Led by two former convenors of History UK, Marcus Collins and Jamie Wood, the Post-Pandemic Pedagogy project (2021-23) 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.
Report
You can read and download the final project report from May 2024 here: Post-Pandemic Pedagogy – final report
Project rationale and overview of findings
Post-Pandemic Pedagogy was a nationwide survey of history staff and students conducted during the Covid-19 pandemic. Over five hundred respondents from nearly fifty universities provided qualitative and quantitative responses which compared their experience of teaching and learning before and during the pandemic, and their preferences once the pandemic abated. In contrast to the upbeat assessments by regulatory bodies of the ‘emergency pivot’ to online learning, respondents adjudged the pandemic to have worsened teaching and learning in almost every respect. Much less uniform were respondents’ favoured teaching practices after the pandemic. While most missed face-to-face seminars, only half advocated reinstating traditional in-person lectures and supervisions and fewer still wished to return to pen-and-paper exams. Further differences emerged between respondents at different types of institution, between staff and students and between male and female academics. The negative experiences of online teaching during the pandemic and the variegated attitudes towards its continuation afterwards indicate that higher education institutions should develop a post-pandemic pedagogy that has been evaluated
rigorously under non-emergency conditions and which is sensitive to the needs of different groups of learners and teachers working in different disciplines.
Methodology
The initial phase, funded by the EMC, involved surveying staff and students at a number of institutions in the East Midlands. There were over 200 responses to the questionnaire. A 15-min talk by Marcus Collins outlining preliminary analysis of the first 100 respondents is available on YouTube.
The second stage of the project, conducted with the support of History UK and the RHS involved extending the survey to History students and lecturers across the country. Other dissemination activities are listed below (with links).
The questions covered all aspects of learning history, within and outwith scheduled teaching sessions, asking respondents to make direct comparisons between their experiences before the pandemic, the changes during the pandemic and their preferences after the pandemic. By reflecting on past and current practice, they collectively outlined a vision of how history could and should be taught from now on. We encouraged all History students and teachers in higher education to complete the survey and to share it with their peers.
Funder acknowledgement
Initially funded by the East Midlands Centre for History Learning and Teaching (EMC), the national stage of the project was supported by History UK and the Royal Historical SocietyIn common with History UK’s Pandemic Pedagogy project and the Royal Historical Society’s reports on gender, race, ethnicity and equality and LGBT+ issues, this project examined existing initiatives in order to foster best practice in History and higher education more generally.
Dissemination
Collins, Marcus (2021). ‘Post-Pandemic Pedagogy: Lessons learnt from history teaching in HE during Covid’, CRCC Covid Research Forum: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h_JMtZLQIzY.
Collins, Marcus, Sherman, Heather, Bogard, Debbie, and Hill, Kate (2021). ‘Teaching history in the time of Covid: Experiences at KS5 and University’, Historical Association, 16 June: https://www.history.org.uk/higher-ed/resource/10116/film-teaching-history-in-the-time-of-covid.
Collins, Marcus and Wood, Jamie (2022). ‘The end of the sit-down exam? Student and staff preferences for assessment during and after Covid’, History Assessment Workshop, East Midlands Centre for History Learning and Teaching: https://eastmidlandscentreforhistorylearningandteaching.education/2022/03/18/post-pandemic-pedagogy-identifying-best-practice-for-history-teaching-after-covid/.
Collins, Marcus and Wood, Jamie (2023). ‘The ‘New Normal’? Teaching History ‘After COVID-19’, History UK Pedagogy Forum: https://www.history-uk.ac.uk/2023-history-uk-pedagogy-forum/.
Wood, Jamie (2022a). ‘The end of the sit-down exam? Student and staff preferences for assessment during and after Covid’, History UK Assessment in History Symposium: https://www.history-uk.ac.uk/events/assessment-in-history-reassessing-the-purpose-and-future-of-assessment-in-the-study-of-history/.
Wood, Jamie (2022b). ‘Post-pandemic reading’, Making Digital History, 25 January: https://makingdigitalhistory.co.uk/2022/01/25/post-pandemic-reading/.
Project team
- Marcus Collins (Loughborough; co-author of Why Study History?; former convenor of History UK)
- Peter D’Sena (Hertfordshire; VP Education of Royal Historical Society)
- Jamie Wood (Lincoln; former-convenor of History UK)
- Aimee Merrydew (Keele)
- Elizabeth Trischler (Leeds)
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