Student engagement, pedagogical imaginaries and the future of arts and humanities teaching and learning in higher education

Abstract

This article sets out a methodology for integrating a focus on the student voice in deliberations about the future of teaching and learning in the Arts and Humanities. Qualitative data gleaned from JISC’s 20/21 Student Digital Experience Insights Survey and feedback collected from students studying on undergraduate programmes in the Faculty of Arts at the University of Nottingham in the United Kingdom (UK) is used to sketch out pedagogical imaginaries of the future that can be used heuristically by universities as they work their way through the pandemic and out the other side. The imaginaries, it argues, act as tools to kickstart debates, underpin experimentation and inform pedagogical planning and design. To address questions of credibility and plausibility, the imaginaries are rooted in the present, embody empirical trends and are consistent with practices, structures and technologies that have come to prominence during the pandemic.