As the new year begins, an opportunity to recap on our resources developed so far in response to the challenges of the pandemic. Some of the older ones may not be so relevant at this point in the academic year, but are available below for reference.
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- COVID-19 course rep briefing on assessment
- a resource for course reps to use to begin the conversations with students and staff around assessment and exams, and to try and resolve any worries before they become problems. - Course rep recruitment resources
- some useful resources sent to students' associations, including a guide to the course rep role and template presentation to help with recruitment, as well as a sparqs' welcome note to new reps and a template letter which reps can use to introduce themselves to their classmates. Even if you have already recruited your reps, you may find the welcome note and template letter useful. - Suggested questions for course reps: COVID-19 edition
- a resource designed to help course reps gather crucial student feedback during the COVID-19 crisis in order to assess the impact and build solutions to help safeguard the student learning experience. Our resource suggests questions that course reps can use when speaking to students. - Preparing your course rep system and recruiting your reps during COVID-19
- a resource to support students’ associations and institutions in devising and executing rep systems that can operate in this changing environment, including how they can operate online. - COVID-19 education officer induction resource
- a short resource for universities and colleges, outlining ideas and suggestions for developing a successful induction for education officers during the crisis. - Briefing note FAO Course Reps
- sent via students' associations for distribution to reps, reinforcing the importance of their role during the current crisis. - Top tips for supporting Course Reps during COVID-19
- an infographic with some pointers for engaging and supporting reps during the current situation. - The role of the SA Academic Co-ordinator during COVID-19
- guidance for Academic Co-ordinators around designing, delivering and co-ordinating student engagement and representation activities in the face of the rapidly changing learning experience as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.
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We have also developed a couple of resources in partnership with sector partners:
- The student perspective: top tips for student engagement in an online environment - Advance HE and sparqs
- a resource to help consider the student voice around contemporary issues that influence engagement in an online environment. - A Toolkit for Effective Learner Engagement - sparqs & Education Scotland
- a joint sparqs/EdS resource support student engagement in Scotland’s colleges in this ‘recovery year’. The resource is aligned to, and intended to be used alongside, the new Education Scotland resources ‘Our Best Future’ and the sparqs' SLE tool.
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Lastly, while not newly-developed in the response to COVID, these sparqs' resources are relevant in the current context:
- Engaging students in online distance learning
A guide for institutions and students’ associations on engaging online distance learning (ODL) students in shaping the quality of their learning experience. While not a newly-published resource, it may now be of more interest to the wider sector in the light of the COVID-19 crisis. - Tool for developing a forum for students on online courses
- a tool developed by sparqs when undertaking consultancy work with Hibernia College in Ireland, as featured in a case study in the above-noted sparqs' ODL guidance. Again, not a newly-published resource but worth highlighting in the light of the current situation.
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All of our resources, as well as a collation of resources from across the sector can be found on the resources page of our COVID-19 information hub. While some are aimed at a particular institution's students, they also include information which may be useful to everyone.
While the pandemic continues, we welcome any other tools you have developed on engaging students in the current changes in learning and teaching. If you have anything you feel it would be useful to share here, please contact us at admin@sparqs.ac.uk
In addition to the resources, keep an eye on our COVID-19 information hub for information on our wider response to the crisis, including all of our comms, events and other useful sector information. The hub also contains a page for newly-added information, which we hope is useful for doing a quick check at any time, to see if you've missed anything new!
