Moving to Block Teaching during the COVID-19 Pandemic

Abstract

This paper is an exploration into the block teaching format in the context of Higher Education during the COVID-19 pandemic. It provides practical guidance to course designers that will aid their planning, organisation and offering of learning and teaching using block teaching in online and blended settings. The paper attempts to resolve some of the learning and teaching dilemmas and increase focus and flexibility of provision, while avoiding disruption and interruption of study during the pandemic. While the paper refers to a particular block teaching format that has been implemented in a UK post-1992 institution across its undergraduate and postgraduate courses, this exemplar of block teaching will also be useful for other institutions and course designers who are considering the block teaching format in Higher Education settings at module, programme, departmental or institutional level.

The Impact of Physical, Mental, Social and Emotional Dimensions of Digital Learning Spaces on Student’s Depth of Learning: The Quantification of an Extended Lefebvrian Model

“…Despite the widespread adoption of digital learning spaces (DLS) in response to the COVID-19 crisis (Carrillo & Flores, 2020;Harkin & Nerantzi, 2021;Nerantzi & Chatzidamianos, 2020) and generally within education over the last twenty years (Allen & Seaman, 2017), a coherent and unified quantification of key aspects of the DLS on student learning has remained elusive (see Martin, Sun, & Westine, 2020). We attribute this to the multifaceted nature of the DLS as observed across Higher Education (HE), a complexity reported in descriptive, qualitative and quantitative accounts (Henry, 2020).…”

Blocked out: reflections on the potential of intensive modes of teaching to enhance post-COVID-19 graduate employability in large-scale educational settings

“…In particular, there has been a significant rise in the number of students accepted into undergraduate degree programmes, and as a result, institutions have been pushed to reconsider how they can meet the needs of an increasingly diverse range of students (McGregor, 2022). Curriculum innovation has become ever more prominent as they have attempted to do so, and one particular method that has gained in popularity in recent years and saw increased adoption during the COVID-19 era is "blocked" or intensive modes of teaching (Nerantzi and Chatzidamianos, 2020). Yet despite this increase in its use, there has been little investigation to date into how this might be "scaled-up" to take account of the large-scale teaching contexta context which in and of itself, can create very specific challenges.…”

ZOOMED IN, ZONED OUT: Academic Self-Reports on the Challenges and Benefits of Online Teaching in Higher Education

“…Themes 1, 2, and 7 identified in our narratives resoundingly support that, while the VU Block Model ® itself has clear benefits for improving the success rates for repeating students in a blended learning face-to face delivery format [40], academic staff in this intensive block mode of teaching have presented the key challenges they faced, including increased stress levels and other psychological impacts [41], even prior to the pandemic. Moving block units to an online remote learning mode requires careful planning and organisation under ordinary circumstances [42]. However, with the sudden onset of COVID-19 and social isolation restrictions, our anatomy and physiology units were rapidly transformed as academics were thrust into maintaining successful learning outcomes for students.…”