The Language Learning Advisor scheme

By edwardwhite Comment Closed

Alison Fenner, International Study and Language Institute
j.a.fenner@reading.ac.uk
Year(s) of case study activity: 2012-13

Overview

11683 (1)The scheme provided training for students to act as Language Learning Advisors (LLAs) to Institution-Wide Language Programme (IWLP) and Modern Languages and European Studies (MLES) students, providing peer support for developing language learning strategies.  The scheme is popular, and has benefited students receiving advice, the Language Learning Advisors, and tutors within the IWLP and MLES.

Objectives

  • Provide students with strategies for ‘learning how to learn’ a language.
  • Provide a supportive peer environment in which advice can be given which corresponds to the individual’s academic and cultural needs.
  • Encourage the acquisition of independent language-learning strategies and the development of specific skills.
  • Foster transferable skills such as self-evaluation, time management and goal setting.
  • Allow students within MLES and higher levels of the IWLP to develop coaching skills, enhancing their employability.
  • Provide a service to support tutors within the IWLP and MLES.

Context

The IWLP has about 850 students enrolled on its modules, with 24 tutors. The students are drawn from all schools and nationalities represented within the University of Reading.

It became clear to IWLP tutors that students needed to ‘learn how to learn’ a language, since many students have little experience of formal language learning and have therefore developed few language learning strategies. There are many simple techniques which can be taught and be of real benefit to the student. As most IWLP tutors are part-time, they often do not have the time or place to offer this level of support to students on an individual basis.

Implementation

The project followed the stages as detailed:

  1. The scheme was discussed with colleagues in MLES in order to explain the benefits of their students becoming LLAs.
  2. Applications from MLES undergraduates to become LLAs were invited. A further incentive was provided for participation, as students who did so would be eligible for the Reading Experience and Development (RED) Award.
  3. As the personal approach of the LLAs was essential, applicants’ tutors were asked to give a reference before their appointment was confirmed.
  4. A training session was held in which the LLAs were provided with materials to help their guidance. These included a questionnaire for LLAs to send to students before their first appointment to encourage reflection upon their learning and goals.
  5. An appointment system was set up to allow students to schedule meetings with their LLA.
  6. The scheme was presented to IWLP tutors so that they were aware of its advantages and could encourage their students to attend sessions.
  7. Throughout the year the LLAs were in constant contact with the Project Leader so their activity could be monitored, and any issues could be addressed.

Impact

Students who received advice from the LLAs gained confidence in their abilities, and developed strategies to help themselves acquire language skills more effectively. Additional benefits were that students with access to an LLA were motivated to seek additional resources in the Self-Access Centre for Language Learning (SACLL) or elsewhere, and that having regular appointments with their LLA encouraged students to build in extra time for additional language learning activities.

LLAs found the experience of providing advice to students on IWLP courses rewarding, and they enjoyed the interpersonal nature of the work. LLAs reported that their own language learning techniques had improved as a result of the increased awareness they obtained through the work.

The scheme has provided a useful academic support service for tutors within the IWLP and MLES. As a result, tutors have been appreciative of the scheme.

Reflections

In its first year, it became clear that the scheme was of great value to both students on IWLP courses, and those who became LLAs. The success of the scheme was reflected in student feedback.  Some feedback obtained identified ways in which the scheme could be improved. In the first year there had been less emphasis on matching students to LLAs specialised in the language they were learning.  While sessions with LLAs were intended to focus on general language learning strategies rather than language-specific advice, some students expected to have an LLA specialising in the language they were learning, and were disappointed as a result, although most still found the sessions useful. Consideration was given to this, and the scheme was subsequently adapted.

Follow up

The LLA scheme has been expanded beyond its original remit in terms of the numbers of students who benefit from sessions with an adviser. A greater number of LLAs have been recruited from across MLES, as well as students on high level IWLP courses by recommendation of their tutor. The increased use of LLAs has been enhanced by having LLAs attend initial IWLP sessions in order to introduce themselves to students.

Since the pilot scheme was run, there has been closer liaison between tutors and LLAs so that advisers can be more aware of what advice their students require.

Where possible, students are now matched with LLAs who are specialists in the language they are studying, although the emphasis remains on the acquisition of generic, rather than language-specific, learning strategies and on providing students with a supportive peer environment in which they can develop effective autonomous language learning skills.

Campus Wildlife Champions

By edwardwhite Comment Closed

Dr Graham J. Holloway, School of Biological Sciences
g.j.holloway@reading.ac.uk
Year(s) of activity: 2014-15

Overview

8750Students (mostly BSc Ecology and Wildlife Conservation students) carried out species identification activities in The Centre for Wildlife Assessment and Conservation on Wednesday afternoons. Students were encouraged to ‘adopt’ and focus on a taxonomic group (or community) to acquire deep learning. As a result of this and other activities, we have increased the campus species list to nearly 1700 species, an impressive statistic that we use during Information Days.

Objectives

  • To develop a sense of community amongst the BSc Ecology and Wildlife Conservation students.
  • To increase appreciation of the importance of extra-curricular learning.
  • To develop skills valued by many potential employers of these students.

Context

There is often a mismatch between what students value from their time at universities and what employers value. Employers in the conservation sector frequently value extracurricular skills in addition to modular learning. A skill that is acutely lacking in graduates is an ability to identify species and, therefore, to carry out surveys under field conditions. The Campus Wildlife Champions project offered a way for undergraduate students to develop their CVs.

Implementation

The Ecology and Wildlife Conservation programme adviser meets with the students on a regular basis. During these meetings the importance of a strong CV that provides evidence of understanding, interest and learning, vital for career development in the conservation sector, is impressed on the students. Funding provided by the Teaching and Learning Development Fund was used to provide resources to facilitate engagement of students with species identification. Every Wednesday afternoon the project leader, along with Mr. Chris Foster (a Teaching Associate of the School of Biological Sciences), worked with the students in labs to help them to get to grips with specialised identification keys.

Impact

One of the main objectives was to encourage students to appreciate that on completing their degree programme their CV becomes the most important element in their armoury. Students need to take charge of their own learning to develop their skills so that their CVs showcase who they are and what they can deliver to a potential employer. Relying entirely on learning through modular teaching is unlikely to make them special. For this reason I was not happy to make this activity compulsory; students had to choose for themselves whether they were interested and how far they would like to take the activity. Seventeen students engaged with the project but this number dropped off as the academic year progressed, in particular as the examination period approached. Several students though remain active and it is hoped that they will continue a second year.

Reflections

This type of activity had not been attempted before so we were unsure how it would unfold. To have several students still interested in the activity is great and I will be encouraging these students to resume engagement during the coming academic year and to interact with the new cohort of students starting in September 2015. Continuity was a major aspiration so to have a real prospect that Part Two students could become mentors for Part One students is excellent. It is not obvious how we could have done things differently or better while operating within the constraints.

Links

The Campus champion project has appeared as a university news item:
http://www.reading.ac.uk/news-and-events/releases/PR618137.aspx

Data from the project are contributed to the Whiteknights Biodiversity website:
http://blogs.reading.ac.uk/whiteknightsbiodiversity/

Politics Show on Junction11 Radio

By edwardwhite Comment Closed

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

Overview

DSC_0289 - CopyOur 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

Linked Academic Placements: solving a problem by Dr. Cindy Becker

By edwardwhite Comment Closed

In the Department of English Literature all of our Parts 2 and 3 modules are available as placement modules, allowing a student to identify (with our help) a suitable placement provider and work with the module convenor and me to craft a placement project or activity which links to the learning on their chosen module. The placement report then replaces one element of the assessment (usually the assessed essay) for the module. This seemed to us to be a neat way to embed placement learning within our curriculum and to ensure that students were offered the widest possible range of placement experiences.

We had, however, overlooked one factor: students vary. Whilst the system works for many, some students are hugely ambitious and so try for placements with highly prestigious providers, who can take weeks to reply to every query; others are late bloomers and only think of a placement several weeks into a module. This caused some nasty glitches in the system. We require students to confirm their placement by Week Five of the term in which the module is taught, but we found that some students were missing that deadline and so could not carry out an embedded placement as part of the module assessment (indeed, some were unable to confirm a placement until several weeks after the module had completed). We also realised that students who were keen in the first week or so of term would assume that they had ‘missed the boat’ by Week Four and so simply gave up.

We found one solution to the problem earlier this year, when we relaxed our rules to allow students to undertake placements before a module has begun: working with convenors, they could then arrange a placement in the vacation before the module was taught. This allowed students to begin thinking about a placement months before they would undertake it, solving the problem of students starting to plan a placement too late. What it did not solve was the problem of placements which, sometimes unexpectedly, take an age to arrange. Continue reading →

Developing highly employable pharmacy graduates by Dr Samantha Weston

By edwardwhite Comment Closed

In an effort to rise to the challenge of increasing the employability of graduates, staff from Reading School of Pharmacy worked in a cross-faculty collaboration with colleagues in Henley Business School to develop the UK’s first Post-Graduate Certificate in Business and Administration available to undergraduate MPharm students. This clearly fits with the 2013-15 teaching and learning enhancement priority relating to developing highly employable graduates.

The concept behind the development of the programme came after discussions with stakeholders from community, hospital and industrial sectors outline weaknesses in management and leadership in pharmacy graduates throughout the UK. Although all pharmacy undergraduate programmes nationwide teach management and business skills, all stakeholders felt that extra training in this area would enhance the employability of graduates, and allow them to develop and thrive more effectively in their pre-registration training year and beyond.

We believe that the introduction of this course will lead to RSOP attracting and recruiting the most competitive and ambitious UK and international students who will become the leaders of the future within the NHS and the Healthcare and Healthtech industries. The project will further differentiate our Pharmacy graduates from those from older, long-established Schools of Pharmacy.  This innovative and unique new course will run alongside the current MPharm Pharmacy programme, and be aimed at the highest achieving students who have an ambition to follow a leadership career path in industry, commerce, academia or the NHS, and who may also want to go on to complete a full MBA in the future.

Although the proposed course is innovative and unique in the UK and worldwide, it is analogous to joint MB /PhD courses for Medics wishing to become Researcher-Physicians, and would compete with well-established postgraduate dual Pharmacy/ Management courses in the US which have already been shown to increase graduate earning potential.

The course runs for its first cohort in the summer of 2014, and the course developers are currently in discussions with other Schools and Faculties to discuss how the programme can be adapted to provide a specialist focus for their own discipline. If colleagues would like further information about the initiative then please contact either Samantha Weston or Al Edwards in Pharmacy or Lynn Thurloway in HBS.