The education environment has changed significantly in the last few years. There’s been a huge shift towards a student-led approach to learning, where students themselves are having a greater say in how, and where, they engage with their studies.
It is a hybrid-learning model that has accelerated during the Covid pandemic. As this recent Wonkhe article highlights, many students have chosen to continue their studies away from campus, preferring a flexible learning environment. It is a move with uncanny echoes to the once almost unimaginable ‘imagined’ scenario of a hyperflex, future education space of online study – published by Jisc – where the student experience is largely remote and student-led. Something we are now seeing become reality.
What’s striking about the imagined future world of learning is how it cites ‘technology-enabled student communities’ as central to this hypothetical scenario’s success. Something that is at the forefront of discussions today and a common theme at the recent Secret Life of Student’s event by Wonkhe.
Combined Wonkhe and Kortext research from February 2022 asked higher education leaders what they felt was ‘the most significant influencer of learning and teaching change’ at their institution: 97% of research respondents selected ‘student expectations’. This comes in response to universities giving their students the choice of more personalised learning, which students have accepted keenly. Now, students are looking at a more flexible learning approach that fits their needs, rather than a traditional lecturer-led style of study.
The challenge for your institution is how a distant hybrid learning model threatens the sense of belonging that is key to university and student success. In the Wonkhe and Kortext research, two-thirds of respondents felt student academic engagement and performance could affect learning and teaching strategy. Therefore, as students’ needs change, the university landscape and strategies must adapt too.
In our recent webinar – Can data inform a time of change? Alex Chapman, Head of Technology Advanced Learning at Middlesex University can identify with this shift in engagement behaviour and shared how they are revising their strategy to give students choice and power to choose how they engage in their learning.
This change in approach is a testament to their understanding of their student demographic, with a high volume of widening participation students who need that kind of flexibility to be able to fit their learning with competing priorities in their lives.
But it is not without challenge, with many of the challenges from the pivot to online in the height of the COVID pandemic still being faced today. For Middlesex University, the biggest challenges they’ve seen has been with the digital skills of both students and staff and this idea of belonging and cohort identity. Main contributing factors are isolation and how students have struggled with mental health and mental wellbeing as a result. The university is working hard to build in ways to make sure students feel part of the institution, engaged, and are doing so through academic advising.
Student engagement analytics data supports inclusion in the current changing hybrid-learning landscape, building a picture of what engagement looks like across the cohort and at the course, module and individual level. Enabling data-informed conversations about students’ engagement with their studies and providing early warning to potential risk to progression and even withdrawal. Meaning advisers can make sure outreach is personalised and proactive, fostering a better connection between students and staff and encouraging a sense of belonging.
In the case of Middlesex University, data is now underpinning the approach to academic advising, focusing on interactions with students at six focal points in the academic year – identified and tracked using StREAM (Student Engagement Analytics Platform). At each point, the university will create personalised action plans, use the StREAM dashboard to inform both tutors and students, and encourage them to remain engaged with their studies, whatever the nature of their learning environment.
The data also provides academic advisers with a clearer picture of how students are engaging with different resources, so they better understand what students are engaging with and when. Used in this way, insight generated from an engagement analytics system goes beyond academic advising to inform programme managers on how programs are performing and give more oversight across particular departments and programs to better understand what engagement looks like and how this links with professional support services.
‘We had analytics dashboards for quite a long time, but it was more of a business intelligence type of tool, which was not necessarily friendly or immediate for our academic colleagues to use. Using the StREAM platform we’re providing information in a much more visual and meaningful way, allowing them to see how their students are engaging at any particular point in time’
Alex Chapman, Head of Technology Advanced Learning at Middlesex University
Nurturing relationships helps students navigate their studies and feel supported by their universities, especially during times of uncertainty and change. To stay connected with your students in a hyperflex learning space, carefully using and reviewing student engagement analytics data, becomes ever more crucial.
Solutionpath’s StREAM engagement software is designed to create one, clear, objective view of how students are engaging across the full spectrum of their university experience. This means you can target the right students with the right support at the right time, no matter their preferred way of learning, to make sure your outreach is personalised and foster a better sense of belonging.
Data may already be used extensively in higher education. Yet it’s when you harness that in the student-led current climate that you can use it to make a tangible difference to student experiences, progression and wellbeing. With an accelerating shift towards student-led learning, it’s more important than ever before that education leaders understand how students are engaging in their academic learning.
Precision insights gained from engagement data allow you to make student-focused decisions that help students thrive in a changing environment. Taking objective data and using it to inform the flexible study space makes sure all students can fulfil their potential and have the opportunity to succeed in the current learning landscape.
To learn how engagement data can inform your institution in a time of change watch the webinar replay or visit our StREAM page today.
The education environment has changed significantly in the last few years. There’s been a huge shift towards a student-led approach to learning, where students themselves are having a greater say in how, and where, they engage with their studies. It is a hybrid-learning model that has accelerated during the Covid pandemic. As this recent Wonkhe […]
Fill in your details in the form to the right to access the full article.