Category: Project

Post-Pandemic Pedagogy – launch of final report

assessment, COVID-19, Education, Pandemic Pedagogy, pedagogy, Project, Report, Students, Teaching

History UK are pleased to announce the publication of the final report from the Post-Pandemic Pedagogy project. Led by two former convenors of History UK, Marcus Collins and Jamie Wood, the Post-Pandemic Pedagogy Project (2021-2023) collected evidence of student and staff experiences of learning and teaching History during the pandemic, to gather their views on how teaching should be conducted afterwards, and to produce a series if discipline-specific recommendations that was designed to inform planning for the future of History teaching in UK universities.

The project built on History UK’s Pandemic Pedagogy Project, which addressed a need to support the history community during a time of transition and culminated in the Pandemic Pedagogy Handbook. The Post-Pandemic Pedagogy Project, supported by the East Midlands Centre for History Teaching and Learning, History UK and the RHS, was an opportunity for staff and students to contribute quantitative and qualitative responses comparing their experiences of teaching and learning before and during the pandemic, and their preferences once the pandemic abated. Based on over 500 respondents from nearly 50 universities, the report explores different aspects of learning, teaching and assessment including lectures, seminars, independent study, coursework and exams. It also considers different types of institutions and accessibility and EDI issues. It is hoped it will be useful in informing planning for the future of History teaching in HEIs.

The final report from the Post-Pandemic Pedagogy project (PDF).

History UK research fellowship – Inclusive Pedagogies: EDI and History in Higher Education

diversity, EDI, equality, inclusivity, Project, research

History UK is undertaking a project to examine EDI policies and practices in history curricula in Higher Education Institutions (HEIs). The project includes a range of EDI issues including race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, disability, class and intersectionality. It also considers a range of pedagogical policies and practices including curriculum design (content, approaches to teaching and learning, forms of assessment), learning environments, community building and identity, accessibility, awarding gaps.

The aim is to identify key priorities and challenges for subject specific EDI pedagogical work, the ways in which the COVID-19 pandemic has helped or hindered aspects of EDI pedagogical work, and examples of inclusive pedagogical practice in history and the humanities.

The first phase of the project has been a series of focus groups with Directors of Teaching/Course Leaders and EDI leads for History from a range of HEIs from across the UK.

The next phase of the project is to produce a report summarising the findings of the focus groups which will be underpinned by research on EDI and pedagogy including subject specific work.

History UK is seeking a postgraduate student for a short-term fellowship to support the research process. The History UK fellow will conduct desk-based searches of websites, blog posts and social media for relevant case studies, reports and other practical guides. They will also identify relevant peer-reviewed literature on EDI and pedagogy. They will write clear and concise summaries of their findings to help inform the project report. They may also be asked to assist in the writing or planning of the report and associated blog posts.

The fellow will be expected to do 30 hours work on the project in July, working flexibly at times that suit them. The renumeration for the fellowship is fixed at £500.

Person specification:

  • A postgraduate student (MA or PhD) in History, or a related discipline, based at a higher education institution in the UK;
  • Strong research skills;
  • Excellent written and oral communication skills;
  • Ability to work independently and with minimal supervision;
  • Excellent organisation and project management skills;
  • Attention to detail;
  • Experience of writing reports (preferable);
  • Interest in EDI and pedagogy (preferable).

To apply: Send a two-page CV and a one-page cover letter to sarah.holland@nottingham.ac.uk

In the cover letter you should explain why you are interested in the role, how you meet the person specification, and what you will bring to the initiative.

The deadline for applications is Tuesday 28th June 2022 at 6pm.

History UK fellowship – history skills passport mapping exercise

Careers, Education, Fellowship, Funding, pedagogy, Project, skills, Students, Teaching

History UK is launching a new initiative to develop a history ‘skills passport’. This project will provide a framework for translating the skills that students develop on history courses into the skills language recognised by employers. The aim is to provide history academics and students with a series of resources that will support the embedding of employability within curricula in discipline-specific language. During the first phase of the project we will conduct a mapping exercise, which will involve surveying existing resources on History skills and on employability in History in the UK and abroad, cross-referencing with other disciplines, and identifying gaps.

History UK is seeking a postgraduate student for a short-term fellowship to support the first phase of this initiative. The History UK fellow will conduct desk-based searches of websites, blog posts, and social media for relevant case studies, reports, and other practical guides. They will write clear and concise summaries of their findings to help inform the resources that History UK will produce and curate. They will write at least one blog post for the History UK website on a topic of their choosing (relevant to the initiative), and may also be asked to assist in planning for the next phase of the skills passport project.

The fellow will be expected to do 30 hours work on the project in July, working flexibly at times that suit them. The renumeration for the fellowship is fixed at £500.

Person specification:

  • A postgraduate student (MA or PhD) in History, or a related discipline, based at a higher education institution in the UK;
  • Strong research skills;
  • Excellent written and oral communication skills;
  • Ability to work independently and with minimal supervision;
  • Excellent organisation and project management skills;
  • Attention to detail;
  • Experience of writing reports (preferable);
  • Interest in employability (preferable).

To apply: Send a two-page CV and a one-page cover letter to historyuk2020@gmail.com. In the cover letter you should explain why you are interested in the role, how you meet the person specification, and what you will bring to the initiative.

The deadline for applications is Weds 23rd June at 4pm.

Pandemic Pedagogy – your chance to contribute

Digital History, e-learning, Education, independent learning, Pandemic Pedagogy, pedagogy, Project, Teaching, Technology
History UK is looking to build on the Pandemic Pedagogy project by exploring the continuing impact of Covid-19 on teaching history in higher education. We are inviting short blog posts (300-500 words long) and/or podcasts/videos (c. 3-5 minutes long) that address how the pandemic has change or affected subject specific teaching practice in History and cognate disciplines.
Such contributions could include but is not limited to:
  • learning and teaching environments: the socially distanced classroom, online, hybrid and hy-flex
  • diversity and inclusivity
  • technology and software or high tech versus low tech
  • assessment methods
  • activities beyond the classroom (e.g. field trips)
  • student engagement
  • health and wellbeing – staff and students
  • student communities
  • collaborative learning
  • the ways in which students have perceived, understood, and responded to the changes and challenges
If you would like to contribute to the next phase of pandemic pedagogy, please email Dr Sarah Holland (sarah.holland@nottingham.ac.uk), History UK’s Education Officer.
We are hoping to begin to release the blog posts/podcasts/videos from mid-January 2021.

Panic Not: The Pandemic Pedagogy Handbook

access, accessibility, Digital History, e-learning, Education, inclusivity, independent learning, Innovation, New to Teach, Pandemic Pedagogy, pedagogy, Project, Students, Teaching, Technology

In 2020 History departments suddenly had to think seriously about how to move teaching online. For most, this ‘emergency phase’ was a daunting and challenging time, but for some historians, there was also a sense of cautious excitement.  As a subject-area, we have tended to prefer physical settings and interactions over digital ones. The Canadian historian Dr Sean Kheraj has observed that COVID is making us use tools that are unfamiliar to many historians and forcing us to upskill to work within a digital landscape that we have often overlooked.

At History UK, we recognised a need to support the history community during this time of transition. From late May 2020, a group of Steering Committee members have been meeting to discuss how to do this. Our Pandemic Pedagogy subgroup have run a series of Twitter chats to see what colleagues have learned from the new role online learning has come to play. As part of this process, we have written a series of short posts (on learning design, lectures, contact hours, assessment, accessibility, and community building in the classroom and in wider cohorts) and gathered feedback from the wider community.

As a result of this work, we have produced a short guide to help colleagues in thinking about what it means to move our teaching online – The Pandemic Pedagogy Handbook. You can access it at the The Pandemic Pedagogy Handbook webpage, where you can also download the full Handbook and each of the individual sections in PDF format. 

We framed the Handbook around a number of questions:  

  1. What happens to our students’ experience of learning, in and out of the ‘classroom’?
  2. What happens to accessibility?
  3. What happens to community?
  4. What happens to seminars?
  5. What happens to primary source work?
  6. What happens to lectures?
  7. What happens to assessment and feedback?

This is not the end of our commitment to creating a space for collaborative conversations around pedagogy in the time of a global pandemic. We invite colleagues to write short posts that we can share on our blog in order to keep the conversation going. Topics could include (but are not limited to): practical case studies of teaching online, think-pieces that address any aspect of the move online such as equity, diversity and inclusivity, community building, teaching and learning. technology, digital humanities. Please share your insights into any of these areas, especially if you have practical examples of approaches to teaching History online, and encourage colleagues to do the same. 

We are also interested in receiving feedback on the Pandemic Pedagogy Handbook itself. Please do let us know if it has informed your practice using the comments section on the Handbook webpage and/or @history_uk.  

We would like to thank everyone involved in putting together this guide. The project was led by Kate Cooper (Royal Holloway/ @kateantiquity); steering committee contributors were Lucinda Matthews-Jones (Liverpool John Moores/ @luciejones83), Yolana Pringle (Roehampton/ @y_pringle), Manuela Williams (Strathclyde/ @ManuelaAWill), and Jamie Wood (Lincoln/ @MakDigHist). We were joined by Louise Crechan (Glasgow/ @LouiseCreechan) and Aimee Merrydew (Keele/ @a_merrydew) as Pandemic Pedagogy Fellows.

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