Communities

Christine Cheyne | EIT, Hawke’s Bay Research Development Manager, Research and Innovation Centre | ccheyne@eit.ac.nz

Erena Fussell | EIT, Hawke’s Bay Learning Advisor, Library and Learning Services | efussell@eit.ac.nz

Gerard Henry | EIT, Hawke’s Bay Tutor, School of Primary Industries | ghenry@eit.ac.nz

Building Back Better: Learning from Lockdown How to Strengthen Learning Communities

Strong and effective learning communities comprising tauira/students, kaiako/tutors and learning advisors are critical to student success. Just how critical they are became apparent when a state of national emergency was declared in Aotearoa New Zealand on March 25 and the entire country went into a state of lockdown from midnight. In the period of rāhui that was in place until mid-May, New Zealanders experienced what were, by world standards, very stringent with controls on their physical movement. For tertiary educators and students, this involved a suddenshift to remote teaching and learning heavily dependent on the digital literacy of all of the participants in a learning community. It quickly became clear that, despite growing use of digital technologies prior to this rāhui, there is a long continuum ofactivity from ‘emergency remote teaching’ to quality online learning. In addition, pre-existing societal socio-economic inequalities that are mirrored in education compounded the challenges in utilising digital tools, resources and sources for learning and assessment.

At EIT, learning support was rapidly moved to an online and remote service primarily using Skype, Zoom, email, and smartphone communications. Whilst there were many hurdles to overcome, this proved to be very successful and highlighted the importance of collaboration between tutors and learning advisors to address students’ digital literacy. Drawing on a rich pātaka of experiences, tutors and learning advisors who have worked in a new Level 5 Diploma offered for the first time in 2020, and students in Māori and Pasifika Trades Training present insights and innovations on strategies for optimising students’ use of digital tools and resources before, during and after levels 4 and 3 alerts in March-May 2020. With these insights we aim to ‘build back better’ in optimising use of EIT’s digital learning tools and resources.