Post-pandemic pedagogy: Experiences of learning and teaching history before, during and after Covid-19

This paper presents and analyses the findings from a nationwide survey of history staff and students conducted during the Covid-19 pandemic. Over five hundred respondents from nearly fifty universities provided qualitative and quantitative responses which compared their experience of teaching and learning before and during the pandemic, and their preferences once the pandemic abated. In contrast to the upbeat assessments by regulatory bodies of the ‘emergency pivot’ to online learning, the most significant finding of this survey was that respondents adjudged the pandemic to have worsened teaching and learning in almost every respect. Much less uniform were respondents’ favoured teaching practices after the pandemic. While most missed face-to-face seminars, only half advocated reinstating traditional in- person lectures and supervisions and fewer still wished to return to pen-and-paper exams.

Further differences emerged between respondents at different types of institution, between staff and students and between male and female academics. The overwhelmingly negative experiences of online teaching during the pandemic and the variegated attitudes towards its continuation afterwards indicate that higher education institutions should develop a post-pandemic pedagogy that has been evaluated rigorously under non-emergency conditions and which is sensitive to the needs of different groups of learners and teachers working in different disciplines.