in people's lives when they are, you know, um You know, we've talked before about the Georgia Tech Online Master's in Computer Science. You know, it's just been hugely successful in terms of getting people who wouldn't have up stakes and gone to go live in Atlanta to actually do a Master's in Computer Science. I forget, but I think it's one in 10 people in the United States with the Master's degree in Computer Science has a degree now from Georgia Tech, you know, and that would not have been possible without the online. So I think, you know, it's retreated since 2020, but it's growing.
00:29:11
Speaker
But what about, and to keep putting you on the spot, you had mentioned the fact, well, that the answer to the same question, even if the question's flawed, there has been a gradual shift towards the answer being on-campus experience, synchronous experience.
00:29:28
Speaker
is Do you know enough or to take a guess? What does that mean? What's behind that increase? no i No, I think it's a return to sort of normal. you know it's It's the sort of more traditional age students wanting to have that experience.
00:29:43
Speaker
Also, i think maybe people also sort of value human connection in a way now that, I mean, I find I... i enjoy conferences more than I did because I didn't have that experience for a while. I was denied it for a couple of years as we all were.
00:30:02
Speaker
Yeah. You know, and so maybe it's, it's that, but I think we need to explore what that is and and why that is. um I think there's also just another negative thing there, which nobody ever talks about, but yeah,
00:30:15
Speaker
I think on-campus learning can be very passive in the way that it's done. You know you sit there in the lecture um you know and and and it flows over you and then you cram before the exam and you and you do it. Whereas online, if it's done well, is much more interactive. um I remember one time, actually it was like in 2008 or 2007, I taught a course on campus, but I did a really different design. they Instead of writing a paper, they had to make a video and blah, blah, blah.
00:30:46
Speaker
And one student came in and handed me the thing and he said, this is the worst course I've ever taken in my life. I learned a lot, but it was so much work. You know, and I think online is a lot like that.
00:30:58
Speaker
Yeah, I remember a story someone told me of kind of ah changing up the teaching style and um ah student basically, you know, massively complaining and saying, look, I came here for lectures. i want lectures.
00:31:12
Speaker
that's what I've kind of paid my money for. Just give me lectures. You know, you like, you know, why are you why you kind of aping the are you kind of um changing things around? You know, this is this is kind of what I've signed up for.
00:31:25
Speaker
um And I think that gets to an interesting point because I, i I suppose people might um challenge me on this, but you if you're kind of, ah particularly if you're kind of a young adult school leaver, if you're choosing on campus, you know, and and this is what's marketed to them, you're not just choosing the course, right, and the kind of lectures and the learning, you're choosing something much bigger than that in terms of,
00:31:49
Speaker
the experience. And so, you know, I i think, um yeah, it's it's difficult to compare them because you don't have all the other stuff with online. And so, you know, online, and you know, obviously has to be different in terms of the way that learning and teaching works.
00:32:06
Speaker
So part of we're arguing for too much nuance, but ah so you really need to look at the decisions being made, what students are actually choosing.
00:32:17
Speaker
In that context, the preference, why did you choose this? Would you have preferred on campus? You know, maybe the answer comes down to maybe Sonny Perdue had a point, at least in some cases.
00:32:30
Speaker
I chose online because there was nothing else available because nobody would offer it on campus when I wanted that. Well, get that answer. But then, you know, you're getting to these things besides the course.
00:32:43
Speaker
What are you really looking for? Like, what are your additional needs? And then I guess there's actually the fourth. And it goes back to that modality is not a binary choice.
00:32:55
Speaker
um I've been arguing that a lot of the data since the pandemic in particular is saying, listen, a lot of times what students want, they need online for flexibility, but they would like some synchronous components for the human connection, for the engagement, and the case may be.
00:33:14
Speaker
And because they went through Zoom University, They say, oh, I get that. It can be done now. Don't tell me it's impossible. You have to be fully asynchronous. I'd like to have some of that in there.
00:33:26
Speaker
Morgan and I got an email, we'll keep it anonymous for right now, somebody thanking Morgan for the post and pointing out how much her school was getting that feedback from students, that they want more of this hybrid or blended approach, and they've acted on that to design it. So I guess, you know, there are multiple dimensions that need to be investigated we're going to try to improve what's offered for students.
00:33:52
Speaker
Yeah, I think one of the difficulties as well on that is there are multiple options within the choice of an on-campus or a full-time, in UK terms, kind of experience.
Blended Learning Challenges
00:34:03
Speaker
But I think you can compare the choice of on-campus versus online.
00:34:09
Speaker
But what I don't see in the UK is... kind of the kind of products that are really explicitly blended you might get an on-campus that uses blended in lots of different ways and has lots of different options that you described phil but you don't have that evidence of these are a a bunch of blended and explicitly blended products if we put it like that and you can see oh well x number of people are choosing this x number of people choosing this x number of people choosing this because it's always an interesting conundrum it like is blended learning or
00:34:42
Speaker
you know, is that kind of more of it more of an online flavour to the experience kind of desirable or not? And that's I think that probably gets to the heart of why it's difficult because you've got the channel of challenge of the survey approach, but you've also got the fact that within those courses, there are varieties. And, you know, we had a report on blended learning a couple of years ago, which basically said, it's, it it didn't say this in these words, but it's a mess because you've got one university saying blended learning is having a file on a VLE and you've got one university saying blended learning is much bigger than that. So it's ah it's a kind of an, it's an annoyingly nuanced area to find out, but a it isn't helped if the surveys aren't as well designed as they might be, I think.
00:35:29
Speaker
Isn't the exception that proves a rule in the US, to back up your point, Minerva. So we had Minerva um Institute and they explicit, they did, well, they do advertise their hybrid environment, that you're going to be in a community, you're going to live in a similar area.
00:35:49
Speaker
Most of your content type of classwork will be online from your dorm room, probably. um But then we're going to focus all the face-to-face on group activities and getting out into the community. So they...
00:36:06
Speaker
Because you're talking about positioning, not just what happens in reality, but how it's presented to students so that they can make the choice. Minerva absolutely does that. But can you, I mean, can you think of a second example to go along with Minerva where they actually present that middle, ah I wouldn't even call it a middle option, that different option that blends things together?
00:36:30
Speaker
Yeah, and like I was looking at this recently in the UK context, and that the the kind of courses that were explicitly blended actually seemed to fall on the same sort of um side as a kind of an online degree. Of course, it was kind of you know very professional-driven for a mature audience that needed flexibility.
00:36:50
Speaker
So even those that were explicitly positioned felt like they fell into the online education kind of audience category a little bit more, non-traditional category a bit more than, yeah, the the kind of traditional and student audience. So, yeah, I'd almost loved...
00:37:08
Speaker
for a university to kind of step out and develop something for um that audience that is kind of deliberately positioned in that way. and Not but because I think it's necessarily viable for them, but I just want them to act as a good test case for um for this kind of thing.
00:37:24
Speaker
Well, Morgan, you just came back from University of Central Florida. They categorize various blended modalities in operations, but do they present that properly?
00:37:36
Speaker
as a reason for students to choose to go to University of Central Florida? do they I know they operate this quite well, but do they present it that way? I don't know if that's presented to students in that way, but um you know they have such a strong relationship with Valencia and with you know, the the the community college down the street and things like that. So students probably are aware of it.
00:37:58
Speaker
I met with one of their leaders of online learning who had herself, you know, she she found that she fell asleep in class as a regular undergraduate. So she, I got to get online.
00:38:10
Speaker
so's So that's the only way she could stay awake. so So she did all her degrees online um and she's in a doctorate at the moment online. um you know So I'm not sure if they market it, but they certainly have been doing blended or hybrid in the sense of replacing seat time with with actual online time in in two different varieties for a long time. And they've got some nice research, some of it about grades, some of it about student preferences, but you should check it out. and
00:38:42
Speaker
So I think there's a number of schools in the U.S. who do it in operations. University Central Florida is one, obviously, Minerva, but there are a lot of them. But you just you've really asked an interesting question, Neil.
00:38:55
Speaker
I don't know if that's presented to students, because if we're talking about what do students choose, I guess that once they're in a program, like if I go to University of Central Florida, by the time I'm a sophomore, then it really matters which courses I choose at that point. But for freshmen, I wonder if they even understand the different options and what they mean. So it just adds an interesting wrinkle that it's not typically marketed to students. So they might not be aware of what the choices mean until they're already in a program.
00:39:28
Speaker
And I've actually been doing a little research project around, in a way, internal swirling um of
Switching Learning Modalities
00:39:35
Speaker
students. So students on campus taking online courses or student, you know, these different kinds of things. And I have been asking people about how they communicate that to students. And generally they say they figure it out, it's it's on the registration page.
00:39:48
Speaker
You know, like they're not talking to its students a lot about it. So um I would be surprised if they were marketing it. um And then other campuses is like, why would people want to do that? You know, it it's really foreign to them. Whereas, he you know, other campuses are sort of down the road. And certainly, I mean, I i mentioned before about yeah Arizona State.
00:40:08
Speaker
It's part of why they left Pearson, because they had students switching back and forth between different kinds of modalities. So it didn't make sense to to work with with that rib share anymore.
00:40:19
Speaker
Yeah, I think that's an important difference in our two kind of countries because we don't really have that in the same way over here, to be honest. the kind of they The shifting of modalities, is not to say we don't have at all, but it's not really as prevalent as it is and over there. But I would just add, and just changing tack slightly, is that we had some data out which I keep meaning to write about when time allows on online enrolment and I think it kind of corroborates some of the things that you're seeing in that for undergraduates the trend line is generally up but because of the pandemic it's all been a bit all over the place but our online postgraduate numbers have been kind of healthily and steadily growing as well so um similar story to tell around around that over here just for all You need to tell your paying clients they need to back off on Milestone so you can write more off.
00:41:11
Speaker
I know, I know. I know, yeah. I just, yeah. Yeah, that's a whole other podcast. Yeah. But going back to this, because I'm thinking about this a lot now, but if – There's, to a certain degree, the UK follows the US by five to 10 years in online education. You're experiencing now things that we did years ago.
00:41:32
Speaker
There are other things that are quite different. And thankfully, you guys haven't had the massive political ah turmoil around online that we've had. So hopefully you'll skip that. But...
00:41:45
Speaker
It's very likely that you will see a strong increase over the coming years into this swirling mix and match hybrid type of choice and schools really saying we need to serve students online, on campus, hybrid courses, and let them choose as they move through their program.
00:42:08
Speaker
So it's very possible you will be seeing this over the coming five years if the past matches. George Mason, I can't remember the exact phrase, but George Mason has a phrase about you know ah facilitating student choice. That's like a ah slogan that they have, you know that they're aimed at ah getting to to to enable students to be able to to do what they need to do to get to the finishing line. And and that was interesting.
00:42:34
Speaker
This goes back to where we were talking about ASU GSV. And we said if we ran a conference, you said there would be a lot of open seats at the bar. We did get a few social media comments after that podcast episode that people said, I'd go to that conference if you have it.
00:42:49
Speaker
um But a lot of nuance here. You guys brought up two points that I think get almost no discussion. And I'd really like to highlight it. Juan Morgan, you mentioned the point of,
00:43:00
Speaker
The question is not about whether online's growing. It is, and so much of that is student preference. But there's a corresponding question of where does it plateau and what's the natural level where it ends.
00:43:11
Speaker
You don't see that being discussed, um and ah think it should be. And then your point, Neil, about student choice, like do they understand education?
00:43:25
Speaker
The options available if it's sort of a blended or hybrid choice, is that ever marketed in the same way that face-to-face versus online is marketed to them? So are they even aware of what the options are?
00:43:38
Speaker
Those two things you don't hear discussed very much, so maybe this will be a trigger for us to cover it more. And I think marketing too, we should do something on marketing. We were talking about that earlier. yeah if you Yeah, as long as you can be snarky and make fun of groups that mail out brochures one or two weeks later and think that's going to work in the digital world.
00:43:59
Speaker
um As long as you include that, we can do more of that. Yeah. What? Snark. Never. Yeah. We can just let you loose on, you know, trad marketing, um trauma, traumatic experiences. And I'll just push her to name names. Don't just give anonymous examples. Give an example.
00:44:17
Speaker
Yeah. Call people out directly. I think you two have this bit going on that you want me to have no friends ever. Like everybody to dislike me. Yeah. Yeah. Hey, well, we're all going to like each other together in July. So really looking forward to that. um I'm going to post ah this coming week about both conferences that I'm going to be involved in in July. And um although I'm also going Instructure Anthology, Morgan's going to D2L.
00:44:45
Speaker
um But certainly, ah would love people to be able to see us when we get together in Leeds. And it's great talking to you all.