Teaching, Learning and Assessment in the Covid era and beyond: Can student partnership have an impact?

Abstract

Student partnership has always played a role in Higher Education to a greater or lesser extent.  In recent years, it has become increasingly common practice, underpinning the National Student Engagement Programme (NStEP). Student partnership is described as a collaboration between academics and students to improve teaching, learning and assessment (Mercer-Mapstone et al., 2017). It is widely agreed that student partnership should be more than a box ticking exercise and even in ‘normal’ times, it takes a focus and commitment to make it work.  However, what happens when things are not normal?  This paper looks at the influence of student partnership in Dublin City University (DCU) with a focus on the School of Computing and explores if partnership made a difference to the student learning experience in COVID-19 times.  It considers the different phases of the COVID-19-era and the impact of student partnership over this period: Phase 1 Emergency online pivot (March - June 2020), Phase 2 Semester 1 2020/21 Planning (June - August 2020), Phase 3 Implementing blended approach (September - December 2020) and Phase 4 Consolidating blended approach (January - May 2021) The goal of this paper is to describe an example of the processes of student partnership and representation in place at DCU and examine the influence of these approaches in relation to teaching and learning before, during, and hopefully after the COVID-19 pandemic. This staff and student representative co-authored chapter shares both academic and class representative perspectives from first to fourth year with a view to highlighting experiences and lessons learned for the future. Student representative input on likes and dislikes regarding the hybrid/online learning experience offer practical insights in relation to practices that are potentially relevant across multiple disciplines.