Using wikis for assessed group work in new history modules

By laurenmccann Comment Closed

Shirin Irvine – TEL Adviser, CQSD

Image of Shirin Irvine

Overview

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)

Image of Mara Olive

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!

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.

Using quickmarks and rubrics in online assessment – Catherine Foley

By laurenmccann Comment Closed

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.

Image of Catherine Foley

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.

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/

Developing innovative teaching: The importance of reflective practice

By peteandrews Comment Closed

Dr Allán Laville, School of Psychology and Clinical Language Sciences

a.laville@reading.ac.uk

Overview

In the training of Psychological Wellbeing Practitioners (PWPs), it is crucial to support students in the development of their reflective thinking and writing skills. Therefore, I implemented the Self-Practice/Self-Reflection (SP/SR; Bennett-Levy, 2001) approach into our PWP training programmes. Impact was measured by asking students to complete questionnaires on their experience of SP/SR and the results informed my PGCAP research project.

Objectives

  • To improve the level of support and guidance for reflective thinking and writing within the programme.
  • To support students to review their current clinical practice and to create action points in order to develop their practice based on the use of SP/SR.

Context

As part of the BPS PWP national curriculum, students are required to complete summative pieces of reflective writing based on their clinical practice. This is contained within the Evidence-based low-intensity treatment of common mental health problems module (PY3TRT1 and PYMTRT) in both PWP training programmes at the University.

Implementation

The first step was to review the current literature on SP/SR to see how we could implement this approach in the training of low-intensity Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (LICBT) for PWPs. Previous use of this approach was for Cognitive Behavioural Psychotherapists who completed training over two years, whereas PWPs train over 9 months, and so there is significantly less time for implementation.

Based on the length of the training programme, we agreed on including 6 SP/SR activities. We then explored the three different components to this. The first component, which was already in the programme, is for students to receive teaching on a LICBT intervention, such as Behavioural Activation i.e. supporting patients with depression to increase their amount of routine, necessary, and pleasurable activities. The second component, which was new to the programme, was for students to practice completing the LICBT intervention on themselves to identify what went well and what could have gone better.  The third component, which was also new to the programme, was for students to then blog about their experience via the discussion board feature on Blackboard.

Impact

The student feedback, elicited in the questionnaires, were very positive with comments such as ‘practicing the intervention and then blogging about it really made me see the difficulties that patients might face’ and ‘completing SP/SR really made me review my current practice and see what I can do to improve.  Our experience of including the SP/SR training was presented at the National British Association of Behavioural and Cognitive Psychotherapies Conference at the University of Birmingham. Overall, I think that the activity did meet the objectives however, an unexpected outcome was the need to reduce the number of activities due to student feedback.

Reflections

In relation to the success of the activity, the consultation with other Clinical Educators and Programme Directors (both at Reading and other Universities) enabled us to implement the activity with very little difficulty. Furthermore, within our teaching, we provide an ‘Introduction to SP/SR’ session so students are informed of the evidence-base for this approach, what the requirements are for SP/SR on our programmes, as well as when they will need to complete the activity, and how to post their experiences on Blackboard. This has been commented on as very useful within student feedback.

In relation to better implementation, the earlier versions of the activity included 6 SP/SR tasks however, students commented that whilst SP/SR is very useful, they found completing 6 tasks too much when considering the rest of their workload. Therefore, we reduced the number to 4 SP/SR tasks, which has been working well.

Follow up

In the previous two years, we have developed our practice by providing students with the opportunity to receive written staff feedback on one of their SP/SR blogs. The student feedback in regard to this has been very positive and we have seen an improvement in the reflective writing skills of our students in their summative reflective assignments.

Links

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/231747637_The_value_of_self-practice_of_cognitive_therapy_techniques_and_self-reflection_in_the_training_of_cognitive_therapists

Developing diversity and inclusion teaching: Sexuality

By peteandrews Comment Closed

Dr Allán Laville     School of Psychology and Clinical Language Sciences     a.laville@reading.ac.uk

Overview

In line with the Equality Act (2010) and Department of Health (2011), sexual orientation needs to be considered in the training of the psychological workforce. Since 2011, I have been developing clinical teaching on sexual orientation with student satisfaction rates of 95-100%. This blog details my journey in the continual development of this training.

Objectives

  • To deliver clinical training on sexual orientation that meets the requirements of the British Psychological Society Psychological Wellbeing Practitioner (BPS PWP) national curriculum. PWPs work with individuals with anxiety and depression who are aged 16+.
  • To support students to be critical of the current psychological literature on sexual orientation and what action plans need to be completed as part of their own clinical development.

Context

As part of the BPS PWP national curriculum, we need to have excellent standards of Diversity and Inclusion teaching. This is contained within the Values, Employment and Context module (PY3VEC1 and PYMVEC) in both PWP training programmes at the University.  I was tasked, by the Director of Training in the Charlie Waller Institute (CWI), to create teaching on sexual orientation as this was previously not included in the module overview.

Implementation

The first step was to review the current literature on sexual orientation and tie it to mental health. Overwhelmingly, the literature suggests that individuals who identify as Lesbian, Gay and Bisexual (LGB) are at a significantly higher risk of developing a common mental health problem than individuals who identify as heterosexual.

The second step was to explore national policies and approaches, i.e. Department of Health (2011), to supporting individuals who identify as LGB.  It was interesting to see that data collection for sexual orientation is disproportionally under-collected compared to other protected characteristics e.g. race, age, within the Equality Act (2010). This was concerning as data by sexual orientation is not well understood, yet LGB individuals are at a higher risk of developing a mental health problem as well as risk taking behaviours.

The final step was to create a training session that incorporated current literature, tied to national policy, which clearly highlighted how we can work with sexual orientation within clinical practice, such as considering risk as well as appropriate signposting.

Impact

The student satisfaction scores were overwhelming positive with comments such as ‘this training is awesome’ and ‘this training really made me think about sexual orientation, and I hadn’t thought about it before’.  The training has now also been delivered to High Intensity Cognitive Behavioural Therapists in CWI as well as at the National British Association of Behavioural and Cognitive Psychotherapies Conference at Imperial College, London. Overall, I think that the activity did meet the objectives however, an unexpected outcome was the need to publish the key factors of this training session to better inform the wider workforce.

Reflections

The continual review and updating of this session made sure that it is still relevant for each cohort and meets the requirements of the national curriculum. One large factor that led to the success of this activity was the engagement and contribution of the students. Each time I deliver this session, there are different viewpoints, which challenge my thinking, and this is so valuable for me to develop as a clinician and as an academic.

In relation to better implementation, the earlier versions of the session did not include very much on multi-discrimination and so, it now includes discussion points on considering intersectionality within our clinical practice. This has been received well by students and further promotes critical thinking. It also ties more closely with the intersectionality inclusion aims of Stonewall, Europe’s largest LGBT+ charity.

Follow up

I have now been approached by the Director of Children and Young Persons (CYP) programmes in CWI to consider how sexual orientation training can be delivered to CYP clinicians. This will be an interesting task as I will need to consider generational differences as well as how my work can be applied to a different group of clinicians.

Links and references

https://www.babcp.com/files/CBT-Today/cbt-today-december-2017.pdf

Laville, A. (2017). The importance of data collection, signposting and ‘appropriate’ awareness in working with sexual orientation. CBT Today, 45 (4), 14-15.

Department of Health and Social Care. (2011). NO HEALTH WITHOUT MENTAL HEALTH: A cross- Government mental health outcomes strategy for people of all ages. Analysis of the Impact on Equality (AIE). London: Department of Health and Social Care.

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)