edwardwhite – Page 18

Politics Show on Junction11 Radio

3 September 20154 October 2019 By edwardwhite Comment Closed

Dr Alan Renwick, School of Politics, Economics and International Relations
Year of activity: 2014/15

Overview

DSC_0289 - Copy Our Teaching and Learning Development Fund (TLDF) award was used to fund the purchase of a laptop and recording equipment to help students in preparing materials for broadcast in the Politics Show on Junction11 Radio, the Reading University Students’ Union radio station. This facilitated learning activities that greatly boosted students’ self-confidence, engagement with politics, and transferable skills.

Objectives

Deepen students’ engagement with politics by creating a forum for them to discuss it on live radio.
Deepen students’ understanding of the role of media in politics through practice as well as academic learning.
Foster students’ self-confidence and their skills of research, communication, presentation, and audio editing.

Context

The hardest part in studying politics is often connecting what we learn through academic study with what is happening around the world today. The Politics Show and allied Media and Politics module are designed to facilitate that, as well as to foster a range of crucial transferable skills. The ability to record and edit material ahead of broadcast is essential, and our TLDF funding allows that.

Implementation

The Politics Show was broadcast every Tuesday evening during term throughout the year, between 7 and 8pm. Much of the show involves live studio conversation, but pre-recording some content allows us greatly to open up the range of material that we can include, and most shows have therefore involved at least some such content. We have, for example, included vox pops hearing the views of students around campus, recorded interviews with notable visitors to campus, recorded interviews away from campus with a range of political figures, and recorded material on location, including reviews of exhibitions at the British Museum and British Library. While most such material can now be recorded with a good quality smart phone, the equipment we were able to purchase through the TLDF gives the highest quality of recorded sound and ensures that all students have access to the means of recording and editing, even if they do not own the requisite equipment themselves.

Impact

The Politics Show has been a tremendous success: students who take part visibly grow in confidence and ability to communicate and in engagement with politics. In addition, anyone with access to a computer can listen to the show live or through our podcast edition, and many people do so, ensuring that the show helps advertise the University of Reading and the Department of Politics and International Relations – and the achievements and professionalism of our students – to the wider world. The show is a core element in the package that we promote to applicants during open days and visit days. Again, these opportunities require that the show’s quality be high, and our TLDF funding has helped ensure that.

Reflections

We regard the Politics Show and the associated Media and Politics module as a very clear success, which is due in large part to the energy that this activity has unleashed among our students. We plan some tweaks to aspects of the module that are not related to our TLDF funding in response to lessons learnt over the past year. But we see no reason for substantial changes to the Politics Show itself or the role of pre-recorded material in it. Our one frustration this year was that, for administrative reasons, we could not purchase our new equipment until late in the year, but we will be able to integrate it more fully into the show more continuously in 2015/16.

The show’s original host, Dr Alan Renwick, has now moved on from the University of Reading, and two new hosts – Dr Dawn Clarke and Dr Mark Shanahan – will therefore be taking over. Given that they will be new to this kind of activity, we do not plan to experiment much with innovations over the coming year, but further refinement and evolution of the format may take place thereafter.

Links

The archive of podcasts from the show is available here: http://www.reading.ac.uk/spirs/about/spirs-PoliticsShowPodcasts.aspx

Active learning methods for week intensive MSc modules

2 September 20154 October 2019 By edwardwhite Comment Closed

Dr Stefán Thór Smith, School of the Built Environment
s.t.smith@reading.ac.uk
Year(s) of case study activity: 2014-15

Overview

8977 Active learning methods were explored, and the Environmental Quality and Well-being module (CEM236EQW), a week intensive module offered by the School of the Built Environment, was amended to incorporate suitable active learning methods, improving student satisfaction and engagement.
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Open Access to Languages (OpAL) presented at The Twenty-second International Conference on Learning in Madrid by Enza Siciliano Verrucio and María Pilar Gray Carlos

31 July 20154 October 2019 By edwardwhite Comment Closed

The Twenty-second International Conference on Learning was held in Madrid on 9^th-11^th July 2015. It attracted over 300 delegates from the academic and professional arena across the world: Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, China, Colombia, Czech Republic, Finland, Greece, Hong Kong, Hungary, Iceland, Iran (Islamic Republic of), Ireland, Israel, Italy, Jamaica, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Philippines, Romania, Singapore, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Taiwan, Thailand, Turkey, UK, United Arab Emirates and USA.

The theme for this year’s conference was “What counts as learning? Big data, little data, Evidence & Assessment”, a title that covered 10 different themes: Pedagogy and Curriculum; Assessment and Evaluation; Education Organization and Leadership; Early Childhood Learning; Learning in Higher Education; Adult, Community, and Professional Learning; Learner Diversity and Identities; Technologies in Learning; Literacies Learning; Science, Mathematics and Technology Learning.

Under such a variety of themes, presentations offered a multifaceted, multicultural and multidisciplinary view on the latest projects and research undertaken around the world. The University of Reading was represented at this year’s conference by a project led by Dtt. Enza Siciliano Verruccio (Department of Modern Languages and European Studies) and Ms. Maria Pilar Gray Carlos (Institution Wide Language Programme).

The theme Technologies in Learning focused on exploring the influence and impact of technology on areas such as “human values: learning through and about technology”; “access to learning in, and about, the digital world”; “new tools for learning: online digitally mediated learning”; “ubiquitous learning”. This formed the perfect platform for Enza and Pilar to present their project on “OpAL: Open Access to Learning”, a project that commenced towards the end of 2013. The project was partly funded by Routes into Languages, the Teaching and Learning Development Fund from The University of Reading, the International Study and Language Centre and Partnership in Learning and Teaching also from the University of Reading.

Why OpAL?

The aim of OpAL is to break down barriers to learning modern foreign languages. In order to achieve that aim we count on involving our students actively in the creation of materials. The materials created will be in turn available to the student community in the form of OERs (Open Educational Materials). The idea of the project came as a response not just to the language tutors’ experiences in language teaching in the higher education classroom, but to a clearly perceived difficulty of learning a second language by the students. These perceptions are evident in a national survey shown below which was carried out by The Guardian on 1001 students aged 14 to24 years old across the UK.

(http://www.theguardian.com/education/2014/nov/07/-sp-do-young-people-care-about-learning-foreign-languages-data).

OpAL intends to encourage change in the UK language learner. It is inspired by two essential pillars of adult learning. The first is David Kolb’s learning theory (1984) on experiential learning or learning by doing. Our students explore areas of language on which they work to produce and test materials that at a later stage will be offered via the Web as OERs. The second is Alexander Astin’s and George Kuh’s work on Student Involvement (Astin, 1984; Kuh, 2009), that explores and explains how the involvement of students in co-curricular activities has a positive impact on student satisfaction and retention.

By engaging students in the OpAL project, they not only gain a deep learning of the subject studied, but they also become change agents in dispersing the fears and taboos related to language learning and, project an outward image that the higher education institutions are eager to portray: that of constructive change in the culture and nature of the relationship between students and the academic community within which they learn.

For further information on this year’s conference please visit http://thelearner.com/the-conference-2015/program-and-events/schedule-of-sessions.

If you are interested in attending or presenting at the Twenty-third International Conference on Learning, under the very suggestive theme of “Education in the Age of the Anthropocene” please visit http://thelearner.com/the-conference.

The PLanT Project and ‘Core Issues in English Language Teaching’ by Jess Fullam, Emily King, Daria Pominova and Megumi Kuranaka

29 July 20154 October 2019 By edwardwhite Comment Closed

PLanT stands for Partners in Learning and Teaching. The project allows students and teachers to work together in order to improve a module using a small pot of money to fund meetings, focus groups and equipment. As a small group four of us (Jess, Emily, Daria and Meg) worked with our lecturer Clare Wright in the Department of English Language and Applied Linguistics to make some improvements to the module ‘Core Issues in English Language Teaching’.

Why we decided to take part:

Jess

The PLanT project was a brilliant opportunity for me to put into practice what we had learnt in the module “Core Issues in ELT” as some aspects directly related to the thinking behind the improvements we formulated for the module. It has been a really interesting experience and I’m delighted to be able to make a lasting difference to benefit more students at the university.

Emily

I decided to take part in the PLanT project because after learning about teaching practices in the Core Issues module I was keen to put my learning into practice in a real setting and see how we could improve what was already a brilliant module.

Daria (from Germany)

I decided to take part in PLANT project after taking the course “Core Issues in ELT” and learning about different approaches to language teaching. As an exchange student from a country where a very different approach to teaching foreign languages is taken, I became interested in the modern techniques and methods of ELT and took the opportunity of putting them into practice straight away by introducing some changes to the CIELT module as part of the PLANT project. While participating in the project, I also learned a lot about the use of IT in a language classroom.

Meg (from Japan)

What made me enthusiastic about this project was that it can provide me with the precious opportunity to integrate different ideas to come up with a new curriculum. Taking one module about English language teaching before my joining the project, I was amazed by my professor and other students because they were interpreting the same subject in a totally different way. I imagined if those who had different backgrounds and opinions could cope with each other and combine their thoughts, a brilliant curriculum must be brought which would be reasonable for all students. In addition, the project can contribute to not only improving a module curriculum but also developing ourselves. During the project, I was always inspired and excited to hear other members’ voices which I really appreciated. What is more, considering what can be done to enhance students’ motivations and autonomies in the language class should make what we learnt in the module more realistic and progress my career. Through the project, I experienced what are required as a prospective English teacher and how enjoyable to engage myself in the language education.

The PLanT Process:

We met up on several occasions to discuss what we had enjoyed about the module and how we thought we could improve it. The course aims to provide a summary of the main teaching practices and how these are affected by different factors as well as discussing the role of the teachers and learners. The course itself ran with one lecture and a seminar where the lecture material was discussed and activities took place based on the previous learning.

To begin with we found it very difficult to think of a way to improve the module as we felt in many ways it was already excellent. We had all participated in the course and had really enjoyed the seminars and felt that the level of interaction planned in the seminar tasks could be really good, as it meant that we could really get involved and enhance our knowledge. The class itself was reasonably large and a mix of part 2s and 3s, and we could see that not everyone engaged fully with the tasks. So we wanted to find a way to check everyone’s learning progression that was engaging for everyone to enhance engagement and help students to build their skills. We concluded that by integrating more technology into the seminars, we could really improve interaction between the students and help them learn about how to include technology into presentations, vlogs or quizzes to provide them with the skills that employers are looking for. So Clare introduced us to the TEL team, part of Reading University’s enhanced IT support initiatives, which have been working with staff to include more IT in their teaching, to see what we could do for students.

Some of our original suggestions in this area included multiple choice tests with clickers in the seminars or small presentations using platforms like Camtasia (one of several platforms suggested to us by the TEL team). We also revised the structure of the module according to the relevance and importance of the topics. New tasks and types of group work were introduced in order to ensure active participation of the students and more interaction between them. The division of tasks between Part 2 and Part 3 students taking the course was discussed and how they could be encouraged to interact more in class. We held a focus group part way through the process in order to see how students felt about the changes we might make, and they were well received by all which allowed us to steam ahead with confidence to putting our plans into action.

In March we presented our work at the RUSU awards and received a very positive response from other members of staff and students. After this presentation we continued to have a further meeting with the TEL team to discuss other ways to integrate technology whilst having a bit of fun in seminars. Some of these suggestions included platforms like ‘Kahoot’ and ‘Nearpod’. The latter allows students to interact to questions on the board using their mobile phones or other mobile devices. We found that this was a fun and innovative option as a replacement for multiple choice clickers which had the potential to be expensive as well as technically difficult with regard to matching the software with what the university already has set up.

Therefore, after this experience we all felt that we have learnt volumes about ways to enhance teaching in the classroom with technology in a fun but informative manner and we are very grateful to the TEL team for that. We have all really enjoyed working towards this and are incredibly proud of what we have achieved and hope that at least some of our ideas about using IT in seminars will be well received by next year’s cohort of students.

How online reading lists can help academic, information and digital literacy development. By Dr Kim Shahabudin, Kerry Webb and Helen Hathaway

21 July 20154 October 2019 By edwardwhite Comment Closed

Online reading list systems can be seen as an easy win for the lazy student: ‘spoon-feeding’ them with the sources they need rather than encouraging them to develop their independent research skills. However, we believe that the new online reading list system at Reading will offer opportunities for tutors to boost their students’ independent skills at a number of levels.

– There will be benefits for the less able student by making it easier to find evaluated, recommended resources, avoiding the pervasive practice of ‘just Googling it’.

– There will be benefits for the more able student by making it possible to direct them to databases and other search strategies to train them in expanding their research.

– There will be benefits for all students in the capacity for tutors to add clear annotations for suggested use of sources and further reading.

– Tutors will be able to easily set exercises to advance and enhance student research skills, demonstrating good pedagogic practice and adding to learning outcomes for modules.

The online reading lists implementation project is well underway and Library staff have already uploaded 65% of the reading lists identified for Phase 1 of the project on to the system, ready for review and publication by module convenors. Training sessions are also being offered throughout the summer, to help familiarise you with the new system. If you would like to attend one of these, just let us know. Already training sessions have seen some exciting ideas suggested by tutors to make the most of the new system.

To show how the lists can help academic, information and digital literacy development, we have created an example list, which including a skills mapping note at the end of each section. We are aware that tutors at Reading are constantly involved in developing innovative teaching practices, and hope to keep sharing good practice and new ideas. Please do send any examples, case studies, or just off-the-cuff thoughts to Kerry Webb. We will collate them for further blog posts.

Internationalization: Assessing the Impact on Students By Dr Philippa Cranwell and Dr Elizabeth Page

26 June 20154 October 2019 By edwardwhite Comment Closed

In Autumn 2014, the Department of Chemistry welcomed their first cohort of final year students studying for the [3+1] BSc Applied Chemistry course from NUIST, China. By January, we could already see that there were some valuable lessons that we could learn from these students. We decided to carry out a review, asking all students involved for feedback on the year. So we could reward them for their time and input we applied for PLanT funding and were successful.

This PLanT project was in collaboration with Shuwen Ma (a student from NUIST), Kirsten Hawkins (a third year home student) and Amie Parker (a second year home student), all from the Department of Chemistry.

Aims and Method

Our objectives were to: (a) determine the impact of the cohort of students from NUIST on our current third-year home students; (b) find out what preconceptions our second-year students had; (c) determine the parts of the year the students from NUIST found the most challenging and what we could offer to support future students. In order to achieve this, we organised three separate working lunch sessions with each of the three peer groups (second year/third year home students and the NUIST students) led by the students named in the PLanT proposal. During these lunches there was a brain-storming session where students were asked their opinions on a variety of topics and then wrote their notes on giant post-its.

Results

This approach was extremely informative with regards to the home students. The students from NUIST were less forthcoming with information, so in the end in addition to the working lunch we sent them questionnaires that they returned anonymously.

Analysis of the results showed that there was one main overriding theme between all three cohorts, namely the importance of English language skills. In the case of the home students, the level of English was important from a day-to-day perspective. The second years, with whom the next cohort of NUIST students would be integrating in 2015/2016, were concerned that the NUIST students would not be able to communicate effectively therefore there would be minimal integration so classes might become segregated, something they wanted to avoid. The third year students who had experienced mixed classes with the NUIST student in 2014/2015 said that the language barrier was not an issue in lectures, but made things difficult in practical classes due to the communication required between students and staff.

The NUIST students themselves also said that language was an issue and that although they had learnt English in China and had fulfilled the University’s requirements for English, they struggled due to the big difference between day-to-day English speaking and the technical language required for completing the degree course. However, the students all agreed that the help offered by the ISLI was invaluable. The English courses in the Autumn term were extremely helpful and that their English skills and confidence had dramatically improved over the year.

Additionally the students from NUIST were very worried about their final examinations, even though part of their final year grade was based upon coursework. We attributed this to two main reasons; the first came down again to lack of confidence with the English language, and the second was the difference in the education systems between the UK and China.

Written examinations in China differ significantly from UK style exam questions. In the UK students are required to recall information and apply it in unfamiliar situations, whereas in China many exams involve simple knowledge recall. Throughout the year the Chinese students completed tutorial questions of a style similar to the examination questions at the end of the year, to prepare them for the different assessment approaches. Our international support tutor provided additional classes and made video recordings of lectures. The English language tutor analysed our exam command words and trained the NUIST students in understanding the different requirements of words such as ‘explain’, ‘describe’ and ‘analyse’. However, the students were still concerned that they would not understand the questions they were being asked and they would be slower at the exams due to the language barrier, so might run out of time. Although we had anticipated that English language would be a problem and had tried to put support mechanisms in place, such as translating key chemical vocabulary, we were not fully prepared for the impact of this.

Future work

The information we have gained from all year groups has been extremely useful and will definitely be used to help future cohorts of students settle into University life. In terms of new initiatives for next year, we will try to implement the following:

A “buddying system” where current third year students act as guides to the new NUIST students.
Additional exam-style questions for the students to use a practise once they are in the UK
Contribute UK style examination questions to examinations set and sat in China so students are better prepared for their examinations in Reading.
Organisation of laboratory classes to promote cross-cultural exchange but avoid handicapping home students.
A greater emphasis on the technical language required for chemistry
Informal drop-in sessions where students can come and ask for help if they need it

Interactive Web Pages help make MOOC a success by Dr Richard Mitchell

25 June 20154 October 2019 By edwardwhite Comment Closed

On June 15^th, Begin Robotics began – the second massive open online course (MOOC) from Systems Engineering running on the FutureLearn platform. One of its aims is to interest potential students in the areas of robotics, cybernetics, artificial intelligence and electronic engineering – following the success of Begin Programming, which we know has attracted students to do Computer Science at Reading.

A key novel feature of Begin Robotics is its use of interactive web pages both as exercises and to illustrate key principles – such as how a signal from a computer which can have a high or a low state only, can be used to set any integer speed from -40 to +40 using so called pulse width modulation. These pages build on work I have done and reported on the GRASS project blog:

http://blogs.reading.ac.uk/grass/blog/2015/01/30/screencasts-demonstrating-web-page-programs-for-tl/

There are two exercise pages each week, and those in the first week have proved to be very popular: for instance, Ed Ashby posted : “I thought the simulations were a fantastic way for distance learning, great to see instant results from our control inputs.” and Ann-Kristin Abel commented : “Great course so far! Loved the simulations, as they really help me understand the movement of a robot. Looking forward to next week.”

In the first exercise, the participants are shown a simulation of a two wheeled robot and have to enter the speeds of the motors driving each wheel. They then experiment with these working out how to make the robot move forward or turn at different speeds.

In the second exercise, they have to define what the speeds should be for each of four actions: going forward, turning to the left, to the right and going backwards, and they then command the robot to do each action, watching the robot move around the arena provided. Having done so, they select a race track in place of the arena, and have to steer the robot round it as quickly as possible.

: Second Exercise with the Race Track shown

To prepare for these exercises, I recorded screencasts explaining the tasks, demonstrating the web pages and for instance showing me steering the robot round the track in around 15 seconds.

There have been many enthusiastic posts responding to these web pages. These included one learner commenting that he had steered the robot round the track in about 12 seconds, but his six year old grandson had, after just three attempts, done it in only 7 seconds!

In addition, a teacher doing the course asked if these simulations could be made available outside the FutureLearn platform as he thought they would be useful for his key stage 3 and 4 students. This we are doing, so for instance the two exercises are available at

http://www.reading.ac.uk/UnivRead/vr/OpenOnlineCourses/Files/robot3.html

http://www.reading.ac.uk/UnivRead/vr/OpenOnlineCourses/Files/robot4.html

The demonstration of pulse width modulation is at

http://www.reading.ac.uk/UnivRead/vr/OpenOnlineCourses/Files/desmoPWM.html

Interactive page demonstrating pulse width modulation

Although it has required much effort to first produce these web pages, and then to make them compatible with the FutureLearn platform, the very positive reaction to them from learners and FutureLearn is very encouraging, so the concept could be utilised both in other MOOCs as well as in other teaching.

The two Systems Engineering MOOCs, which are both running in June 2015, and which will run again later this year associated with the BBC’s Make it Digital campaign this summer, can be found at

https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/begin-robotics

https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/begin-programming

Working in partnership… by Dawn Willoughby

23 June 20154 October 2019 By edwardwhite Comment Closed

With ever-increasing speed it seems we have reached that time of year again when teaching is finished, exam results are calculated and our thoughts start to turn from the current academic session to planning for the next one. This offers some time to reflect on successes and think about the areas of teaching where we would like to make changes. The “stand-out” feature of my module portfolio in 2014-15 has been the increased level of working in partnership with colleagues to teach and support our undergraduate students. Six of the seven modules I delivered this year were co-taught, an approach which has brought some challenges and plenty of rewards.

… with PhD students

In the Henley Business School, I am fortunate to work each year with a small team of PhD students who are responsible for supporting the delivery of lecture material in Statistics through weekly tutorials for undergraduates. This partnership provides an important opportunity for PhD students to strengthen their transferable skill set and become more effective facilitators; I have seen them gain a clearer understanding of pedagogy and an increased level of confidence. Similarly, there are benefits here for our undergraduates: they receive more individualised support for their taught course and they can also gain an appreciation of how their learning relates to the research undertaken in the School. And for myself, my motivation is improved by the enthusiasm of the PhD students and their “get-involved” attitude towards the programme delivery.

… with industry-based professionals

For my module in the School of Systems Engineering, there can be no doubt that engaging with IT professionals enhances the employability skills of our undergraduate students. In this case, the programme involves a group-based web development project for which employees of a local web design company act as the client. Developing this working relationship over the past few years has provided an extra dimension to my teaching. In recent discussions it has become clear that the company also values their involvement: “It offers an opportunity to gain skills and experience that simply would not be available to most of our staff members in their usual roles within the business. It has also afforded us an opportunity to give something back to the community by sharing our expertise – something we feel strongly about.”

Engaging in team-based teaching presents challenges especially in maintaining seamless delivery and providing consistent information to students. Sometimes there can also be logistical and communication problems associated with bringing together a diverse set of people with different working practices and other research-based or commercial objectives. However, all of these difficulties can be overcome when an inclusive environment is created in which open discussion is encouraged. From my experience, I have also learnt the importance of devising and sharing formal documentation to ensure consistency in assessment and provision of feedback to students.

When I first started working at the University, I expected teaching in higher education would be a rather solitary experience providing very little opportunity for interaction with colleagues. Ten years later, I can testify that this is certainly not the case as I work on a variety collaborative teaching and learning projects with colleagues from several Schools and Departments. It may be true that team-based teaching requires some additional commitment and effort but in my opinion this approach can bring benefits to University staff and students, and to external partners. And so, as planning gets underway for the next cohort of students, I would encourage consideration of team-based teaching as an option for module delivery.

Education online en-masse: Lessons for teaching and learning through MOOCs by Clare Wright, Clare Furneaux and Liz Wilding

15 June 20154 October 2019 By edwardwhite Comment Closed

On 24 April, 2015: 40 academic educators from 19 institutions came together to discuss key issues in MOOC design and implementation. The one-day workshop, hosted and funded by the University of Reading, a leading member of the FutureLearn MOOC consortium, offered the opportunity to evaluate practical lessons in designing and delivering MOOCs, particularly in relation to academic skills development. The focus was on problem-based discussion of approaches to teaching and learning and of the extent to which MOOC learning outcomes can be defined, measured, or achieved.

There were four presentations, each of which explored a particular issue related to the central theme, followed by group discussion around questions suggested by the presenters.

Dimensions of MOOCs: Shirley Williams (University of Reading) gave us an overview of some MOOC statistics and taxonomies, and highlighted some MOOC issues viewed from the ‘outside’ and from the provider’s view. As follow-up, she asked us to extend her list of MOOC dimensions, discuss how we should be measuring success, and consider whether and how we should compare courses.
Pedagogy as a service: lessons and challenges from the perspective of the platform: David Major from FutureLearn led us through some key lessons – and challenges – and asked us to discuss two major questions: Are MOOCs platforms for content and courses, or platforms for learning and pedagogy? How can we coalesce individualism from the view of courses, platform, educators and learning?
Repurposing MOOCs for language learning purposes: Liam Murray (University of Limerick) shared the results and recommendations of a team who evaluated a number of MOOCs to determine their potential to be repurposed for second language acquisition. Liam suggested that we consider two aspects of MOOCs in our groups: specialisation and adaptability.
Designing assessed group work for MOOCs: Marion Waite, Elizabeth Lovegrove and Abigail Ball (Oxford Brookes University) shared their experience with group work on the TOOC15 MOOC. They proposed we discuss why we assess in a MOOC and how we should do it. They also had us consider the issues and practical challenges associated with grouping students and peer review.

It’s hard to summarise the lively and far-ranging discussions that took place, but the round-table at the end of the day (shown in the picture above) helped establish some key lessons learned, some useful tips, and challenges to explore further.

Some lessons learned:

There is a longish history of en-masse online learning behind MOOCS (starting with Usenet groups), so it’s important to avoid re-inventing the wheel.
Initial MOOC-hype is dying down, but interest is still growing, as seen in takeup of repeat MOOCs.
MOOC measurement is best avoided, especially if superficial, e.g. if they are only about numbers signing up
MOOCs are a good way of marketing – a shop window – so need institutional support.
The learners you get may not the ones you expected, so keep assessing your learning goals.

Best practice tips from the day:

Keep your eyes open , e.g. educators can benefit from enrolling on other MOOCs as learners.
Keep talking to each other. It’s important to have Communities of Practice.
MOOCS should draw on best practice in T&L. Let pedagogy lead!

MOOCs – where next?

‘The walls of the institution are coming down to the level of the learners’ – there will be an opening up of practice in range and aims of MOOCs.
Types of MOOC will include:
- Tasters for University courses
- Retirees taking MOOCS for interest/enjoyment
- MOOCs embedded in f2f courses (eg basic Maths)
A lot could be presented as REF case studies, so reliable research context is vital.
MOOCS will get more specific/specialised as the market place gets more crowded…
but there will still be value in ‘Introductions to….’ MOOCs.
There will be more mixed x- and c-MOOCs.
There will be more training/professional MOOCs, but many people will still do academic MOOCs for enjoyment.
MOOCS will get better at delivering pedagogic aims.
There will be a wider range of stakeholders (e.g. employers).
Do MOOCs need to be assessed? If so, assessment must be paid for.
How can participants demonstrate what they have learned in non-traditional forms of assessment?

Overall, the workshop allowed presenters and delegates to share questions and lessons learned, and to consider how to take forward best practice in online en-masse learning. We very much hope to keep the dialogue going in the future.

Feedback from delegates:

‘Inspiring!’ ‘Constructive.’

‘Definitely worth travelling 600 miles for.’

PLanT Project: TypoResources by Peter Loveland, Melissa Towriss, Hannah Tollett

11 June 20154 October 2019 By edwardwhite Comment Closed

Intro

URL: http://peterloveland.com/development/plant/

The PLanT project is a University funded programme that is designed to get students involved with the design and delivery of strategies regarding teaching and learning. If an application is successful, the group is rewarded £500 to see the project through.

We as a group, applied for one of these grants, using the idea of a web-based learning resource for the typography department, and were successful with this application.

Proposal/Application

Our application was based around the fact that we collectively do a lot of online research in relation to many aspects of our course, for example, learning software, or getting design tips. Currently our department is lacking in any such centralised bank of resources, and we felt that it would be useful for subsequent year groups to have something like this. We therefore created a questionnaire that asked other undergraduates on our course opinions on the current provision of resources and communication methods within the department. Below asked the questions we asked…

From the questionnaire, we learned that students felt like the department relies heavily on social media, because students opinions of BlackBoard is less than complimentary. The other main result of this questionnaire, was discovering that students were strongly in favour of an online resource bank. This therefore became the foundation for our proposal and the rest of the project.

Process

Discussion of ideas

With the funding in place, we met to discuss the preliminary research that we had attained, revisiting these results from the questionnaire, to work out what exactly would be useful for the department. As the research outlined, students seemed in favour of having the online resource bank. We therefore compiled a list of ideas of what we felt this system should have and be able to do. Ideas included:

a provision for submitting work for feedback
anonymous questioning to department staff
a bank of good previous work, curated by lecturers
a bank of resources
a collaborative online working space.

Research

After discussions with departmental staff, and our supervisor for the project, it became apparent that due to department rules, it would be better to refine the ideas into one more focussed, ‘online resource’, that performed the following tasks (condensing some of the ideas above):

Examples of previous student work
A collation of internet based design resources
A collation of user created resources (both by staff and students)
We proposed the above online resource to other students on the course to gain feedback, and further our ideas. The general idea was received very positively. During this research phase, we were given access to BlackBoard, to determine the limitations, and capabilities of the resource, so that we were able to not only make something that does things BlackBoard is unable to, but also not designing a system that simply replicates aspects of BlackBoard.

Response to research

With all the prior research and market research in mind, we began to design the system. From research, we realised that one of the main problems with the previous methods of handling information, i.e. Facebook and BlackBoard, was that the navigation and user interface was not specifically tailored to what we wanted it to do. We looked at existing methods of navigating information heavy websites, such as Pinterest, observing their filtering system. We felt that this system, which uses a collection of ‘visual cards’ would be an extremely efficient and successful method for our new system.

We began wireframing based on these ideas:

We made the system capable of browsing resources through different facets, such as course modules, but also through more specific key word searches. Once these wireframes were established, we developed the website, integrating it with WordPress so that we could easily manage and search the resources, using it to rapidly accelerate the development process. With the first prototype in place we began user testing.

Using the money from the grant of £500, we set up a focus group where we could interview undergraduates from the department. We spent £70 on food and drinks to help entice students to take part. The focus group asked students to have a look through the website which we had created, we asked them some questions after giving them a chance to explore it themselves.

The responses from the students were very positive and they also provided us with some more feedback. We also got staff to try out the system who were able to provide feedback from their perspective. Staff suggested that they would like to see the option of navigating the system via different categories rather than specifically across year groups in order to make the system more useful for the course.

Our lecturers were impressed with the work we had done to aid the teaching and learning resources for future years and are excited to see continual development and for the site to be live. It was at this point, that the name of the resource bank should be typo resources to encompass it within existing services provided by the department.

Presenting our system

After the focus group we attended a presentation where we discussed what our project was and why we wanted to do it. More importantly for us, it was a chance to present our hard work. We created a keynote that explained the research and the process that we employed during the project. The presentation took place in 3sixty, the centre of campus, in front of around 100 people, most of whom were members of University staff. This was a great opportunity and again, we received a positive response from the audience.

Next steps

Unfortunately as we are graduating this year we are unable to continue developing this system. However, because the PLanT scheme involves our supervisor, and is for our course, the department is backing the continued development. This means our next step is to recruit other students who are as passionate about this project as we are.

Reflections

Through participating in the PLanT scheme project we gained valuable experience in team work and research of user experience. We benefitted from discussion and collaboration with department staff, particularly our supervisor Jeanne-Louise Moys, which helped us to gain an understanding of the system and practices as they currently exist, as well as to gain useful insight into the considerations of staff.

Such a unique project came with its own challenges and rewards. Our work on the presentation, although very well received, did have some setbacks, in terms of coordinating the demonstration of the live system on a large-scale screen with all equipment located off-stage. We may have benefited from more practice or potentially creating a short video of the system in use that could have been used. Through this experience of presenting work to a large audience, however, we have gained useful experience of public speaking and organisation. There was also the issue of justifying the creation of a system that could have been seen as overlapping with the provision of Blackboard, so we worked hard to ensure that what we were creating offered ‘unique selling points’ that would be of value to students within the department, and more widely applicable throughout the university when developed further.

Being given the opportunity to work on something that will benefit students in further years has been a very rewarding experience for the whole group. We are proud to have worked on something that will remain after we have graduated, with the potential to improve students’ experience of communication and independent learning, especially as department staff and other students can be involved in developing and refining the idea further.