Vol. 1 (2021): Pilot Launch Issue: Postgraduate Pandemic Pedagogies
In this pilot launch issue of the Journal of PGR Pedagogic Practice published for the academic year 2021-22, our PGR teacher contributors reflect on the development of their teaching during the ongoing Coronavirus pandemic. In short, honest, and critical reflections, our contributors from across the spectrum of university disciplines consider the challenges they faced during this time. Their reflections contain experimental new practices, handy tips for supporting a pedagogy of care or encountering digital inequalities and gendered spaces, a refreshing eye on established practices such as seminar teaching in computer science to Problem-Based Learning in Law, and accounts of valuable lessons learned from a year of teaching on Microsoft Teams – all embedded within an accessible engagement with the pedagogic literature. Many contain invaluable narratives of failure as well as successes, and thoughts on how to make the most of these experiences as PGRs enter a new hybrid online and offline teaching environment. Without this journal, these accounts would probably have remained private experiences. Now, however, we hope that other PGRs in similar positions and facing similar problems might find these accounts relatable, comforting, and helpful. To others, we hope they are indicative of the sort of novel pedagogies PGRs have cultivated. The editorial explores the rationale of our editorial and peer review processes and the wider background of the project. Through this experimental dialogic journal format, we hope to begin the process of bringing together an organic and self-sustaining community of practice of postgraduate researchers who teach and look forward to future issues.
