As in other universities, the corona transition at TU Eindhoven led to an abrupt and very fundamental change in the form of teaching and student learning. All interaction has shifted to online. This has consequences for student learning and staff teaching, but to what extent? And how can teachers or the faculty support students to deal with them? This is what researchers Chris Snijders, Uwe Matzat, Ad Kleingeld and Rianne Conijn are monitoring in their project ‘Corona transition and student learning: what works, what doesn’t work, and what needs improvement?’
Frequent and open communication improves confidence
All students from the department of Industrial Engineering and Innovation Sciences of TU Eindhoven were invited to participate in a survey to describe their experiences with online learning in one specific course they had followed in Q3 or Q4. The results show that although the larger group of students has dealt with the transition to online learning rather well, there is also evidence that there is a substantial, non-negligible group that has suffered. The preliminary analyses indicate that teacher communication and support by the teacher at the start of the online course (or in Q3: immediately after the transition to the online format) affect some learning outcomes. Especially frequent, open, and transparent communication helps to decrease the negative impacts, as it improves students’ confidence in their abilities and study enjoyment. In addition, specific learning strategies of students result in less burnout.
For the next steps, the researchers intend to connect the data from the survey to the course characteristics to be able to provide more concrete suggestions on how online teaching could be improved. In addition, they will collect actual click-stream data from course management system Canvas which enables them to follow how students navigate. They will also continue surveying the student population to be able to detect how learning behaviour and student well-being develop over time.
For more details, read the report or view the project in the 4TU.CEE innovation map.
