Using video conferencing to connect first-year classes on multiple campuses: An exploration through teachers eyes

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1 Using video conferencing to connect first-year classes on multiple campuses: An exploration through teachers eyes Nicola Westberry, Lecturer, Faculty of Health and Environmental Sciences, Auckland University of Technology One way to meet the varied needs of first-year students is to adopt flexible learning approaches, and multi-campus universities can provide opportunities for students to learn at a location that is convenient for them. However, the presence of multiple campuses can create a range of pedagogical, logistical, and institutional challenges. This paper explores a specific instance of multi-campus delivery the introduction of video conferencing into four large first-year courses at a New Zealand university from a teaching perspective. Over a five-month period, data in the form of accounts, interviews, and video recordings were collected from 17 lecturers as they made sense of a changed lecture environment where four venues were connected by video conferencing technology. The provisional findings suggest a disjuncture between teacher expectations of connectivity with students and actual experience in the lecture sessions. The study raises concerns about the preparation of teachers and equity of experience for students in multi-campus educational settings. Introduction First-year (FY) classes have become increasingly diverse in response to calls for wider participation and greater social inclusion in higher education (Scutter, Palmer, Luzeckyj, Burke da Silva, & Brinkworth, 2011). This creates significant challenges for universities that must address the needs of large multi-cultural groups of students, including international, working, and mature learners, as well as students from non-traditional backgrounds (Harvey, Drew, & Smith, 2006). One way to meet the varied needs of FY students is to adopt flexible learning approaches, and multi-campus universities can provide opportunities for students to learn at a location that is convenient for them (among other benefits). However, the presence of multiple campuses creates a range of pedagogical, logistical, and institutional challenges. Educators must coordinate virtual, physical, and social aspects to support student learning, yet still respond to diverse student needs in different locations (Ebden, 2010). This paper reports on a study that focused on a specific instance of multi-campus delivery the introduction of video conferencing into four large FY courses at a New Zealand university. The video conferencing connected four lecture theatres on three different campuses, allowing one expert lecturer to engage with large numbers of geographicallydispersed students across the Auckland region, and giving students the flexibility to attend the lecture at a convenient venue rather than travel to a central location. This ethnographic study focused primarily on how teachers made sense of their changed lecture environment, highlighting the personal, pedagogical, technical, and institutional challenges associated with innovation in large FY classes. Three of the seventeen lecturers occupied the role of participant/researcher; thus, the study provides a detailed insider perspective of teaching practice. The study is significant in two key ways: it provides an authentic grounds-eye view of teaching using technology in the FY and focuses on an institutional innovation that was problematic. 1

2 The research context Driven by economic goals and pedagogical objectives around inter-professional learning, four common-semester courses were created within the Faculty of Health and Environmental Sciences at Auckland University of Technology in All FY students in the Faculty are required to take some or all of these courses in their first semester at university, depending on their degree programme. Consequently, enrolments are very high, ranging from hundreds to over a thousand students per course. In each paper, there is a weekly two/three-hour session; this time is used for lectures and, occasionally, some interactive work. Usually, the sessions are presented by an expert lecturer who has specific content knowledge. During 2009, this presenting lecturer had to repeat the same lecture several times during the week to students at different campuses. Early in 2010, an institutional-level innovation video conferencing was introduced and this enabled expert lecturers to simultaneously connect with students in four different venues throughout the Auckland region. This new format benefitted staff and students, decreasing the number of lectures to be delivered and giving students the flexibility to attend the lecture at a convenient venue. Despite these advantages, the video conferencing initiative encountered mixed success in its first year (2010) and this study was conducted in 2011 to improve the use of the video conferencing and to better understand the relationships between teachers, pedagogy, and technological innovation in large multi-campus FY classes. Methodology The study s methodology drew heavily on contemporary ethnography in order to study reallife human behaviour and to gain a unique understanding of the context and thought that informs such behaviour (Murchison, 2010, p. 13). To achieve this objective, detailed data was collected from 17 lecturers who were using the video conferencing in the four commonsemester courses over a 12-week period from February to June 2011 (one semester). Three researchers occupied the dual roles of participants (being members of the teaching staff involved with the video conferencing) and researchers; they acted as insiders or full participant-observers. Full participant-observation can be a powerful approach with many important benefits that include: understanding the culture under study more deeply, having greater intimacy with research participants that may encourage greater disclosure, and not disturbing social interaction unnaturally (Bonner & Tolhurst, 2002). However, such approaches can be problematic, raising numerous methodological and ethical issues (Labaree, 2002; Westberry, 2011). To explore teacher engagement with the video conferencing, a number of qualitative methods were used: accounts, group interviews, and video recordings. Immediately after the weekly lecture with the video conferencing, the lecturer used prompts to record a brief post-lecture account of her/his experiences. The prompts asked the lecturer to consider her/his learning outcomes before the session and whether or not these expectations had been achieved. Lecturers in each course participated in four group interviews at regular intervals, providing opportunities to enrich the data and conduct participant checks of interpretations. These oftencandid discussions provided insider views on the benefits and challenges of using technology in large classes across multiple campuses. Also, video recordings were made of lecturers interacting with the video conferencing as they worked at the lectern with the technician. Finally, differing perspectives were obtained through interviews with key informants involved with managerial or technical dimensions of the video conferencing. In total, the following were obtained: 43 weekly post-lecture accounts, 17 video recordings, 14 group interviews, and 6 key informant interviews. A thematic analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2006) conducted collectively by the four researchers has identified key patterns in the data. 2

3 Provisional findings The findings highlight the challenges associated with using video conferencing to connect large numbers of FY students at multiple campuses. While some benefits were realised (such as decreasing student travel and lecturer workload, and enhancing teacher collaboration), the study shows numerous tensions at personal, pedagogical, technical, and institutional levels. Many of these findings have broader implications for mass higher education and the support of educational innovation in tertiary settings. This paper will explore one main theme the perceived loss of connectivity between lecturers and students across the four venues (intervenue) and within individual venues (intra-venue). Loss of inter-venue connectivity While the video conferencing was supposed to foster connections between different lecture theatres, the reverse often seemed to be true. Certainly, it appeared to support the dissemination of material by the expert lecturer, providing all students with varying degrees of access to his/her expertise. Also, it supported consistency, acting as a unifying force in the large classes and ensuring that everyone (wherever they were based) received the same information about important issues such as assessment expectations. As a one-way conduit for dissemination across the campuses, the video conferencing was often quite effective. However, many presenting lecturers expected to have a greater sense of connection with students in the other venues; for example, they wanted to have two-way communication with all students, expecting to interact with and obtain feedback from students. These expectations were often unfulfilled as attempts to provide two-way communication were problematic. Some presenting lecturers attempted to conduct inter-venue question and answer sessions over the video conferencing; however, difficulties communicating with the venues (such as poor sound, loss of sound, or loss of venue due to technical problems) hindered this approach. Also, delays in venue responses were frequent and students were observed displaying restless and off-task behaviour as they listened to numerous questions from different venues. As ongoing problems were experienced, there was a move to limit inter-venue interaction. However, this meant that students in the satellite venues had less access to the expert lecturer and had direct contact only with the local lecturer (who often lacked specific expertise). In addition, because students in the other venues were rarely displayed on the screens, the presenting lecturer often had a reduced sense of their presence. One lecturer remarked: I am really only aware of the other venues because I am looking down the barrel of the camera. I am aware of being perceived by others but I can t see a picture of them. I am only really cognisant of the group of people in front of me in person in the lecture theatre. Drawing on beliefs that lectures should be interactive, many lecturers experienced a mismatch between their expectations and actual use of the video conferencing. From a teaching perspective, it seemed that the technical connection afforded by the video conferencing was not enough to support a pedagogical connection between students and lecturers. Loss of intra-venue connection Some presenting lecturers also felt that the video conferencing disconnected them from their local audience. As the technology had been retrofitted into the lecture theatres, there were a number of technical constraints placed on the position of the camera and use of microphones 3

4 that limited the lecturers ability to move closer to the students. This seemed to fuel frustrations of being chained to the lectern with accompanying concerns of feeling detached from the students and being unable to read them. In some of the receiving venues, lecturers struggled to connect with their local students, experiencing tensions around their roles as academics. In this changed setting, they were receiving a lecture from another place, rather than giving the lecture themselves. At times, some lecturers felt that the authoritative voice of the expert presenter diminished their role from an academic to a baby-sitter. One lecturer, noting some discomfort in having her local teaching activity controlled from afar, stated that she felt like a puppet on a string. Another lecturer voiced similar concerns, noting her inability to engage spontaneously with students in her own context. I cannot respond to questions from students and direct things, and engage where they are at with things it feels very much as though it is a prescribed presentation. In this setting, it seemed that the technical and collaborative implications of connecting four lecture theatres via video conferencing had not been fully considered, leading to role confusion amongst the lecturers and the belief that technology was a barrier. Some initial implications It is rather ironic that an interactive technology such as video conferencing should lead to feelings of disconnection. To varying degrees, this could be attributed to technical issues, and yet, there was clearly a disjuncture between lecturer expectations of and their actual experiences with the video conferencing. Many lecturers expected to be able to interact with students across the campuses and respond to local learning needs in their own context. As these expectations were often unmet, they felt an acute sense of loss, believing that their teaching had been compromised. There was a common belief that teaching had changed technology was leading rather than supporting pedagogy. However, it seemed that these beliefs about lectures and their accompanying practices had been transferred into the changed environment without acknowledging that the move from one to multiple lecture theatres was transformative, involving a radical rethink of pedagogy. This finding has important implications for the preparation of teachers moving into multi-campus settings, adding support to calls for greater recognition of and increased support for multi-campus educational environments (Anderson & Date-Huxtable, 2011; Ebden, 2010), particularly in large diverse FY classes. As a crucial time of transition for students (Tinto, 1993), the FY presents academics with numerous challenges. Coordinating learning across different campuses using digital tools adds to an already complex situation, requiring opportunities for teachers to reshape their pedagogy, collaborate with technical staff, and redefine their roles with students and their relationships with colleagues. Questions are also raised about the equity of experience for students at multi-campus institutions. In this study, there was a tension between the global need to present information from the expert and the local needs of lecturers to engage with and respond to students. While students were not interviewed for the study, it seemed that the lack of a live presenter, coupled with an inability to effectively interact with the presenting lecturer, restricted the satellite students access to expertise. Potentially, this could have negatively affected their learning experience. Additionally, confusion around the role of the local lecturer may have added to a lack of equity between students at the main and satellite venues. Exploring student 4

5 perspectives on the video conferencing (a future goal of the researchers) will undoubtedly yield additional insights. Questions for discussion 1. What is a realistic expectation of connection to students when using synchronous technologies to link hundreds of students at multiple campuses? 2. Are we spreading expertise too thinly? How can we effectively distribute expertise across large numbers of students? 3. How is equity of learning maintained in these environments is this even a realistic question? Acknowledgements I would like to thank my colleagues who generously gave their time to participate in this study during a busy teaching period, particularly my co-researchers Sue McNaughton, Helen Gaeta, and Jennie Billot. Support for this study has been provided by the Centre for Learning and Teaching (CfLAT), Auckland University of Technology, New Zealand. References Anderson, A. J., & Date-Huxtable, E. (2011). ICT-assisted multi-campus teaching: Principles and practice to impact equity of experience for students. Proceedings of the Australasian Society for Computers in Learning in Tertiary Education, Retrieved from Bonner, A., & Tolhurst, G. (2002). Insider-outsider perspectives of participant observation. Nurse Researcher, 9(4), Retrieved from Braun, V., & Clarke, V. (2006). Using thematic analysis in psychology. Qualitative research in psychology, 3, doi: / qp063oa Ebden, M. (2010). We re on a steep learning curve: The benefits and challenges of multicampus university course delivery. Proceedings of the Higher Education Research and Development Society of Australasia, 33, Retrieved from Harvey, L., Drew, S., & Smith, M. (2006). The first-year experience: A review of literature for the Higher Education Academy. Retrieved from Labaree, R. V. (2002). The risk of going observationalist : Negotiating the hidden dilemmas of being an insider participant observer. Qualitative Research, 2(1), doi: / Murchison, J. M. (2010). Ethnography essentials: Designing, conducting, and presenting your research. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass Scutter, S., Palmer, E., Luzeckyj, A., Burke da Silva, K., & Brinkworth, R. (2011). What do commencing undergraduate students expect from first year university? The International Journal of the First Year in Higher Education, 2(1), doi: /intjfyhe.v2i1.54 Tinto, V. (1993). Leaving college: Rethinking the causes and cures of student attrition (2 nd ed.). Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Westberry, N. (2011). Using insider research to study teacher engagement with video conferencing in first-year classes. Proceedings of the Australasian Society for Computers in Learning in Tertiary Education, Retrieved from 5