Published on: 25/02/2025 · Last updated on: 05/03/2025
Overview
The experience of the COVID-19 pandemic necessitated the widespread use of digital platforms to support online and blended learning. Important questions remain about how such platforms might support in-person teaching. This case study reflects on two ways of using the digital ‘corkboard’ Padlet that allowed MSc Criminology students to collate and share resources and examples in preparation for essay assessments. I highlight several benefits of using Padlet, including the range of mediums allowed for display, and the accessibility of Padlet boards as shared resources to support learning.
If you have queries or comments about this case study, please direct them to Peter Manning p.manning@bath.ac.uk. I am particularly keen to hear if the case study has helped to inform your own practice!
Background
The experience of the COVID-19 pandemic forced teaching staff to learn and adopt a range of digital and blended learning platforms. Conventional lectures and seminars were moved to Zoom or Teams, and in-platform tools such as Moodle quizzes, polls, or discussion forums became key points of engagement for students. The wholesale shift to online learning had repositioned core pedagogical questions around where and how active and student-led learning might be facilitated, in a context where all learning is mediated, constrained and enabled through the particular features of different digital platforms (Ahshan 2021).
During the pandemic, I had used – and, as then Director of Teaching in SPS, encouraged the use of – tools and platforms that could enable more interactive online learning, such as Google Docs and Padlet. When “in-person” teaching resumed, I was left curious about the ongoing role and potential of such tools and platforms within conventional “in-person” spaces. In other words, what forms of student-led learning could they enable and facilitate in person?
One benefit of platforms such as Google Docs or the Microsoft Teams Whiteboard tool is the ability to consolidate learning both ‘as it happens’ among a student group, while doubling up as a potential record and resource of learning for later use. For example, a Google Doc or Teams Whiteboard might operate as a space for collaborative learning in a given seminar or workshop session, but it can also be added as a link within a unit Moodle for future reference or study. This means that learning with and through such platforms and tools is both the ‘activity’ and a ‘repository’ of learning. It is striking that such a dual role has as much potential and application for “in person” teaching as it does exclusively online or in blended learning environments. Indeed, while platforms such as Teams or Google Docs each have particular practical strengths and limitations, what unifies them is an ability to open space for synchronous collaborative (and individual) learning.
The Padlet platform represents another such space. Padlet is best described as an online ‘corkboard’ that teachers and students can use to collate a range of (still or moving) visual, audio, and textual resources. It allows, in effect, a form of either individual or collaborative ‘e-bricolage’, where bricolage refers to the assembly of a piece of work using a diverse set of items that are more or less readily available around us (Yardley 2008).
Approach
The process of registering on Padlet is relatively simple, requiring a name and email address. (Given that no further personal information is required, I was comfortable asking students to register their own accounts). For teaching staff, there are different tiered plans available, including a free plan that allows a number of Padlet boards concurrently (right now this is limited to three). Paid access enables the production and use of more boards at the same time. For the purposes of single ‘in-unit’ activities, the free plan was sufficient.
The Padlet interface is intuitive and easy to use. When a resource is found, it can be ‘pinned’ by clicking the board. At that point, a file can be uploaded, or an external URL link connected. A comment box allows students to explain and justify why they have selected the resource. For teaching staff, providing clear briefing questions and instructions as prompts for what the students should explain in the comment box is an important consideration ahead of the activity. The strength of the platform is that it allows the curation and display of either locally sourced files or data, or relevant examples, resources, and materials that are searched for online. For example, with regard to locally sourced data, students might want to display – or be instructed to produce – their own photos, videos, voice note files, or text documents. With regard to the externally sourced material, students might be instructed to exercise their research or literature reviewing skills as they identify, explain, and collate relevant resources found online.
I used Padlet at two points during the delivery of the MSc Criminology for the academic year 2024/25. The MSc Criminology follows a novel ‘compressed’ delivery pattern, where each unit is organised around six three-hour workshops, rather than a longer lecture-seminar schedule over a semester. This delivery pattern is important as it supports PGT students who often have more challenging professional or family commitments to balance alongside their studies. It also means that workshops need to be designed with the risk of ‘information overload’ in mind, and that students may also engage with their learning more strategically, and with a greater focus on prioritising their assessments.
In semester one, I was Unit Convenor and sole teacher on the “State Crime, Human Rights, and Global Justice” unit. Mindful of the compressed workshop schedule, I wanted to integrate in class activities that could directly support planning and preparation for the final assessment. The two final assessment essay questions were focused on cases and episodes of state crime, or responses to state crime. I was therefore confident that Padlet could work to support students build their own ‘repository’ of resources that could be pooled (via Moodle) and then used when writing their essays. As such, the instruction brief for the activity was framed around assessment preparation and planning, which seemed to help with student engagement. At the same time, I was keen to maximise the range of resources that Padlet could display to demonstrate the relevance and topicality of the material at hand beyond conventional academic resources and literatures. Students were therefore instructed to include a mixture of news commentary, policy reports, photographs, and video segments. For those students new to criminology, who might find the task more challenging, I included guidance allowing the display of resources from the unit reading list. Crucially, the instruction briefing also asked students to include a paragraph in the Padlet comment box reflecting on what the resource tells us about the case or example at hand, any connections to unit themes, and any other observations they might want to make. Students were given the choice to work individually or in pairs; I had assumed they would prefer to work collaboratively and was surprised that all students chose to work individually. From workshops three to six, the cohort worked on their Padlet boards for roughly half of each session – producing a ‘living’ board that they could develop as the unit progressed – while I would monitor and support their work, and also develop my own board with them at the same time.
In semester two, I contributed a single three-hour workshop on Green Criminology to the “Core Issues in Contemporary Criminology” unit. Given the more limited contact time – and with the lessons of the “State Crime” unit in mind – I opted to create a single Padlet for display and curation during the final hour of the session that the students could contribute to. Again, students were briefed to find examples and cases in green criminology as a way to pool resources in anticipation of assessment. They were also asked to use a mix of media forms and to explain their choices using the comment function in respect of links and connections to topic themes and concepts. On the one hand, this meant that I was forcing the ‘pooling’ of resources and links at an earlier stage (rather than collating different individual boards for shared use in Moodle later). As such, this activity operated as more of a collective brainstorming exercise. On the other, I was able to display the Padlet board via the projector as it was being populated in ‘real time’ during the last hour of the session. This was a particularly novel and engaging way of seeing learning consolidation at it happened.
For both units, I was keen to ensure that the activity was concluded with a final consolidation and summary. To do so, I devoted ten minutes at the end of the sessions to display the Padlet boards on the projector and offer some reflections on the items chosen. This was, in effect, an opportunity to offer collective, formative feedback on their essay planning and brainstorming activity.
Outcomes
The key benefit of a platform like Padlet is that it both supports synchronous learning and doubles up as an ongoing resource for future use. In other words, whether working individually or collaboratively, students can ‘pool’ their learning and examples for shared use around assessments. What distinguishes Padlet from, for example, Google Docs or the Teams Whiteboard, is the variety of resources allowed and ease of functionality around their display. Where we teach on topics that we feel particularly keen to demonstrate as ‘living and breathing’, or relevant to non-academic audiences, Padlet allows students to curate boards that can include videos, (academic and non-academic) articles and books, photographs, or even music and audio. In this sense, it allows and encourages a degree of creativity – and the possibilities of creative collaboration – that enable students to feel and demonstrate the relevance and vibrancy of our subjects.
More instrumentally, Padlet is well placed to centre students – and develop their core academic skills – as active “co-producers” of learning resources (see Hubbard et al 2017). The two activities that I designed for the MSc Criminology were intended to draw on and develop a range of academic skills, particularly in terms of identifying and sourcing ‘real world’ examples and connecting them to unit themes. The success of both interventions relied on student’s ability to exercise judgement in the selection of resources for their relevance and insight, and to then explain them in relation to the unit. What is particularly promising here – and requires further reflection – is that the activity centres these (in an ‘analogue’ context) as digital literacy skills.
Conclusion
There is room, I think, for colleagues more focused on digital literacy skills to explore their use and development through platforms such as Padlet.
Going forward, there are aspects and questions around both interventions that I would want to know more about. I could not gauge, for example, how the students used each other’s boards for their essays – or with what benefits. Further steps that might centre greater collaboration might help with this question. For example, with more time, I also could have asked students to write practice essays or short essay plans based on other student’s boards. I will attempt to explore these questions with future cohorts.
References
Ahshan, R., 2021. A framework of implementing strategies for active student engagement in remote/online teaching and learning during the COVID-19 pandemic. Education Sciences, 11(9), p.483.
Hubbard, K.E., Brown, R., Deans, S., García, M.P., Pruna, M.G. and Mason, M.J., 2017. Undergraduate students as co-producers in the creation of first-year practical class resources. Higher Education Pedagogies, 2(1), pp.58-78.
Yardley, A., 2008, May. Piecing together—A methodological bricolage. In Forum Qualitative Sozialforschung/Forum: Qualitative Social Research (Vol. 9, No. 2).
Padlet online resources
What is Padlet? Padlet Knowledge Base & Support
Official Padlet videos on YouTube: Padlet – YouTube