Driving student satisfaction starts with modernized classrooms

Video collaboration

In learning environments where students are distributed across campuses, online and throughout the world, adding video collaboration can make for a more enriching and interactive experience for those students who aren’t in the classroom than simply following an onscreen presentation with audio.

And even in non-distributed learning environments, instructors can use video to bring students face-to-face with industry experts with real-world experience in students’ focus areas. Whether these experts are across the county or in another country, adding a visual element can meaningfully expand the horizons of classrooms and students.

In both use cases, the benefits of video technology are tangible, as students are less inclined to simply “follow along;” they’re more alert and inclined to ask questions, collaborate and have lively discussions with their peers or experts via video. Video collaboration can also support the variety of mobile devices that permeate modern students’ daily life, further increasing student satisfaction and, in turn, retention.

Faculty-student collaboration

In addition to transcending geographical boundaries, technology can also help lay the groundwork for student retention by increasing student interaction with faculty, and positively impact student satisfaction. The days of marked-up transparencies on overhead projectors are (or at least should be) long behind us, but some students’ learning experiences are still limited by the inability to interact with learning content and faculty.

A range of technologies enable students to directly engage with content – for example, solving formulas in front of a classroom but from the comfort of their own device, or adding their group’s comments and alterations in real time to an engineering design that’s being projected by their professor. The sense of instant, seamless interaction and collaboration that technology provides isn’t just a return on investment for higher education IT; it also makes students more invested in their own academic experience.