Collaborating within a Lockdown: Students' Online Collaboration to Develop a College Readiness Workshop during the COVID-19 in-person restrictions.

Abstract

Background: The COVID-19 pandemic created significant disruption within the educational setting, including the rapid shift to a fully online learning environment. Purpose: The purpose of this study was to explore how graduate students collaborated synchronously and reimagined an in-person academic service learning project into an asynchronous workshop format. Methodology/Approach: An explanatory single case study approach was used to explore how educational leadership doctoral students developed content for and transitioned the modality of an academic service learning project—a college readiness workshop for middle school students—during the COVID-19 pandemic. Findings/Conclusions: Overall, the development of and transition to a fully online workshop website format highlighted the importance and additional need for technology to support project content, the challenge of how to best incorporate audience engagement through an asynchronous platform, and the shift in roles and expectations of the graduate students throughout the workshop development process. Implications: Although this learning experience was adapted due to pandemic-related restrictions, this reimagined student-led project provided additional and unique opportunities for collaboration and technology integration that can be useful and applicable to the students’ post-lockdown lives.