Teaching Research Skills from a distance – reflections of an international student and PGR

Abstract

Research Skills are a core module in the undergraduate psychology curriculum at the University of Leeds. Before the COVID-19 pandemic, all teaching sessions took place on campus, from big groups for lectures to small groups (up to 12 students) for seminars. With the outbreak of the coronavirus, these moved online and I, as a seminar leader, found myself facilitating learning sessions in research skills from a distance. In this article, I will reflect on my experience of delivering these seminars online as both an international student and a postgraduate researcher. With this double lens in mind, I will consider interactions between students and myself, the sense of belonging and the role of feedback in the online learning process. While facilitating the ‘Research Skills’ small-group sessions did not leave me a lot of freedom in designing my own seminar, I managed to get students to collaborate on specific tasks, give comprehensive feedback on their assignments and provide them with material they could work through in their own time. In a time where students were physically distanced, my approach helped to create a sense of community to enhance students’ learning experience.