The Hybrid Teaching Exchange is where colleagues can share work in progress, learning, insights, ideas, plans and resources to support hybrid teaching. The project team’s March digest is aimed at addressing the University community’s current challenges and concerns and provides links to advice and support for staff.
Following the Scottish Government’s guidance on the continued public health threat posed by Covid-19, semester 2 went digital for the majority of students and the University community again adjusted its expectations around teaching and assessment. Staff continue to experience the challenge of sustaining student engagement in a digital environment and mitigating the impact of Covid-19 on student assessment.
Mitigating the impact of Covid-19 on student assessment
Staff across the University have introduced a range of options to mitigate the ongoing impact of the pandemic on students’ performance in assessment. You can learn more about these mitigation efforts on the student and staff experience as well as explore a library of alternative assessment methods on the alternative assessment page.
- There’s a 13-minute podcast episode on how Covid-19 changed assessment with Professor Judy Hardy, Dean of Learning and Teaching in the College of Science & Engineering, and Neil Lent from the Institute for Academic Development. To accompany this, there’s also a two-minute explainer video featuring Professor Hardy that captures the key changes to assessment.
- The new and existing digital content on the alternative assessment page helps staff plan assessments in hybrid and digital that align with learning objectives, increase student engagement, and discover digital assessment and feedback tools and opportunities for deeper learning.
The importance of co-design in responding to dynamic learning contexts
New content has been added to the Exchange that provides guidance on involving your students when designing courses and how to help build resilience to disruption and uncertainty.
- There’s a downloadable workbook on Agile Course Design for Professional Education produced by Tim Fawns and featuring Derek Jones and Gill Aitken.
- A podcast capturing staff insights on the role of co-creation in building community in hybrid features the voices of Cathy Bovill, Professor Tina Harrison, Rayya Ghul and Tim Fawns.
- You can learn about the School of Mathematics highly impactful ASID Project: A Student-Centred Outlook on the Development of Hybrid Teaching and Learning.
- There are also a number of perspectives on co-creation and Student-Led, Individually-Created Courses and how they can help students cultivate the soft skills needed to solve the ‘wicked problems’ of the future.
What does good teaching during a pandemic look like to students?
The Exchange is delighted to host reflections from some of the staff nominated for the Edinburgh University Students’ Association 2021 students-led teaching award.
- You can read reflections from the nominees and gain insights and lessons on a regularly updated post that contains visualisations and captured quotes from these reflections.
- The Exchange’s Hybrid Learning Journey’s section, first created in the summer of 2020, puts staff in the shoes of students by journey mapping the student experience.
- You can revisit students’ semester 1 expectations of semester 2 through the Students’ Association survey.
And finally…
A reminder that the January digest included support for semester 2 and links to several other resources and approaches that you might find helpful in the coming months. The project team is keen to hear from colleagues about other themes or topics you’d like to see included on the Exchange site or if you’d like to contribute.
Illustration: Kirsty Johnston, The University of Edinburgh, 2020. All rights reserved.