Implementing the Curriculum Framework – how can the Library help?

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Karen Drury, Liaison Librarian for Art, Typography and Graphic Communication, and Management

Dr Kim Shahabudin, Study Adviser

Kerry Webb, Associate Director (Academic Liaison and Support), The Library

In a world of constant new teaching and learning initiatives, implementing the Curriculum Framework might seem like one more job to do. If you’re thinking that you could use all the help you can get, we have good news: the Library have done some work for you, listing practical ways in which Liaison Librarians and Study Advisers can help to support the development of graduate attributes and academic principles.

Supporting Curriculum Review

Liaison librarians have already been discussing ways in which the Library can support schools and departments with their curriculum review, including Typography & Graphic Communication and Henley Business School.

Providing practical support: working with Typography & Graphic Communication

Following discussions with Typography and Graphic Communication about their Curriculum Review, Karen and Ruth (the Department’s subject Liaison Librarians) now have a better understanding of those areas identified as needing extra support.

We have concentrated on encouraging students to engage with course texts. This has led to us working closely with the lecturer to arrange a session for one Part 3 module that involved giving the students the opportunity to handle and explore the books on the reading list. Another approach has been to encourage confidence and accuracy with using citations. A session was arranged that was open to all Typography undergraduate students, to teach the principles of Harvard referencing, and importantly, to show the students that help and support is available from the Library and Study Advice teams. We are looking forward to working closely with our academic colleagues to build on this in the future.

Karen Drury, subject Liaison Librarian for Typography and Graphic Communication

Involving the Library in the process can have a positive impact on curriculum review, providing further opportunities for collaborative working between Liaison Librarians and our academic colleagues:

BA Graphic Communication students need to master a wide range of practical, professional and technical skills in addition to disciplinary and transferable academic skills. Knowing that we can work with our Library colleagues to better support how students across different years of study develop specific skills and graduate attributes is exciting. There are lots of possibilities but as a starting point we are focusing on helping students engage with a more diverse range of sources, critically evaluate sources and understand how copyright and attribution works across both practice and research.  

Dr Jeanne-Louise Moys (Typography & Graphic Communication)

Mapping practice on to principles

To assist Schools and Departments with implementing the Curriculum Framework, the Library has produced two documents which outline ways in which subject liaison librarians and study advisers can support the embedding of academic literacy skills within your programmes.

The first of these, Implementing the Curriculum Framework – how can the Library help? can be downloaded from the Further Support for Curriculum Review webpage. It outlines practical ways in which our Liaison Librarians and Study Advisers can support you, mapped against the graduate attributes and academic principles defined in the Framework.

The second outlines in more detail the pedagogic principles which underlie our practice, drawing upon elements of established information and digital literacy models, again mapped against the Framework. Please contact Kerry Webb (the Library’s Associate Director for Academic Liaison & Support), if you would like a copy.

Please get in touch with your subject Liaison Librarian or a member of the Study Advice team if you would like to know more about how we can support you in implementing the Curriculum Framework in your school or department.

Attention Workshop

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Florian Roithmayr, School of Art and Communication Design                f.roithmayr@reading.ac.uk

Overview

The two-day workshop “Attention Please” engaged students across the School of Art and Communication Design and the School of Architecture in a series of exercises to re-focus and sharpen their attention onto different materials, in different settings, under different circumstances, and in different speeds, challenging established routines and habits.

Objectives

  • experience and develop skills to collaborate across disciplines and year groups
  • develop team building skills
  • develop skills in mindfulness and sustained attention
  • challenge usual routines and habits of engaging with materials and objects
  • challenge discipline specific practices, narratives and vocabulary of engaging with materials and objects

Context

The workshop was conceived as an extra curriculum activity independent of regular departmental teaching and learning to address attitudes and practices that affect students and researchers across disciplines and year groups. Funding allowed and facilitated a whole program of exercises and in-depth engagement over two full-days of activities across Schools.

Implementation

A number of specialist coaches and mentors were invited to facilitate different exercises and workshops as individual or group activities to build a program that develops and unfolds over the course of the two days: a percussion workshop to develop skills in listening and responding within groups, to work with and against rhythms and melodies, volume levels and intensities. A voice coach gave a workshop in speaking and shouting, assertiveness in discussions and silence. A body coach gave a workshop in posture, attention to body language and reading behaviour. A flower-arranging specialist offered a workshop in composition and attention to details. Workshops also engaged participants in sustained periods of mindfulness, concentration and awareness, to each other, themselves, or their surrounding environment and context.

Impact

Student feedback on the days and reflective feedback at the end suggests a real need for more cross-school activities and engagements, and peer learning. Especially postgraduate researchers expressed the positive impact engaging with other student years had on their work/research habits.

Reflections

The timing of the workshop proved to be a major contributing factor to the success of the activities: although not pre-planned and designed as such, the end of the summer term offered the chance for a large uptake by participants as students had finished their exams and were keen and open and very interested to participate in extra curriculum activities across the school without the restraint of clashes with teaching and other commitments.

Follow up

There has not been any further development, but there is always the possibility to repeat the activity again in the future and build on the workshop as a whole.

Links

https://www.flickr.com/gp/readingfineart/5QB6XW 

 

A Language Teaching Community of Practice: Collaborative development of expertise and scholarship By Jackie Baines (Dept. of Classics), Rita Balestrini (MLES), Sarah Brewer (ISLI), Barbara King (IoE), Regine Klimpfinger (MLES), Congxia Li (IWLP), Sarah Marston (IoE)

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Over the course of the last academic year, the idea of creating a Language Teaching Community of Practice (LT CoP) has taken shape and developed as part of the University strategy to support and promote language learning and expertise in foreign languages teaching. A number of colleagues involved in language teaching or teacher education from the Department of Modern Languages and European Studies, the International Study and Language Institute, the Institute of Education and the Department of Classics, have agreed to meet informally and contribute, from their different perspectives, to the implementation of the project.

As a core group, we began our work with a critical discussion of the idea of CoP itself, its evolution and its adoption as an organisational tool. We discussed the range of functions that, as a cross-institutional LT CoP, we would like to have (sharing practices, responding to needs, mentoring, influencing policies, bidding for funds etc.) and key issues that we consider relevant to our interests and needs as language practitioners working in different  contexts. We agreed that one of our defining aims will be to deepen knowledge, promote reflection and stimulate in-depth discussion around themes relating to our professional practice at the UoR. Therefore, we have decided to focus on one main theme in each academic year. In 2016-2017, we began to share and discuss some aspects of our assessment practices and we intend to continue exploring this theme in 2017-2018.

We would now like to widen participation and invite colleagues who have an interest in foreign language pedagogy to join us in termly meetings. The first meeting will be held on 13th November, from 1-2 pm (Carrington, Room 101) room tbc) and will focus on marking criteria, rubrics and grading scales used to assess speaking and writing in a foreign language. We invite interested colleagues to give short presentations on these topics (10-15 minutes). For organisational purposes, we would like to receive a short abstract/summary (approximately 100 words) of the presentation by Friday 27th October at the latest. This should be sent to r.balestrini@reading.ac.uk

As is the nature of a CoP, our structure and plans will remain flexible and we will respond to the needs and interests of our members. Therefore, the direction in which the discussion will continue in the spring and summer meetings will emerge from this first event in the autumn term.

If you plan to join us at our Autumn meeting on 13th November, please register your interest in participating at the following link: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/autumn-meeting-of-the-language-teaching-community-of-practice-lt-cop-tickets-38351139290

Integrating Research-Led Teaching into Law: From Visit Days to Finals – Dr Beatrice Krebs and Dr Lawrence Hill-Cawthorne, School of Law

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The benefits of research-led teaching for both staff and students are well known. From the perspective of students, it encourages and facilitates deeper learning and engagement with complex intellectual issues in the course materials. In so doing, it gives the students the opportunity to develop critical and creative thinking. For staff, it offers the opportunity to use the classroom as a laboratory for testing out ideas in their research area, and discussing them with a student audience often helps to clarify our own thinking.

In Law, we have successfully integrated research-led teaching not only throughout the undergraduate degree but also from the outset when students visit the University on open and visit days. In this blog post, we want to share some of our practices with integrating research into teaching through the undergraduate degree course.

Open and visit days

Part of research-led teaching requires making students aware from the outset of their degree of the research we do. Open and visit days offers a perfect opportunity for this and indeed allows us to advertise our expertise in cutting-edge research. To this end, we have made showcasing our research expertise and research-led teaching a key part of our open and visit day experience. Thus, we begin with a talk by the admissions tutor (one of the present authors) that, in part, offers an overview of the different research strengths of the Law School and emphasises the value in being taught by leading researchers in the field. As part of this, he also presents examples of staff that not only teach and research in their specialist fields but are involved in the practice of law (for example, many of our staff act as academic advisors to counsel in court cases and participants in key policy initiatives around the world – see our research impact pages). We then move on to a taster lecture from a member of staff on a topical subject that is accessible and interesting to school pupils and is representative of what they will study during their degree. Crucially, this lecture is given by a member of staff on their specialist research area and incorporates aspects of their research. For example, one of the present authors gave a taster lecture at the most recent visit days in February 2017 on the Jogee case of the UK Supreme Court that changed the law on accessorial liability in criminal law, drawing on her research in this area and first-hand knowledge of the case.

Overall, this approach to open and visit days has been very successful. Feedback has consistently been very good, with notable mention of the interesting and engaging topics of the taster lectures. We have noticed especially in the taster lectures that visiting students are generally keen to get involved by asking questions, offering answers and debating topics. For this reason, we have made the taster lectures more interactive, for example, by asking visitors to give their views on a particular issue by a show of hands and then asking one or two people to explain the reasons for their views.

First year

Throughout the degree, students are taught by members of staff in their specialist research areas, which exposes students to the latest scholarship and key debates in the field that they are studying. However, research-led teaching in Law is not limited to substantive research topics but also underlying research methodologies. For example, in tutorials in Criminal Law, when explaining how the law works in particular areas, comparisons are often drawn to other jurisdictions so as both to highlight the particularities of the English and Welsh approach and to expose students to alternative ways of addressing the same social problems. This direct comparison pushes students to think critically about the legal rules that they learn and to ask themselves what are the advantages and disadvantages of how our jurisdiction deals with certain issues in the Law. Exposing students in their first year to this also prepares them well for the various research-based modules (e.g. Research Placement Project and Dissertation) in their second and third years.

Second Year

In the second year, we have a bespoke research-informed module, Research Placement Project (RPP). RPP offers students the opportunity to work directly with a member of staff on a particular research project. The student develops their own research question with the guidance and supervision of one of the academics that has signed up to the module. The students are given lectures on the nature of scholarly research and research skills, as well as seminars that function as workshops with students discussing the progress they have made on their research. This module offers students an early opportunity at developing their own, discrete research project with guidance from the academic and to engage in a deeper form of learning and critical analysis. Moreover, as the topics of the research projects are not restricted to what they have studied thus far, they are able to extend their existing knowledge into topical and exciting cutting-edge areas of research.

Final Year

The final year offers a range of opportunities to further students’ engagement with research. One example is the Dissertation module, for which students develop independently a research question and then find a supervisor that works in that field to support them as they write a 12,500 word dissertation. In addition, in specific taught modules, we also integrate research into seminars and tutorials. For example, in International Law tutorials, two students are sent a scholarly article in advance to read and to summarise to the other students in the tutorial. The articles tend to be of a general nature, exploring different understandings and ways of thinking about international law. Other students then have an opportunity to ask questions about the article and engage with it themselves. This has generally been very successful and has made students engage with very complex intellectual controversies that they otherwise would not have encountered.

Concluding remarks

In this blog post we have sought to outline a few ways in which we incorporate our research interests as academics into the teaching of Law throughout the undergraduate degree. Feedback from students has been positive about these different approaches. Importantly, research-led teaching not only benefits students, by encouraging deeper and more critical approaches to reading and writing, but also benefits academics, as we are able to discuss our research interests with students who may be able to offer a fresh perspective.

As noted, we have sought to incorporate research engagement at the earliest stage, making it a crucial part of the open and visit days to give potential students a clearer idea of academia and university life. As the degree progresses, we can often see a clear improvement in how students express themselves and handle different ideas and arguments with nuance and maturity. Research-led teaching thus benefits the quality of their written work and is key to establishing students as independent thinkers both within and outside the classroom.

Success Breeds Success: In Praise of FLAIR By Dr Madeleine Davies, Department of English Literature (SLL)

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Reluctance

My application to the HEA through the FLAIR Scheme was a task I deferred for as long as possible. I did not have time; it looked too difficult; I had so many other things to do, including research, marking, teaching and administration.

To indicate that I would get down to applying eventually, I attended a briefing event given by Dr Eileen Hyder who heads the FLAIR HEA accreditation scheme at the University. Eileen (who should be sainted) was an inspiring speaker and she made the whole application process seem achievable and also positive in terms of our own career management and self-development. A clear structure for the FLAIR programme was outlined and Eileen explained the number of writing retreats we could attend and the support that was available to us. A time frame was provided, and also an expert summary of what kind of material we should consider including in the various sections of the application.

Reconsideration

My procrastination stopped here. As soon as I returned to my office after the briefing event, I sketched out potential case studies and began to penetrate the mysteries of the UKPSF (UK Professional Standards Framework) that turned out not to be  ‘mysterious’ at all. Over the weekend that followed, I put flesh on the bones of the draft, began to complete the forms and to gather my evidence and references for my application for ‘Fellow’ of the HEA.

Reflection

The drafting task proved surprisingly compelling, not least because the body of work I had accumulated surprised me; I had lost sight of the range of activities I had undertaken and of their significance in terms of T & L effectiveness. I realised that all the work that I had been doing over several years was not merely ‘routine’ but was full of T & L innovation, and I began to develop a new sense of the value of my work as I wrote. My self-confidence had taken a battering over the years (such is the lot of a female academic managing the work/children juggle) but completing the forms made me realise that this state of depressed self-esteem had potentially been generated by never having the time or the space to reflect fully on the quality of the contribution that I had been making. Applying to the HEA creates that time and space for reflective self-evaluation.

Retreat

Because I am used to writing independently, I decided to reserve my writing retreat allocation for the discussion of my draft application (other colleagues prefer to use the retreats to produce their case studies). Armed with my first complete draft, I attended the retreat in early June 2016, the time of year when such mornings ‘out’ look impossible (particularly for Exams Officers). However, I was determined to create the time and, whilst there, I had a long and fascinating conversation with Eileen who read my draft and told me approvingly that it looked like the profile of a Senior Fellow rather than that of a Fellow. My self-confidence leapt another notch.

To all those tempted to skip the ‘Writing Retreat’ part of the application process, think again: advice and guidance at this stage is vital and the three hours I spent at the retreat were enjoyable, relaxed, and crucial in terms of the development of my application. The advice I received prevented many mistakes that I could have made, and corrected others that I had already made.

Following the retreat, I again returned to my office and began typing new sections to draw out areas of activity that I had under-played (not having recognised their significance), and amending others that were not UKPSF-friendly. Once again, inspired by Eileen’s positivity and encouragement, the work was swift and actually rather enjoyable: it had been a long time since I had worked on something exclusively for my own professional development.

Reward

I submitted my application shortly afterwards and was soon rewarded with a certificate, a silver pin, Senior Fellowship of the HEA, and a thoroughly enjoyable celebratory Christmas party attended by the Vice Chancellor. Since then I have become a fully trained member of the FLAIR ‘College of Assessors’, working with Eileen and several colleagues across the University who I never had the opportunity to meet before. This work has been a great pleasure and it is an unanticipated bonus of my HEA application experience.

Rejuvenation

It is not an exaggeration to say that my application to the HEA marked a turning point for me. It gave me a new appreciation of the work I had done and that I continued to do and I began to realise that I could be successful in other applications too. Since then, I have submitted bids for funding, placements, fellowships and promotion. All of this had seemed beyond my reach before I applied to the HEA, and there never seemed to be enough time for it anyway.

Following my experience on FLAIR, I now make time for these bids and applications because I have a renewed sense of the worth of what I have to share within and beyond the University. I have generated new initiatives (including a ‘Gender and Identities’ Student Forum and the SLL Resilience Masterclasses), applied for a Collaborative Award, co-organised a conference, and engaged Jess Phillips MP to come and speak at the University in June. I am doubly active in attending research events, outreach events, CQSD training sessions, and in participating in research networks.

Success breeds success. Looking back, I had fallen into a pattern of under-valuing my work and of not feeling that achievement and recognition were possible for me outside of the seminar room. Eileen’s support, and the FLAIR Scheme as a whole, lifted me out of this and helped me to develop a new perspective on my work and career. I am particularly grateful to Eileen for urging me to apply for Senior Fellowship because I would not have had the confidence to do this without her.

Recommendation

For any colleague who needs help in appreciating the value of what they do, and who needs a shot of confidence, I urge you to embrace the FLAIR Scheme. Apply for Senior Fellowship if Eileen sees the potential. Yes, it takes some work, but it is work that repays you ten-fold.

RESILIENCE: THE ROUTE TO SUCCESS By Dr Madeleine Davies

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A Collaborative Initiative between Dr Madeleine Davies (Department of English Literature), Dr Ute Wolfel (Department of Modern European Languages), Dr Tony Capstick (Department of English Language and Linguistics) and Dr Alicia Pena Bizama (Counselling and Wellbeing)

PROJECT OUTLINE

In December 2016 the three Senior Tutors of the School of Language and Literature (SLL) met to discuss the growing problem of student wellbeing following a steep rise in ECF submissions for MH difficulties. We were concerned not only for the wellbeing of our students but also for their academic development and success, and for their ability to manage their professional futures. We decided that there was more that we could do to prevent student distress, build resilience, and thus support effective teaching and learning so we decided to develop and deliver two-hour, interactive Masterclass titled, ‘Resilience: The Route to Success’.

We consulted Dr Alicia Pena Bizama (Head of Counselling) to help us design a programme that would respond to the specific problems that we had noted in our SLL students. We scheduled three lengthy planning meetings, pooling our ideas and our knowledge: Dr Pena Bizama brought her extensive research into Psychology, and the three Senior Tutors brought knowledge of their individual cohorts and years of experience managing student problems. Together, we designed and produced promotional posters, disseminated the plans to all SLL colleagues, and advertised the Masterclass on Blackboard and Me@Reading. We also sent individual emails to SLL students with a link to a Doodle Poll through which students could reserve a place at the event. This would have been unmanageable for a single colleague in the middle of a busy term, but we spread the load and the materials we produced benefited greatly from the time and input of four colleagues with different research backgrounds and pedagogic expertise.

The planning group decided to intersect with associated key SLL and UofR initiatives: attendance at the Masterclass counted as credit for the Professional Track Programme (SLL) and as credit for the “Life Skills’ initiative, and it connected with the University’s emphasis on student resilience and employability.

DESIGN OF THE PROGRAMME

The Masterclass was delivered in Week 5 of the Spring Term. The 2-hour session focused on building students’ confidence in their ability to manage stress and anxiety and on equipping our students with techniques that could enhance their learning potential. The design of the session was as follows:

Dealing with Academic Pressure:

Introduction – Dr Madeleine Davies: outlining the aims of the Masterclass: managing academic pressure and facilitating success; the connection between academic and professional resilience; the roots of ‘performance anxiety’; redefining (but not denying) ‘stress’ and ‘pressure’.

Dr Pena-Bizama’s presentation (including the difference between MH problems and routine anxiety)

Feedback and How to Use it Constructively:

Introduction – Dr Tony Capstick: how feedback is often interpreted as a personal attack; what its intentions are; how it is a positive learning tool; connection with the professional workplace; how to USE feedback.

Dr Pena-Bizama’s presentation

Motivation, Perfectionism and Procrastination

Introduction – Dr Ute Wolfel: motivation – reminding students of the questions, ‘What do I want to learn? What do I enjoy about these topics?; how perfectionism produces procrastination and how both can be overcome.

Dr Pena-Bizama’s presentation

Discussion period

The students were divided into groups and asked to discuss the following:

(a) What triggers/generates their anxiety most?

(b) How can the words ‘stress’ and ‘anxiety’ be reframed?

(c) What tactics and habits can help to restore perspective.

(d) How can feedback be removed from the sense of personal attack and be redefined as a constructive learning tool?

Feedback period

The students fed back the ideas generated by their groups; many students mentioned that talking about their worries to others who shared precisely the same concerns was of great help. Students also very usefully identified the source of their anxiety and others suggested ways of tackling it. The discussion was lively, collaborative and fully supportive: it was a credit to our students.

Dr Madeleine Davies concluded the session, pointing the students towards material and University support structures that could help them in the development of productive habits and attitudes. The second, exams-focused, Masterclass was announced and written feedback on the session was collected.

STUDENT PARTICIPATION AND FEEDBACK

The Masterclass was delivered on Wednesday 8th February 2017 and 45 students attended. There was a high level of interaction throughout and student feedback was overwhelmingly positive. The form that we designed asked for feedback in the following areas:

Did you find the content reflected your concerns?

15 x ‘5’ (extremely well matched); 27 x 4 (well matched); 3 x 3 (neutral)

Do you think you will find it easier to manage academic pressure (particularly assessments) after the Master Class?

32 x ‘Yes’; 10 x ‘Maybe’; 3 x ‘No’.

Do you feel that you are better equipped to develop a more positive attitude to feedback and study following the Masterclass?

25 x ‘Yes’; 18 x ‘Maybe’; 2 x ‘No’.

Most of the forms added a comment: examples include, ‘Thank you SO MUCH’; ‘I feel much better’; ‘It’s good to know I’m not alone – loads of people here feeling the way I do’, ‘I think I can do this now!’; ‘I liked that the teachers were really honest about feeling stressed too and told us how they cope with it’; ‘Fantastic practical help – it’s what I needed’.

MOVING FORWARDS

The success of the collaboration in delivering the Resilience Masterclass initiative will be sustained going forwards. Prior to the exams period (May 2017) the same group of colleagues will collaborate on an ‘Exams Masterclass’ and in the 2017-18 session we will run three ‘Resilience’ and ‘Exams’ Master Classes in the Autumn, Spring and Summer Terms so that we can intervene early and prevent serious cases of anxiety arising (this will benefit retention). We are committed to working together as a team comprised of diverse skills to support our students in developing mental resilience to underpin academic achievement and to help them to embed the attitudes, habits and techniques that form the route to learning and professional success.

The Power of Collaboration: Reflections on St Andrews EAP conference by Bruce Howell & Aaron Woodcock (ISLI)

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In February 2016, we presented at a one-day English for Academic Purposes (EAP) conference at St Andrews University, showcasing Reading’s ‘English Language for Chemists’ module, a collaboration between the International Study & Language Institute (ISLI) and the Department of Chemistry.  As it turned out,  collaboration between EAP and subject study departments, and its power to enhance teaching and learning (T&L), was key thread running through all the presentations we saw that day.

About the conference

The conference is an annual event for professionals working in EAP in English language departments and units across the UK and further afield, who undertake activities similar to ISLI’s Pre-Sessional English (PSE) and Academic English Programme (AEP). There are in fact a number of such conferences each year in the UK, and many attract participants from abroad. It is increasingly recognised that there is a need to support students whose first language is not English who arrive in the UK as a full time student, or (increasingly) as part of a Trans-National Education (TNE) programme. One question many leaders of T&L are asking is how to incorporate EAP into existing degree teaching – should it be extra-curricular or should it be integrated into the degree itself? The conference theme attempted to tackle this challenge: ‘Finding the balance: language and content in EAP’, and thus provided an ideal opportunity for us to share ISLI’s experience of collaborating with Chemistry.

Our presentation: ‘Designing a subject-specific EAP course for Chemists’

We outlined the content of the module, showing samples of teaching materials, and explained the story of the module’s creation. We emphasised the central role collaboration had to play in the creation and running of the module: both collaboration between the University of Reading and Nanjing University of Information Science & Technology (NUIST), and collaboration between ISLI and Chemistry. The latter in particular was central to delivering a module that teaches English that is both relevant and achievable. The collaboration ultimately won ISLI/Chemistry a University Collaborative Award for Outstanding Contributions to Teaching and Learning (2014-2015).

The ‘English for Chemists’ module (CH3ENG) was created for the 2014/15 session onwards as a result of forward planning:

  • Chemistry staff members visiting NUIST and meeting Applied Chemistry students as well as their lecturers
  • Chemistry staff members discussing any ‘gap’ of attainment likely when the 3+1 students arrive for Part 3 (thereby recognised that EAP support would be a necessary component)
  • Chemistry working with ISLI to create 20 credits’ worth of study designed uniquely for the NUIST  students arriving for Part 3.

Two types of essential skill were identified as areas which would normally have been covered or developed during Parts 1 and 2:

  • language functions, such as explaining chemical reaction processes, clear pronunciation, effective speaking in groups in labs
  • important Chemistry skills, such as safety regulation awareness, Chemistry-specific IT, generic study skills.

The decision was therefore made to create two 10-credit modules, the former delivered by ISLI (CH3ENG), and the latter by Chemistry (CH3NUI), requiring further joint planning to take place, ensuring the modules complemented each other but did not overlap. An example of this would be ‘avoiding plagiarism’, which could equally be considered ‘language’ (ISLI) or ‘general study skills’ (Chemistry). In order to avoid repetition and retain a balance the ‘avoiding plagiarism’ objective was placed within the CH3NUI module. Close monitoring has taken place during the first 2 years, and gradual developments are ongoing, for example a greater emphasis on writing short examination-type responses will be given in CH3ENG.

Presentations from other universities

EAP taught on its own as a subject, as in most Pre-Sessional English courses, usually results in a ‘generic’ form of English teaching, i.e. activities which require academic skills such as structuring writing, using references, presenting clearly, and contributing to seminar discussion. Topics and formats tend to be closer to social science(s) than pure sciences because of the likelihood that the topic areas are ‘common knowledge’. Generic EAP would involve studying texts and writing essays on ethical business, education approaches, employment patterns, and the like.

Contributions to the conference made it clear that ‘imbedded’ In-Sessional English is a fast-growing area of interest for many EAP professionals, and this conference gave an opportunity to share best practice in giving English language support to students learning specific subject areas. For instance, colleagues from the University of Manchester presented on two projects: a masters level ‘Principles of Scientific Writing’ for Chemistry, and the challenges of providing English language support for mathematicians. Colleagues from the University of Edinburgh posed interesting alternative views on to what extent Academic English lecturers can or should comment on the content of students’ writing, and colleagues from the University of Leeds are launching a brand new discipline-specific Pre-Sessional English programme, which has involved close collaboration between the English language centre and subject departments across the university.

Common sentiments expressed were:

  1. a) collaboration between English language and subject experts is vital
  2. b) a ‘blinkered’ subject focus is not enough (as with many professional roles these days): EAP lecturers need to have some interest in or knowledge of specific academic subjects, while subject lecturers need to have some interest in or knowledge of the language issues of international students
  3. c) teaching and learning leaders in UK universities often do recognise – though could perhaps recognise more – the importance of integrating language and study skills support into TNE programmes, rather than offering ‘extra-curricular’ opportunities
  4. d) ideally, staff in both EAP and subject departments should be involved in planning and delivery of certain modules, even at times ‘team teaching’ or ‘team marking’, though this clearly has resourcing implications (utilising PhD students as tutors can be a good solution).

Reflections and follow-up

ISLI at Reading already has an expanding range of subject collaborations as part of the AEP programme, with an increasing number becoming credit-bearing. Food and Nutritional Sciences has a long-standing 2+2 arrangement with Henan University of Technology central to which is an embedded credit-bearing EAP module, while Reading has plans to expand its 3+1 provision with NUIST in other subject areas. This seems to be in step with other UK universities, and there will be more of such possibilities growing in future.

Meanwhile, ISLI are currently looking into developing a more subject-specific PSE programme, and will therefore be closely watching developments of the new subject-specific Pre-Sessional English programme at Leeds.

Perhaps the most significant expansion of this type of activity will be seen at the Malaysia campus, where students will benefit from carefully planned English language and study skills input both before and during their degree courses, and will feature inter-campus as well as inter-departmental collaboration.

Peer Assisted Learning: how did the PAL pilots go in 2015-16 at Reading? by Caroline Crolla

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I’ve gained more knowledge regarding the module & find it easier to ask for help. (Maths PAL participant)

[PAL] is a more interactive way of working, more group work, some sharing about 4th year placement and the usefulness of this module for next year (S&L Therapy PAL participant)

It’s great to see people leave sessions feeling like they understand what they were struggling with. (PAL Leader, Creative Writing)

It’s great, [PAL] really helps with understanding work. (PAL Leader, Art)

Peer Assisted Learning (PAL) was introduced at the University of Reading in 2015-16 in a few departments as pilot schemes, with the longer term aim of establishing the scheme across the university. Five departments took part in the first pilot which ran from November 2015 to May 2016.  The pilot schemes have now been evaluated and here are some of the findings.

Participating departments in 2015-16

Economics

Mathematics and Statistics

Speech and Language Therapy

Fine Art

English Literature: Creative writing

What is Peer Assisted Learning?

Peer Assisted Learning is a scheme where students in the same subject learn together with their peers. PAL sessions are run by experienced student who have been trained as facilitators, also known as PAL Leaders, who are regularly debriefed by programme academics.

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

The principles underpinning Peer Assisted Learning include:

  • the PAL scheme should target high risk modules or courses, not high risk students
  • student participation should be voluntary and it should supplement not replace core teaching
  • student PAL Leaders are facilitators and not quasi-lecturer

What are PAL positives?

Academics reported that introducing PAL was not time consuming but that they did need to endorse and promote their PAL scheme more in order to increase attendance of at PAL sessions. All academics involved in PAL described how the scheme influenced their pedagogy.  They mentioned how much the PAL leaders had developed in the process.

Nothing additional to prepare; I am developing my teaching material because I have changed aspects of the module and my prep is being helpfully informed by having the two PAL Leaders and their sessions in mind.

I have had to think about my teaching materials more closely, because I have PAL in mind. I have reviewed what I am putting in the lectures and what not; what I want the PAL Leader to have or do, or not. This has been good for me…and the students I hope.

I am very impressed with [the PAL Leaders].   I think they are doing so well and really benefiting. 

To maximise effectiveness

The pilots have flagged up three key factors that influence the effectiveness of PAL

Attendance

To maximise attendance Departments need to ensure that PAL sessions appear on students’ timetables and are roomed and timetabled at appropriate times within the module so that participants can attend. PAL is voluntary and for students to benefit from attending sessions access needs to be made possible.

PAL Leaders and participants understand the benefit of collaborative learning

Leaders, participants and academic staff need to be clear about the benefits of working collaboratively on cognitively difficult material. Peer assisted learning is a structured way of peers learning together.  It is not remedial support. One hour of PAL can equal to three hours of working alone.

Increasing engagement by academics

If peer assisted learning is part of a subject’s offer, then it needs regular endorsement by academic contacts and the PAL leaders need regular reviews with the academic contact throughout the term. Increased publicity and visibility of the PAL sessions within departments will help with attendance.

What next?

  1. In 2016-17, more modules will be supported by Peer Assisted Learning sessions in Psychology, Classics as well as in Art, Speech and Language Therapy, English Literature and Mathematics.
  2. From the 14 PAL Leaders who trained to facilitate learning of their peers in 2015-16, 34 prospective PAL leaders will be trained in 2016-17 to support a range of modules.
  3. Academics in Mathematics, who have been enthusiastic early adopters of PAL, have decided to offer PAL in Mathematics as an optional Part 3 module and 9 students have been successfully selected to become PAL Leaders to support the Part 1 core module ‘Real Analysis’.

Would you like to get involved?

PAL at Reading had a great first year because of the enthusiasm of staff and students who had a deep commitment to learning and who saw the positive and holistic benefits of PAL. However, there is a lot more scope to deploy peer assisted learning in many contexts, so if you are an academic interested in adopting PAL for one or more of your modules or you would like to find out more, please contact: Caroline Crolla, PAL Coordinator, c.s.crolla@reading.ac.uk  | pal@reading.ac.uk or phone 0118 378 6593.   I work in the Student Success Team which is located in Blandford Lodge, G17, Whiteknights campus.

Challenges of Web Residency by Dr Becky Thomas

By edwardwhite Comment Closed

We are living in an increasingly digital world; many of our students grow up immersed in this way of life, having access to a wealth of information online, often accessible wherever they are. But how do they use this appropriately in their learning, and how do we help them harness all of this information? These are some of the questions that Alice Mauchline, Alastair Culham, Mark Fellowes and I had when we applied for the HEA funded ‘Challenges of Web Residency’ project. All of us are interested in the use of various digital technologies, especially in their use for fieldwork, but we want to know more about how we can improve our practice in this area.

To kick off the project we attended the first introductory HEA workshop in London where we were introduced to the basic idea; that the way people use the internet can be categorised into either a ‘visitor’ or ‘resident’, although in reality these categories are more of a spectrum. The visitor uses the internet as a tool, accessing it for information when it is needed and logging off without leaving any real trace, whereas the resident lives a proportion of their lives online, using the internet in most parts of their lives often socialising and leaving a digital trace. (Further information here: http://goo.gl/Wom15).A second, interesting dimension is to consider how the internet is used differently in our personal life compared to institutional contexts and how this can be important for professional development.

How is this relevant to us as academics? In our first workshop we were asked to make our own maps and the intricacies of the idea began to make sense. Although many of us and our students use Facebook on a regular basis, if our profiles are private then our digital trace is restricted to those who we allow access, or our ‘friends’. This means that for most people Facebook would appear in between visitor and resident, along the spectrum. The other consideration is whether our use is personal or institutional; I use Facebook for my work (to communicate with students) and as a way of keeping in touch with my friends, so it appears all along this horizontal axis. I use Twitter in the same way, but it’s much more public, so appears closer to the resident side of the spectrum.

‘Visitor and Resident’ map that I produced in the first HEA workshop
‘Visitor and Resident’ map that I produced in the first HEA workshop

In order to explore this within a teaching context, we ran a workshop in early March 2014 at the University of Reading with 35 Biological Science undergraduate and postgraduate students, asking them to complete their own maps and the results were really interesting. Many of them are ‘resident’ internet users, but the postgraduate students seemed to use this to their advantage by residing more in the institutional area (so they are increasing their online profile to benefit their future careers).
 

‘Visitor and Resident’ map produced by a postgraduate student in the workshop we ran at Reading
‘Visitor and Resident’ map produced by a postgraduate student in the workshop we ran at Reading

The mapping process was useful for the students and staff, forcing us to think more about our web presence (or absence!).  It was also evident that the majority of students use the web for personal purposes much more than for their learning (upper half of all diagrams was more densely filled than the lower half).  We did see a progression among students from year to year in their academic life towards more ‘resident-institutional’ web use, but how should we support this transition? We feel that we need to have a discussion with our students about their web identity and build this into the routine of student education with emphasis on employability. This is something that we have begun to explore on a recent residential microbiology field trip to Iceland (another post to follow soon).

Another interesting element was discussed at our final HEA workshop – with ever increasing class sizes, applications like Twitter and Facebook, could be used as a way for our students to ‘get to know us’ on a more personal level, which also opens up a discussion about whether staff have considered the implications of students ‘following’ them on Twitter or becoming ‘friends’ on Facebook.

We are discussing the idea of running a workshop early next year, to facilitate discussion across the University about digital literacies of our students and how we communicate with them following our participation in the project. If this would interest you then get in touch: rebecca.thomas@reading.ac.uk.

 

Day one of the APP workshop at University of Reading Malaysia by Dr Samantha Weston

By edwardwhite Comment Closed

Today in Johor Bahru, academic staff from University of Reading Malaysia embarked upon Day 1 of the first module of the Academic Practice Programme, being delivered by Clare McCullagh from the UK campus. All began well, despite jetlag and complications with fonts conspiring to throw her off-stride!

Photo: APP students Ester, Canny, Tilo, Pejmen, Jerome, Kenneth and Cecilia with Clare McCullagh and Carmel Houston-Price working on Day 1 of Module 1 of the programme.
Photo: APP students Ester, Canny, Tilo, Pejmen, Jerome, Kenneth and Cecilia with Clare McCullagh and Carmel Houston-Price working on Day 1 of Module 1 of the programme.

The day began with an introduction to EDMAP1 and some of the educational theory underpinning learning theory and how students learn. Students on the programme spent their working lunch investigating learning theory before presenting back to their colleagues and moving on to unpacking the UK Professional Standards Framework. Facilitators, Carmel Houston-Price (Psychology), Clare Nukui (Foundations programmes) and Sam Weston (Pharmacy) worked with APP students to unpack Areas of Activity, Core Knowledge and Professional Values in small groups, before Clare went on to discuss resources available on Blackboard and through the library, for APP students to access both on and off-campus.

The end of the day saw the students heading off to celebrate Hari Raya with colleagues, and take advantage of a day or two to complete some investigations of resources and prepare for Day 2 next week.

The second half of the module will be running in November, delivered by Dr Nina Brooke, with an opportunity for new members of UoRM staff to catch up with Day 1 before joining colleagues on Day 2 of the course.