Face-to-face teaching in the digital world

How online formats and on campus teaching go well together

Digital education works very well if it is based on well-founded teaching methods, says Svenja Bedenlier. This applies both to courses held solely online and to various teaching formats used in digitally-supported face-to-face teaching.

Online classes and events became the norm at FAU during the Covid pandemic. It became par for the course that students and staff only saw each other on the gallery view in Zoom. The switch to digital education happened extremely quickly and generated new opportunities for rapidly sharing information, networking and increased flexibility as regards time and location. However: “What became known as emergency remote teaching did work, but it cannot be compared to online classes that use well-founded online teaching methods that are planned over a long period of time,” says Svenja Bedenlier, Professor of E-Learning in Higher Education and Adult Education at the Innovation in Learning Institute (ILI) at FAU. “People need people for direct, immediate and personal interaction and this also applies to teaching and learning as constructive and interactive processes.” In addition, physically being on campus is essential for some concepts, for discussions and academic socialization, says Bedenlier.

Merging digital and analog formats

ILI provides support to teaching staff and practical advice on digital education. New forms of designing teaching methods and encouraging student engagement have been created, such as flipped classrooms or hybrid classes that take place at the University and online. “Digital formats are here to stay, we now have to focus on developing them further. Hybrid teaching especially shows that digital and analog formats are not polar opposites, but merge into each other,” explains Bedenlier. This requires students and teaching staff to learn new skills. “Teaching staff are expected to have skills for which they have not received any training for the most part, such as making videos, recording voice-overs or familiarizing themselves with the wide range of digital tools available. Supporting the development of these skills is an important task for ILI.”

Prof. Dr. Svenja Bedenlier studied education at the University of Oldenburg. During her doctoral degree about international mobility in research, she carried out research at the Middle East Technical University in Turkey, and in Colombia. This was followed by a period working in various research projects focusing on digitalization in universities. Svenja Bedenlier was appointed Assistant Professor of E-Learning at University at FAU in March 2020.

Covid led to stress

The FAU e-learning monitoring survey, which was an interdisciplinary accompanying research project during the first two “Covid semesters”, showed that self-regulated learning was a major challenge for students during the pandemic. “A small percentage of students did not have the right technical equipment, which led to disadvantages for some individuals. In addition, the survey said that students’ stress levels increased as early as the middle of the summer semester of 2020 and satisfaction with studying decreased,” says Svenja Bedenlier.

AI: Potential and questions to be answered

As far as the future of teaching and studying at FAU is concerned, education specialist Bedenlier believes that “artificial intelligence and forms of extended reality will play a greater role. Blended learning will continue to exist, since teaching online and face-to-face will remain closely connected to each other.” Svenja Bedeliner is ambivalent about the development of the use of artificial intelligence in university-level teaching. While it may have interesting potential for teaching methodology and student support on the one hand, on the other, AI raises ethical and legal issues that still need to be clarified.

by Susanne Stemmler

This article is part of the FAU Magazin

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