3.3 Using hybrid learning strategies is more resilient to disruptions such as COVID-19
Since this was the first time this task had been applied to this course, the students were asked if there was anything that made it difficult to complete the assignment (Figure 7A). Not surprisingly 5 of the 9 challenges mentioned by students in the open box were specifically relating to COVID-19. Of those 5 responses, 4 were about the difficulty of collaborating in lockdown because meetings were now more difficult (2) or because viewing or working together on visual aspects of the assessment were more difficult (2) (Figure 7A). The general comment was unspecific “Covid issues were the only detrimental issues.” (ID7).
Not specifically related to COVID-19, two students mentioned difficulties with Microsoft Teams (one relating to Teams crashing, the other to the time taken to upload and share files) and one student mentioned difficulties editing (Figure 7A; Supplementary Material 5D). One student said there were no difficulties and two declined to describe any difficulties.
To identify the main impacts of COVID-19 on their learning experience they were asked how much the course (Plants and the Soil Environment , BIOS3015) was affected by COVID-19 compared to their other courses (Figure 7B). All except one respondent said that their other courses were affected a lot by lockdown, and the one student said their other courses were affected a little. In contrast only 4 students said COVID-19 affected BIOS3015 a lot, 4 said BIOS3015 was affected a little and 4 said it was ‘not much’ affected.
The open explanations of how COVID-19 affected their assessment in BIOS3015 were coded into negative (9 points total) or positive (7 points total) impacts. The negative impacts in particular were around the difficulty with arranging meetings and communicating during lockdown (Figure 7C). Other issues were around the difficulty editing or filming in lockdown and loss of motivation or higher stress levels. Slightly surprisingly were the number of neutral or positive responses where students commented that they had their team support, or it was good to adapt to the situation (Figure 7D). Two comments were also related to less time spent in transit or more efficient meetings via video (Improved Logistics; Figure 7D).