Learning & Teaching The digital genie is out of the bottle

Students who consume online teaching in isolation. Teachers who work late into the night to set up makeshift teaching formats. Administrative staff who are inundated with inquiries from insecure students. An irritable tone in virtual meetings as a symptom of a dry spell in social interaction at the university. Can coronavirus perhaps be interpreted as an attack on the university itself? This is how the pandemic is often portrayed.

Back to the good old days?

Now the digital haunting is over, the university members, who have all longed for presence for so long, can meet again with all their senses. And above all: students are finally learning something again after only being able to build up limited skills through online teaching.

Scientific facts in the context of teaching formats

Sometimes it can be helpful to simplify things in order to cope with difficult experiences. Perhaps this is particularly true of the pandemic. Nevertheless, it is the task of scientists to point out the misleading nature of simplistic narratives such as the one in the introduction, not only in research but also in political discourse. Taking the pandemic confusion into account, we want to do this below and base our arguments on scientific facts.

Fact 1: No "online semesters" during the pandemic

During the pandemic, there were no "online semesters" characterized by online teaching at universities. Rather, especially at the beginning, a form known in educational science as "emergency remote teaching" (ERT) dominated. However, this improvised distance teaching without social interaction is not a professional teaching format in the true sense of the word. "Emergency semester" would be a more appropriate term. In any case, it is misleading to speak of "online semesters". The same applies to "face-to-face semesters" etc., as some face-to-face degree programs in Germany were already implementing online teaching before the pandemic and continue to do so.

Fact 2: Face-to-face teaching is not a superior teaching format

One of the main arguments for bringing teaching back to the imaginary good old days before coronavirus is the supposed superiority of face-to-face teaching compared to other formats - such as online teaching. The learning backlogs of many students after the pandemic serve as apparent proof. However, this is based on a misleading comparison of face-to-face teaching with ERT. The relevant comparison, namely that between professional face-to-face and online teaching, has been carried out in a number of studies. The overall conclusion of this large number of international studies, which were jointly statistically evaluated by a team of researchers from the Stanford Research Institute (SRI) led by Dr. Barbara Means: On average, there are no substantial differences between face-to-face and online teaching in terms of skills acquisition. There may be subject areas or teachers for whom this is not the case - this possibility is included in the statistical concept of mean difference. In terms of academic diversity, which also manifests itself in teaching, this possibility should be viewed positively. Nevertheless, it is wrong to see face-to-face teaching as superior; setting it as the didactic standard is therefore not expedient. In addition, the ongoing discussion about teaching formats distracts from another central finding of these analyses, namely that the teacher is much more decisive for the acquisition of skills than the teaching format. It therefore makes more sense to focus on good teachers rather than supposedly better teaching formats. A good teacher will make the right decision about the appropriate teaching format. It is true that framework conditions may impose certain limitations on teachers' scope for decision-making when it comes to teaching formats. It is clear, for example, that students cannot be expected to attend an additional synchronous online live lecture after a block attendance day. However, even such a setting does not justify a complete top-down specification of teaching formats. Moreover, in this example, a good teacher would not even consider the synchronous online format.

Fact 3: Online and face-to-face teaching can be combined

Online and face-to-face teaching can be combined at all levels. At university level, both face-to-face and online courses can be offered under the umbrella of a single university. The same applies within degree programs: Even before Corona, there were online degree programs in which face-to-face courses were also held. Conversely, some face-to-face degree programs also offered online teaching alongside traditional face-to-face courses. Last but not least, online and face-to-face teaching can also be used within the same course (blended learning). A joint statistical analysis of dozens of international studies on blended learning by Dr. Silas Wandera at Wilmington University also showed that this format does not result in poorer skills acquisition than traditional classroom teaching. There are many examples of combinations of teaching formats at university level as well as at degree program and course level. It is not true that online and face-to-face teaching are mutually exclusive. Maintaining face-to-face teaching is therefore not an argument for limiting online formats.

Summary and a look into the future

So what is the right response to the pandemic surge in digitalization in order to make university teaching fit for the future? A retraditionalization of face-to-face courses is certainly the wrong answer. Going backwards in terms of teaching formats is probably doomed to failure anyway, because the digital genie is out of the bottle. After the pandemic, university teaching will foreseeably be somewhat more digital than before, just like all areas of society. As long as good teachers teach, we can remain calm about this development. Good teachers do good teaching - regardless of the teaching format.

However, it would be wrong to put our feet up: university teaching will only be sustainable if those affected are heard and their concerns are implemented politically. This is especially true during the upheaval caused by the pandemic, which affects not only teaching staff, but all university employees and students in particular. For example, the LandesAstenKonferenz Berlin is calling for the expansion of asynchronous, flexible online formats in particular. The Association of University Teachers, on the other hand, is calling for digital teaching, whether synchronous or asynchronous, to be given the same legal status as face-to-face teaching. The Trade Union for Education and Science puts it in a nutshell: "University teaching must be made fit for Studies 4.0 through sustainable concepts and framework conditions for the interaction of face-to-face and online teaching as well as effective university didactics". There is nothing to add to this.