SRHE Dec 2021, Radically reconfigured or just broken? How emergency online teaching has altered staff conceptions of learning and teaching
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The document discusses the Digital Support Partnership Project aimed at understanding staff and student experiences of emergency online teaching during the COVID-19 pandemic from March 2020 to summer 2021. It identifies key research questions regarding well-being, challenges, and changes in teaching concepts, while detailing methods used such as semi-structured interviews and collaborative qualitative analysis. The findings reveal themes related to the impact of digital pedagogy, departmental cultures, and the interplay of agency and institutional directives on teaching practices.
SRHE Dec 2021, Radically reconfigured or just broken? How emergency online teaching has altered staff conceptions of learning and teaching
- 1. Radically reconfigured or just broken? How emergency online teaching has altered staff conceptions of learning and teaching
- 2. The Digital Support Partnership project(June 2020): • Support staff in online teaching and wellbeing during 2020-21 • Build on existing knowledge and practice • Evidence-informed e.g. MSc Blended and Online Education • Create partnership & collaboration across university departments • Build a collegial community online
- 3. Timeline from March 2020 to Summer 2021 March 2020 ‘Emergency’ - compassionate communities -online assessments -random tools Muddle through to end of term Summer 2020 Prep for next year -lock-in on tools -staff upskilling Term 1 2020 -Technology fails -Experimentation -Blends: Some on campus activity Term 2 2021 - Scottish lock- down -stabilising technology -evaluation & reflection -staff confidence -students start to disappear…
- 4. Digital Support Partnership research project Overarching aim: to investigate staff and students’ experiences of learning and teaching during Covid-19 Identified gap: knowledge about changes in staff’s conceptions of learning and teaching over the course of emergency online teaching
- 5. Research questions • RQ1: What were staff and students’ perceptions of the impact of their wellbeing on their experiences of learning and teaching? • RQ2: What did staff/students perceive as the main challenges and opportunities in teaching and learning? • RQ3: What were the key characteristics of how staff/students conceptualised learning and teaching? • RQ4: Considering what we have learned, what are the implications for future teaching and learning at Napier?
- 6. Methods • Semi-structured interviews with academic and professional services staff (n=14) • Participants – Lecturers and professional services staff • Combined methods: • Fortune lines (Wall, 2017) • Critical incidents Green Lister & Crisp (2007) • Participants identify significant events before interview and graph them. • Collaborative qualitative analysis (CQA) (Richards & Hemphill, 2018)
- 7. Positive Neutral Negative End of Tri 2 March 2020 Reflections on Module outcome First online tutorial Tri 1 Reflection on Honours projects Tri 2
- 8. A model of conceptual change • Seven themes arose from the data • Connection between conceptions and experiences and the contexts that shaped them (Shelton, 2018) • Disequilibrium --> Enacting change • Action research cycle • Barriers and facilitators impacted on change • Intentions for long-term change in individual and departmental practice. Context
- 9. Departmental context Digital poverty, assumptions about students’ tech skills, concerns about students’ wellbeing and being overwhelmed Institutional context HE sector Society and culture Restrictions forced shift to online emergency teaching Digital lives Wider context of Covid-19 Covid-19 HE guidance Other institutions Departmental culture Colleagues Students DSP support/ Uni directives Subject/ Discipline context Professional context Interdisciplinary & interdepartmental interactions: - subject group representatives' meetings - Professional services/lecturer interactions -Prof services input into university project Institutional directives influenced practice Agency at the departmental level allowed experimental practice. Some departments had or developed a strong culture of sharing practice, long-term changes possible. Beliefs about teaching/learning in discipline affected feelings, decisions, and evidence-gathering Concerns about accreditation and what it means to be in their profession affected feelings and decisions Confidence increased as tech skills improved and staff reflected on and evaluated their digital practice Student experience and engagement fed into staff reflection and evaluation of their digital practice. Adapted from: Shelton (2018, p 292) Self-efficacy Skills increasing over period Self An ecological model for teaching online during COVID-19
- 10. Barriers and facilitators of change:
- 13. Discipline – some disciplines were seen as fitting more with digital pedagogy than others
- 14. Evidence informed change – student feedback, metrics, literature (largely from their own discipline)
- 15. Radically reconfigured or just broken? No firm conclusions
- 16. References • Drumm, L. (2019). Folk pedagogies and pseudo-theories: how lecturers rationalise their digital teaching. Research in Learning Technology, 27. • Lister, P. G., & Crisp, B. R. (2007). Critical incident analyses: A practice learning tool for students and practitioners. Practice, 19(1), 47-60. • Richards, K. A. R., & Hemphill, M. A. (2018). A practical guide to collaborative qualitative data analysis. Journal of Teaching in Physical Education, 37(2), 225- 231. • Shelton, C. (2018). An ecological model for university faculty members’ thinking about technology. Journal of Computing in Higher Education, 30(2), 279-297. • Wall, K. (2017). Exploring the ethical issues related to visual methodology when including young children’s voice in wider research samples. International Journal of Inclusive Education, 21(3), 316-331.
Editor's Notes
- #3: https://staff.napier.ac.uk/services/dlte/DSP/Pages/DSP_12principles.aspx https://www.napier.ac.uk/courses/msc--pgdip--pgcert-blended-and-online-education-postgraduate-distance-learning