Teaching academic literacies online: revisiting our webinar in light of Covid-19.

Abstract

In December last year, we were debating about moving the teaching of academic and digital literacies online, and who could have guessed what would happen three months later! Our initial conversations were framed around models of teaching these literacies. For Debbie, they are a way to support, develop and create spaces for students throughout the whole of their academic journey. She and Sandra both agreed that it wasn’t about ‘fixing’ a student, but rather celebrating their diversity and making transparent the forms and processes of academia, and discovering ways to enable students to act powerfully in academic spaces, face-to-face (F2F) or online. The panel agreed that students often learn what we term ‘skills’ or literacies without knowing that they are doing so, for they are embedded in our practices and processes. The problem is that academics and learning developers alike would like development of these academic practices to be somewhat conscious and witting. However the developmental nature of, for example, how you understand a text – or the immersive nature of academic research and writing – means that it can be hard to see the milestones. Digital literacy, in contrast, is seen by some as having more distinct, observable stepping stones in progression. Anna Latchman, a Level 6 Games Design student at Solent University, suggested that having checklists to break down all the stages of a digital assignment into simple steps are a good way to recognise progress. It’s a process but it’s also a personal approach, and, she argued, students benefit from having the exploratory time and space to try things out. So, how do we develop academic and digital literacies in – or with – students – especially when, as we are at the moment, we are confined to engaging in this virtually and at a distance?