Anyway been playing around with a thing today thought I'd share it and some thoughts. Do add/challenge/argue/question and I'll then nick those observations for an ensuing blog.
The unit here is the "contact hour". These matter because the volume of them appears to be correlated to satisfaction perceptions of value and mental health.
Clearly not all column 2 hours are the same. Genuine simultaneous live in-person and online really hard to go well. Lots of (2) is really live with a recording.
The promises made at the pre-contract stage along the top row matter. If 1 becomes 2, or 3 becomes 2, that's fine - it's a bonus. But if 1 becomes 3 or 3 becomes 1, that's a broken promise.
In the event of 3s becoming 1s or 1s becoming 3s, merely giving students notice now and the opp to not re-enrol is likely to be a fail in consumer law terms because the consumer can't easily walk away and switch.
"Away from home" students probably have a housing contract already. "Commuter students" may not be able to attend any other uni at all. So the duty to perform as per the pre-contract info is strong.
When students say they want "blended", most are saying they want as many column 2 hours as possible. There's a vanishingly small number of students who mean a mixture of 1 and 3. Nuts and gum in a bag isn't a "blend".
We have to accept that just as folks don't value a DVD like they do the theatre, students don't value col A as much as col C, even if col A was harder to produce. That partly because of the attraction of live theatre and partly because of the social aspects of pre and post.
A hell of a lot of returning "away from home" students now associate Col 1 with loneliness and poor levels of motivation. They really bloody hate Col 1 in the context of last year and the restrictions.
I can't stress enough even to people who were students five years ago how awful and tiny and squeezed and poor quality and miserable student accomm often is. If not, it's expensive. Or both. What you wouldn't want to do is spend weeks on end in any of it.
Obviously we should do all we can to shift CHs into Column 2 if we can, but that may not be possible and may be expensive.
There were always row 4 students who really needed some Column 2 but mainly Column 1 but who we forced onto campus. That's partly because of the gravitational pull of the campus UG experience, decline of mature etc
If there are really strong needs in Row 4 we have to accept that most courses now are "in person" courses according to funding rules. We may not be able to get there.
We've come to realise how important the need is at Row 6, but only because the contact got taken away. We mustn't dismiss it now, especially towards the start of a student's journey - for UGs, first half of first year.
Box G is a box chock full of anger and and feelings of being let down and very bad press.
As I conclude with here, real blended would mean bursts of time in Column 3 and then lots of Column 1 with options for on campus activity. The professional PGT block teaching model but for UGs. wonkhe.com/blogs/a-blende…
It would be ace and would suit the new breed of regionally recruited students who live too far away for an easy commute and too close to justify rental accomm. But we'd need time and transformation to timetables, student services, SUs, etc wonkhe.com/blogs/a-blende…
Finally, in terms of the needs of students, a huge number of previously (5) students have become (6) students. A global pandemic and several lockdowns will do that to you.
A recession, kids being off school, work being difficult, a long commute and so on will also have pushed some students from (5) students to (4) students. Without a lot of Column 2 provision, I'm not convinced the actual needs of (4)s and (6)s are reconcilable.
Oh very finally. Some switching of Column 3 to Column 1 isn't really about being blended or flexible or safety. It's about a) being able to bank international students fees that haven't arrived yet, and...
...b) being able to exceed the size of current lecture theatres in what's set to be a bumper recruitment year. I can't stress enough how badly it will go down if the bits of the sector that are doing lots of 3 to 1 switching aren't honest about why.
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