Abstract:

Everyone will agree that we will never forget the academic year of 2020-21. I believe with Plato, Socrates, and more recently John Dewey, that teaching is a social activity and the new ways of teaching have often challenged this basic tenet of pedagogy. The idea of universities as places where sociality is as important as the subject knowledge, can vanish if we are not careful. The ‘lesson’ is a social event, knowledge comes from questioning not from teaching: "from ancient to modern times, from Plato to Dewey, the notion is this: effective pedagogy involves dialogue, involves conversation, which are social activities. Learning is a social process” (Norris & Soloway). There is a risk in distance ‘learning’: the belief that as subject material can be downloaded this is sufficient for learning; a conception of knowledge as something which can be transferred through videos, recordings into the head of someone else anytime one wants. This year the real question has been how to foster a real social environment online conducive to motivation and learning. In my approach I have followed Dupin-Bryant (2005): when learning occurs entirely via computer, an important part of the instructor's role is ensuring the learning environment is "people focused" or humanized. I will talk about the experience gained teaching online for my module called Perspectives on Pain and Nervous System Disorders; it had 89 UG students enrolled in the Faculty of Life Science and Medicine at King’s College London. These are some of the activities which enthused my students and made them feel part of a community of learners and reduced their sense of loneliness: debating sessions on Zoom; live online lectures followed by live Q&A sessions; group activities like poster preparation on neuroscientific topics. In terms of what has worked well or lessons learnt, here are some of the preliminary results following thematic analysis of students’ focus groups and informal discussions online: 1) Embed students’ interactions in whatever session you are delivering to build a community of knowledge rather than multiple islands of loneliness; 2) Be there for your students, do not hide behind the screens, recorded lectures; 3) Ensure students are not left behind and gauge their learning via low stakes assessments; 4) Encourage peer learning. In terms of lessons to be learnt is the realisation that with the ever-increasing number of students entering HE, to adopt the above-mentioned strategies an important shift needs to happen, e.g., increasing the number of tutors/facilitators so to provide meaningful interactive sessions to small number of students; moreover, encouraging peer learning for huge amount of students needs investment in platforms which can support a huge volume of feedback exchange. The overall assessment of this years’ experience has made me conclude that there are still many questions, which needs answering: How can we all interact more in our day-to-day education endeavours? What do we think is a community of learners? How can we make a virtual community as vibrant as a traditional one? And do we believe it is possible? It’s easy to say, ‘do not leave anyone behind’, but how to do that in reality? How can we ensure to give a voice to the many who seem to drift away or lose interest and motivation? “How to support collaborative conversations where learners are working together developing a shared understanding?” (Norris & Soloway).

Keywords:

Community of learners, distance learning, peer learning.