The pandemic history classroom: Grouping or groping the digital divide

Abstract

This article is concerned with the impact of Covid-19 on the higher education sector. It examines the impact of group work in the discipline of history in remote university teaching and learning set in the context of Covid-19 imposed lockdowns in South Africa. When the pandemic broke out, few were prepared for its worst excesses in terms of lives lost impact on health facilities, economies and higher education. Lockdowns to limit the pandemic’s spread were imposed in many countries worldwide, limiting in-person interaction, which affected various aspects of human contact, not least in university education. Taken away from campuses, universities in South Africa, as elsewhere, were forced not only to adapt to online teaching but to be inventive in the methods used to retain student participation and engagement. While technology was heralded as the solution to the global crisis in teaching, other concerns affect the well-being of students that also require attention. By using the research conducted with staff and students in history modules at one South African university, this article considers the pandemic classroom with its online and remote mode of instruction. It takes specific cognisance of what is lost due to this form of engagement in terms of isolation’s psychological and emotional impact on students in the tertiary education sector. Within this context, it assesses whether the use of group work within a university environment and, in particular, the discipline of history, is a possible means to try and bridge this digital divide or if this option is merely a case of groping in the digital ditch.