Jamie Wood Matt East, Leah Warriner-Wood and myself have recently had a chapter published in the edited book Agile Learning Environments amid Disruption, edited by Golam Jamil and Dawn A Morley. In it, we reflect on the approach that was adopted to teaching students to read primary sources through annotation across three iterations of a research-led undergraduate module. We emphasise the role of collaborative reading and annotation in developing students’ skills in primary source analysis in History, also identifying some of the challenges posed by the Covid-19 pandemic and the workarounds that were enacted during this period to embed annotation even more fully into the teaching.
The abstract is here if you’d like to know a bit more:
Reporting on a third-year undergraduate History module at the University of Lincoln (UK) and adopting a mixed-methods approach (using analytics data from collaborative reading tools, survey input from the module cohort, and interviews with students), this chapter evaluates student engagement with primary source reading and annotation. Data embrace both blended and online-learning phases of the module, arising from COVID-19-imposed lockdown. Discussion appraises how individuals approached reading, the role of interaction and collaboration in reading, and the relationship between summative assessment and reading practices. Findings show that students value collaborative reading very highly as a pathway for co-creation of knowledge, building confidence and performance in assessment. Module design and framing by the tutor are also shown to be fundamental to students’ engagement with reading.
Citation: East, M., Warriner-Wood, L., Wood, J. (2022). Reading Online during Lockdown: Insights from History and Heritage. In: Jamil, M.G., Morley, D.A. (eds) Agile Learning Environments amid Disruption. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-92979-4_29