History Collections
Find out more about history collections and History Day

History Collections

Find out more about history collections and History Day

History UK

https://www.history-uk.ac.uk/

History UK is the independent national body promoting and monitoring History in UK Higher Education. It is funded by history departments or their equivalents and campaigns on issues of concern to academic historians and the broader history community, particularly in the following areas:

  • The profile of history in higher education and beyond.
  • The state of the profession, particularly the recruitment and career development of undergraduates, postgraduates, researchers and staff.
  • Research culture, including the research resources available to historians and the impact of the REF.
  • Teaching and learning within the discipline, especially the impact of the NSS and TEF.
  • Audit culture, to ensure that the demands of external audit and quality measurement are appropriate to the discipline and light in touch.

History Day contributions

The History UK Pandemic Pedagogy Initiative: Teaching in the New Digital World

COVID-19, as historian Sean Kheraj has observed, is making us use new tools and forcing us to upskill to work within a digital landscape that we have often overlooked. Moving teaching online has been undeniably disruptive for staff and students alike, but it has allowed historians to rethink teaching in ways that will bring about positive benefits to student learning. History UK’s Pandemic Pedagogy initiative, established in May 2020 to provide emergency assistance to historians, including ancient historians and classicists, aimed to illustrate the challenges and opportunities for History teaching in this new digital world.

The Pandemic Pedagogy Handbook—the result of two months of consultation and collaboration on ‘best practice’—addresses the following key questions:

  1. What happens to our students’ experience of learning, in and out of the ‘classroom’?
  2. What happens to accessibility?
  3. What happens to community?
  4. What happens to seminars?
  5. What happens to primary source work?
  6. What happens to lectures?
  7. What happens to assessment and feedback?

Each outlines strategies for overcoming particular challenges (e.g. engaging students in primary source work), with an emphasis on accessibility and inclusivity. It is also supported by a series of blog posts (on learning designlectures, contact hoursassessmentaccessibility, and community building in the classroom and in wider cohorts).

Impact and future plans 

The Pandemic Pedagogy initiative has had a wide and far-reaching impact, with the Handbook receiving well over 4500 views at the time of writing. The Pandemic Pedagogy team continues to promote collaborative conversations around pedagogy in the time of COVID-19 by welcoming feedback on the Handbook and inviting individuals to contribute to a further series of Pandemic Pedagogy blog posts. These can be personal reflections or more strategic interventions.

The team is especially keen to hear from anyone interested in sharing their experiences and tips for teaching History (and related disciplines) online. You can get involved with the initiative by following History UK on Twitter (@history_uk) or by emailing the co-convenors, Dr Yolana Pringle and Dr Jamie Wood (https://www.history-uk.ac.uk/about/234-2/). 

The Pandemic Pedagogy initiative was coordinated by Professor Kate Cooper (Royal Holloway, University of London) and made up of the following members: Dr Kristen Brill (Keele University), Dr Louise Creechan (University of Glasgow), Dr Lucinda Matthews-Jones (Liverpool John Moores University), Aimee Merrydew (Keele University), Dr Yolana Pringle (University of Roehampton), Dr Manuela Williams (University of Strathclyde), and Dr Jamie Wood (University of Lincoln).

For more information about the Pandemic Pedagogy initiative and resources, please visit the History UK website: https://www.history-uk.ac.uk/the-pandemic-pedagogy-handbook/