Quality Assurance & Internationalisation.

I ran two online international learning (OIL) projects this year and intend to run them again. They were well received by students and support the university’s objectives around internationalisation. The ECA is an organisation that initially focussed on integrating sustainability into the curriculum that has subsequently designed a framework to supporting and assuring the integration of internationalisation. The impetus is placed upon the organisation to set its own agenda and to self-assess against that agenda. The framework is not imposed as prescriptive as a system such as ISO 9001. This has potential to give the organisation freedom and flexibility based upon its own ambitions. The key areas of QA focus are on three key questions:

1. What do you aim to do i.e. what are your learning outcomes and do they actually cover what you want to achieve?
2. What do you need to do i.e. does teaching and learning fit with the learning outcomes set out and do staff competencies fit with this.
3. What do you need to demonstrate i.e. did you achieve your aims.

It is a simple, non-prescriptive framework that can easily be applied at a modular, programme or even university level. It is certainly an approach that I can use to critically assess my OIL projects in line with my programme level outcomes to at least ensure an alignment and integration, rather than as a “bolt-on”.

CPD: Using social media

I attended a session at the internal Teaching & Learning conference on the use of social media to support course development and student employability. The session was run by members of the Physiotherapy department who have between the staff and students very active twitter feeds. They have used staff, student and a departmental feed to promote teaching and learning, the success of their students and research conducted by the department. But the final year students have also been able to utilise it to promote they work they are doing and to engage with key stakeholders, groups and discussions. This has enabled them to promote themselves and network, leading to in a few cases the creation of job opportunities.

We as a department have (had) our own twitter handle (@Covuniged) which is run by students, but is no where near as proactive as @CUPhysios. Our few of our staff also have twitter feeds which they use to share teaching/learning stories or key relevant media stories. These are often then retweeted by @Covuniged. A potential issue is that none of us do it with any regularity, structure, strategy or target. I certainly don’t use Twitter analytics to find out what Tweets have the greatest impact/reach and therefore tailor my subsequent tweets accordingly. Data are powerful, but do any of us use it enough?

I can see value in using Twitter to promote what we are offering and what we are doing certainly with other professional networks. But as with any form of communication we need to understand the following:

• What message or messages do we want to communicate
• Who are those messages targeted at
• When will those people/groups be listening
• What is the best platform to use
• What are they likely to take from our message and therefore how should we frame the message.

We need to understand whether Twitter or another type of social media is the best forum for message to be found by our target audience. Whether that is professionals or potential students.

So over the next few months working with School/Departmental and university management and a few key students I’d like to look at what we have done in the past and how effective it has been then develop a communication plan to demonstrate and showcase the capability of our students but also find better ways to promote the degrees we offer and support recruitment.

For examples check out these handles:

@CUPhysios @HelenOwen3 @gerardgreenphy @AGreenCovPhysio

Teaching Observation 3

I teach two Masters classes on carbon accounting and reporting. In this class we discuss why companies report, how they report and the mechanics of carbon conversion. In the first cohort I taught the mechanics of carbon conversion i.e. how to convert electricity use or travel in to a greenhouse gas equivalent and then progressed to the theory i.e. consistency, clarity and transparency of reporting. This didn’t work so well.

I had tried it upon listening to a presentation by a lecturer in computer science who tried a similar approach with coding. He had previously taught the theory of coding then had a practical session where the students did their own coding. He found that in the first session they students tended to disengage. So he switched the way the order so that coding came first. He found that while it didn’t work because the students got confused but he was willing to persist with this approach as he felt that pedagogically it should work because it should have allowed the students to practice then reflect upon it in the more theoretical session.

I wasn’t quite so willing to persist. So what I did was to spend the first part of the session providing more theoretical background and looking at the kind of data that are reported (via a Google Doc exercise) and the mechanics of carbon accounting and reporting and then towards the end of the session do some carbon conversion. We then did more carbon conversion and went over the previous conversions at the start of the next class before then picking up on the quality of reporting the data. This seemed to work better as students had a better understanding of why they were being asked to do so many mathematical equations.

One of these sessions was observed as part of my PG Cert, for which there was some good and constructive feedback:

The key areas for improvement were:

• Expanding beyond GHG reporting in the UK
  • this session could definitely cover EU and US law on carbon/GHG reporting
• Presentation of information on screen – size of text; use of long URLs where students might be expected to use them
  • Fundamentally this session probably just needed less text on the slides, which would allow for the slides to be suitable in almost any teaching room.
• Given good use of technology in session are students encouraged to bring laptops (for nature of activities)
  • set the expectation early on at the beginning of the module that students will need to bring some kind of mobile technology.
    • My only concern is that this could be discriminatory. So I encourage students to work in pars or groups to ensure that they all have access.
• Allowing students time to respond to questions
  • see previous blog on student engagement – I just need to shut up!
• Reflecting student responses back to group, to ensure all heard and understood
  • Google Docs helps with this as student responses can be seen on screen, but in this case I need to speak up more.
• Provide tiny URL’s for Google docs rather than long URL’s on PowerPoint slides
  • I put this right for the next session and is something I continue to do.

However there were a number of positives:

• Good student engagement in the session
• Use of Google Docs
• Good rapport with students
• Clear delivery style
• Very good subject knowledge

But also around some positives around the areas that I was concerned about as I neve convinced that I do them well:

• Good encouragement of critical analysis
• Good use of questioning through the group activity, prompting students to consider implications of information they were finding. So encouraging a higher level of thinking
  • Speed/pace of delivery
• Good classroom management/facilitation
• Managed group activities well, but could considered ways to ensure wider participation to questions from group as a whole, i.e. use of technology (Socrative/Padlet)

So some real positive things to work on and improve the student experience and hopefully performance.

 

Assessing quality in on-line teaching and learning

Sarah had already had one of the PG Cert team “observe” this module and he had provided a useful framework use by eCampus Alberta for the evaluation of on-line material/teaching (you can read about my “teaching observation” of my her on-line module here). Sarah shared this framework with me and having read it and used it to assess her module framework it struck me that this would be really very useful for not just classes/modules taught on-line but also in assessing your virtual learning environment (VLE)

As I said the assessment tool comes from the Alberta e-campus. They offer over 900 on-line further/higher education courses and in doing so their offering appears to be more inclusive and allows for greater access to higher education – at least in terms of geography ceasing to be a barrier (not sure about cost). As an aside….I think is a great idea – your physical remoteness and therefore the potential cost of travel and accommodation should not be a barrier to education.

Perhaps unsurprisingly there are a number of quality standards associated with running an on-line course for the institution. You can find these here. But the one that I looked at was the eRubric which can be used to assess eLearning projects. It assesses the course briefing, the quality of the writing, resource provision, technology use and a range of pedagogic issues such as inclusivity. Some of the criteria are basic requirements of teaching, learning & assessment such as marking schemes provision or clarity of learning outcomes, others relate to the way information is presented and how accessible it is. The rubric also gives a framework or set of standards for what eCampus Alberta considers to be essential (i.e. the minimum requirement), excellent and exemplary.

You can log in as a guest and work your way though the rubric and apply it to your online teaching or just your VLE pages. With the latter there will be a number of the items that don’t apply but the rubric and its various levels provide some great ideas for consideration in the set up of course documentation and VLE.

Areas that I need to work on, using this rubric include:

• Navigation – too much information (a bit like the three clicks rule e-Campus Alberta recommends that the info only spans 2 pages worth of scrolling) and while it is easy to see what is relevant to which topics if you click out it may not be easy to get back.
• Inclusivity/accessibility – none of my documents have been checked for compatibility with screen readers and I’ve provided no options for the format in which the information is presented. I provide a number of videos, but I don’t provide alternatives for learners with visual impairment.
• One overall bibliography – my reading is scattered throughout the module guide and each sessions slides/info.
• Clarity of language and provision of things like plain language versions or glossaries.
  • I have actually doe this for new topics in this year’s modules
• Lack of clarity over what resources are critical and which are supplementary.
• Clarity over marking schemes, and provision of online examples with the facility for students to comment on past work and link it to the marking scheme.
• No spelling, punctuation and grammar errors – I know that given that we hold students to this standard that we should be meeting that standard, but I also know that my own typing leads to spelling errors and I’ve never been great with commas and apostrophes
• Use of bridging statements to clearly show how the different segments of the course link together – students need to attend class and look at the material presented in each class to understand how each topic links to the next.
• Encouraging and supporting learner produced content and allowing for the VLE to have students add material that they think is valuable. Again this should encourage engagement and deeper learning.
• Use of forums for discussion – I tell students that this is how they should ask questions, but don’t stick to it and will happily take the same question several times, from several students via email. As a result I waste time and the forums never get used. I just need to stick to my own rules!!!
  • Further to this exemplary is considered to be encouraging students to support one another though on-line discussion and answering each others questions. However in a true online course this would be absolutely vital. I encourage my students to support and engage with each other through in-class activity. But support outside of class could definitely be improved.

You can see my e-rubric self assessment of my 2nd year module on renewable energy here:eLearning Rubric

There area few areas where get exemplary scores, but often have missed out some of the more basic or excellent stuff. But this gives me a great starting point to improve the quality.

The fact that a criteria cannot be ticked as N/A is a bit of a downfall, but then this rubric was set up for a different reason. I think this has value, but if I wanted to apply it to the VLE’s in my programme I would need to adapt it. But I like the different levels of quality and in carrying it out I have a range of different ideas of how I can improve my VLE in order to improve student experience, hopefully engagement and therefore performance. There is a lot of stuff in here that could be used to support teaching observations and module delivery as a whole, not just the admin of the VLE (i.e. student cooperation, marking schemes and student created resources)

The website also provides some examples of best practice from a range of disciplines that give some good examples of how to provide clear language, for example. I personally find this really useful as it gives me a starter for 10. I know what I should do, I know it is based upon good academic practice but I’m often not quite sure how to do it or how to implement it. So having someone else’s examples to work off is a good starting point.

We do a basic check of all of our VLE’s but using this or a variant of it could really add value both to the teacher and to the teaching team as a whole. A challenge with applying the e-rubric is that self assessment can be overcritical or can be under critical. But if a colleague assesses your VLE that could be taken very negatively. Although that said academics are the one group of people who really should be used to receiving feedback, negative or otherwise (wasn’t that what the viva voce was all about??).

Getting engagement in quality (or any management system for that matter) and increasingly greater levels of what can be perceived as bureaucratic form filling, needless checks and interference can often be challenging. It has to be sold properly and the benefits clear for the time input.

For me this e-rubric provides ideas and guidance and it took me about 15 mins to complete (although more than that to come up with ideas on what else I could d0). How it is pitched if it were to be implemented would be key. In the first instance using it as voluntary self assessment tool before mandating self  assessment or peer assessment would be beneficial.

Using Adobe Slate & Microsoft Sway (CPD 3)

I found Adobe Slate after the MO3 Poster Presentation day after a member of my group (check out here twitter handle – she has some awesome ideas: @CUMediaSkills) raved about the range of Apps the Adobe now had that were excellent for teaching, learning, communication and creativity.

Adobe Slate (slightly annoyingly) only works on iPad. But it is a tool for create stand-out stories through imagery and motion (according to their publicity blurb!). The user can add text, photos and links. You then choose how to “animate” it by choosing one of a range of themes, altering the focal point of your images, altering the position of the text (and its font/size/style) and photos to your hearts’ content. You can then share the story via the Slate site, various social media sites or by emailing it or embedding it in a blog. It creates a really nice presentation.

It took me about 15 mins to create a Slate about my recent ultra running adventure at the Ultimate Trails 55km race in July. Whether you’re interested in the tool and what I was able to do with it or my running exploits then you can click here to have a look.

Microsoft Sway which I was introduced to at an Faculty innovation day, works on the same principle as Adobe Slate, but it works on multiple platforms (ipad android and can be used from a PC/tablet internet browser). But the aim is to create interactive, creative reports and presentations. It doesn’t quite have the flow that Slate does, but it allows you to drag and drop existing presentations or word documents into the App/cloud and then you edit them, their style, focus and progression as you see fit. The browser based version allows a much greater degree of flexibility in importing and editing than the App does. It is cloud based to you can then access your Sways wherever you are. I created a rather rubbish one (took about 3 mins!) but it might give you a vague feel for the look and feel of the type of thing that can be created: go here

I thought these tools might be an excellent tool for student assessment and an alternative approach for me or students to create resources (i.e. an alternative to PowerPoint). I’ve discussed fieldwork before in a previous blog here. I discussed that in the field of oil, gas & energy management it is difficult to collect data in the same was as a biologist or geographer might. As a result I made changes to the trip, but it is still what Fuller & France (2014) refer to as a Cook’s Tour field trip i.e. more “look and see” observational trip than an experiential trip. Annoyingly their papers are not an open resource, but you can find the full reference if you look at my poster in my blog here.  We know from people such as Kolb (1984) that active learning, learning by doing is vital because it engenders deeper learning through engagement and reflection/experience. With a” look and see” trip, even if skills and practical knowledge are built else where, there is a risk of students becoming passive and not learning anything at all. I have seen this from those that trail along at the back with their headphones in or just ambling along and have to be more strongly encouraged to listen to what is happening.

As I explained in my last field trip blog my students tend not to come from a biology/geography background so their field skills are limited. This makes their life harder when they undertake their second year trip to Dorset, where they are required to make field sketches of petroleum geology sections. Fieldwork is not all about making sketches, using quadrats and counting the different forms of dandylion (sorry have forgotten its proper name!). The skills needed such as observation and attention to detail are required in jobs such as auditing, whether it is quality, health and safety or environment. All roles my students are interested in. It is therefore important that we help them build these skill and increase their engagement with them.

So how can I integrate this into my trip? And how do Slate & Sway fit into this….? Fuller & France (2015), on trip around New Zealand, asked  students to compile a video dairy to summarise features and processes, draw at least one field sketch per site and to take ownership of course content.   I initially thought about using videos as Fuller & France (2014; 2015) did, but my students are in their first semester of their first year. It may be a valuable skill that can be used in employment, but I think that asking them to cope with a new places, new people, new ideas AND a new potentially complicated technology (not just in taking video footage, but then editing that footage) might be one step too far. Furthermore the ability to communicate is the key tool needed in any job role. Helping students at this stage build their confidence in communication, before adding too much complexity I personally think is important.  While video focussed, the principles outlined in France & Wakefield (2011) are really useful for both staff and students in setting up and then delivering digital stories.

Slate & Sway, or even PowerPoint, offer a different, easy to use way to create a photo diary or story that can still achieve the same aim of engagement. My students will be required to collect a series of photos, taking site and personal permissions and privacy into account where necessary, for each activity in their 3 day trip and add narrative to explain the images and how they relate to the topics seen/discussed in class.  This, I hope, will force (encourage??) them to focus on the processes being explained, then to reflect more on it and its significance than if they just listened to it being explained. It seemed to work for Fuller & France.  I’m hoping it might work for me and my students.

I was also interested by what Fuller & France (2014) had to say about getting students to lead a field activity each and by what the session leader on Microsoft Sway about using Sway (or Slate) to create short presentations. Martin suggested using Sway for flipped learning and Slate & Sway could be used by students to develop pre-field work activity sessions that students could look at in advance or revisit while in the field (assuming they all have a mobile device with internet connection) for support. I will certainly try using them for my Level 2 renewable energy module. I run the majority of these sessions as an interactive session. But I usually spend the first 20-40 mins reviewing the topic and outlining the activity. This could easily be done in Sway or Slate, posted to the VLE then we get to spend the full 2 hr session on the activity and reflecting on the outcomes. The latter tends to become truncated as we run out of time and is probably the most important part of all.

Although I haven’t used either Slate or Sway in anger yet I can see two potential issues.

1. Dealing with student’s writing in terms of checking for plagiarism and providing feedback
   1. submission of PowerPoint, PDF or Word allows for both of these via Turnitin. Providing feedback is easy enough as I can do it via a voice recording or screen cast. But I’m not sure how internal and external moderators will feel about the lack of a similarity check. They’ll have to rely on my knowledge of the students and their writing ability I guess.
   2. Ideally I think it would be good to have Slates & Sways that can be downloaded to a PDF, which can then be uploaded to Turnitin.
2. Presenting while not being tied to the lectern
   1. I personally like to wander around the room while I speak, with PowerPoint I can use my remote clicker thingy to change slides while I wander. I’m not sure that Slate & Sway have the same functionality.

Some refs.

• France, D., Wakefield, K., (2011). How to produce a digital story. Journal of Geography in Higher Education, 35 (4), 617-623.
• Fuller, I.C., France, D. (2014) Fieldwork Going Digital, Developments in Earth Surface Processes, 18, 117-130.
• Fuller, I.C., France, D. (2015). Securing Field Learning Using 21st century Cook’s Tour. Journal of Geography in Higher Education, 39 (1), 158-172.
• Kolb, D. (1984) Experiential Learning: Experience as the source of learning & development. London: Prentice Hall.

 

CDP: Internationalisation

I was asked to attend a workshop at the Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences run by Jos Beelen at the European Association for International Education (@TheEAIE)/ Centre for Applied Research on Economics and Management (CAREM). It wasn’t a bad place to spend some time!!

The aim of the two-day workshop was to focus on supporting participants to embed a new Online International Learning (OIL)project in a specific module (or modules) of their choice for delivery in the coming academic year (2015-16). The workshop will achieve these aims through the following activities:

• articulating international and intercultural learning outcomes for OIL projects and the module
• aligning these learning outcomes with (reflective) assessment
• relating these learning outcomes to those of the programme as a whole ensuring a course-based approach, and where possible, to prioritise project integration into courses that do not currently have any

By the end of the work shop we should have had the chance to “internationalise” learning outcomes at a programme and module level, discussed and shared approaches and got feedback from colleagues. The real value in this wasn’t the chalk and talk of the reasons for and approaches to internationalisation. We could have read this from one of Betty Leaks papers on the subject without leaving the UK. What was useful was the facilitators’ personal perspectives on success and failure and the chance to discuss this, test, propose and re-try things with a group of like minded people.

Despite the fact that I’ve now run two OIL projects I feel there are still (many) things that I can learn on the subject. Some of which I’ll learn from my trial and error approach to teaching and others that I’ll learn from discussion with others. A key learning I took was that we need to think about what we want our students to prepare for, why we want our students to participate. This is then the basis of the collaboration (i.e. picking the right partner) and then the tasks that the students are asked to carry out and how they are asked to reflect on it. Rather than deciding that a curriculum or module needs to have an OIL project because a certain number of students need to be “internationalised”. I feel this is most likely to happen when it comes from the bottom up, with top down support, not when it is dictated. The top down support is vital in helping set up the training, the funding and the network and we couldn’t do it so easily without those things.

We had an excellent presentation from Eva Haug who had run an OIL project with a University in Norway. From this I have drawn a few key conclusions:

• Allow freedom in the assignment for students to take their own, more creative approach to reflecting on learning.
• Focus on one topic
• Set clear and high expectations
• Trust that your students will do what they’ve been asked to do
• Focus on coaching, not teaching
• Ensure that students get to know each other first.

Having run my own projects I agree with several of these. My students and those of my partner institution struggled with Skype calls as they all felt very nervous, even several weeks in. We hadn’t allowed them to break the ice before launching them in to the tasks we’d asked them to do. This leads on to one of Eva’s other points about focus. While it could be argued that we were focussed on one topic: human impact on the environment, we asked them to do too many things. As a result the students felt over loaded with work and lost focus and their reflective assignments had a tendency to wander off topic too. So this year we’ve reduced the number of topics or tasks. We’ve also allowed more time for introductions, and changed the platform that we will use to do this. This year we will ask students to post 2 pictures to our Google+ Community one that they think represents their home country’s culture and one that represents their partner country’s culture and explain why (as well as introducing themselves). this then gives us an interesting way to explore cultural stereotypes, rather than just different cultural approaches to environmental management. I’m not sure that we would have done these things without listening to Eva’s talk. Her point about trusting them and setting the expectations early on is really important. There will, I suspect always be some that don’t want to bother, but in my (limited) experience most will do what you ask of them. There is no need to treat them like children. Expectation management is essential, not just in OIL project, but in their performance and engagement overall. They need to know why they are doing or being asked to do something, what benefits it will bring.  They shouldn’t have to guess and they shouldn’t think its just because we think that this is what is good for them.

One key area of concern was around assessment and the need to summatively assess everything and the balance between getting students to engage if it isn’t formally assessed. In both my OIL projects the students have had to complete a number of tasks throughout the semester. None of these tasks was formally assessed. At the end of the semester they had to write a reflective essay that covered at least 3 of the 6 tasks.  Yet the students did, by and large, still participate in each of the tasks, despite the lack of assessment. They still posted their blogs – albeit with a little bit of reminding and occasionally late.

I am not convinced that everything needs to be formally assessed and graded. If you trust them, if you set and manage their expectations they will do what is asked of them. Or maybe I’m just naïve.

Anyway the workshop gave us time and head space to logically work through from the programme level to a modular level how learning outcomes could be internationalised and what activities could be conducted to facilitate this and then how they could be assessed. This was a really good way to think about it. I developed my OIL projects in the context of the module, with half an eye on the programme as a whole, but in setting up the project for this year I’ve taken a more holistic approach thinking about the modules they will take that semester and the following semester and I’ve built this into their Tutorial sessions so that it is not (hopefully!) done and immediately forgotten about.

I also had a chance to think about some of the other modules that lend themselves to an OIL project (and in the first instance might have a module leader who is willing to give it a go). So I have a plan for a Level 2 OIL project (actually on oil…the energy source). Now all I need is a partner organisation. Thanks to my central team I have a contact, I just need to work on the contact.

Another discussion was around quality, how you integrate it and assess the quality of an internationalised curriculum. I think this is really quite important, but others may see it as red tape and a pain that distracts from getting on with the day job. But having processes, procedures and periodic checks facilitates continual improvement and the sharing of best practice. In my mind this is a good thing….but I’m going to save this exciting topic for another time….

Some thoughts on research

One of the reasons I left academia in the first place was because I had no interest in a) staring down a microscope for the rest of my life and b) publishing stuff that would never have any impact and would only be read by undergraduates to be quoted in student essays.

Part of the attraction of Coventry was their excellent focus and reputation for teaching & learning and the fact that income could be earned via consultancy not just research. However to get any improvement from here on the university must improve its research output. So it is a massive part, rightly so, of the university strategy and as a result of individual KPI’s

With a bit of distance and a bit more maturity and two years at the university I know that this is something that is important and that I need to get involved in. Furthermore that it is up to me to ensure that my research has impact and up to me to sell it to government or business and to make it have impact. Not to wait for someone in government or business to read the Journal of X, Y or Z (because lets face it they wont and don’t have time! Not once in my role as a consultant/in house advisor did I look for academic research in my area) .

I do, and always have recognised the value of research informed teaching. I have no problem with integrating research into teaching, I’ve just never been sure about my own research area. I’m still not, to be honest. But I’m getting closer. I don’t believe that in order to be a good teacher I have to be a good researcher. I have to be good at finding information and disseminating that information, but I think that is different to being able to come up with a good research question, develop it, get funding for it and carry it out. Despite the fact that this is really the only thing that I am actually “qualified” (by virtue of the PhD) to do. Equally being a good researcher doesn’t  make you a good teacher. In fact I’ve had a number of lectures by exceptional researchers that were truly awful. Mainly because they lacked inter-activity, paid no attention to learners attention spans or styles, they lacked inspiration and they were over complicated.  But I have also had some very interesting lectures by exceptional researchers that were 45 mins+ of chalk and talk. I suspect this has something to do with my own level of interest in the subject area. But it is up to us as teachers and researchers to capture imagination and to try to hold on to it, or at least inspire people to act or read more. This, I think, is true of subject matter in general whether it is your research or someone else’s.

So there are a few areas that I think could add value being able to say to my students “hey, look at this paper I wrote”.  I have, with my partner, begun an investigation into the impact of mandatory greenhouse gas reporting and a colleague from another faculty and I have prepared a grant application on the integration of climate change teaching into the health care curriculum. I’m hoping that with the right approach, by engaging with business, investors and healthcare/environmental professionals we might be able to make some improvements to reporting, transparency and as a result mitigation and adaptation action. I very strongly think that our findings shouldn’t be limited to the Journal of XX, although that might be what “counts”. I want to share it (assuming its of any use!) with interested parties, not just those in academia and those willing to pay £30-40 for the privilege. As such, in each of the two research grant applications I’ve written I’ve focussed heavily of dissemination of information via social media and professional networks and professional conferences. Not just via academic conferences and journals.

Student Video Production – reflecting on a new innovation

As part of the PGCert we had to develop, try, test and reflect upon a new teaching innovation. I chose video production as a means of assessment

Why?

A 2014 Ipsos/Mori poll of Public Attitudes to Science found that in 2013 climate change was one of the most talked about media topics. However data showed that people would rather talk about something else. Their data also show that 78% of people feel informed about climate change, but only 60% are actually concerned about it. Furthermore in an address to the Walker Institute in December 2014 the Government’s Chief Scientific Advisor Sir Mark Walport stated that “communication about climate change and its…consequences is extremely important”.

Rooney-Varga et al. (2014) & Gold et al. (2015) in found that getting groups of university and high-school students, respectively, to produce videos on climate change showed that students were highly motivated, developed a genuine interest in the topic, learned about the scientific process and developed digital skills. Deeper learning through individual video production is also supported Fuller & France (2014). Furthermore the University Teaching & Learning Strategy (2011) encourages giving students opportunities to learn a range of technologies and applications and two colleagues have had successful experiences using video production to enhance teaching & learning.

I opted to ask students to prepare a short video, rather than write an essay, to communicate the importance of action on climate change.

You can read the full poster here: Video production 0.2

Key outcomes and next steps

Students were apprehensive about video production, but their feedback shows that they did learn and they did enjoy the process (Fig. 2). I have also identified areas for improvement from conversations with the LEU and other academic colleagues that have used video production in their modules. In combination student and peer feedback have helped me shape the assignment for next year.

• Video production in pairs: Video production is inherently team based activity. Although the students had their peers here in the UK and a partner in the USA to bounce ideas off they still had to deal with production on their own it still seemed to be quite intimidating. After discussion with the LEU and peers I feel that working in pairs might alleviate some of the stress and isolation the students feel.
• Reduce the length of the assignment: Produce a 3 min video and a 1000 word action plan to show how they will reduce their own carbon footprint.
• More guidance on ideas: More discussion time in class on ideas for campaigns and capturing those ideas online for reference. The best videos of students who have granted permission will be shown for inspiration.
• More guidance on assessment: The assessment outline was too brief. Students will be given a more detailed breakdown of mark allocation and expectations of content and presentation.
• Video production workshop later in the term: After discussion with the LEU we feel it would be better to hold the workshop once the students have a few ideas to play with. This should lead to better video production, rather than an abstract exercise.

Reflections on reflecting.

Using video production as part of my PGCert assessment was really useful. I’m not sure I would have given the module as a whole and the assessment the same degree of appraisal if I didn’t have to create the poster. I would have adapted the assessment but having the head space to think about it as I set it up and as I evaluated it was important. I need to create the time to do that with other non-standard assessments.

Reflections on the poster presentation day

It was great to have the opportunity to share what I’d done with other members of staff from a range of faculties and to get a good degree of constructive criticism. How else do you learn and improve? A really valid challenge was how the assessment would work for students with disabilities, in particular those with visual impairment. This is a theme I will pick up later on as I think its an area that is really lacking in my teaching practice.

It was also great to see all the other innovative things that others are doing. I have no imagination and have a complete lack of creativity. So for me this kind of thing is really important as it gives me a starter for 10.

Tools that I had used before, but used in different ways, things I’d never even heard of before but could test/try, with some thought in my own class room. For example I loved the origami game to show the value of planning, understanding and human capital. I also loved the participatory approach to student learning and getting students to teach one another through digital training sessions. These are definitely things that I could integrate into my teaching and things that I think our Department/School could benefit from.

Given my lack of creativity (as you’ll see from the very dull nature of my poster) it was also great to see how others present data in a poster format. At some point I’m sure I’ll be forced present a poster at an academic conference (*shudder*) and so seeing a rang of other ways of laying things out (and not laying things out) was also really valuable.

Student Engagement

One of the things Sarah struggled with in her online module was getting the students, in remote locations (not outer Mongolia you understand, just remote to her) was student engagement. The remote nature and the fact that the students didn’t know each other very well may have contributed to this, but it is not limited to the online environment.

In the range of classes that I teach from level 1 to MSc students there are (as I suspect there always have been) a handful of students that will always speak up and contribute in the class. Others will make a contribution in a small group and some will never say anything at all.

When I covered CSR with my level 3 students I did a stop/start/carry on exercise at the end. One thing that was picked up was that I should have gotten more of the class involved that just those who were willing to speak out i.e I was too reliant on the handful of students who were willing to speak up. This was also picked up in my teaching observation carried out by academic development.

I used the former feedback in my level 1 classes in the second semester. Trying to get more students to share their thoughts and ideas by giving them a few minutes to write down and answer and discuss it with the person next to them. I then picked on a few people to share their ideas/answers. But this very much did feel like I was “picking on” them, especially when I got responses like “I don’t know” or “I don’t have anything”. At this point I fell back on those who as usual did and were willing to speak out. Obviously this is one of the benefits of using a BYOD SSR like Socrative or something like Padlet. However I’m not sure that this is practice for every time I want to ask questions.

The feedback I had from academic development picked up on this point about asking questions and waiting for a response. I very rarely leave enough silence (time) for a response. As such there are two ways to deal with this, I think.

1. Get over my dislike (discomfort) of silence (I know as a former auditor and manager that silence is an excellent way to get answers out of people!) and just wait it out.
2. If someone doesn’t have an answer when I ask them to share then say that I’ll come back to them once a few others have shared.

The issue with number 1 is that this will lead to those that are confident and comfortable to share. But then I could tell them not to. The issue with number 2 is that it still feels like I’m picking on people. But maybe in combination, with expectations set at the beginning of class it will help being those who are less confident out of their shells. But neither is great, nor inclusive. This goes back to the use tools such as Padlet (of Google Docs) to capture ideas anonymously, allowing thinking, documenting and sharing but in a safer way.

But this in class participation is somewhat different to getting engagement online. The use of MOODLE analytics is critical (and the surprise on the students faces when they realise I can see what they’ve opened does amuse me.) as it shows me who is engaged and who isn’t, like the student that only looked at the coursework brief the day it was due to be handed in (although my discovery of this at that time was too late too – you have to use the analytics early!). So how do we make out online environment more engaging and interactive so that it is more than an online repository of stuff?

An interactive package of videos, short articles or a couple of PowerPoint slides, coupled with a few quiz questions (as Sarah did) could work quite well. In essence this is the basis of a flipped class room approach. I’m sure some staff would feel resistant to this as it will, in the first instance, mean more work, as it will need more planning and creativity. But if we can get all students to engage, even a little, so that we don’t have any drop out or that have to be terminated is that not a good thing?
Again maybe this is something that is worth the effort for first year students and international MSc students who are not used to the UK education system. Would it help ease them in and give them more confidence in reading, engaging, answering questions and self directed study. If they feel engaged and feel there is a benefit then surely they’ll want to do more. We can’t teach them everything, and nor should we.

Our job, in my mind, is to give them structure for our subjects and to inspire them to learn more, debate more and discuss more. If they are inspired to learn they’ll do it under their own initiative. But they have a basic framework to start them off. Furthermore surely this is what the workforce needs. Self starters, that can carry out research, lead and participate in debate and can communicate. Not employees that have to be told what to do at each and every step. That won’t happen if we bore them senseless in class and our VLE is no more than a library. They can look up stuff on Wikipedia and they can use the library. We need to give them to tools to challenge, to go deeper and to want to do it and to want to do more than look at Wikipedia.

Observing on-line teaching

I wanted to “observe” my Action Learning Set buddy Sarah’s online module as I was interested in the structure and interface i.e. The logistics as I wondered how this might be applicable to the management of the VLE and how it engaged students. But also because I had been wondering how easy/hard it was to set up and run and how content would differ from a standard approach. My reason for this was that I wondered whether it might be feasible to use an online pre-induction induction for students that either hadn’t had any exposure to the UK education system of who had been out of education for a period of time. I wondered if this might be a way to communicate some important information, upskill students in basic academic skills and share some key content and reading in advance of their starting their course. I felt that this might work for both the post and undergraduate courses in oil, gas and energy management. In part I wondered whether some of the basics might allow them to hit the ground running. I’m also a fan of open educational resources that can be of wider benefit and it could be a useful tool for promotion of the courses we offer.

So, Sarah’s course is for students that have been in professional practice as paramedics and are looking to top up to a degree. This module looks at pre-hospital emergency care and long term medical conditions. One aim of which is to break the cycle of contact and hospital admission though improved decision making. The participants are therefore experienced in their field, but haven’t necessarily studied for a long period of time.

Sarah takes a logical approach to the delivery of the module, using the natural life cycle as a framework for addressing each condition. While this may not be possible for all modules it is defiantly something that we should all consider in the time tabling of our delivery, not simply focus on when staff can deliver their quota of sessions. So for example in my 1st year module on electricity production it would be logical to start with how electricity is produced i.e. It’s different forms, then move onto chemical and mechanical reactions before covering transmission and distribution. At the moment the students cover the mechanics and then transmission, before covering the different forms of production. The latter could also be more logical in terms of renewable energy, starting with solar as this drives the majority of other renewable. Something like electricity is a flow and teaching should reflect this, rather than the fact that one lecturer needs to teach their area of expertise early in the term and another later in the term.

Sarah also ensure that, as students were not used to regular study, the information provided was timely and not overwhelming. Meaning that not everything was visible at once and there was a very clear distinction between what was critical and what was additional. No superfluous material was provided. This is important as I find when I provide several articles the students only ever read the first in the list. So I have to make sure that a) what I give them as a starter for 10 is important and b) I think about the order. Given that my students are in a slightly different position to Sarah’s I’m not a massive fan of prescription and narrowing down what they have to read. After all they are “reading” for a degree. However I think this approach would certainly help in their first year and help them overcome some of the anxiety about what to read and how to then expand on what I give them. We could very easily link this into the APT system too, with focus each session on things they’ve been asked to look at in class. At the moment in first year they are given additional reading. I wonder if the time would be better spent on getting them to read and focus on the material they need for their modules.

So next steps…having gone in with the idea of developing an online course that we could use of incoming students I’ve come away with so much more. I can apply what I saw Sarah do in my own Moodle pages, share this with others and thing more about what I give my students to read/review and in what format. As for the on-line pre-university course as an open resource….well that requires a lot more thought. How to do it, in terms of the format and content is easy. How to do it in terms of access, incentivisation, deployment and the time devoted to it are a whole other ball game. But a ball game I’d like to have a go at.