Web site logical path: [www.psy.gla.ac.uk] [~steve] [localed] [this page]
This page lists learning and teaching innovations that I think we should probably adopt immediately. Although I'm working on helping my own department to introduce many of these, I am eager to encourage and assist others at Glasgow University (GU) to do so too; and indeed elsewhere as well. In some cases I have an assistant for this as well, so you may be able to get more substantial help than just hurried advice. In any case, if you are interested then feel free to get in touch, whether or not I am the "main person" for the idea or software.
What is this? Advancing Academic Writing (AAW) is a substantial interactive moodle-based website designed to help students improve their writing skills. The site comprises information and extensive exercises, with corresponding paper feedback/action sheets for use by markers. The marked up feedback/action sheets link particular bits of student work to particular writing skills topics and exercises. For maximum relevance to students, the information, exercises and feedback/action sheets are subject specific. Each subject has its own moodle portal and the materials have been developed from extensive reading of real student essays.
Why is it a good idea? (Theory and evidence) Staff are often dismayed by the inability of students to write with focus and clarity. Students, aware of their own shortcomings, want to improve their writing skills both to "unlock better grades" (as one student described it) and to enhance their employment prospects after graduation. AAW provides an opportunity for staff not only to make diagnostic comments easily, but also to point to a site that can help sort out problems currently acknowledged but not addressed. For students, AAW provides an ongoing, specifically tailored resource. Feedback from students and staff so far is positive.
Useful points:
Typical learning designs using the idea All tutors who are marking student work tick boxes on an additional writing skills feedback sheet, perhaps embedded into existing feedback sheets, whether digital or paper. Students take the sheet, go to the website, click into their subject, then click into the categories ticked on their sheet to find the explanations and exercises they need.
Papers on this software
Pointers to the software The moodle resources (anyone can login as a guest)
Cost / risk / sustainability Following a successful pilot year, there is now a one-off charge to departments (or other disciplinary teaching units) for subject site development. There is no charge for upkeep of the site and, if they wish to, disciplines can update their own resource with moderate HTML/moodle skills.
How much work first time, to start this up?:
The first step
for the adopter is to get their unit to decide to implement AAW and to pay the
project. Once this is done, the request is an email or a phone call (see below
for contact details). About 15 pieces of appropriate student work
(essays/reports) should be made available for collection. There will be
discussion as to styles (preferred referencing style, preferred capitalisation
etc.). The content of the feedback/action sheet will be agreed with the subject
staff involved.
The site will be set up and populated with information and exercises. Staff
will need to familiarise themselves with the materials before using the
feedback/action sheets.
How much extra staff marking time, assuming familiarity?
A few seconds for each student script.
How much student time per delivery?
None before handing work in, but perhaps several hours (by themselves) if they
follow up the pointers. In a pilot trial, students often spent more time than
they expected. Some of this time was voluntary, i.e. once they had done the
work indicated by ticks on the feedback/action sheet, they saw other
categories on the site they felt of use to them.
Existing users at GU:
Already used it on classes English literature, History,
Computing Science, Arts Academic Writing Programme
Will use it on classes in Sem1 2010 Earth sciences,
Engineering, Philosophy, Psychology
Negotiating about having a site built by the project Classics,
Management, Biological sciences
How can I action this? Contact Katie Grant. You will need to:
Funding: LTDF 2009-10 £30,000; LTDF 2010-11 £25,000 plus payments from departments.
Main person behind it: Katie Grant.
What is this?
These are tables to be included in course documentation showing all the
feedback students get, with dates, types, etc.
Why is it a good idea? (Theory and evidence)
It simply draws together disparate bits of information on this one aspect of a
course into one place, thus encouraging both staff and students to take an
overview, to plan their actions accordingly, and to understand how their
actions fit in with others'. The hope is, that this will gradually improve
both students' appreciation and use of feedback, and staff's appreciation of
how feedback can or should fit into their courses, and perhaps eventually prompt
improvement in the timeliness and variety of feedback.
NSS point.
Typical learning designs using the idea
These are not directly associated with new learning designs in the sense of
joint activities such as lectures, labs, compulsory assignments.
The concrete plan is simply to create the calendar, probably as a table,
and distribute it for reference to staff and students.
The actual possible resulting changed actions are not timetabled ones. For
staff it may affect course design (modifications) whenever that is done.
For students it may influence the attention, and hence perhaps the time, they
give to feedback and possible ways of acting on it.
There is no learning design directly associated with introducing the
calendars. They may prompt redesigns of (or more likely, adjustments
to) existing activities with feedback.
Papers on this None yet. This is a new idea, that
as far as I know, has never been done before (August 2010).
Pointers to the software
The main web page both shows examples and gives downloadable WORD templates for
creating your own.
See the main web page.
Cost / risk / sustainability
Very fast. Benefits, if any, later. Sustainable.
Existing users:
Psychology level 1, Psychology level 2, Psychology level 3, (Management level 1)
How can I action this?
Contact Steve Draper. You could do it yourself, but it may well feel less
effort and you will be less likely to let it slide, if I (and perhaps an
assistant) help you fill in the format, suggest entries, do the editing, etc.
Furthermore, the benefit is in being prompted to think about feedback
provision, prompted by a new format. Discussing it with someone else is
generally less effort and more stimulating than just filling it in alone, and
so will probably be interesting for you, and certainly for me.
These ideas are new, and there is no published framework for thinking about
feedback provision overall. So for me, each new client prompts new ideas ...
Funding: LTDF 2010-11 £5,000
Main person behind it:
Steve Draper
What is this?
The idea is to get students to create test MCQs (Multiple Choice Questions)
for other students to use. Writing a decent question turns out to require much
deeper learning than just answering one. It works best in large classes; and
there is now available software to manage the administration so completely
that there is little additional work for staff.
Why is it a good idea? (Theory and evidence)
For a general argument that students writing MCQs can be a powerful lever
for their learning, based on extensive lab studies and classroom cases, see
this paper on "catalytic assessment".
Typical learning designs using the idea [1-2 cases]
A class of 300. Perhaps 20 minutes of a lecture or tutorial on what makes
a good question.
Credit bearing exercise where each student must create 2 questions, and answer
10 and rate them. Best done by half-term; there will be a second rush of use
of the created question bank at revision time.
Papers on this software
Or a youtube
video:
And a 2nd paper to look at might then be:
More papers (see also
Paul Denny's web page):
Pointers to the software
PeerWise website
The software is currently offered as a free web service. Email them to create
an account, and off you go.
Cost / risk / sustainability
Zero cost; no reports of serious service crashes so far.
But this depends on an academic site in New Zealand. In the longer term,
other arrangements will presumably become important; but for now it seems a
good bet; and many institutions are using it (45 currently).
Existing users:
Many institutions are using it (45 currently), according the PeerWise
front page.
Paul Denny gave a 2 hour workshop on it at GU in July 2010.
I expect several GU courses to start using it next semester.
How can I action this?
Email PeerWise for a login (very quick); create a repository of your own, and
off you go. There is documenation, but it seems pretty easy to use.
Main person behind it:
Paul Denny
What is this?
Students produce and communicate critiques of each others' work,
usually anonymously via the software. Do NOT confound this with peer
assessment (students giving marks to fellow students that count towards course
grades).
Why is it a good idea? (Theory and evidence)
It exercises their judgement, not just as writers, but as readers and critics.
The key bottleneck in feedback is in getting students to understand the key
criteria e.g. critical thinking. RPC can be a major help here, by developing
their understanding of these criteria by exercising them in varied ways. The
critiques produced are also useful to learners, and greatly increase the
amount of feedback they get.
In a large class, doing the clerical administration of this (copying and
distributing large numbers of student essays; collecting the critiques and
delivering those, ...) is a major task: but free software exists to do it.
Typical learning designs using the idea [0-2 cases]
On a piece of coursework, students are required having submitted their own
work, to produce comments on 2 or 3 other students' work. They might then be
required to "review the reviews": comment on an critique the reviews of their
own work.
Papers on this software
Pointers to the software
There are a number of bits of software that support this to some extent,
although I'm most impressed by Aropä so far.
Cost / risk / sustainability
No charge. John Hamer is in Glasgow currently, and is creating and
maintaining an installation of the software here at GU.
Existing users:
An impressive variety of disciplines from arts to science have used it at
Auckland including:
Academic Practice, Chemical and Materials Engineering, Civil Engineering,
Commercial Law, Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, English, Marine
Biology, Medical Science, Pharmacology, Population Health, Software Engineering.
How can I action this?
Funding: HEA-ICS 2010-11 £3,500
Main persons behind it:
John Hamer
Helen
Purchase
What is this?
Students produce and communicate critiques of each others' work,
written but delivered face to face in a meeting chaired by their tutor.
Why is it a good idea? (Theory and evidence)
The general reasons are as above for mass, anonymous RPC with Aröpa:
developing their grasp of core disciplinary criteria by exercising them as
readers and critics as well as authors. However delivering the comments the
first time with a tutor as chair has the effect of making them have confidence
(feel protected), take the exercise seriously (no frivolous remarks, no
failure to read the work carefully or they will look foolish), and generally
set the tone for the exercise. Having survived this once, and found it useful,
they then frequently organise it themselves without feeling any need for a
staff presence.
It seems also to accelerate group bonding and cohesion: they have done
something that is both academically serious, and personal; and have benefitted
from each others' contributions. An experience of the academic (not merely
social) benefits of peer interaction and group work.
Typical learning designs using the idea [1-2 cases]
At the start of a semester, and in the first meeting in a new tutorial group,
organise the first set of RPC.
Then after the comments are delivered (e.g. in the second meeting), ask each
student whether they found it useful, and in what ways.
Then say: if you found that useful, how about committing to finishing a
complete draft of the next piece of work a week early; and repeating the
exercise, finally submitting the work to staff after improving it in the light
of peer comments. (This of course depends on them not all writing the
identical essay topic.)
Papers on this method
Pointers to the software
No software for this (sample word documents for copying are available).
Cost / risk / sustainability
No risk or sustainability issues. The cost is making time for it in students'
schedules, and getting the tutors prepared to do it.
Existing users:
Several tutors in my department have used this.
How can I action this?
Help yourself to my web descriptions/resources on this; feel free to ask me.
Main person behind it:
Steve Draper
What is this?
The intervention consists of sessions (at the
start of a year) in which student concerns about a course or programme as a
whole are elicited, shared, discussed; and possible solutions too are
discussed, suggested by student mentors who have completed the course.
Why is it a good idea? (Theory and evidence)
It is thus a student-generated approach to PDP (Personal Development
Planning), which in turn is an important aspect of induction and transition.
More technically, it uses (or stimulates) reflection and mentoring to do this.
* It prompts reflection on being a student on this course. From this
viewpoint, the benefit is for individual students, but applied in a mass
(cheap) intervention.
* It produces shared information about the class and their concerns as
a whole, so that each individual can locate their own experience and
fears in relation to that. This may be a relatively deep way of
promoting "social integration" (Tinto's term) by making visible not
just things they have in common, but a representation of the amount
and kind of diversity. Thus for each issue, everyone is now aware of
its presence in the class, and also knows that everyone else is aware
of it rather than assuming everyone else is like themselves.
Currently, this is directly about "concerns in doing the course" which
is often about finances, amount of work, and so on. But it could also
raise issues like "worried about being the only male in the class".
And in future one could imagine a little shaping might extend this to
other issues.
* By being open to observation by heads of year / programme or
course team leaders, it gives them valuable feedback on what the
actual student problems are; and/or allows them to show the
students more convincingly what they are. (While many of the
issues will already be known to staff — so the value there is
that having students come up with them is much more convincing to
them as in the first point above — there will often also be
issues new to staff, so this is a source of learner → staff
feedback.)
Typical learning designs using the idea [1-2 cases]
Papers on this approach
See here.
Hardware / software
This uses an EVS (electronic / classroom voting system).
It's unlikely you would buy one just for this.
For very small classes, you could use a show of hands for voting.
For small classes (e.g. 30), an EVS to get votes on what all students think
about each short-listed "concern" works well. For large classes (e.g. 300), we
used an EVS (e.g. WordWall, Promethian) that supports free-text entry, so that
we could get the named concern from each group collected very quickly, to make
up the short list that was then voted on.
Cost / risk / sustainability
Existing users:
Nick Bowskill has run it for a number of classes at a number of institutions.
At GU, in Sept. 2009 Quintin Cutts did this for the FIMS induction; and this
year Steve Draper will do it again.
How can I action this?
For non-GU people: contact Nick Bowskill.
For GU people: either contact Nick Bowskill, or ask Steve Draper.
I am interested in using this as a practical technique that could be seen as
one systematic approach to PDP, and used once a year on all classes.
Subject to my time and energy, I could deliver it; and I have access to
a set of WordWall equipment.
Main persons behind it:
Original idea: Nick Bowskill.
GU first application:
Quintin Cutts.
GU currently: Steve Draper.
What is this?
What is "3rd subject".
This is not an innovation to adopt, but a current
small project looking into how GU students choose their 3rd subjects in first
year; and how better to support that. We also hope to prototype an information
resource (web page? software program?) to assist students and advisors to
explore and make the choices. The main output will be reports, which will be
made available on a new web page.
Innovations?:
After this project we might recommend sending to accepted applicants, more
effective material that would lead to most of them coming to their first
Advisor meeting with a provisional choice, (instead of most not).
Funding: LTDF 2010-11 £14,200
Main persons behind it:
Lorna Love and
Steve Draper.
Web site logical path:
[www.psy.gla.ac.uk]
[~steve]
[localed]
[this page]
How much work first time, to start this up?: A few hours
assembling and revising draft versions of the calendar (and looking up
the scattered information for this).
How much staff time per delivery (once running well): none
How much student time per delivery: None
PeerWise: software to administer student authoring of MCQs in large classes.
See folders on my office desk
(Main/ other web page on this:
PeerWise website
Paul Denny's web page
my old intro
)
Perhaps start with this one:
Denny, P., Hamer, J., Luxton-Reilly, A., and Purchase, H. (2008)
"PeerWise"
In Proceedings of the 8th international Conference on Computing Education
Research (Koli, Finland, November 13 - 16, 2008) (ACM: New York, NY) pp.109-112
Denny, P., Hanks, B., and Simon, B. (2010)
"Peerwise: replication study of a student-collaborative self-testing web service in a U.S. setting"
In Proceedings of the 41st ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science
Education (Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA, March 10 - 13, 2010)
SIGCSE '10. (ACM: New York, NY) pp.421-425
How much work first time, to start this up?: A few minutes
organising access to the software. Some time to familiarise yourself
with the software. Finding a place for it in your course schedule.
How much staff time per delivery (once running well): Very
little: the software does it all.
How much student time per delivery:
Perhaps an hour per question written; and a minute per question
answered; plus any extra time they spend reviewing and discussing the
questions with other students.
Aropä: software to administer reciprocal peer critiquing in large classes.
See folders on office desk
(Main/ other web page on this:
the resources
my old intro
)
How much work first time, to start this up?: A few hours
organising access to the software, and writing the "rubric" guiding
the student reviewers for your subject and purposes. Finding a place
for it in your course schedule.
How much staff time per delivery (once running well): Very
little: the software does it all.
How much student time per delivery: Several hours work per
exercise. It depends what you require of them e.g. how many reviews,
how long the work is that they have to read and critique.
It will be used in computing science at Glasgow this autumn.
Small group RCP (Reciprocal Peer Critiquing)
(Main/ other web page on this:
Main web page
my old intro
)
How much work for each tutor first time, to start this up?:
No prep work,
except rehearsing in your head how you will present it to your students.
How much staff time per delivery (once running well): 10
mins announcing what they have to do; 10 mins copying and
distributing work among the students; A session (30-50 mins) that you
chair when the feedback /critiques are delivered.
How much student time per delivery: The above time with
you, plus an hour per (large) essay that they review.
Student-generated PDP
(Main/ other web page on this:
Outline idea
Nick Bowskill's PhD elaborations
)
How much work first time, to start this up?: scheduling it
is the big thing; getting the EVS equipment booked; ...
How much staff time per delivery (once running well): 2
half days of sessions per class per year.
How much student time per delivery: ditto
Choosing a third subject
(Main/ other web page on this:
The project page, reports etc.
funding application
)
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