Welcome to September’s issue: Students’ experience of learning remotely
We are delighted to announce an entirely student-written issue for September’s theme. Indeed, these last few months have been filled with thought-provoking blog posts by colleagues from across the university. These contributions attest to the nature of resilience and how springing back, collectively, is an ongoing process that goes through putting ideas, experiments, doubts and questions out in the open, for all of us to contemplate. Blog posts that demonstrate how to create an online Summer school programme in just a few weeks, meditate on how digital spaces might effect our identities as educators, or share forward-thinking ideas around co-creation in online teaching environments all hold a speculative, experimental quality, providing much food for thought and conversation.
The diversity and brilliance of the contributions testifies to a desire to engage in collective and constructive brainstorming. Something that blogs, like Teaching Matters, are ever more relevant for enabling in our socially-distanced reality.
For this month’s issue, we wanted to flip the focus and amplify the student experience of having to adapt – very quickly – to remote learning and working. What was it like to be a student during these strange and uncertain months of generalised lockdown? Specifically, we asked students to reflect on what they might have learned about the move to online teaching as it relates to any of the following themes: productivity, collaboration and group work, study/life balance, concentration, creativity, curiosity, wellness, sense of belonging, access to learning resources…
In response, we have received sincere, reflexive and enlightening blog posts. Some of this month’s contributions will be different as students have chosen other forms than the written word to share their stories, such as illustrations, videos, and mixed-media artworks. The breadth of the content gives texture to a mosaic of unique experiences that compose a shared tableau of living, working and studying through a global pandemic. In turn, these stories remind of the value of listening to individual, situated narratives before drawing general conclusions.
This month’s posts include:
- “A day in the life” of Aisha Akinola, who has filmed what a normal day looked like for her when completing projects for her architecture degree during lockdown.
- Edinburgh College of Arts students, Katt Cass, Hannah Riordan, Melanie Grandidge and Hazel Laing will each share their experience through original illustrations.
- This summer’s two Institute for Academic Development interns, Ana Diaz Vidal and Fraser McBain, will talk about the experience of diving into a new internship from home.
- Marc Rocks and Ming-Chen Liu will share and reflect on the artworks they submitted to the “Room with a view project” co-curated by ECA and Google Arts & Culture. The project is due to launch in September…
- And many more!
Previous student-written posts that you might find interesting:
- Digital Storytelling in Higher Education by recent MSc in Outdoor Education graduates Catherine Dunn and Jack Reed
- Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish, and Stay Curious: An MSc in Education Graduate’s Experience by MSc in Education (Philosophy of Education) student Zhou Yangyi
- Maximising postgraduate experience with student-led initiatives by MSc in Sustainable Energy Systems student Ire-Oluwa Adegoke
Happy reading!
Joséphine is doing a PhD in Sociology at The University of Edinburgh. Her research looks at the intersection between art and politics. She works as the Teaching Matters Deputy Editor and Student Engagement Officer.
