Veletsianos on what students say about online learning during COVID-19

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Learning technology expert Prof.  George Veletsianos and colleague Assist. Prof. Royce Kimmons of Brigham Young University wrote an article for Educause Review on what post-secondary students are saying about the switch to online learning during COVID-19.

Here is an excerpt:

This past week, we scraped thousands of Twitter posts from individuals who have been commenting about "my professor." We then categorized these posts to identify common feedback, aiming to identify recurring pain points and positive experiences.

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Considering all of the students' Tweets as a whole, we see that students appreciate social engagement, teacher presence, faculty support and care, and faculty familiarity with online learning, as well as connecting with others. To the greatest extent possible, faculty who are transitioning to remote instruction should follow the consensus among the online learning research community and avoid merely replicating the face-to-face environment online; rather, faculty should continually learn from their own efforts and the advice of learning design professionals and should consider the new, and perhaps unexpected, ways that online learning technologies allow them to improve students' experiences.

This story appeared in Educause Review.