‘A-level Study Boost: Unseen Poetry and the Creative Process’: an online course

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Rebecca Bullard, School of Literature and Languages, r.bullard@reading.ac.uk

Overview

‘A-level Study Boost: Unseen Poetry and the Creative Process’ is a two-week online course created by staff and students in the Department of English Literature and the Online Courses team, and hosted on the social learning platform, FutureLearn. It engages a global audience of learners in reading, writing, discussing, and enjoying poetry.

Objectives

The analysis of poetry, sometimes called ‘close reading’ or ‘practical criticism’, is a core skill for the study of English Literature. This course aims to develop this skill in pre- and post-A-level students of English Literature in ways that supplement teaching in schools and FE colleges. In doing so, it encourages students to make a successful transition from A-level to university-level study of English and Creative Writing.

Context

The Online Courses team at UoR approached colleagues in the Department of English Literature to work with them to develop a course that would connect students’ pre-university learning with their studies at UoR. The resulting online course develops learners’ subject-specific skills and gives them insight into what studying English and Creative Writing at university level might be like.

Implementation

Staff in the Online Courses team and Department of English Literature worked together to combine their diverse areas of expertise. Yen Tu, Digital Learning Producer, supported by Sarah Fleming, Assistant Digital Learning Producer, ensured that the course reflects best practice in the pedagogy of online social learning (Sharples 2018; Laudrillard 2014). Rebecca Bullard, as subject specialist, wrote the articles and designed tasks and activities to develop learners’ creative and critical skills.

It took about six months of intensive collaboration to produce the course materials. The first live run of the course took place over two weeks in December 2019. Rebecca and a team of student mentors engaged with learners on the FutureLearn platform throughout the live run to facilitate social learning and encourage completion of the course. The course content, feedback and statistics are currently being evaluated in order to measure impact and inform the next run.

Impact

The impact of the initial run of this course can be evaluated using the UoR Evaluation and Impact Framework (L1: Reach, L2: Reaction, L3: Learning, L4: Behaviour), using course analytics and comments from learners. Some participants gave permission for us to use their comments; where permission was not explicitly given, comments have been paraphrased:

L1: c. 1970 learners from over 100 countries enrolled on the first live run of this course. Comments on completing the course included the following:

L2: “I have always loved poetry but found some modern poems inaccessible. This course [has] shown me some ways to gain access.”

L3/4: “I’m a school teacher, having to teach unseen texts next year. This course has made me enjoy reading and dissecting poetry and I hope that I’ll succeed in inspiring my students to do the same.”

L3/4: One learner commented that the course has changed her perspective on poetry and that she is considering applying to UoR as a result of this course.

Reflections

The success of the course emerged out of the different kinds of collaboration that it involved and encouraged:

Staff-student: The course highlighted the expertise of UoR staff and students, The course videos showcase real teaching methods that are used in the Department of English Literature, and offer tangible evidence of the academic excellence and the outstanding learning experience that underpin the UoR T&L Strategy 2018-21. Current students were paid to work as mentors on the course, giving them confidence in their own expertise.

English Literature-Creative Writing: The course engages learners in both critical analysis and creative practice, reflecting research that indicates the close relationship between these different methods of approaching literary studies (Lockney and Proudfoot 2013).

Department of English Literature-Online Courses: Specialists in both areas drew on their different kinds of expertise to develop a structure, set of activities, tone and style for the course that encourage maximum engagement from learners.

Learner-Educator-Mentor: The social learning platform FutureLearn facilitates active, real-time conversations between Learners, Educators and Mentors, which strengthens and deepens their engagement with the course material.

Follow up

During 2020, further research will be undertaken to evaluate the impact of the course on particular learner groups. The Online Courses team will run a research study to evaluate how teachers (including those in WP areas) are using the course in their teaching. The Department of English Literature will evaluate the impact of the course on students enrolled on EN1PE: Poetry in English.

‘Unseen Poetry’ will be an exemplar for a new ‘A-Level Study Boost’ series which will be rolled out to other Schools across UoR.

Links

‘A-level Study Boost: Unseen Poetry and the Creative Process’: https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/a-level-study-unseen-poetry

References

Laudrillard, Diana. 2014. Rethinking University Teaching: A Conversational Framework for the Effective Use of Learning Technologies. Abingdon: Routledge.

Lockney, K. & K. Proudfoot. 2013. ‘Writing the unseen poem: Can the writing of poetry help to support pupils’ engagement in the reading of poetry?’ English in Education 47:2, 147-162.

Sharples, M. 2018. The Pedagogy of FutureLearn: How our learners learn. https://about.futurelearn.com/research-insights/pedagogy-futurelearn-learners-learn

Our new undergraduates will be Studying Smarter! By Dr Paddy Woodman & Dr Michelle Reid

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Anticipation and nervousness, with a hint of bewilderment and panic – we’ve all seen these looks on our new Part 1 undergraduates. As established members of Reading’s academic community, we often forget what it feels like to step into an unfamiliar learning environment. Our increasingly diverse undergraduate intake means that we must recognise the diverse educational cultures experienced by different students prior to taking up their studies at Reading. We are also becoming more aware of the widening gap between expected approaches to learning at school/college and at University. All of this means that we need to be more pro-active in supporting our students’ transition to learning in HE.

To ease this transition, all our Part 1 students need a shared understanding of the principles and expectations of studying at university, and a welcome into our learning community at Reading. Study Smart: Your Essential Guide for University is a new online, pre-arrival course uniquely available to Reading students, which aims to fill this gap.

The Study Smart course will be launched in August 2017 for all new Part 1 undergraduates, with a three ‘week’ structure covering essential aspects of university study:

1) Academic Integrity

2) Communicating at University

3) Independent Learning.

Students will complete a series of steps including activities such as videos, articles, discussion boards, or quizzes. Course content is being developed by the Study Advice team (drawing on their experience advising new students across the University), in partnership with the Reading MOOC team, and the Student Development and Access team, overseen by Paddy Woodman.

The course will combine academic content with student-preferred delivery to encourage engagement. For instance, focus groups have shown that students like a mixture of film overlaid with animation to make key principles more memorable and ‘friendly’. We are working with Final year Typography students to create short animated films and a visual overlay style to make the lecturers that we film literally more ‘animated’. Students and student experiences will also feature in the videos, and student mentors will help facilitate course discussion boards.

Study Smart will be hosted on the FutureLearn platform which has already proven successful for the University’s popular external MOOCs. It will be suggested that students complete the course before they arrive, capitalising on anticipation and excitement at starting here at Reading. Each ‘week’ of the course will take roughly three hours, but content will be made available in one go so students can pace themselves or complete it in a single burst. They will be able to continue to complete the course during Welcome Week and up to Week 6.

We hope that Study Smart will also prove useful to academic staff by providing a shared start point for conversations with their Part 1 students about taking responsibility for their own learning. Completion of the course could provide a useful indicator of student engagement with self-development and independent study, enabling early light-touch intervention to avoid the need for more time-consuming support later. There is no final assessment, but students are encouraged to think about areas where they might need to find out more.

As we continue to develop course content over the next few months, we will keep you updated with our progress. Watch out for:

– a course teaser trailer

– staff information sessions

– a guide for Personal Tutors (http://libguides.reading.ac.uk/studysmart)

In the meantime if you have questions, or would like further information, please contact Paddy Woodman (p.e.woodman@reading.ac.uk) or Michelle Reid (michelle.reid@reading.ac.uk)

Study support for MOOCs – do the Study Advisers have the answer? by the Study Advice team

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The recent announcement that Reading has been selected as a partner in the Futurelearn project to provide free online courses is an exciting move towards new ways of engaging with a potentially massive cohort of students. However, concerns have been expressed about the lack of support for students studying the courses, especially those run by profit-seeking companies. The Times Higher Education Supplement (14 Feb 2013) reports Prof Josie Taylor of the Open University commenting that it is unethical to recruit large numbers of ‘inexperienced learners’ without providing them with support for their learning practices. Certainly if one of the aims of MOOCs is to act as a recruitment tool for future students by providing a taste of the teaching available at institutions, building in the probability of failure seems both wrong and commercially unwise.

Futurelearn’s webpage on MOOCs explained notes that ‘Due to the large number of students studying MOOCs, learning support comes from the online learning community rather than academic staff… MOOCs attempt to encourage students to be independent and self-motivating.’ Students will be encouraged to form online support networks using social media to build peer relationships. While peer learning and support is certainly a valuable and increasingly well-used strategy in universities, such initiatives involve peers already embedded in study at HE level, who are usually supported or mentored by trained staff. Independence and self-motivation are qualities we would all like to encourage in our students – but it’s equally important to recognise when expert guidance is more appropriate and have access to that guidance.

A project supported by the Annual Fund and carried out by the Study Advisers may have a potential answer to this problem. We have been developing a series of ‘bite-size’ screencasts on key aspects of learning practices, focusing on the issues most frequently discussed with students in Study Advice sessions. These avoid the traditional ‘talking head’ format, combining an explanatory spoken voicetrack with visual illustration of the ideas discussed, including animations and text extracts. Students can pause and re-watch parts of the presentations to build their understanding in ways that would be impossible during a lecture presentation.

We hope to launch the screencasts for access to Reading students via Blackboard later in the summer, as well as using them for a ‘flipped learning’ model for Study Advice workshops. If you would like to preview the resources developed so far and give us some feedback, please contact Michelle Reid (michelle.reid@reading.ac.uk) or Sonia Hood (s.hood@reading.ac.uk).