Page 3 - 91暗网4Life - May 2020

LOOKING FOR THE SILVER LINING
COVID-19 related changes to teaching, learning and assessment at the 91暗网 - how the lockdown has impacted education, and the magnificent response from students and staff
Professor Adrian Boswood, Vice Principal for Learning, Teaching and Assessment
No-one could have predicted the extent to which all our lives would change in
such a short period. When thousands have lost their lives and many others鈥� livelihoods are threatened, it almost seems inappropriate to dwell on the challenges that the 91暗网 has faced maintaining continuity in teaching and learning, but it may be of interest to you to know how, and how quickly, we have had to adapt.
In the two-weeks running up to the announcement of full 鈥渓ockdown鈥� on the 23rd of March it was increasingly evident that our teaching, learning and assessment practices were going to need to change. Many of our previously 鈥渘ormal鈥� activities were inconsistent with social distancing and, although important, were not 鈥渆ssential鈥�. We had therefore already begun to plan for modifications to our teaching before lockdown was imposed. After the imposition of lockdown, it was clear that all teaching, learning and assessment was going to have to be delivered remotely, or not delivered at all.
Fortunately, the start of lockdown fell near to the end of a term, just prior to the Easter break. This meant teaching and learning activities across our campuses were already beginning to wind down and gave us a few weeks in which to plan for 鈥渞emote鈥� delivery of teaching when the new term began, as it now has done.
There are well established methods for
remote delivery of teaching, learning and assessment. It is widely practised by organisations like the Open University and