More on feedback

A theme that was very evident at today's Improving Assessment and Feedback Symposium was that colleagues in other Schools were well down the road of non-textual feedback, with podcasts and video commentaries becoming commonplace. The message from students is that this is really welcome. There appears to be strong evidence that students either misconstrue, ignore or can't read the scribbled feedback comments that most of us in Computing still compose for them. It was suggested that the interpersonal element in spoken feedback has a strong effect on students too.

The University of Leeds has some useful resources for anyone inspired to have a go: http://www.sddu.leeds.ac.uk/online_resources/podcasting/case_studies.html

Once inspired, you can download a free copy of Audacity free and be up and running in a few minutes: http://www.how-to-podcast-tutorial.com/13-basic-podcasting-software.htm

Adopt, adapt and improve

At this morning's Improving Assessment and Feedback symposium, the excellent presentation by Tim Vincent and Inam Haq on their massive project at BSMS to create an online question bank for  final year medical students reminded me (in a good way) of the ancient Monty Python Lingerie Robbery interpretation of the Round Table's motto.  Students were found to be using the quizzes not as an extra learning facility for their development during clinical practice, as intended, but as a last minute revision tool. The team are currently looking at ways of making the materials even more useful for students to use in the way they prefer, based on their feedback and usage logs.The message the team took from the experience seems a sensible one: if students don't do what you expect, look carefully at what they actually do and support it.

Here's the official summary of their talk: 

Tim Vincent & Inam Haq (Brighton & Sussex Medical School)

Online quizzes as a learning tool: What we didn’t expect the students to do

The Medical School have developed a bank of 600 quizzes, in the format of clinical case scenarios, using the test tool in studentcentral. Its purpose was to support final year students while on long-term clinical placements as a formative assessment learning tool and the students were given a suggested weekly minimum number (not mandatory). This session will explore how the students really used it and use that as a springboard for discussions of the implications for designing and implementing formative assessment activities.

Events for stay-at-homes...

Teaching and learning events organised at the University over the next few weeks, with no need to leave the Moulsecoomb campus:

Using Web 2.0 Technologies in Blended Learning
Monday May 23rd 12.30 – 1.30 pm, Room 400 Huxley Building, Moulsecoomb
Effective ways of using Web 2.0 technologies in blended learning - for example, collaborative learning using a blog and problem based learning with wikis. To register to attend please click here

Improving Assessment & Feedback Symposium
Friday 27 May, 2011 9.30 am -2.00 pm Mithras House, Moulsecoomb Campus           Programme details   Booking form click here
 
For more info on these and other events, including the Annual L & T conference on July 15th, go to the Centre for Learning and Teaching events page.

Improving student perceptions of feedback

This article on yesterday's publication of the Guardian University League Tables has some sensible advice about feedback for departments like ours where students aren't happy about this aspect of their courses: http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2011/may/17/university-league-tables-student-survey?intcmp=239

The REAP Project (Re-engineering Assessement Processes in Scottish HE) has done some amazing work around feedback, peer review and assessment practices in general, all carefully validated by "before and after"research. This page has some stories of courses were redesigned in different institutions and departments: the University of Glasgow redesigned Computer Science accelerator course as part of the REAP Project: http://www.reap.ac.uk/reap/assessment/pilotsGUAcc.html .

Reporting back: UoB workshop on lecture capture Friday 13 May

This was a one hour session with Barbara Newland from the Centre for Teaching and Learning, reporting on a large-scale project she'd been involved in at the University of Bournemouth. This involved a system for capturing lectures and making them avaible via the institutional VLE (Blackboard). Unlike the Camtasia Relay available at Brighton, this system simply involved the lecturer turning on a microphone: the rest was automatic.

Some interesting points were that student attendance was not significantly affected, with students giving a wide range of uses of the lectures (i.e. not simply substituting for attendance). Some lecturers found the facility allowed them to change their practice, e.g. by asking students to pre-view the lecture, before using the face to face meetings for more interactive learning.

Research-informed Teaching and Learning

‘…we want all students to access the benefits exposure to teaching informed by research can bring…This will take many forms including pure and applied research that feeds curriculum development; but also research and development that tackle the challenging questions facing professional business, regional and local employers now and in the future. We’re doing this because we believe an understanding of the research process – asking the right questions in the right way; conducting experiments; and collating and evaluating information – must be a key part of any undergraduate curriculum.’

Bill Rammell MP, Minister of State for Lifelong Learning, Further and Higher Education, 2006

One of the aspirations of the University's Teaching and Learning Strategy is to more closely align teaching and research activities. We discussed how this might apply in our division, under four headings:

1. Research informed learning content
Good practice
Read relevant research literature
Attend relevant academic conferences
Work current research into module design, e.g. new module in Mobile App Development
What can we do?
Encourage colleagues to become active in following and engaging in research in relevant areas
Subject groups could include discussion of research led content when looking at new/updated modules

2. Research informed teaching methods
Good practice
Read the L and T research literature, e.g. ALT-J
Attend events organised by local and national level, e.g. recent HEA-ICS workshop on Teaching in Computing at SouthBank.
What can we do?
Frame innovations in teaching methods as action learning research projects

3. Developing students as researchers
Good practice
Involving final year project students in current research projects
Encouraging research activity by students, e.g. in Andrew and Graham's L6 module.
What can we do?
Encourage research active colleagues to suggest projects related to their research in S2 and on studentcentral
Explore more active learning approaches
Encourage students to write up their work as conference papers, e.g. for UCLAN's British Conference of Undergraduate Research.

4. Involving students in our research
Good practice
Students have contributed, e.g. to Locomatrix project
Students have been involved as research subjects, e.g. in usability and design activities
Poster display on 6th floor ensure students know about some current projects
MSc mini-conference presented current research to students
Faculty research conference was open to students
What can we do?
Explore ways to involve students in research projects
Encourage students to attend research seminars (and make them attractive to students)
Update research posters on floors 4 and 6

There was also discussion on the relevance of academic research to our relatively vocationally-oriented discipline, with industry links seen as possibly more valuable for some aspects of our students' development.

Some references:

• Graham-Matheson, L. (2010) Research Informed Teaching: Exploring the Concept
• UCLAN's Centre for Research Infrormed Teaching: http://www.uclan.ac.uk/information/services/ldu/research/research_informed_teaching.php
• Healey, M. & A. Jenkins. (2009) Developing undergraduate research and inquiry. (HEA)
  

Our first meeting

At the launch meeting of the Teaching and Learning Forum on May 11th we discussed the general aims of the forum itself, as well as tackling the subject of research informed teaching/learning. This post covers the general part of the session, with the next concentrating on research.

The goals of the forum were sketched out. The aim of the forum is to provide a space for sharing information and ideas on teaching and learning, with the intention of:

• developing the Division's teaching and learning strategy
• documenting examples of good practice in the Division
• encouraging colleagues to share good practice
• creating a culture of inquiry and research in teaching and learning issues
• improving the student experience

It's planned that there will be a meeting every month. These could be presentations, discussions, workshops or whatever format we decide, on a meeting-to-meeting basis.
Suggested topics for future meetings:

• putting reflection on a more structured footing
• the role of learning theory in our practice
• blended learning: how should we use studentcentral?
• lecture capture
• using blogs and twitter in teaching
• setting up an action research project
  

Please contribute any topics you'd like to see added to the list.