Commenting on the story: Adelaide University says goodbye to face-to-face lectures

How many people do you know that look back at their uni years as an amazingly rich time of life?

As the parent of a current Adelaide Uni student, I can say with absolute certainty that the reduction in face to face learning is killing the university experience for young people.

The many uni students I know describe being at uni as ‘good’ – not great, not amazing. Just… good. They won’t reminisce about it in the same enthusiastically positive terms you hear from prior generations because they don’t feel the same sense of immersion, acceptance, connection, momentum, or joy.

What does this mean for society at large? Apart from our young people missing out on what many of us consider “the best years of my life”, where will the ‘melting pot’ of thoughts, knowledge and ideas that universities traditionally nurture, and which drive so much of progress and innovation, flourish in the future?

My daughter is being denied her much anticipated uni experience, but society will be denied much much more. – Tammy Collyer

If the quotes attributed to Adelaide University are accurate (and I have no reason to believe they are not) I fervently wish the author(s) of the ‘rich digital learning activities’ will demonstrate more skills at clear written English.

Those quotes are outstanding examples of new management doublespeak gobbledygook. Sentences linearly sprinkled with weasel words, which send the reader on a long journey to discover meaning, but at the end, delivering little understanding. QED. – Vincent O’Donnell

Are they complete idiots? What does that tangle of words mean?

It means that students miss out on interaction and become even more cut off from the world and ideas. So, no need for all that expensive real estate on North Tce and elsewhere. No need. The only space they will need is a computer server in the US, Ireland or wherever. Hand it back – you’re not using it anymore.

The administration of the university has failed the future. Duds, the lot of ‘em. – Huw Morgan

Not convinced. Yes, the business case for the merger was foreign students’ rivers of gold. It confirms my view that students in this mega university will be just a number.

Lectures present the best environment for focused attention, with prac, tutorials etc giving exposure to detail and testing of  a student’s absorption of the material.

The focus of a lecture is key. They also pace the delivery of the knowledge. Reading and exercises reinforce this. As a STEM grad, I would have been ‘all at sea’ without this layered process.

I guess literature students just read and read. Law? Don’t know, but it would seem that personal interaction would be vital. Medicine? Also don’t know, but I would think detailed interaction vital.

I also studied economics. Again, lectures were a session where I could focus without distraction, and tutorials and essays vehicles for arguing about the applicability of this dismal ‘science’. – Robert Warn