Block-taught students might be satisfied but are they employable?

Block teaching is apparently very popular with students. But the recent Times Higher Education article reporting as much (“Students embrace block teaching but some staff still unconvinced”, 17 April) is far from unique in neglecting to investigate how widely that positivity is shared by the staff delivering the teaching.

Among the most useful literature available is a study from Manchester Metropolitan University, which introduced block teaching in 2020-21 but quickly abandoned it in favour of a more traditional semester approach for 2022-23. Of course, one cannot help but acknowledge that the middle of a global pandemic was probably not the optimal moment to introduce an intensive teaching model.

Campus resource collection: What is block teaching?

As a reasonably long-serving member of the teaching staff at De Montfort University (DMU), I can attest that we’ve had our share of unusual teaching structures. I previously taught for several years in our “linear” (year-long modules only) format. Now, block teaching, which management has branded “Education 2030”, is approaching the end of its second year on most undergraduate degrees (though not all, and the question of why health sciences cannot be offered in an intensive format is well worth exploring).

Current students do indeed seem to quite like it. As THE reported, a university survey found that block teaching was an “important determining factor” in 90 per cent of their decisions to attend De Montfort. That same percentage of students said it helps their work-life balance. Those figures might be misleading, however: the response rate was very low.

Either way, staff’s experience of delivering block teaching is – anecdotally, at least – rather less rosy. DMU degree plans are designed so that block 1 classes (run in weeks one to seven of the academic year) feed into block 2 classes (weeks nine to 15), allowing students to cover previously acquired knowledge and/or revisit previously developed skills. Nevertheless, colleagues report the need for constant remedial work in block 2 because the short duration of block 1 does not permit the amount of reinforcement necessary for learning. This has worrying implications for the level of professional competence with which students will graduate (taking us back to the health sciences question).

There is also concern that key transferable skills that will be expected of students in the workplace, such as time management and multitasking, are not being developed because students are no longer required to juggle their schedules to complete multiple assessed items to a range of deadlines.

In her talk at the University of Exeter on which THE’s article was based, Susan Orr, DMU’s pro vice-chancellor for education and equalities, acknowledged that “some” staff had found the transition to block teaching “very difficult”. One reason, as she conceded, was that in the rush to implement it, little attention has been paid to research productivity. The original plan was for staff to teach on only two blocks out of four every year, with a break after each one. In reality, however, I know of no junior staff member who teaches on fewer than three blocks (though professors have a lower teaching load).

This dropping of the research ball is worrying not only for the next Research Excellence Framework but also in light of our institutional commitment to “research-led teaching” (of which Orr, as PVC for education, is the custodian). There are, to be sure, ways to include research in teaching. An up-to-date reading list has long been an essential component of university study, for instance. But the block format requires students to complete assigned readings within 48 hours, rather than the traditional week. Anecdotal evidence suggests that their response is not even to try.

The intensity of the block format is also affecting staff welfare, especially in the absence of the initially envisaged “micro-sabbatical”. Colleagues have described teaching “on the block” as “exhausting” and “unmanageable”. With job losses being announced all around the UK (DMU went through the same just two years ago), this has compounded issues around staff morale.

Teaching staff also worry about ableism. Twice a week, we run a one-hour lecture and then a three-hour “workshop” (not termed a “tutorial” or “seminar” because module leaders have the freedom to use it as they see fit). But students with neurodiversity often struggle in the workshops.

In addition, student absences are near impossible to compensate for because they miss so much, while staff absence for any extended period makes module learning outcomes almost unachievable. In the immediate aftermath of the pandemic, it is surprising that no consideration was given to this.

One of the rare explorations of lecturers’ perceptions of intensive teaching, published in 2018, suggests that block teaching might be a useful option for students with the capacity to learn in a short period of time – although there would be enormous practical barriers to offering both formats simultaneously. Either way, doing block teaching successfully demands an inclusive approach to planning, engaging the staff who actually deliver it.

Despite everything, DMU colleagues still express a willingness to try to make it work. If senior management is willing to hear their grievances and act on them, it might yet be possible for this experiment to succeed.

The author is an academic at De Montfort University.