Data Science and AI Educators' Programme: Cohort Call Three notes
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###### tags: `cohort-call-3` `DS-AI-Educators'-Programme`

:::info
- **Call time and day**: Wednesday 24 May 2023, 13:30 - 15:00 (GMT+1)
- **Meeting host**: Mishka
- **Call joining link**:
- **Github repo**: [DS and AI Educators' Programme GitHub](https://github.com/alan-turing-institute/ds-ai-educators-programme)

:::
## CC3 - Post-pandemic teaching: what does it look like?
### Agenda

| Item | Who | Timing |
| ---------------------------- | ------------- | ------ |
| Intro and housekeeping | Mishka Nemes | 13:30 - 13:45 |
| Post-pandemic teaching: what does it look like? | [Richard Waites](https://www.linkedin.com/in/richard-waites/?originalSubdomain=uk) | 13:45 - 14:30 |
| Breakout activity | All | 14:30 - 14:45 |
| Feed back and Q&A | All | 14:45 - 14:55 |
| Wrap-up and closing remarks | Mishka Nemes | 14:55 - 15:00 |

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## Intro and housekeeping
### Roll call question :loudspeaker:

- How have you been getting on in your teaching delivery recently? Try to consider your answer through the lense of a post-pandemic teaching world.
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- Ok, but doing more online delivery which isn't my favourite
- We are also doing more online delivery although trying to get a better mix of in-person and online experiences (kind of blended learning). It's probably something we've wanted to do for a while but got forced into doing something due to the pandemic
- I teach online pre and post-pandemic but have observed that the current cohort has more MC submissions/less engagement in the course
- Doing less online delivery - students are appreciative of the face to face contact
- I think the pandemic helped non-technical students being more familiar with technology and e-learning, which is a great help. Especially, considering difficulties we had during pandemic in online classrooms. Less time is being spent on technical issues.
- we offer hybrid teaching its called the hyflex model making it hard for the instructor to coordinate between the face to face and online students. Challenging
- It is a lot more involved now with multiple modalities...
- We have resumed F2F teaching this year, which has brought back instant interactions with students that was missing when online teaching was conducted. Students also seem more active in asking questions.
- Much more online teaching now, I do a lot of teaching with a mix of online and in person students. Challenge to balance this - if we deliver same content to both formats, lots of 'in person' students skip classes and rely on online material; if we make the 'in person' classes more interactive etc to tempt them to come, the online students complain they are missing out!
- Still use pre-recorded material(s) from the pandemic time, and as the new material is ready, courses slowly change to pre-pandemic style but with more attention to online tool and increased emphasis on engagement with learners
- Teaching tends to be in person - much better in the last year when it was lectures on-line and wore a mask in tutorials -- when I do online people seem to keep their screens off, including in breakout rooms! (1st year undergrads)
- Largely in person, but I think commitment from students to attend in person is lower. There's no doubt though that hybrid working has affected teaching just as it has all other aspects of working life!
- Exclusively online. It's allowed my organisation and the organisations we work with to more easily access education. I think post-pandemic teaching is great from an accessibility perspective (and also I can teach from my spare room!)
- Trying to navigate the diferent challenges that in-person versus online pose.
- Online teaching is not my preffered mode as it requires higher focus. To observe every learners is more difficult as body language is limited. However it works if preparation with online tools plus chunking of the contents are made earlier. - Preparation.
- Online teaching was really very demanding after the pandemic. This is because I teach practical courses, like digital electronics. This really drag me into creating virtual labs that were really demanding amidst the post-pandemic mental issue.
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## Feed back and Q&A

### Questions from participants :question:

Place your questions here and we will pick these up in the session :smile_cat:

- Richard, this is really helpful and I would like to implement these recommendations. It can be helpful for students to see that what they are feeling is normal, and will get better. Would it be ok if I shared a screen shot of this slide (acknowledged as your of course!) to my students?
- How do you encourage the students at York to complete these many mentimeter surveys?
- What approaches have you seen adopted in practice to support larger cohorts of students?
- For STEM students (incl biology, data science and AI), could you advise on good practice / succesful approaches for engaging the students in practical work (labs, demonstrations)?
- I love the idea of Friday emails... how did you find out about the good practices? Did you mention names of lecturers in emails? did you have enough good stories for all the Fridays in a semester
- It would be useful to also understand how do these approaches align in the context of AI and Data Science? ..some exemplars withn the context of this programme would be helpful, how different or parallel the learning journey becomes when we bring in AI/ LLMs/ DS
- What are your tips when engaging with students in face-to-face meetings?
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### Useful Links/references :bookmark_tabs:

- [Give your link a title in square brackets](put the url in round brackets)
- [Mentimeter](https://www.mentimeter.com/) - a platform for engaging and supporting students
- Pedagogical information around the concept of 'mattering'
- [Education for Mental health toolkit](https://www.advance-he.ac.uk/teaching-and-learning/curricula-development/education-mental-health-toolkit)
- [Intentional Hospitality](https://blogs.ucl.ac.uk/digital-education/2021/11/08/intentional-hospitality/)
- [Learning and teaching reimagined](https://www.jisc.ac.uk/learning-and-teaching-reimagined)
- [Computing benchmark statements](https://www.qaa.ac.uk/the-quality-code/subject-benchmark-statements/computing)
- [OIA commitment to kindness](https://www.oiahe.org.uk/media/2630/kindnesscommitment.pdf#:~:text=OIA%20COMMITMENT%20TO%20KINDNESS%20Listening%20We%20will%20create,put%20kindness%20at%20the%20centre%20of%20everyday%20practice)
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## Breakout activity

### Common themes from breakout rooms

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### Breakout room discussions

#### Room 1

- Thinking about yourself, the educator, in a post-pandemic teaching world, have you had to adapt your teaching and, if so, how?
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- Academic teaching became more pastoral, and those 2 aspects are now quite intertwined
- Also, how can this apply to DS aned AI teaching?
- Blended, hybrid teaching is now the norm, and expectation that we can do both
- Engagement with technology has brought changes - e.g teaching in blocks rather than year long modules. Using the opportunities that tech has brought to teaching
- Forced or pushed to innovate and use tech more in teaching
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- How confident/uncomfortable are you with the changes you've made (or experienced)?
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- Although hybrid teaching can be very good for some activities, still f2f very valuable
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- Enjoy face to face teaching much more. Enables better connection iwth students and ability ot guage thier response.
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- Is there anything you would still like to do differently? If so, what?
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#### Room 2

- Thinking about yourself, the educator, in a post-pandemic teaching world, have you had to adapt your teaching and, if so, how?
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- Yes, we learnt to make students less dependent on F2F teaching,
- Use VLE more effectively,
- Adopted new tools and techniques in online classrooms

- I teach courses about Educational Technology and we already start to have fully online and hybrid learning and teaching before pandemic. So it is not that big change for me before and after Covid situation. But I am happy to see that students were getting more used to learning by their own online.
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- As an academic in charge of many Masters dissertation project I connected the students with each other durin the lockdown to compensate for the loss of their informal network.
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- How confident/uncomfortable are you with the changes you've made (or experienced)?
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- More confident post-pandemic
- Students are more motivated to have online learning
- Students knew how to make full use of online learning materials
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- Initially quite hard get the students to talk in small group online sessions.I
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- Is there anything you would still like to do differently? If so, what?
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- I have introduced more group work post pandemic to give a generation that was under lockdown as teenagers more opportunities to get experiences of working together.
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#### Room 3

- Thinking about yourself, the educator, in a post-pandemic teaching world, have you had to adapt your teaching and, if so, how?
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- Varying approaches- more screen recording
- small classes - often hybrid, but starting to move away from that
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- How confident/uncomfortable are you with the changes you've made (or experienced)?
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- reluctance to go into class if you can avoid - does result in less engagement? yes but performance has not gone down!
- Perhaps making more work for ourselves
- Concerns where students have not had any in-person interaction
- Online delivery can be excellent though!
- Expectation for hybrid/digitally recorded options-->is this the "new norm"?
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- Is there anything you would still like to do differently? If so, what?
- integrate recording/streaming into in-person format to avoid creating extra work
- anticipate the demand for online, hybrid, and in-person options to better meet students' preferences
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#### Room 4

- Thinking about yourself, the educator, in a post-pandemic teaching world, have you had to adapt your teaching and, if so, how?
- Use of more online tools within teaching sessions, including asynchronous methods whereby we record lectures we may have given in person and then use the face-to-face time for more discussion and groupwork
- I use way more online tools and online resources, like asynchrnous courses or video content, and I expect my students to consume those before, during, and after the lectures.
- I almost always provide ebook copies of literature I want my student to read. Before that, I just sent them to the library.
- I allow students to join in a hybrid way, if they are ill.
- I use more group work as a result of breakout room culture.
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- How confident/uncomfortable are you with the changes you've made (or experienced)?
- I don't really like recording videos but slowly getting used to it. Also, I have the assumption students will be going through materials before we meet, which isn't always the case. Also, I think there is more opportunity to get questions and address things the students want to discuss within the face-to-face lectures.
- I hate recording videos, I enjoy the interaction during a lecture, and the on the spot engagement. I think that is my forte which is lost on the recording.
- I still want to find a way to merge the online outputs in the formal assessments.
- I have to design curriculum that lasts exact timings (e.g. one hour)
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- Is there anything you would still like to do differently? If so, what?
- More engagements with students, asking them about their mental health & well-being
- Facilitate more groups discussions and interactive activities
- Some students are shy to speak out, try to create a mechanism to encourage them to contribute their ideas/opinions. But also not spotlighting them.
- Find ways to encourage the students prepare for flipped classroom activities. Eg. prepare at home.
- I'd like to have better ways of engaging students and tracking engagement (beyond the quantitative metrics I get from the VLE).
- I really liked the Mentimeter example and would like to do more of that in a lecture.
- I'd like to be better setup to record videos as this is useful for students but it can take me a long time and I feel like an amateur!
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#### Room 5

- Thinking about yourself, the educator, in a post-pandemic teaching world, have you had to adapt your teaching and, if so, how?
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- More of a mix between pre and post pandemic teaching - using hybrid/hyflex teaching. There are face-2-face students and online students.
- Requires more multitasking and can be a big challenge.
- Recording videos for on demand learning.
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- How confident/uncomfortable are you with the changes you've made (or experienced)?
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- Need to be congnisant that there are online learners in a hybrid situation.
- It's nice to have the on demand content available - once it's complete.
- Recordings are useful.
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- Is there anything you would still like to do differently? If so, what?
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- Get a teaching assistant
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#### Room 6

- Thinking about yourself, the educator, in a post-pandemic teaching world, have you had to adapt your teaching and, if so, how?

- No change from my s ide, as I am still teaching online.
- Virtual sessions got into normal
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- How confident/uncomfortable are you with the changes you've made (or experienced)?
- Get into the new tools as quick/good as possible to teach/share knowledege more confortable
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- Is there anything you would still like to do differently? If so, what?
- I would like to include what Richard suggested to check in the well-being of the students.
- I would also like to use the breakout rooms and checking the rooms.
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#### Room 7

- Thinking about yourself, the educator, in a post-pandemic teaching world, have you had to adapt your teaching and, if so, how?
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- My main teaching centred on hardware. Since the pandemic we adapted to hardware simulators, there are plenty of tools online but we have never used it properly
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- Student engagement has changed. Sometimes students may not turn up. We call it 'Transactional Distance'.
- Allocating more time to assessment submissions, because more students are submitting late due to mitigating circumstances
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- How confident/uncomfortable are you with the changes you've made (or experienced)?
- Not comfortable, and online lectures were initially awkward - sometimes chaotic. Now - more comfortable, and online courses to help with remote teaching are available
- ok, but not totally happy. Because of late submissions, marking takes up more of my time.
- Teaching online is ok, teaching f2f is ok, but hybrid teaching is challenging. Delivering an online class with others in the room is not easy.
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- Is there anything you would still like to do differently? If so, what?
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- Need to make hybrid learning more efficient
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#### Room 8

- Thinking about yourself, the educator, in a post-pandemic teaching world, have you had to adapt your teaching and, if so, how?
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- at least blended learning
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- How confident/uncomfortable are you with the changes you've made (or experienced)?
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- scary and uncertain at first, but became the new normal
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- Is there anything you would still like to do differently? If so, what?
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#### Room 8

- Thinking about yourself, the educator, in a post-pandemic teaching world, have you had to adapt your teaching and, if so, how?
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- How confident/uncomfortable are you with the changes you've made (or experienced)?
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- Is there anything you would still like to do differently? If so, what?
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#### Room 9

- Thinking about yourself, the educator, in a post-pandemic teaching world, have you had to adapt your teaching and, if so, how?
- Considering student accessibility and student situation more carefully
- More understanding approach to student
- More online teaching - especially workshops
- Definitely big difference between teaching coding online and teaching coding in person.
- How confident/uncomfortable are you with the changes you've made (or experienced)?
- Helped instruct on the required changes, so confident and experienced
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- Is there anything you would still like to do differently? If so, what?
- Still needs to be more support for some some groups of students
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#### Room 10

- Thinking about yourself, the educator, in a post-pandemic teaching world, have you had to adapt your teaching and, if so, how?

- Human connection and interactivity is challenging

- We have gone back to F2F teaching, which was a great way to get feedback from students.
- Hybrid is now more of a thing
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- But the online tools are also useful for everyone to express their opinions more freely.
- New digital tools might allow for more multimodal ways for interacting with diverse students
- Adding online forums
- Recording of lectures is in demand for students especially the ones who go for their studies after work
- Want to provide flexibility for students with diverse needs (working, caretaking, etc.) but it limits interactivity

- How confident/uncomfortable are you with the changes you've made (or experienced)?
- More confident in teaching online and using digital tools but still am aware of their limitations
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- Is there anything you would still like to do differently? If so, what?
- Teaching from the beach? Can we open up the possibilities beyond the conventional campus to open opportunities for untapped talent (both of the student and instructor side)
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- Having synchronized teaching sessions would be useful for students to learn together in the first place, followed by recordings and online resources.
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