Why Are Students Not Engaging In Online Learning? A Lecturer’s Reflection

The poster is a reflective account of practice on the author’s experiences of student engagement within online learning during Semester One of the 2020/21 academic year (September to December 2020). This was the first semester many universities prepared for a fully online semester, as opposed to the quick transition to online teaching experienced in the first UK lockdown of March 2020. <br> The learning and teaching practices used this semester were based on practices developed for transactional distance. Despite these adoptions, the author experienced a lack of student engagement with online learning. Student engagement is viewed as an integral part of the learning process. Further, online learning is likely to remain a core component as universities move towards hybrid teaching and learning practices post-pandemic. Thus, a better understanding of student engagement in an online learning context is needed. This will enable universities to develop curriculum design and learning and teaching approaches better suited to online and hybrid learning. <br> Accordingly, the author reflected on the issues impacting upon student engagement and established three key problem areas, which were related to curriculum design and learning and teaching approaches. These problem areas will be examined in the poster and the author will offer recommendations to overcome these challenges