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Centre for Quality Support and Development | The University of Reading

Category: Employability

Embedding Employability Through Collaborative Curriculum Design

By edwardwhite Comment Closed

Embedding Employability Through Collaborative Curriculum Design

Name/School/ Email address

Amanda Millmore / School of Law / a.millmore@reading.ac.uk

Overview

This is a practical case study focusing upon the process of carrying out a collaborative partnership project with students to embed employability attributes into a trailblazing new module option for 2019/20 LW3CFS: Children, Families and the State.  This module is unique in that it is the first to embed employability attributes and skills within the module design. This project built upon previous work within the School of Law, which identified (by working with multiple stakeholders - students, staff and employers) 11 key employability attributes of a Reading Law graduate.

Not only do we now have a module with employability attributes built-in, but the student partners have gained a range of employability skills themselves by virtue of their involvement in the process. The student partners co-designed the module assessments, ran the student focus groups and presented the project at a number of national teaching and learning conferences this year. PLanT project funding was awarded and used to provide refreshments for focus groups and to enable students to travel to conferences to disseminate the project.

Objectives

I identified 3 key challenges that the project aimed to address:

  • Employability - how to equip students with the skills and attributes to succeed in employment.
  • Curriculum Design - how to embed those graduate employability attributes into a module.
  • Student Engagement and Collaboration - how to work effectively with students in partnership.

Context

In Law the professional pathways to careers are changing, with new routes opening up for vocational post-graduate and non-graduate training. These changes are raising questions for university law schools as to how much they should be focusing upon more practical and vocational skills.

My colleague Dr. Annika Newnham and I wanted to develop a new final year module, covering a discrete area of family law, closely allied to the kind of work that students may encounter in their early years of legal practice, with assessments mapped to legal employability skills. The brief was to design assessments for this new module which were mapped to legal employability skills and I looked to see how I could incorporate the student voice within the design process, deciding to engage them in the project as collaborative partners.

Implementation

Evaluation

Student views of their involvement in focus groups and as part of the core partnership group were sought throughout the project. All felt that this was a positive experience and welcomed the partnership and mapping of employability attributes.

Evaluation of the effectiveness of embedding employability into the module will be considered during the course of the running of the module. In addition to explicitly highlighting the attributes within the course materials and teaching, I intend to get the students to self-evaluate their awareness of and confidence in displaying the attributes at the start and again at the end of the module. I am also considering ways to utilise the assessed evaluative report to encourage reflection upon employability attributes. If the students will permit, I would also be interested to maintain contact with the students post-graduation to follow-up whether these skills have assisted them in their further study and careers.

Impact

Employability: The student partners have all developed employability skills from their involvement, in particular improved confidence, communication skills and leadership skills. These skills have been highlighted most through the opportunities that they have had to disseminate the project at national conferences.The wider student body has increased awareness of employability attributes.

Curriculum Design: The new module LW3CFS Children, Families and the State has student-designed assessments with employability attributes clearly mapped to them. Students involved have gained a greater understanding of the process of module design. The students acknowledged that this was a way for their opinions to be listened to, and for them to influence their own university experience, “University can be a very impersonal experience - it is always good to feel that your voice is being heard and that you can make an active impact on uni life and module development” (focus group participant). The module is oversubscribed in 2019/20 and is operating a waiting list. The high level of student interest (approximately 20% of the cohort have selected the module, which is significant given the rather niche subject area) is indicative of the support by students for the nature and timing of the assessments and an implicit endorsement of the staff-student partnership process.

Student Engagement & Collaboration: Students feel that they have been listened to, and been treated as true equitable partners in the process which embodies the University of Reading’s “Principles of Partnership” (2019). This has created greater feelings of community and power-sharing within the School of Law. The equitable nature of the power-sharing between staff and students was fundamental to the success of the project. This experience has been transformative for me as an academic, seeing how positively these students relished the challenge of collaboration, and became true partners in co-designing assessments. It has inspired me to look to other areas of my teaching practice to consider how I can partner with students to improve the student experience and student support in addition to classic teaching and learning activities.Students are interested in extending this trailblazing process to other modules, and colleagues and I are looking at expanding it to programme level.

Student Feedback: The following quotes are reflections from the student partners on the project:

"With all the discussions, I gained knowledge about the employability skills (communication, team work, problem solving, planning and organising, self-management, learning, research and analysis and the list goes on) and will take active actions to try to improve those skills in the future. I think I gained a lot of experience in involving in this project that I can put into practice into future projects or career as well."

"I am really looking forward and excited to learn about this module that I helped create. I think the School should definitely use this approach more often on other modules as a lot of the time when students are not satisfied/happy about how a module (or lecturer) we do not have much chance to voice out our opinions and make changes, so it is a good way to avoid that situation fundamentally. As students are likely to go into law practice after graduating, it is important to not only have essay or written examinations (that do not reflect real life law practice) as assessments. It’s really different to be good in examinations and to be good in practice."

Reflections

When I presented this project at the Advance HE conference in July 2019 I emphasised my 4 step plan for successful staff-student partnerships:

The partnership can relate to a discrete area of a project (in our case this was in relation to assessment design), and this fits well with Bovill’s (2017) ladder of participation. Once the boundaries of the project are clear, then it is vital to take a step back and relinquish control.

By keeping the student-staff partnership limited to a discrete area of module design (assessments) the boundaries were clear, and students could be given greater control. The key message is that equality of arms is vital, all viewpoints need to be welcomed and considered with no obvious staff-student hierarchy.

The limitations of the project were that it was focusing upon the modular level, rather than anything broader, so its impact is limited to that module, although the goodwill that it has generated amongst our students extends far beyond this single module.

A staff-student partnership needs to be approached with an equality of arms, so that all viewpoints are welcomed and considered, with no obvious hierarchy. As my student partner when presenting at the Advance HE conference said “For me personally as a student, you’re very much stuck in this kind of limbo where you’re not quite respected as an adult, but you’re not a child either...I’m an adult but not as respected as I would like to be in a professional environment. I wasn’t treated like that, I was treated as a complete equal and had the chance to run with my ideas, which was really important to me.”

Follow up

The module is due to run for the first time in 2019/20 for Final Year students in the School of Law.

My current plans for follow-up relate to the following areas:

  1. Further evaluation of the effectiveness of embedding employability attributes into a module (see evaluation section above).
  2. Consideration of better ways to highlight the employability attributes, for example by badging them (opening up possibilities for inter-disciplinary collaborations with creative colleagues and students.
  3. The success of this staff-student partnership has highlighted how this process could be scaled up to programme level within the School of Law. This is particularly in the light of reviews of the LLB programme within the context of the University of Reading’s Curriculum Framework review process and with an eye to the forthcoming changes to the professional vocational training at postgraduate level for lawyers. One of the challenges will be how we can widen and diversify the range of students in future curriculum design partnerships.

TEF

TQ1-5, SO1-3.

Links and references

ADVANCE HE 2016. Framework for embedding employability in higher education. Available from: https://www.heacademy.ac.uk/knowledge-hub/framework-embedding-employability-higher-education.

ADVANCE HE 2016. Framework for student engagement through partnership. Available from: https://www.heacademy.ac.uk/sites/default/files/downloads/student-enagagement-through-partnership-new.pdf.

BOVILL, C. 2017. A Framework to Explore Roles Within Student-Staff Partnerships in Higher Education: Which Students Are Partners, When, and in What Ways?  International Journal for Students As Partners,  1 (1). https://doi.org/10.15173/ijsap.v1i1.3062, 1.

HEALEY, M., FLINT, A & HARRINGTON, K. 2014. Students as Partners in Learning & Teaching in Higher Education [Online]. York: Higher Education Academy. [Viewed on 1 July 2019] Available from: https://www.heacademy.ac.uk/knowledge-hub/engagement-through-partnership-students-partners-learning-and-teaching-higher.

ArtLab

By edwardwhite Comment Closed

Artlab

Name/School/ Email address

Tina O’Connell / Art / t.oconnell@reading.ac.uk

Overview

ArtLab is a dedicated art and technology facility that supports Outreach and Widening Participation, by bringing a wide range of children from across different social backgrounds into contact with cutting edge art and technology projects that are co-delivered with Undergraduate Art students (as student co-researchers). Underlying this idea are a set of core educational values concerning the deeper understanding of computing, digital media and new technologies that will form part of a vibrant cultural and economically viable society both today and in the future. The impact on our students derives from the experiences they gain in the delivery of numerous workshops with Primary and Secondary schools as well as a range of other public institutions over the last 4 years (see below). Further to this, the intention is to share knowledge and experience in order to provide a focus for other University of Reading department’s initiatives in this area.

Objectives 

  • To work with undergraduate co-researchers, who learn about a wide range of cutting-edge art and technology projects and co-deliver art-based pedagogic workshops to children from across different social backgrounds.
  • To enable our student co-researchers to understand their potential role as educators, and the value that art brings when combined with developing skills in technology, including offering potential careers within the fastest growing sector in the UK, the creative economy.
  • To encourage these co-researcher students to share their positive experiences with WP schools, helping a shift in mind set from STEM to STEAM (including Arts) and opening up this area to help pupils develop academic and practical skills that are not currently taught in mainstream schools.
  • To introduce pupils from State schools to University contexts through direct experiences with our co-researchers who are frequently students of similar backgrounds.

Context

Within the current educational context (and despite the global acclaim and economic success of the UK Creative Economy) Art and associated disciplines are increasingly de-prioritised or excluded from school curricula; and Art and Science/technology are presented as separate (or mutually exclusive) spheres of study. As such Art and our art students whilst being some of the most sought-after graduates are increasingly positioned as studying a non-essential subject and Arts subjects are increasingly inaccessible to children from State schools.

Implementation

Artlab was set up in 2013 to address these issues and has subsequently organised over 100  workshops, school visits, open days and other events at Primary and Secondary schools and Public institutions such as the Tate and MERL with our student co-researchers.

For instance, in this last academic year (2017-18) Artlab delivered workshops to 29 primary schools involving co-researchers, around 870 children by working closely with 52 teachers and teaching assistants. If we include Reading Scholar, Stellar Projects MERL, Reading International, Tate Exchange and other WP workshops ArtLab co-researchers engaged with over 4,800 potential beneficiaries in the process. One part of a range of the planned activities being coordinated at this time is Tate Exchange, a dynamic public engagement programme that will be central to the public facing activity of Artlab and for educating our students to the nature and reach of social practice. Spearheaded by Artlab, this represents the opportunity for our co-researchers; Reading students, as well as the Stellar Project team (children from Maiden Erleigh School) and our Reading Scholar Students (external A level students) who work with us at Tate on new projects that engage with the idea of ‘production’ – in particular drawing on the ideas and approaches that we have successfully pursued to date – art and technology.

 Impact 

  • ArtLab was nominated and shortlisted for Reading Cultural Award.
    Artlab is a partner of Reading International, which has received financial support from Arts Council of England.
  • ArtLab has helped MERL and READING MUSEUM in its application to ACE to become an NPO, securing £8,000 per year for 3 years delivering Arts MARK for ArtLab.
  • Providing teaching experience/mentoring for our Reading students – or co-researchers, as well as iReading Scholars, by inducting them into use of new technologies.
  • Co-researchers are supported in how to conceive, deliver and part take in workshops, and this has an impact on their future carer choices and their skills base within the creative economy.
  • The ArtLab  Placement is a 20-credit module (as part of ArtMark NPO successful, bid see above) this year there are 3 students on the module delivered by ArtLab. In association with Christ the King Primary School (CKP) Maiden Erlegh East (MEE) Secondary School, MERL and Reading Museum.
  • Summer Workshops over 24 days in June and July each year, ArtLab works with 10 local WP Primary Schools in Berkshire, UK. Including undergraduates, postgraduates, lecturers, teachers and school students working as co-researchers.
  • ArtLab’s PhD Student Outreach the University funds a fees only PhD student

Reflections

There continues to be strong evidence in our evaluation to indicate that the activity has led to deeper forms of engagement by our students, as well as an increase in applications to the University. The evidence can be seen as effective in respect of students across a range of skills, and interests. The success has exceeded our aims in terms of its effects, with much of our success evident in shifts to the success of progression of our students and their impact on cultures and values being developed in primary schools, that that then help shift attitudes in Secondary School pupils. This was an effective approach as pupils resist pressure to drop Art. In this respect this shift in attitudes increases both our students and associated pupils confidence in undertaking degrees in which they can see clear career prospects relating to creative and analytical skills as outlined. For the University, this has explained in part the uptake of some pupils in studying for joint honours degrees, providing further evidence of their value to admissions.

Follow Up 

We will continue our approach which has proven to be successful and attracted very considerable support and recognition including further funding from across the University and from independent organisations such as the Arts Council of England.

TEF

TQ1 LE1 SO1 LE2 S02 LE3 SO3 TQ5

Links
https://readingartlab.com/

Communicating Ancient Sport

By peteandrews Comment Closed

Barbara Goff     School of Humanities     b.e.goff@reading.ac.uk

Overview

In my Part 2 module ‘Ancient Sport’ I offer students a choice between a traditional essay and an ‘outreach project’, which requires them to communicate an aspect of ancient sport to a non-academic audience, perhaps for schools or for the general public.

Objectives

  • To develop students’ communication skills in an attractive way
  • To diversify assessment in a relevant way (I first taught the module in an Olympics year)
  • To foster students’ sense of their own employability by developing a range of skills.
  • To engage students more fully in an assessment that draws on creativity and imagination.
  • I also hoped that students would have fun with the assessment, which they definitely have done.

Context

The module ‘Ancient Sport’ investigates Ancient Greek and Roman sporting activities with a focus on relating these to concepts of gender, desire, citizen identity, political power, and empire.  The histories of art, architecture and engineering are also important.  Amy Smith, the Curator of the Ure Museum, suggested the outreach project when I started planning the new module.  I consulted with other colleagues in Study Advice, and the then Teaching and Learning Dean, in order to design the assessment effectively.   I monitored the success of the outreach project via evaluations and discussion with students as well as via assessing the work itself, and recursively amended rubric and feedback sheet in order to communicate what students needed to do, and to guide their practice by clarifying criteria.

Implementation

Each outreach project has to be accompanied by a commentary on a relevant ancient text, a bibliography of secondary literature, and a reflective essay.   I start talking to the students about the assessment choices at the beginning of term.  Towards the end of term, students discuss their chosen project with me and get some feedback on how it is developing.   The module includes a workshop on outreach communications, run by Kim Shahabudin, a colleague from Study Advice, and we share with the students the specific rubric and feedback form which I have developed to address the various elements of the assessment.  We also situate the assessment in the context of employability, pointing towards the importance of being able to reflect on one’s own work, as well as stressing research and communication skills.

Impact

The outreach project assessment has been very successful, with many evaluations picking it out as a strength of the module.  In informal conversations, it has become clear that students understand the link with employability, e.g. with their ambitions towards teaching, journalism or museum work. Over the years students have produced work such as videos both educational and entertaining, board games, museum trails, short stories, comics and magazines.  I have been impressed by the effort, imagination, humour and creativity that students have put into their work, and also by their ability to reflect on their achievements, any limitations of their projects, and the decisions that they had to make along the way.  I have been particularly gratified when students who have struggled with the traditional essay, for a variety of reasons, have found an assessment activity in which they can really shine.  We have used several projects on Open Days and in workshops for local schools.

Reflections

What has mainly contributed to the success of this activity is simply the effort and commitment of the students, and I am very glad to have elicited such good work.  This activity has also been very well supported by colleagues in Study Advice and in the Ure Museum, for which I am grateful.  The activity has required me to rethink things like assessment criteria and rubrics, which I have found useful overall in my teaching.

Follow up

I find it very productive to approach assessment as a way of fostering employability and a variety of skills.  As Departmental Director of Teaching and Learning I am keen for the Department to continue to extend such opportunities for students to engage with a variety of assessment.  I have given extra publicity to our Independent Project module, which offers an alternative to the dissertation.  Although I shall rest ‘Ancient Sport’ for a while, I shall develop a creative writing assessment in a Part 3 module.  We are going to investigate the transformations of the figure of Helen of Troy, across different literary genres and periods, and students will have the opportunity to produce their own version of Helen, in poetry, short story, script, or other text.  Reflection as well as research will be a significant part of this assessment.

 

Refreshing Professional Practice

By edwardwhite Comment Closed

Refreshing our professional practice module

Name/School/ Email address

James Lloyd / ACD (Typography) /  j.c.lloyd@reading.ac.uk

Overview 

In 2017/18 we reviewed and revamped our flagship professional practice scheme known as ‘real jobs’. The impacts include: a significant increase in the number of students regularly attending feedback sessions and engaging with the process; a large number of highly presentable concluding reflective reports from students; a reduced impact on staff resource due to better management of information and processes; and greater level of clarity among the student body about the existence and benefits of the scheme.

Objectives

  • Boost student engagement
  • Embed contemporary workflows
  • Streamline assessment and feedback
  • Centralise information and information management
  • Initiate a briefing session for all students, for the first time
  • Generate more competent (and compelling) outcomes. Our new blog at typography.network/real-jobs collects students reflective reports on these projects
  • Increase student exposure to industry professionals
  • Give feedback as jobs are completed, rather than right at the end of the course
  • Provide students with personal, engaging stories to tell on job applications and at interviews

Context

This work is part of TY3PRP on our BA Graphic Communication course. The genesis of these changes came from a sense that the current system was stretched due to increasing student numbers and lack of staff time. We needed to centralise and standardise more procedures in order to free up most staff to function better in their primary role (as design supervisors) and leave issues relating to project management, industry practice and print production to new staff members with a more dedicated set of roles (specifically in professional print production and professional design management). We also sought to address the fact that Real Jobs had never been fully integrated into the modular system on which the University now runs, making it an outlier in many areas (including assessment, timetabling and briefing) and thus causing confusion to students.

Implementation

Surfacing the issues

The project was initiated following detailed discussion with Rob Banham, our DDTL, based on his experience of running the Real Jobs scheme for around a decade. We also took advantage of the training and techniques offered on the University’s Academic Practice Programme (which Geoff Wyeth and I participated in for 18 months) to assess, flesh out and test Rob’s analysis of the issues. It became clear the scheme was characterised by lack of clarity (with no real assessment criteria or workflow) and lack of student engagement (with the keenest students always doing well, but the majority shying away from the scheme). It also felt excessively manual in its admin – reliant on the generosity of staff time, rather than robust processes.

Planning for professionalisation

Over Summer 2017 I planned a new process, taking in feedback and concerns from a wide range of staff and students, trying to address a wide variety of issues and encode solutions into:

  • A Filemaker database of jobs, clients and students (for staff admin use only)
  • A Trello online project management board (used by supervisors and students). The board acts as a contract, a step-by-step process and a live project management tool, mirroring many aspects of life as a professional designer
  • A blackboard organisation – so the scheme has a VLE for the first time
  • A new annual briefing session for all Part 1 students, late in the year
  • A revised format for weekly Real Job meetings
  • A new rubric, mapped to new assessment criteria

Launch

We launched formally in Autumn term 2017, with most of the tools in-place.

In order to get all students up to speed, we ran the induction briefing session for all three year groups. The induction was crucial to the success of these changes. By bringing in staff, graduates and potential clients, we carry all students through a model for the new process over a two-hour session. They experience a dry run of the whole thing, and hear reflections from students and clients who’ve already been through it. The goal is to bring active awareness to the scheme and its process, so that when they attack projects for real, the barriers feel reduced.

Impact

The outcome is an entirely new process, much more tightly focused on student understanding, user needs and a more engaging and defined set of tasks – while still allowing students to explore projects in their own way.

Attendance at Real job meetings has gone from an average of around 9 students per week to something more like 30 or 40. A increased calibre of discussion has also been noted by staff.

Final reports have been transformed into more professional, thoughtful, meaningful and marketable blog posts.

Assessment is simpler. More time consuming, but more thorough, and clearer.

Higher throughput of jobs.

Students who DON’T wish to pursue a career as a professional designer now have a parallel route, through Experiential Learning Assignments that let them write about design rather than practice it.

Reflections

The changes work because there has been a top-to-tail review with solutions carefully targeted across a range of goals. Most of these solutions are working as expected, though there is room for improvement

As a Department we still lack the resources to truly ensure that all students and all jobs stay on track. We have more visibility and better insights, but process steps can be skipped without immediate remedy.

The assessment process is more involved than planned, and is not yet happening as jobs are completed, but still at the end of each year.

It’s hard to measure the impact on employability.

Only a few students take advantage of the offer of a thorough pre-press check on their work.

Follow Up 

We have continued to refine assessment criteria and rubric style, in an effort to simplify things for staff and students.

ELAs (which let students get credit for non-design aspects of their studies) are being rolled out slowly.

A module review is needed to assess whether students are entirely satisfied with the way the scheme runs. Anecdotal evidence suggest some students still find the prospect of these projects daunting, and they find ways to avoid engagement.

TEF

LE2, SO1, LE3

Links

http://typography.network/real-jobs-scheme/

http://typography.network/about-real-jobs/

https://www.bb.reading.ac.uk/webapps/blackboard/execute/announcement?method=search&context=course&course_id=_130257_1&handle=cp_announcements&mode=cpview (login required)

 

Embedding employment in the curriculum: the MSci graduate showcase!

By peteandrews Comment Closed

Tamara Wiehe     School of Psychology and Clinical Language Sciences     t.wiehe@reading.ac.uk

Overview

Students on our programme – MSci Applied Psychology (Clinical) – are training to become qualified Psychological Wellbeing Practitioners (PWPs) so employment is naturally embedded in the curriculum. However, the existing career development session was originally designed for students on the postgraduate course so it required some adaptation for undergraduates. This is where the MSci Graduate Showcase event came in! I organised and facilitated a 45-minute ‘speed dating’ type event where our previous students who are employed in a range of roles in clinical psychology came to share their experiences and support our current students with their career development.

Objectives

  • To learn about a wide range of career options within clinical psychology from MSci graduates.
  • To consider the steps to put in place during Part 4 that will help students work towards their chosen career path.
  • Encourage networking between graduates and current students.

Context

Aspects of the original career development session were used to create the new session. It was appropriate to keep the event on the final teaching day of the year as this is when students are close to qualifying and are starting to think about the next steps in their career. However, the original session was created for postgraduate students who are employed by an NHS service so the career options reflected this. Educators used their experience as practitioners to make the session as engaging as possible but we all felt as though it needed a new lease of life. The new event aimed to address these two issues by discussing a wider range of career options in clinical psychology for our undergraduate students and by inviting some of our MSci graduates who are employed in the field back to the University to share their first hand experiences.

Implementation

After delivering the same session about 5 times over the past few years, I knew it was time to make some changes when it came to planning the event for the current cohort. The following steps took place over the past 4 months:

  1. Identifying the issues with original session and sharing these with the programme director to see if there was scope to make changes.
  2. Planning the event with the programme director to ensure it met the learning objectives and remained in line with the national PWP curriculum and BPS standards.
  3. Contacting some of our MSci graduates to invite them to the event.
  4. Sharing the plans for the event with our current students so that they had time to prepare.
  5. Confirming the MSci graduates attendance and sharing ideas on how to engage students during the event.
  6. Organising the layout of the room so that students were sat in small groups and formatting the activity using the ‘speed dating’ approach to maximise engagement.
  7. Facilitating the event on the teaching day.
  8. Evaluating the outcomes to then amend the event for future cohorts.

Impact

The event was a success and met the learning objectives!

Our students said that they enjoyed speaking to people who are currently doing the role and a wide range of roles were represented. They learned about how the graduates got to where they are now as they were sat in the same position not too long ago and also where they are heading. It gave them time to think about the next steps in their career.

Our MSci graduates said that the students were engaged as they were asking lots of relevant questions and it also gave them a chance to reflect on how far they have come and where they are heading.

Whilst looking around the room, I felt a sense of pride for how far both my current and previous students have come since I’ve known them. They are all extremely dedicated and passionate about their chosen career path and will go on to make a real difference in the world, what a testament to themselves and the University.

Reflections

I believe that the event was successful due to three main reasons:

  1. I created a session that reflected the needs of the students and made sure that the atmosphere was relaxed to encourage engagement.
  2. The students who took part were engaged and willing to learn from others who were in their position not too long ago.
  3. The MSci graduates were willing to volunteer their time and expertise for the event.

In terms of improving this event, our students suggested that we could find someone who is currently training to become a clinical psychologist; this is something we will explore when preparing for the event next year. I reflected that we needed to number the tables (simple really!) to aid the transitions when moving the graduates around the room.

Based on the success of this event, we definitely want to continue it with future cohorts. As well as the above suggestions, we will review any further comments that arise from more formal student evaluation and amend the event for future cohorts.

Can students and academics benefit from peer assisted learning (PAL) sessions?

By peteandrews Comment Closed

Caroline Crolla, Student Success and Engagement Team, Student Services                                                                          c.s.crolla@reading.ac.uk

Overview

Peer Assisted Learning (PAL) is a globally recognised scheme where more experienced students who have already successfully completed a module work with students who are studying the module for the first time.   One hour, weekly PAL sessions are run by trained and experienced student PAL Leaders, who are regularly debriefed by programme academics, and supported by a PAL Coordinator.   Students who attend PAL sessions seem to do better than those who do not.

Objectives

HEIs with experience of PAL have found that the scheme contributes to improved retention, engagement and performance through shared learning, engendering stronger links between academics and students as well as providing an additional form of in-module feedback.

The principles underpinning Peer Assisted Learning include:

  • the PAL scheme should target high risk modules, not high risk students
  • student participation should be voluntary
  • student PAL Leaders are facilitators and not quasi-lecturers

Context

Peer Assisted Learning (PAL) was first introduced at the University of Reading in 2015-16 in a few departments as pilot schemes. Early adopters were academics teaching modules in Art, Economics, Mathematics, Creative Writing and Speech & Language Therapy.

The provision of Peer Assisted Learning is now in its fourth year at the University of Reading.  In both the autumn and spring terms, there are PAL sessions supporting specific modules in an ever-growing number of subjects: Agriculture, Biosciences, Classics, Clinical Language Sciences, Economics, Language & Literature, Food Nutritional Sciences, Law, Mathematics and Statistics, Pharmacy and Psychology.

Implementation

Peer Assisted Learning sessions work best in modules that are recognised as cognitively challenging, where student results are low and where student module feedback is less positive.

To implement PAL sessions, module convenors or lecturers select modules in which students would benefit from the offer of PAL sessions and contacting the PAL Coordinator (pal@reading.ac.uk or c.s.crolla@reading.ac.uk). The PAL Coordinator helps with recruitment, taster sessions, promotion and providing high-quality training. The compulsory, two-day PAL Leader training takes place before the autumn modules start, and again in January before the spring term modules start.  So academics contact the PAL Coordinator to agree PAL publicity, interviews, selection and recruitment of Leaders, ideally a term before the module runs.

The role of PAL Leader is voluntary. PAL Leaders can be recruited if they have successfully completed the module that PAL sessions are supporting.  The module convenor has the final say about the selection of PAL Leaders. PAL Leadership develops students’ facilitation and coaching skills, communication and organisational skills and the role shows employers that students have gone above and beyond their degree.  PAL Leadership is included on students’ degree transcripts and counts for the RED Award. PAL Leaders help with problem solving, study skills, exam techniques and coursework. PAL Leaders know that they do not teach, re-teach nor give answers and make this clear to their PAL participants. PAL Leaders will have regular support from the module convenor / academic contact.

Impact

Quantitative data

We collect PAL session attendance data which is then matched against module results.  In 2017-18 we had a significant amount of data, which showed that there seemed to be a positive correlation between attendance at PAL sessions and higher average results.   Accepting that attendance at PAL is voluntary and students going to PAL may already have positive study habits, in Pharmacy, Economics and Maths modules results show that on average those students who attend 4 or more PAL sessions achieve higher results than those students who do not.

Qualitative data

We also collect PAL Leaders’ and PAL participants’ views about the impact of PAL on their understanding of their work.   Participants answered the following free text questions: 1) What did you gain from attending PAL sessions and 2) How could PAL be improved to meet your academic needs better?  Key benefits were perceived to be: an increase of understanding and an increase of confidence; the benefits of collaborating with peers; appreciating the “real world” connections better in terms of the value of placements or coursework and the benefits of learning and thinking collaboratively.

  • I’ve gained more knowledge regarding the module & find it easier to ask for help.
  • Good to have opportunity to interact with students in the year above.
  • A more interactive way of working, more group work, some sharing of 4th year placement and usefulness of this module for next year

PAL leaders reported that they had developed their organisational and leadership skills; they understood facilitation of learning better and were clearer about how students can be encouraged to learn better.  Team work skills were also mentioned as was the value of consolidating and reviewing one’s own learning as leader because of reviewing materials with their participants.

  • I learnt a lot about organising my time and coming up with creative ways to engage with content
  • I learnt about different ways to make group activities fun. I also learnt the value of having structured tasks i.e. snowballing, as opposed to simply asking a question and hoping that someone would answer!
  • Being a PAL leader also helped me to consolidate my learning of the module, whilst developing methods to effectively communicate this learning to students in lower years.

Reflections

As the PAL scheme has developed at the University of Reading over the past three years, all three groups involved in PAL, the PAL Leaders, the PAL participants and the PAL academics see PAL as a “win – win” scheme.  As the scheme is voluntary, there are no significant costs to the subjects implementing PAL.  The PAL Coordinator and Senior PAL Leaders, a paid role, take responsibility for the majority of the implementation of the scheme.

For more students to benefit from peer assisted learning sessions, four key issues need to be addressed: PAL sessions need to appear in students’ timetables; peer assisted learning needs to be clearly presented and understood, through PAL specific publicity and authentic Leader and participant voices explaining that the sessions are about collaborative learning and not remedial support; academics need to understand and support the principles of peer assisted learning and regularly endorse the scheme and review progress with the PAL leaders and the role of the Senior PAL Leader can be developed further.

Link

The University of Reading is a member of the UK PASS (Peer Assisted Study Sessions) and European SI (Supplemental Instruction) peer-learning network with its centre at Lund University in Sweden https://www.si-pass.lu.se/en/about-si-pass/si-pass-around-the-world .

References

Boud ,D., Cohen, R. & Sampson, J. (1999) Peer Learning and Assessment, Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, 24:4, 413-426,

Capstick, S. (2004). Benefits and Shortcomings of Peer Assisted Learning (PAL) in Higher Education: an appraisal by students. In Peer Assisted Learning Conference.

Congos, D. H., & Schoeps, N. (1993). Does supplemental instruction really work and what is it anyway? Studies in Higher Education, 18(2), 165-176.

Smith, J., May, S., & Burke, L. (2007). Peer Assisted Learning: a case study into the value to student mentors and mentees. Practice and Evidence of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education, 2(2), 80-109.

 

Supporting diversity through targeted language skills development

By peteandrews Comment Closed

Alison Fenner, International Study and Language Institute                                                                                                         j.a.fenner@reading.ac.uk

Overview

The project responded to a perceived need for additional support in the development of oral language skills among some students learning a language with the Institution-Wide Language Programme. It took place within the context of the IWLP Language Learning Advisors’ peer advisory scheme. There were clear benefits in terms of the development of coaching skills and increased employability for the Advisors, and improved oral performance and confidence for the students they supported.

Objectives

  • To provide and monitor targeted support sessions in oral work and pronunciation
  • To improve student speaking skills and confidence
  • To work with and train selected Language Learning Advisors in this area
  • To create a body of material for use in future years
  • To disseminate the practice through student presentation within a School staff forum

Context

With the increasingly international nature of IWLP classes, it has become evident that some groups of students at beginner level find oral work and pronunciation more of a challenge than others, depending on their linguistic background. (For example, some Asian students may find European pronunciation challenging and vice versa.) The Language Learning Advisor scheme, which I have run since 2012 and which usually operates on a one-to-one basis, was extended to small groups of students to provide additional support in this area.

Implementation

As IWLP German Co-ordinator, I decided to set up these sessions with German beginner classes in 2016-17. I had already trained a cohort of Language Learning Advisors for the year. Advisors (students recruited from the Department of Modern Languages and European Studies and higher IWLP classes) normally offer one-to-one advice to IWLP and DMLES students on the acquisition of effective language learning strategies and independent learning.  I invited three Advisors with relevant experience, ability and pedagogic commitment to run regular small-group sessions with the emphasis on oral work and pronunciation. I successfully applied for PLanT funding to pay the students for the sessions. During the year, I held feedback meetings with the Advisors in which they shared their experience and developing expertise. I also sought feedback from the IWLP students attending the sessions, and was able to perceive a clear improvement in oral performance and confidence in students in my own beginners’ German class. In June 2017 the Advisors and I presented the project to ISLI staff at the ISLI Learning and Teaching Research Forum.

Impact

The project worked well. The beginner students reported an improvement in pronunciation and increased class participation and confidence, and spoke of enjoyable learning sessions and friendly and helpful Advisors. The Advisors acquired intensive coaching skills which will benefit their future employability as well as the opportunity to present to University of Reading staff within a tutor forum. The Advisors’ reports on their activities and experience gained this year can be passed on to future Advisors.

Reflections

The enthusiasm and commitment of the Advisors were a major factor in the success of the project. They were willing to commit time and effort and enjoyed seeing improvement in ‘their’ students. They are all interested in teaching as a future career and so were doubly motivated in developing their teaching skills. We had some very useful meetings in which students’ needs were analysed, and ideas and activities were shared and their effectiveness evaluated. The students with whom they worked appreciated the help and the benefits to their oral performance. The only challenge was to maintain regular attendance at the small-group sessions at times when students had a particularly heavy workload; at times attendance decreased, which is perhaps unavoidable since the sessions were not compulsory.

 

 

 

 

 

Curriculum Framework Review in Classics

By edwardwhite Comment Closed

Barbara Goff, Director of Teaching and Learning, Classics              b.e.goff@reading.ac.uk

In the Classics department we reckon we review our curriculum all the time.  We are constantly designing new modules that take cognisance of the latest research and share it with our students.  We teach with epigraphy and 3D modelling, we explore the language of ancient graffiti and the modern debates about postcolonialism.  At the same time, we provide a solid background of language teaching in Latin and Ancient Greek, and core modules in the basics of ancient Greek and Roman history and literature.  But it’s always a good idea to step back and view the curriculum as a whole, to check that it really serves our students, as well as corresponding to the overall University strategy.

Our focus

When the Curriculum Framework Review was launched, we were particularly pleased with the new Graduate Attributes, as we already think of our provision in terms of subject knowledge coupled with skills in research and enquiry.  Since everything we do is about cultures other than the one we inhabit, we were sure too that our curriculum helps our students’ global awareness.  The personal effectiveness of our students – maybe our colleagues too – can always use a little burnishing, of course.

At the time that the Curriculum Framework Review was launched, we were already discussing two specific aspects of our provision in our Teaching and Learning Committee.  We wanted to review the core modules at Part 2, with a view to possibly replacing them, discontinuing the associated examinations, and changing the structure of the degrees.  We also wanted to get a new textbook for Ancient Greek.  This latter point will not resonate with many colleagues in other parts of the University, but it’s very important for us!

Another thing that concerned us as a Department was that our employability figures are not always very good compared to those of our competitor departments.  We have an employability module that we regularly update, taking account of student feedback, but we needed to think about what else we might do.

Our preparations

We were helped in our endeavours by our School Director of Teaching and Learning, Prof. Matthew Nicholls, who is developing a range of ways to talk to students in the School of Humanities about the Graduate Attributes and how they work across the three years of our programmes.  We also had good support from our partners in CQSD (Kamilah Jooganah and Aaron Cooper) and Careers (Kevin Thompson and Claire Mack).  After a series of discussions with them, we ran an exercise in which we looked at the range of assessments we offer and the support that we give to students in preparing for them.  This has since been used as an example by CQSD in other departments.  This was part of our project to consider discontinuing exams, as in our partner Departments Philosophy and Archaeology, and also helped with reviewing students’ transferable skills.

After other discussions with colleagues, we worked in two directions.  We obtained funding for an Awayday for all those who teach in the Department, including postgraduate researchers, along with our partners in Careers and CQSD, and in the Departments with which we share joint degrees.  We also obtained funding for a series of focus groups with undergraduates in the Department. I want to put on record my thanks to the students who took part, and especially Aimee Grace Day who ran the groups and reported back to us – she has now gone on to a Masters degree, and we are sure of her success!  The reports compiled helped us to see where our students’ strengths could use further development, and to what extent our vision of the curriculum was being effectively communicated.

Our Awayday

One of the best things about our Awayday was the location in Foxhill House, which none of us knew very well.  We immediately felt that its old-fashioned charm would make it an excellent location for a Classics department!  The lunch break was enhanced by a stroll down to the lake.  On either side of lunch, we engaged in some serious discussion of assessment, the relation between cores and options, and employability.  The reports from the student focus groups were prominent in our thinking.

It may not be a surprise – since we are a Department of Classics, after all – that we concluded our discussions by not changing very much.  We decided to keep the few exams that we do still have, because of the important skills they help with – testimony from our postgraduate researchers helped our conclusions here.  We decided to keep the same core modules at Part 2, but to modify the assessment to ensure that all our students have a chance to practise presentations as well as more traditional activities.  The one major change we made was in relation to employability, where we are going to make our placement module a core instead of an option.  This involves us in rewarding collaboration with the School’s Placement Officer.  We also realised that our students have masses of transferable skills, developed through our teaching and assessments, but could use some help defining and describing them in relation to employment.  The funding for this day was really helpful in allowing us time and space to discuss the important elements of our curriculum thoroughly, and to specify actions that will take us to the next steps.

Although we did not change much, then, we all aired our views, and ended up as a Department ‘owning’ our curriculum much more firmly than before.  We have a newly keen sense of its possibilities, and a determination to help our students articulate their strengths and skills as they progress through our programmes.

And the Ancient Greek textbook?  We are going to use the one that several of us learnt our Ancient Greek from, conceivably in Ancient Greek times…

Matthew Nicolls and Amy Smith
Our School Director of Teaching and Learning, Matthew Nicholls, and the Curator of the Ure Museum, Amy Smith, look serious!
Amy Smith and Jackie Baines
Amy and our Languages Coordinator, Jackie Baines, look cheerful!

The photos were taken on Prof. Peter Kruschwitz’s classic, steam-powered, Lubitel camera.