Dr Hazel McGoff, School of Archaeology, Geography and Environmental Science
h.j.mcgoff@reading.ac.uk
Year of activity: 2016/17
Overview
This project established a library of digital images of our key mineral and rock specimens. Annotated explanatory labels were added to the images to create a resource that can be used to help students familiarise themselves with the specimens before laboratory practical sessions and for reinforcement and revision afterwards.
Objectives
The aim of this project was to establish a digital resource that could be used alongside practical specimen-based teaching and learning.
Context
While students can handle and see (as well as sometimes smell and taste!) specimens in practical classes, gaining skills in mineral and rock identification takes practice and time. The use of annotated digital images allows participants to gain familiarity with the specimens and their key characteristics before each practical class, thus allowing them to use their time in the laboratory more effectively. Relevant modules include GV1DE Our Dynamic Earth, GV2GRE Geological Resources as well as some Archaeology teaching.
Implementation
Three students and a photographer were key to the success of this project. George Biddulph, a Part 2 Geography student selected specimens to be photographed and we were able to have a large number of high quality digital images taken by a semi-professional photographer. Two final year students Emma Warner (Geography) and Chloe Knight (Environmental Science) used Powerpoint to add annotations and explanatory labels to the specimen images.
Impact
This activity was successful in terms of producing the images and using Powerpoint to add labels and annotations. These will be used in 2017-18 taught modules. The project has also been useful in ‘kick starting’ the use of the collections in modules such as GV2MPL Summer Microplacement and also setting up volunteer sessions one afternoon a week during term. These give students the opportunity to identify and catalogue more of the collections.
Reflections
This project will be used in teaching in 2017-18 so additional reflection will be needed later in the session. Due to time constraints the photography of the specimens was contracted to someone outside the University. Ideally this would also have been allocated to a student.
Links
The information will be made available on Blackboard later in term. Selected specimens are being featured on the Geography and Environmental Science at the University of Reading Facebook page.
For the academic year 2015/16, the Department of History offered a brand-new Part 1 programme as part of the History Project. This resulted in the development of three new core modules.
Dr Mara Oliva transformed common practice by using technology to carry out full electronic assessment for her module. This project included multiple aspects of digital pedagogy, using Blackboard to perform engaging assessment. This was achieved through innovative and effective use of Blackboard Groups in combination with Blackboard Wikis and Turnitin Assignments, in addition to the Grade Centre for administering students’ marks.
What is a wiki?
A wiki is a collaborative tool that allows students to work as a group on one project and write shared content in the form of a website. They can create a series of web pages that can include images, web links and videos, collectively responding to a theme.
Dr Mara Oliva – Lecturer in Modern American History (20th century)
Mara explains how she used the wiki tool within Blackboard as a new tool for summative assessment.
The Culture Wiki
Journeys through History 2 aims to introduce students to major historical ideas, concepts, beliefs and knowledge systems, and to show how these are exemplified in material culture, with reference to artefacts, buildings, paintings and other works of art, literature and media.
We wanted the assessment tools we chose to reflect the cultural and visual elements of the module. Therefore we decided to use a group wiki of 2,000 words (50% of the module mark), which we called the Culture Wiki, and an individual 2,000-word essay on one of the historical concepts.
The Culture Wiki allowed students to create and contribute to several web pages of course-related material. They were expected to display their research, analytical and communication skills by building a website meant for public consumption. In small groups, students created their wikis based on a theme discussed during lectures. Lecturers provided themes in the module handbook and on Blackboard.
Our aims for using this form of assessment were to teach students the importance of teamwork and how to write in a concise and accessible way in order to develop an understanding of public history, which offers many employability opportunities to history graduates.
Impact – great results!
Overall, the exercise was very successful! According to the feedback, both students and staff enjoyed working on the Culture Wiki. Students said it gave them a chance to look at history from a different angle and realise how many flexible and transferable skills they can gain through studying history.
We then decided to take this a step further and extend full electronic assessment to the individual assay, using Turnitin Assignments. This was received very enthusiastically by the students, who appreciated the immediacy and flexible, 24/7 access technology can offer.
The project, however, would have never taken off without the invaluable support of the TEL team, in particular Shirin Irvine, Lauren McCann and Maria Papaefthimiou. With their help we arranged training and guidance for the department staff on creating and assessing wikis, using Turnitin for e-assessment, and using the Grade Centre.
To support students, we provided a separate handbook with “how to build a wiki” guidelines, which was uploaded on Blackboard. I then dedicated part of the first lecture to introducing the exercise and answering the questions. Overall, students did not need much support and were very quick at learning – their questions were mainly content related.
We are very pleased with the outcome of the project, so we have decided to continue for the foreseeable future!
Catherine Foley is a lecturer in Primary Maths Education in the Institute of Education. She is Director of the Primary School Direct programme which trains people to be teachers whilst they are working in schools.
OBJECTIVES
Catherine describes her experience of using the Feedback Studio to move from Word-based marking an assignment to full use of Grademark.
CONTEXT
Catherine Foley is a lecturer in Primary Maths Education in the Institute of Education. She is Director of the Primary School Direct programme which trains people to be teachers whilst they are working in schools. Her experience of electronic marking relates primarily to a 20 credit postgraduate module which is part of this programme, developing the reflective practice and critical thinking of the trainees. The module is assessed through one piece of written work which is assessed formatively and summatively and is taken by approximately 80 students each year.
IMPLEMENTATION
Up until the current academic year, although students would submit their work through Turnitin (for both formative and summative attempts), they would receive feedback in the form of underlined grading sheets and text-based comments which would be completed for each student and uploaded to be released to them via Grade Centre. As with other IoE programmes, all submission, grading and feedback for this assessment is now carried out electronically.
This year, we decided to use the full electronic feedback option for both assessments since the first formative experience would give students (and staff) the chance to get used to the system. We
developed our own rubric for the assessment. For the formative assessment, we decided not to use quickmarks but just to focus on becoming familiar with using the rubric. For the summative
assessment, both a rubric and quickmarks were used: the quickmark set is the same as that used for other initial teacher training programmes.
In my own marking, I found it helpful, when getting started, to open out the full rubric in a grid from the sidebar in the feedback studio. After a while, I was clear what the different statements meant and so could use the sliders more confidently.
IMPACT
Speed of marking. Although marking has not been any quicker so far overall, it is likely that this will speed up as the administrative problems are ironed out and we get to know the
system. Not having to save individual files saves a lot of time which can be spent on quality feedback.
Ease of moderation. Because all the assessment and feedback is in the same place, it is much more straightforward and a module convenor is easily able to quality-assure the marking
that is taking place.
Curriculum review opportunity. Developing our own rubric for the assessment encouraged us to review what we had been doing. It made use stop and examine our taken-for-granted practice.
Student ownership of feedback. We had a workshop on developing academic writing and it was interesting to see all the students with their laptops open, looking at very specific
pieces of contextualised feedback received online for their first assignment.
Using rubric reports for bespoke study advice sessions. We used the function in Turnitin to generate a report on how well students had achieved as a cohort in relation to the different
rubric themes. We sent the report to one of the study advisers who was then able to use this to pinpoint areas to focus upon in helping students work towards their next assignment.
REFLECTIONS
Many of the challenges we experienced were due to the fact that the assessment is marked by five different members of staff:
When we were using Word-based documents for feedback, we could shape and guide the feedback which tutors were giving more easily (for example with a writing frame). In the feedback studio, the text comment box presents markers with a blank space so it has been harder to ensure a common approach across markers. We therefore agreed a common structure for feedback in this box.
The marking team had differing levels of experience with electronic marking. Because the quickmark set had to be uploaded by each marker to their Blackboard account and not all markers were present on campus at the same time, this was a logistical challenge.
With the options for quickmarks, rubric statements and open text comments, it would be easy for markers to over-assess each piece of work. Our agreement was that, since students were getting extra feedback in terms of the first two kinds of feedback, the final text comments should be brief and simply recognise specific areas of success then pinpoint areas for
development.
Limitations in functionality of the feedback studio. Some markers liked to be able to use Word to check the number of times a student has used a particular phrase or look at the
consistency between citations and references: you can’t currently move around the document so easily (unless you download it). Some warning or confirmation messages from
the system (for example when moving onto the next piece of work) would make it still more user-friendly. With several people involved in marking an assignment, it is easy for markers
to accidentally change each other’s grades – it would be helpful if grades and comments could be ‘locked’ in some way. Are different levels of access possible, so that external examiners can see the feedback studio but without being able to change feedback?
There are still issues (mostly to do with administrative protocols) to iron out. The IoE is currently reviewing its moderation processes and determining the extent to which
students know they have been included. Programme directors are working with their admin teams to determine exactly how
academics will be informed when an ECF assignment has been submitted.
In the 2009 hit film ‘Julie et Julia’, real life American office worker Julie Powell (Amy Adams) spends a year cooking her way through culinary legend Julia Child’s ‘Mastering the Art of French Cooking’ and ‘blogs’ about it. Powell picks up a following and generates a dialogue with her readers who comment on her posts and offer her advice, from how to prepare a lobster to how to bone a duck. Blogs are, of course, more than just about French cooking. There are blogs about all sorts of things. They have never been bigger and have become an increasingly useful tool in education too. In this article, we’ll explore this tool and find out how it’s been used for summative assessment on the BA in English Literature.
What is a blog?
A blog – short for web log – is a personal online journal that can include various media and is intended for sharing with others, like an open web-based diary. Most blogs have some kind of commenting system so that people can share their thoughts on entries. Blogs encourage students to clearly express their ideas and engage in social learning.
In Blackboard Learn, instructors can create and manage blogs from within a course. Enrolled users can then view and create entries and comments in them. They can be used for various purposes and as a tool for both formative and summative assessment, providing an alternative to more traditional methods.
Case study: Using blogs in English Literature at the University of Reading
Dr Chloe Houston has used the blog tool this year in a new third year module, ‘Utopia: The Ideal Society in English and American Literature’. Chloe was interested in diversifying the assessment methods experienced by her students and in moving away from the conventional essay. Aware that after graduation, students could be expected to write in a variety of media for a range of audiences, she was keen to give them the opportunity to write in a different format and share their ideas with their peers.
In getting ready to use the tool, Chloe did a good deal of preparation which was key to her ultimate success, contacting TEL CQSD for advice and researching academic blogs. She set up a Blackboard blog to be used as 50% of the module’s assessment in which students were expected to post entries during the term. An inexperienced blogger, she made use of a post-graduate student with relevant experience to help prepare the students and provided support materials. Mid-term evaluation suggested students were enjoying working in this way and end of module evaluations confirmed this, with the additional benefit that Chloe found the assessments more varied and interesting to mark! When asked if she had any advice for other staff thinking about trying out blogging, she exclaimed, “Immerse yourself in the blogging culture and just do it!”
Student Josie Palmer was one of a number who reported positively on her experiences of using the blog tool: “With students having grown up around technology… I feel a blog is a positive step forward in the way work is assessed. It’s easy to access and manage, it’s interactive, as you can read other student’s work and comment on what they have written… This differs greatly from essays… [The blog] gives students the opportunity to upload work and receive feedback more frequently… We are given more of an opportunity to explore ideas in different ways, with a simple format, as opposed to putting all the work collected over a term into one final essay. I think that as a format of assessment the blog works brilliantly!”
In this short video, Chloe discusses her use of the blog in her module:
What next?
If this article has inspired you to find out more about using the blog tool in your own teaching, please see Blackboard’s Support for Staff tab and/or contact the TEL CQSD team for advice. You can also subscribe to the TEL team’s very own blog at http://blogs.reading.ac.uk/tel/
Bibliography
Salmon, G, 2013. E-tivities: The Key to Active Online Learning . 2nd ed. Abingdon: Routledge.
Hammond , M , (2006). Blogging within Formal and Informal Learning Contexts: Where are the Opportunities and Constraints?’ In Networked Learning. University of Warwick , 2006.
Julie et Julia , 2009. [DVD] Nora Ephron, USA: Sony Pictures.
Having attended a few Advance HE (HEA) conferences, this was my first time presenting at an external T&L conference. I was quite nervous in advance – swatting up on the T&L literature, preparing fully copyright compliant materials (they publish your ppt) and rehearsing the talk to nail the timings, but the friendly attitude of the organisers and delegates meant I needn’t have worried.
The conference brought together about 200 delegates from across STEM, though many of the topics could apply across the humanities too. Spread over 2 days, 7 parallel sessions run, giving a wide range of topics and making each session small enough for real discussions and an opportunity to meet others interested in similar approaches. Representing the School of Biological Sciences (SBS) including the division of Biomedical Engineering, I was presenting on a project investigating cutting edge haptic (touch/VR) technology in teaching cell biology. Philippa Boyd from Construction Management and Engineering also presented on empowering diversity in STEM recruitment.
Here are some of my highlights:
Some uni’s have moved to online exams! Taken in invigilated computer suites, you need to consider the risks and benefits e.g. Keyboard noise so loud that students are given ear plugs but still complain! Need 5 to 10% capacity overhead for computer crashes etc. Marking faster (quick marks). Intelligent Assessment Technologies (online exam software) allows diagrams, anonymous marking, double marking, exam feedback to students.
Aston uni has a “my progress” student dashboard, based on attendance and attainment, giving a star rating system (gold, silver, bronze, lead) – students love it.
Creating an inclusive timetable – at Kingston Uni distance travelled to uni correlates to NSS qu 16 score. Average commute for white students is 3.7 miles, whilst for BME students it is 7.2 miles. Because they have a higher proportion of commuters their timetable tries to avoid days with only 1 hour (£25 commute for 1h), avoid 9am or end of day, and to cluster sessions together.
Peerwise Package – students can upload their own MCQs to a class bank for each other. May be useful here at Reading as we don’t release past MCQ papers to students. Can make it a summative exercise to drive engagement.
Stats best taught using real examples. Opendatastat.org (made by Mario Orsi from UWE Bristol) is a bank of curated datasets from open sources, each linked to activities and tutorials and quizzes. Could be used to teach stats or as data for projects. Mario is happy to be sent more datasets if anyone has any.
scientistsarehumans.com – A blog site sharing human stories. The presenters suggested that minority groups (by definition) will always be the statistical outliers, so reporting stats doesn’t always help. They suggested that real life stories have much greater impact. This website posts short stories where individuals share what it is like… to cope with mental health issues whilst doing a PhD; to be the only girl in the class; to be the only black person in your Year group. The organisers hope that understanding personal stories can kick start the processes leading to positive changes. Their motto is “be more kind” – Set kind deadlines, give kind lectures (think inclusive), give kind feedback (constructive criticism and praise, but doesn’t have to be all good comments), develop a work-life balance.
When the EMA Programme ran a staff survey earlier this year, we were really interested to see the response to the use of the QuickMark function on Turnitin Grademark. We asked 47 colleagues from the Institute of Education, the School of Agriculture, Policy and Development and the School of Archaeology, Geography and Environment Science what they considered the most important benefits of online assessment to be. 28 identified the use and reuse of QuickMarks, more than any other potential benefit. Colleagues highlighted how the use of QuickMarks could save marking time, could lead to clearer feedback, and could trigger broader conversations around marking criteria. In addition to this, a focus group carried out at the IoE in 2018 showed that students particularly appreciated the use of Quickmarks when they were used to provide specific examples of errors described more generally in the rubric and narrative comments. More recently, an EMA Programme evaluation exploring student responses to online submission, feedback and grading found that, out of 314 responders, 78% said that it would be useful if in-text or QuickMark comments could include a link to a Study Advice resource.
These responses fed into some thinking that the Programme team had already been doing around QuickMarks, particularly surrounding how we might gain the maximum benefit from this feature in terms of student engagement, learning and feedforward.
We were aware that some colleagues within the Institute of Education had worked together to develop a set of shareable, discipline specific comments. We wondered whether we could draw on this idea to develop a set of shareable, institution specific QuickMarks to help save marking time and enhance the quality of feedback but which would also appeal to colleagues in all disciplinary areas.
This thinking led us to create a small project group made up of Emma Mayhew (EMA Programme), Geoff Taggart (EMA Programme), Michelle Reid and Erika Delbecque (Study Advice). We worked together, and liaised with colleagues, to create a set of 21 commonly used comments.
But we wanted to go a little further than this. We were also really cognisant of the need to support feedforward and, to do this, we decided to include a hyperlink at the end of each shareable QuickMark comment to direct students to sources of support created by the Study Advice team and wider Library resources.
As an example, if a marker believes that a student has included an inappropriate source for an academic piece of writing, they might like to use the following shareable QuickMark:
This is not an appropriate source for an academic piece of work. Evaluate your sources whether they are books, journals, websites or other texts, and consider whether they are suitable to support the point that you are making. For more advice, see this guide from the Library:https://www.reading.ac.uk/lib-literature-searching.aspx
In this way, the new QuickMark sets underline the role that students have in their own self-learning and also highlights the range of existing supporting video and written material available to enhance student assessment literacy.
We divided the QuickMarks into categories-referencing, structure, style and critical analysis-and invited colleagues to download one or more of the categories, pulling them into their own QuickMark libraries which are available to them each time they mark. The new QuickMark comments can be used as they are but we would also encourage colleagues to edit the QuickMarks, keeping the hyperlink, but amending the text to add further discipline-specific context, or adding text to reflect feedback for an individual student.
We have housed these QuickMarks on the EMA online resource map which provides direct links for academic colleagues and professional staff to key university resources ordered around the Assessment and Feedback lifecycle. The QuickMark sets can be found in the light blue ‘marking’ section. They can also be found directly on the EMA Programme site.
To support their use, we created a 90 second screencast to show colleagues how to download the comments and amend the QuickMarks. Click on the image below to view this.
We have disseminated this resource through the T&L community within the University and also through the TEL Practitioner Forum. After only six weeks, we counted 194 views of the QuickMarks site and, in total, 413 QuickMark comments were downloaded by colleagues. The set focused on essay writing structure has been the most popular with 29 downloads of the whole set.
The response from colleagues so far has been very positive. Comments include:
‘Because I haven’t used QuickMarks before and was not sure of what they might be used for, the generic QuickMark sets gave me a good starting point.’
‘I like the way you can tweak them to fit into your own assessment criteria and group them into your own personalised set.’
We hope that these institution specific QuickMarks sets will be a useful additional tool for colleagues. If you do have any questions about these sets and how to use them or if you would like to provide further feedback, please don’t hesitate to contact us.
Soil Security Programme (SSP), School of Agriculture, Planning and Development
PhD students, external institutions and organisations
Description
The Soil Security Programme is a PhD Student research network that includes a number of
other institutions and external bodies. Students are dispersed around the country and
sometimes abroad.
The ability for the dispersed members of the network to join seminars held at Reading by PhD
students would help facilitate increased communications and information sharing.
Two face-to-face seminar events have been held at which members have been able to join
remotely via Collaborate.
Members were sent a ‘guest link’ and joining instructions and were able to watch the
presentations given in the physical room.
The initial seminar had 11 participants, 9 in the room and 3 joined remotely.
A USB speakerphone was attached to the laptop in the room to provide the audio and a
webcam was used to show what was happening. Presentations were delivered using
‘Application Share’ in Collaborate.
Jeremy facilitated the session to ensure the remote participants were kept informed of what
was happening in the physical space.
Impact
Using Collaborate was a success and participants found the experience was very good. There
were some minor points raised but this did not detract from usability.
Remote participants could easily join in sessions that they wouldn’t otherwise have been able to
attend.
Recordings of the seminars were made available to members of the network.
SSP plan to deliver an online conference using Collaborate to help build a community of early
career researchers and PhD students in the field of soil science.
Thoughts and reflections
Remote participants weren’t able to see where the speakers were pointing to on the slides. Ask
speakers to use the inbuilt Pen and Laser Pointer tools when PowerPoint is used in Presenter
View to highlight slides.
It was necessary to restart application share when moving between different PowerPoint
presentations.
Remind participants in the physical space to remember that there are remote participants.
Participants in the physical space can’t see the chat taking place in Collaborate.
Chat was particularly useful for communication between the facilitators and remote users
without disturbing the seminar speakers.
Ensure that remote users can hear those speaking in the room clearly. It may be necessary for
the facilitators to repeat questions or ask people to speak more loudly.
Getting students to attend careers events during particular periods of term can be difficult. The
use of Collaborate was piloted to see if attendance could be increased by providing online
sessions when students typically don’t engage with face-to-face careers events.
A short 20 minute presentation was given with PowerPoint slides and included separate online
poll questions.
Students were encouraged to pose questions using the ‘Chat’ feature
Impact
Student feedback was positive.
The online event had higher attendance than would be expected for an equivalent face-to-face
session held in the same period. “We would typically really struggle to get 26 attendees to a
careers event during the summer term.”
It was easy to organise and deliver the event.
Not all of the students who pre-registered actually attended the webinar (15 attended, 17
didn’t). Most students stayed for the entire session.
Dan was able to send those that weren’t able to attend a link to a recording after the session.
Thoughts and reflections
Dan is keen to make future sessions more interactive, with more questions and responses. This
should help address attendance concerns. If you attend you get your question answered live!
Possibly have an assistant to help moderate the chat and pose questions to the presenter.
Think about the way in which you want to present your content and how this affects your ability
to manage and facilitate the session.
The PowerPoint slides were displayed on Dan’s computer in Presenter View and delivered in
Collaborate using ‘Application Share’. PowerPoint presented in this way requires 2 screens and
also meant Dan wasn’t able to see the Chat while the slides were up.
Check your camera angle and be mindful of it during the session.
If you are recording the session, remember to exit the webinar properly, using the ‘Leave
Session’ button otherwise the recording continues.
The recording captured the screen, audio/video and chat but didn’t capture the poll on screen
as this was viewed in a separate tool.
Students attended the session using the ‘guest link’. This doesn’t record the email of the
students, so you’ll need to think about how students sign-up if you want to contact them (e.g.
via email) after the session.
How should the recording of a session be made available after the session? Do you devalue the
benefit of attending the webinar if it’s made available to everyone? Should it only be sent to
attendees as an incentive to attend?
Having a recording meant Dan was able to reflect on the content of presentation and consult
with his colleagues.
Kate Fletcher, Sue Slade, Kevin Flint, Raj Vaiyapuri, Wee Kiat Ong, School of Chemistry, Food and Pharmacy; Pharmacy
Context
MPharm Programme: Introduction to Professionalism and Practice
Undergraduate (UG) students, Part 1
Number of participants in sessions: 20 (9 in the UK and 11 in Malaysia)
Session length: 60 minutes
Description
Part 1 students studying the MPharm course at both the Reading and Malaysia campuses were
brought together using Blackboard Collaborate to compare Pharmacy Practice in each country.
Kate wanted to encourage crossover between campuses and for students to get to know each
other before the Malaysian students came over to study in the UK for Part 3.
Students based at each campus logged in to Collaborate on individual computers with a
headset.
Both groups of students were in the Clinical Skills Suite on each campus with laptops and
headsets.
Staff supported students in the physical rooms to get them settled and set-up.
The session was designed around set discussion activities and students separated out into
groups that included students from both campuses, using the ‘Breakout room’ feature.
Impact
Collaborate provided an effective way for students studying at different campuses to learn
together and begin to build relationships.
Close cooperation was needed between the UK and Malaysian staff to set up the session.
Students quickly picked-up how to use the tool, were using the Chat tool without prompting
and easily able to undertake the tasks in the breakout rooms.
The session was activity based and students were discussing with each other. This made best
use of the technology to facilitate communication.
There were good levels of interaction between students using the audio and video. However,
the first time people use the system interaction can initially be awkward.
Some cultural differences were perceived. Malaysian students were quieter in the
conversations and UK-based students tended to lead.
Thoughts and reflections
Kate and Sue were thoroughly prepared for the session and had rehearsed how to use the
‘breakout rooms’ and written a session plan with timings.
Don’t expect to get as much done as you would in a face-to-face session or allow more time for
activities in this environment.
As the students were located in the same room together they were spread out to minimise the
transfer of noise between them when talking. Pharmacy had a large enough room to allow this.
Feedback from students indicated they could easily take part from home.
Pharmacy needed to purchase suitable headsets that could be re-used by different students.
Allow sufficient time to arrange ordering from IT.
Make sure Chrome is installed on the University computers students are going to use.
There was a significant investment of time and a learning curve to set up the session, as this
was the first time they had attempted this. Future sessions should be easier to facilitate.
It’s not yet possible to save what has been written on the whiteboards in the breakout rooms.
