NUS Business School became the first faculty in NUS to implement a hybrid teaching model — a mix of virtual and face-to-face classrooms — for students, depending on their preference, location and comfort level.
The students from the School’s MSc programmes experienced hybrid teaching when the semester kicked off in August this year.
Bryan Bews, MSc in Management student and The Masters Club President, spoke with Dean and Distinguished Professor Andrew K Rose to find out more about the School’s experiences with hybrid learning during COVID-19.
Q: With COVID-19, is there a shift in the way we practice and engage in higher education?
I have very little confidence in this but an idea that has been floating around is that a growing amount of people is getting familiar with online instructions. That could enable us to engage in a massive amount of the equivalent of flipping the classroom.
For instance, we can teach calculus to large groups of students, 50 or 100 or 300 online and have them meet in person to do exercises and other things that require interaction.
I think we are a step closer to that, but it is unclear if it’s going to work. The one thing I am sure of is that face-to-face interactions are going to become even more critical in the future.
The real reason I believe online is so much worse for the students is not just that the delivery is much inferior, but instead that if you are online, you are not engaging in the conversations that you have before and after class.
A lot of learning is peer-to-peer and associated with the class but not directly resulting from it, and that is something you just don’t see online.
Q: As students we are grateful that we can go to university in-person during such a time. The massive change for us is the hybrid teaching model. Can you explain what is behind this model?
The pandemic came on much faster than anyone expected. There was a big scramble on all continents, to switch to online teaching in a very chaotic fashion, and that was somewhat inevitable because most people did not expect the pandemic to develop with the speed it did.
In Singapore, we were fortunate enough that the country controlled the spread relatively quickly and engaged in some reasonable health policy practices. It was clear to me that the pandemic was not going to be gone by the first semester. So the question was what to do.
My concern was that we would go 100 per cent online as almost all entities of NUS or most other institutions have, we lose the spark in education that choice and autonomy can bring.
You can’t do the same thing you did last semester and give your lecture to the screen. Students and their parents are bound to be unhappy with that and would question why they should pay the equal amount for a far inferior experience.
As a faculty we voted for embarking on a hybrid model – students can attend class in person, online, or both.
The faculty had to learn to address students in the classroom and cater to remote students watching. MSc in Management student Kerstin Hoeger was tremendously helpful in this matter. A technology consultant by training, she coached the faculty to provide interactive learning experience online and offline. Everybody had to attend a group meeting with her as well as two one-on-one sessions with her.
We made sure to put a lot of effort into making this work. No more than 50 students can attend a class face-to-face because of social distancing. It means splitting up classes that number hundreds of students into smaller sessions.
I think it has turned out for the best, certainly for the students.
Q: What are your biggest takeaways leading the School through such times?
It is not perfect, but we try to make the best out of the conditions that we are given and I would just encourage all of you to do the same. I will say that the job market will be terrible for an unforeseeable future and it is an excellent time to stay in school.
Education is certainly not the only driver of inequality, but the single biggest comparable that we have is that well-educated people do better in many aspects, not just income but health or life satisfaction.
As a school it is our mission to go out of our way to provide as much quality education as we possibly can. We expanded our master’s programmes considerably just in the last two months as we think the demand is going to be really high.
Q: And how has the past few months been for you?
First of all, I feel overwhelming gratitude that my son is with us, my wife and me, in Singapore and mostly not in America right now.
Here is the other thing, from a professional view. Nobody wants to live through a pandemic, but if you do have to live through a pandemic, being employed in a place that has the situation under control and where you can actually make a difference is professionally satisfying.
So, I think I had a good pandemic. It didn’t make me nervous. I didn’t lose sleep over this or anything like that. I feel like it’s been an opportunity to try to create welfare for the group of people that I care for.
The original article first appeared in The Master’s Club LinkedIn page. The Master’s Club is the MSc programmes’ student leadership body.
Read more about Dean Andy’s thoughts on hybrid teaching here.