In a recent post Chris Millward, Director for Policy at the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE), summarised the findings and recommendations of a Which? report into Higher Education, placing it within the context of the HEFCEs own work. Millward begins with a note of caution, contrasting the reports “relatively small” sample size (the undergraduate survey, conducted by YouthSight, on behalf of Which?, surveyed 1023 first and second year undergraduates online) to the National Student Survey (NSS), which last year received 320,000 responses of which 86% reported they were satisfied or strongly satisfied with their course. Even this figure, Millward concedes, still “leaves a significant minority who weren’t satisfied” and that while “there is good work going on…there is room for improvement”.
[Reposted] After over 4 years of regular posting, we’ve now taken the decision to merge the Loughborough E-learning Blog into the Teaching and Learning Blog. This reflects the fact that e-learning is no longer seen as a standalone activity but is increasingly embedded into mainstream teaching and learning. There is a wealth of historical postsRead more
Sometimes we overlook the obvious, so eager are we to begin our taught sessions where time is at a premium, and it takes our students to pull us up short.
We know who we are, we know a university as prestigious as Loughborough would not ask us to teach without checking our credentials for such a key role, and yet sometimes we forget the most basic of essentials.
Students from PHIR and Social Sciences collaboratively exploring with staff ways of engaging students when teaching large groups said respect was essential, and produced one simple tip. “To earn our respect, tell us who you are. Please introduce yourself.”
Millais ‘Boyhood of Raleigh’ – storytelling visually…
I was not expecting our 2013 LSU Exec video to feature as part of my training day last week at the British Universities Film and Video Council.
As part of a session discussing ‘how to use video to market your university’, a link from a frothing-at-the-mouth article in the Daily Mail took us to this infamous video. How we laughed. Whilst this video received the group’s strongest reaction of the day, and was so bad technically as to make the pro videographers (and anyone with a love of music) beg the presenter to stop it, it did highlight one of the main points of the day: authenticity.
Jisc’s Assessment and Feedback Programme has been exploring ways in which technology can be used to address student dissatisfaction with feedback and assessment. Ros Smith, drawing upon this work, identifies four common problem areas, providing examples of interventions being developed to address each (Smith’s original blog post can be accessed here).
Problem 1
“assessment and feedback is by and large devolved to individual curriculum areas, making it hard for institutions to provide a consistent assessment experience and harder still to implement on any scale the enhancements technology can bring.”
On Wednesday December 17th the Centre for Academic Practice is holding its second lecture capture mini-conference, open to both Loughborough staff and external delegates. Entitled Lecture Capture: Building the Evidence Base, the workshop will provide participants with an opportunity to engage in conversation around the evidence base for the value of lecture capture, stimulated by informalRead more
Flipping – a way to develop student deeper learning and engagement as well as higher quality work or too good to be true?
Speakers and the Art of Flipping workshop showed flipping can be a useful tool to support the development of deep rather than surface learning. This brief look at the workshop organised under a Teaching Innovation Award by Dr. Mark Jepson (Materials), Dr. Simon Hogg (Materials) and Dr. Nicola Jennings (Chemistry) looks at what flipping is, and how it could work for you and more importantly for your students.
What is flipping?
Flipping is part of a process which moves from didactic knowledge transmission in large lectures to use contact time for the lecturer to bring his/her knowledge to bear on those concepts or specifics that students have identified as problematic. Students pre-engage with the transmission of knowledge before the lecture, either by reading, and/or listening to a podcast or video of material. They take ownership of the content by identifying what they find clear and what they do not.
Some academics may already be taking just this approach. However, for those who want to explore the idea the workshop was a great introduction.
Dr. David Dye, Reader in Metallurgy at Imperial College, records 15-minute single-concept videos in his office with a white board (and all-important board rubber). He posts them online and then asks students to complete a short online quiz/test after viewing. The last question asks what they want further explained. He then addresses those areas in the lecture, getting students to peer instruct each other, explaining their own understanding. As they discuss Dye moves round the room, identifying areas of confusion and explanations given before delivering his summation. In this way each student is directly, actively involved in their learning.
The Equality Challenge Unit (ECU), a body that centres on advancing equality and diversity across universities and colleges, has updated its online resources for academics. As the ECU says, these tools are aimed at “ensuring that higher education institutions are inclusive and accessible, and encourage good relations between the diverse groups that study, work, or otherwise engage with them”.Read more
The Teaching Centre – set to be relaunched on October 3rd as the Centre for Academic Practice – and the Graduate School are in the process of appointing a Research Staff and Student Development Adviser. As the job description says, the successful candidate will be asked: “To contribute to the strategic objectives of the University byRead more
Over the last year we’ve been looking at different ways in which tablets can be used in learning and teaching. Last autumn we held a tablets workshop at which Ola Aiyegbayo from the University of Huddersfield gave a presentation based on his research project in this area. He’s just released an infographic animation setting outRead more