Prof. Holger Briel 
Division of Culture and Creativity, United International College

Research Area:

Media Philosophy and Ethics, Intercultural Communication, Leadership Development, IHRM, New Media, Visual Literacy, Cultural Studies, IR, Public Policy, Digital Oral History, Education

Brief introduction of your research experience:

Professor Holger BRIEL is Dean of the Division of Culture and Creativity. He holds a Ph.D. in Cultural Theory from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, an M.A. in Comparative Literature from the University Michigan, Ann Arbor and a B.A. in English and German from   Eberhardt-Karls-Universität Tübingen, Germany. A portion of his graduate studies was also undertaken at the Université de Paris, Sorbonne. Previously,   Dr Briel has taught at the University of Nicosia, Cyprus, the University of  Innsbruck, New York University Skopje, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki,   the University of Surrey, Indiana State University and Xi'an Jiaotong Liverpool University. He has held numerous Visiting Professorship positions and lectured at Oxford, UC Berkeley, Ateneo de Manila, the National University of Malaysia, the National University of Singapore, Universität Rostock and many others. He has been Vice-Rector and Dean at New York University Skopje and is the recipient of numerous research grants and fellowships. He is also a well-published academic with several books, book   chapters and peer reviewed articles on Media and Cultural Studies, the Social Sciences, Tourism and Management Studies to his name. He is the Editor of the  IAFOR Journal of Cultural Studies and sits as Editor and Joint Editor on several journal boards. He is a member of the EU Council for Higher Education  and has supervised several Ph.D. dissertations and numerous Master level   theses. 

Speech Title:

Teaching the virus a lesson: Things that work and things that don't in Online Education

Abstract:

Over the last year and a half, many educators have had to navigate a steep learning curve when it comes to distance education. No matter where one looks on the globe, at least partial distance/online learning was used in most teaching situations, be they found in secondary or tertiary pedagogical institutions. While the universality of this online teaching necessity is historically unprecedented, for the last 70 or 80 years there have already been institutions which might not have taught online, but certainly over a distance. Open Universities and distance learning universities such as The University of Phoenix and others have been very successful in educating many people from afar. More recently, Udemy from San Francisco has had a major impact with its massive open online course (MOOCs) , although the jury is still out whether these classes are as efficient as face-to-face ones. Early research seems to indicate that this might not be the case, at least when looking at the numbers of student completion rates which can be as low as 7% (https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2013/05/10/new-study-low-mooc-completion-rates).

There are a number of reasons why online education is both failing and succeeding. Some of them are technical, others pedagogical. An example for the first one is that in March 2020, following students’ request, the University of the Philippines announced that it would not have online classes, as the majority of its students did not have the technical environment to participate in them (https://www.philstar.com/headlines/2020/04/10/2006588/students-urge-termination-current-semester-suspension-online-classes). Other issues include legal questions, such as, who owns the videos created? The teacher, the institution? A recent case from Canada highlights this issue. A student from Concordia University in Montreal wanted to contact the teacher of a class he was taking, only to find out that the instructor had died two years earlier while the university gave the impression that the teacher continue to give classes. (“Despite his demise, Francois-Marc Gagnon is still lecturing for an online course on Canadian art history at Concordia University in Montreal via pre-recorded videos.” (https://www.reuters.com/article/us-global-tech-rights-analysis-trfn-idUSKBN2A521B)

It is also clear that many students and teachers dislike online classes. In a poll conducted in February 2021 at my home institution, more than 65% of students stated that they preferred in-person courses. Whether students do better in online courses vs in-person ones is hotly debated; at least for high school students in Germany, research shows that for online classes, students do not do as well in terms of quantity and quality of material learned. (Spiegel 3, 16.1.2021, p. 24)

In my presentation I will leave the above factors out, as they deserve much more room than I could possibly give them in my presentation, and will solely concentrate on the content of courses I taught over the last two years at several institutions. Evidence will show that for some topics (not surprisingly, more theoretical ones) online teaching can be done in a way to benefit most students, as long as an effort is made by both teachers and students; as for other classes (most notably more practically oriented ones), I will claim that even the best efforts by all stakeholders will result in an inferior educational outcome for students when compared to face-to-face classes. A hybrid system of teaching therefore seems to work best in the majority of cases.

Personal Web Sites：
https://dcc.uic.edu.cn/en/info/1006/1567.htm