Exploring computing students post-pandemic learning preferences with workshops: A UK institutional case study

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused both significant disruption and catalysed extensive experimentation in how education has been and may be delivered worldwide. The discipline of computing has been part of this experimentation, and significant innovations have been implemented and disseminated. Furthermore, educational provision and learner expectations may have evolved in response to the experiences during the pandemic; whilst still subject to disruption, higher education in many jurisdictions is still returning to a new (ab)normal. In the UK, whilst there has been a return to traditional face-to-face delivery, one estimate suggests that nearly a third of courses continue to involve some hybrid learning as opposed to about 5% before the pandemic. Learners' preferences for delivery approach remains critical and has been explored in previous work predominately by survey-based approach. This single UK institutional case study explores learner preferences by using workshops (N=45 students across ten workshops) which aspires to co-create an understanding of issues and benefits of the learning, teaching and assessment approaches adopted in the pandemic and identify preferences for future directions. The workshops employed the sailboat retrospective template; they suggest that the preferences are varied but commonly include some face-to-face study and that digital exclusion, social engagement, and motivation/distraction are vital factors to be addressed for further adoption of hybrid or online learning.