Abstract
The novel coronavirus pandemic (COVID-19) has been a prevailing topic in contemporary higher education literature over the past year. The initial and emerging responses will be ongoing sources of critical reflection and future research. This commentary seeks to reflect on three types of manuscripts we are reviewing frequently within the Journal of University Teaching and Learning Practice, and those published elsewhere. Despite our best efforts, many publications overemphasize the present context without contextualising previous insights, or retain previous knowledge without application to contemporary practice. This commentary provides a brief review of manuscripts with pre-COVID-19 data, COVID-19-specific data, and future focused reflections. The objective is to posit mechanisms by which these manuscripts can serve as a practical account, be useful to current practitioners, and create ongoing opportunities to imagine a future higher education that serves the broad academi
Abstract
Welcome to this special issue of the Journal of University Teaching and Learning Practice. Over the past 50 years, great strides have been taken in the use of technology and distance learning across the disciplines and there has been rising interest in research-informed teaching. Correspondingly, there has been a movement towards greater openness on the part of statistical educators to change their teaching practices in an effort to strive for excellence. In this special issue, a variety of approaches to teaching statistics to non-specialists are presented, all of which have a grounding in the pedagogical literature and involve innovative practices within the authors’ own institutions. With the support of a ‘ten tips’ article involving a book review, consideration is also given to maintaining quality standards. This includes recognising the place of statistics among the sciences and ensuring that making the subject accessible does not lead to compromises in student un
Abstract
The year 2020 will unlikely be one that any member of the higher education community will forget. It has posed challenges and opportunities to rethink aspects of tertiary learning and teaching, and also confirmation of some of the better practices we have engaged in. For some, the novel coronavirus pandemic has forced bad practice – such as simple and rapid digitalisation of existing curriculum – often bundled into the pedagogically-ambiguous ‘emergency remote teaching’ or ERT (Toquero, 2020). The intense pressure for academics to deliver curriculum online, typically to the exception of time for comprehensive academic development and upskilling.
The practice for an overnight transition to online learning, while deemed by many to have been essential at the time, has created a myriad of future decisions to be actioned across the sector. These range from deploying future academic development workshops to transform the workforce for continued online learning to employm