Blog wrangling.... a guide for beginners

Ok so this isn't actually going to teach you anything about blogging (or cattle wrangling come to that).... rather it's an account of how I have been getting on with constructing a class blog.

In the past couple of years I have set my final year students a task of conveying their reflections on leadership values through the medium of interpretive dance the photostory. This year I decided not to repeat that exercise (as this particular cohort had already done something similar in their first year) but instead asked them to write a blog post - working in small groups -  about what leadership means to them.

I was inspired to do this by a colleague who had dome something similar with his class the previous year: however, in his case, he had asked his students to develop their ideas in a Word Document which he had then uploaded to a blog he'd created. (Sensible chap it turns out).

Naturally that wasn't complicated enough for me; no, I decided to create a multi author blog which the students could edit themselves. I figured that learning to blog was a useful 21st century skill in itself, so, heck - why not?

I tried to smooth the process along by creating a couple of screen cast videos to show them how to post, step by step, and this has worked well in the majority of cases, but a few are still struggling to create and publish their first post. However, that is understandable. What is surprising (as always) are the unforeseen "challenges" of a multi author blog composed of almost complete blog novices.

So - first problem: I send out invites to the blog to the students' Uni emails and they then set up a Blogger account using a different ID (particularly if they have created a multi-access account/password), so it's quite tricky (but not impossible with a little lateral thinking) to work out who is who.....

Then because they are working in groups I have to set up a spreadsheet that records who is working with whom. Again, not too difficult as they email me with the details, but a bit of extra work.

The real doozy is how they then seem to get lost somewhere between setting up a Blogger ID and accepting my invitation and end up creating a completely separate blog !?!?! I have managed to guide most of them back to the correct site - and one student decided she liked hers so much she is going to carry on using it as her reflective space for the remainder of the year - but I really didn't see that coming.

I have had some positive feedback from students: some have really enjoyed learning a new skill, especially, the older students in the group who worried they weren't cut out to handle this "internet technology thingy". There are also some really creative, fun, engaging and reflective posts being published, so the exercise is achieving its main aim. But I am left wondering what if anything I could do to make things run a little more smoothly next year - short of asking them to send me a word document which I upload....

And maybe some of the learning that comes out of these missteps will actually prove valuable: one student told me that she had previously been asked to write blog posts for the charity she works for - but only in a Word Document and never actually posting and editing on line herself. She was really pleased that she had now had this experience of actually contributing to a "live" blog - and indeed of setting up her own (which, naturally, she did by accident!).

The next stage is to try and get the students to leave comments for one another (I admit, I am going to moderate these!) and I will give each group feedback in the form of comments too. Once everyone is happy with the finished product, I am going to ask their permission to publish the blog so that they can see their efforts out there in the public sphere.

*UPDATE* here's the link: https://leadingteams2016.blogspot.co.uk/

Building students' research skills

Winners of the best overall poster on Elder Abuse

And so - it's finally been and gone. The past few weeks have been a bit of a nightmare but in the end I think we can say it was a success and definitely worth doing again.

So here's the low down - what we did and why, the outcomes, and the do's and dont's of organising an Undergraduate Research Conference.

The problem: students at Level 6 approaching their capstone dissertation show limited understanding of the basics of research methods, poor referencing skills and even worse skills in searching for appropriate literature.

The Level 4 introduction to referencing and literature searching and the Level 5 Research Methods are dismissed time and time again in students' module evaluations as boring and irrelevant. So for the past 4 years as a team we have been rethinking our approach. The problem seems to lie in students applying their skills so having an authentic assessment task at the end of the first year seemed like a possible way forward, and an undergraduate research conference that involved an audience of fellow students, teaching and support staff, local employers and colleges, seemed like a way of achieving this.

The task: students were required to produce a research poster related to a contemporary Health and Social Care issue. Students chose their own topics, worked in small groups, carrying out independent research and presented their final work as either a PowerPoint slide (templates are available in Powerpoint), as a Prezi or a Padlet wall. Independent research had to include a literature review (for the final poster) and could incorporate a small scale piece of primary research (typically a survey of fellow students or teaching staff).

As a formative task, in preparation for the final poster, students had to prepare a short presentation (5 minutes - 5/6 slides only) in which they pitched their research proposal. This was fairly structured with specific questions to be answered, including an early indication of the literature used so far. I was able to give feedback on referencing and quality of sources (see results) and used this as an opportunity to also discuss the appropriateness of proposed research methods, including ethical considerations.


The teaching methods: the module is supported by a team of teachers including our Subject Librarian (Emma Hayes) and Learning Support Coordinator (Sian Trafford), as well as a Post Graduate Researcher (Louise Griffiths).  Emma and Sian took charge of literature searching and referencing, Louise supported the students to produce an academic research poster and I taught a basic introduction to research methodology. The module is taught in the Scale Up classroom which really lends itself to interactive, group based activities, so traditional lecturing was kept to a minimum. Emma really livened up a potentially rather dull area by employing Socrative for competitive team quizzes on referencing and Padlet was used regularly to capture groups' ideas. As the task was group based, Scale Up (with round tables for up to 9 students and laptops available) makes the ideal environment for students to get on with tasks in class, with tutor support on hand. Sessions are typically 40% teacher input (mini lectures, tutorial support and directed activities) and 60% independent project work.


The results: The great thing about having a formative task mid-way through the process is that it allowed us to see what was going well and what the students were not quite grasping. Looking at the group presentations, it was clear that the messages about using good quality resources was not going in and many references were to news media (the Daily Mail ranked high in the list of publications!) and digest websites such as Psychology Today. In a tragic case of mis-timing I gave students the feedback on the same day they were asked to complete their module evaluations, so you can imagine how that went.... Whilst the proposals were imaginative and dealt with relevant issues, the level of research skills was not particularly great. Here are the stats for this particular criterion:

Adjusting the remaining teaching sessions, we went over literature search techniques, evaluation of sources and referencing once again and insisted that a short literature review of at least 3 peer reviewed articles be included in the final poster.


This time, we saw a real improvement:

The week before the conference, I ran a drop in session in which students were given detailed feedback on their posters and the winning submissions for the conference were announced. This session saw a lot of smiling faces - even those who hadn't been selected were really pleased with their results, as in the majority if cases they had seen an improvement in their grades.

Poster themes were very varied including several on mental health - one looked at Bipolar Disorder  in Children, another at Men and Depression; one contrasted postnatal depression in British White and British Pakistani women and 2 dealt with students and mental health. Men as Victims of Domestic Abuse, Elder Abuse, Workplace Bullying, Child Protection and Fostering were other topics studied.

For the conference, we simply selected the posters with the highest grades. The idea was to have visitors voting on their favourites and to award prizes for the three best -  best poster by college students, best undergraduate and best overall.


The conference: We were fortunate in having the support of our excellent Schools Outreach and Marketing teams to help with the logistics. We also had a ready made venue (our normal Scale Up classroom was big enough for the modest numbers proposed providing sufficient display space for the posters, as well as suitable seating arrangements for the discussion groups and presentations).

The half day event included short talks on post graduate research and careers in health and social care (giving our students an idea of what they can aim for) and discussion groups on independent learning and research skills (this latter session hosted by a 2nd year student, Sarah Swanwick) to help first year students think about their progression on the course and to give Year 12 students from local colleges an idea of what study at University is all about.

These sessions all evaluated really well. Undergraduates tended to prefer the session on independent learning whilst the college students were most interested in the talk on careers. Other interesting feedback from the college students was that they came to the event not having considered this as a degree subject (even though they were all studying a Health and Social Care A level or BTEC award), tending rather to think in terms of a nursing or social work qualification, but they ended the day having far greater insight into available careers in the field and even considering applying for this course!

For the college students, the highlight of the event was meeting current undergraduates and teaching staff whilst our undergraduates enjoyed looking at one another's posters best of all. They were also interested to meet teaching staff they had not yet encountered (those who teach primarily on the 3rd year dissertation module came along to vote in the best poster competition) and at least one of our first year students has acquired a work placement with the local health and social care organisation that was represented on the day.


The final verdict and some notes to self: The hardest part of the whole conference was getting people there. Timing was tricky - we could not run the event any earlier because of the assignment deadlines (set for the last week of Term 2), but as it fell after Easter, it clashed with mock exams in colleges which reduced the participation from that quarter. Some of our third year students had originally asked if they could be involved running discussion groups in order to get feedback they needed for a project evaluation but pulled out at the last minute (one less than 8 hours before!) when they suddenly realised this was the week their final dissertation was due to be submitted.....

Most disappointing was that three groups who had had their posters selected for the final conference and competition did not send any representatives on the day. Interestingly these were also the only groups that had submitted Prezis, so with no one at their displays to press the buttons and talk visitors through their work, they were largely ignored and attracted only a handful of votes in each case.

I don't really know how to solve these problems. With a bigger venue and budget and more support from the rest of the course team, I think this could become a display of ALL posters (about 30 in total). With potentially 150 students involved, drop outs would be less of an issue. As for the college students - we had applications from 20 but only 8 made it on the day - starting recruitment earlier and providing more support to the colleges could help, but timing is probably still likely to be an issue.

For those who came, it was definitely worthwhile: staff were impressed at the quality of the work, our local authority visitors were really engaged talking to students and delighted to have been invited, those students who turned up gave us a big thumbs up in their satisfaction ratings (yes - much better than the module evaluation!!) and the poster competition and presentation of small prizes and certificates made for a great celebration of their efforts.

The next step is to try and bring this level of engagement into the second year module.  I would like to have both years involved in the same event, perhaps as part of a summative assessment task. And eventually all 3 years.  My hope is that this becomes part of our normal academic year, with conversations about research theory and practice between all students and staff seen as both a normal part of teaching and learning and also something to occasionally get excited about.

#melsig #melsigntu Digital Narratives

It seems only fair that I finally put together my own digital story! So here are my slides for the #melsigntu event, complete with voice over.

 


And here are just the slides:

Tell me a story from Jane Challinor

 
Other useful links referred to in my video:

Jenny Moon's Map of Learning:conference hand out or to buy the book

Digital Storytelling in Education website

21C Skills video (animation - in Spanish): 

Go Joven Project - Health Education Digital Story (in Spanish with English subtitles)

Digital storytelling from the students' perspective

My previous blog posts outlining the process I went through with my students - and their examples/feedback: Digistory posts

And finally, an example of a digital story produced by one of my final year students (and a far better one than than my attempt!) :

Reflecting on the digital story

image: jane challinor

Over the summer I have been working with colleagues at UIB on a paper outlining our adventures with digital storytelling. We reached a conclusion that whilst as a learning activity it had value in promoting collaboration and an awareness of open educational practices as well as developing digital skills, there are caveats about its use for developing reflective skills, particularly with students at the beginning of their university studies.

What we found, in broad terms is that more mature students are better at reflecting (that is they reflect more deeply). This has led me to conclude that as an activity designed to promote reflectivity - and especially as a reflective assessment tool - it is perhaps best left until the final year.

For me this was also borne out by the large number of first year students who failed to submit the digital story at the first (and even 2nd) attempt. This could just be a consequence of having a large number of student last year (ie we were just more likely to have students who had unrelated problems that prevented them from submitting) but in reality the module had the highest number of referred and non-submitting students across the course (around 10%) whereas in the past it has had the lowest incidence of non-submission and referral.

Well - I may be jumping the gun in putting this all down to the mode of final assessment, and it is certainly the case that the final year students all submitted and all passed - most at a high level, but it has certainly given me pause for thought.

Indeed I have already decided to change the mode of assessment for the first year module this year, reverting to a group research project which has worked well in the past. I will though run the same assessment for the final years.

Ok - but what did the first year students think? I am going to be giving a guest session on the second year research module later in the year and I have decided to use the digital storytelling project as my theme. I have therefore asked the students themselves to provide me with feedback on their experience of the final assessment last academic year - and I will feedback to them the findings of that survey.

So here's a sneak preview. I have had 52 responses so far out of a cohort of 126 (41%). Of these 90% are female (this reflects the makeup of the cohort) and 70% are aged 18-24.
23% are over 35 years old.

In creating their digital story, 70% used Prezi, 24% Powerpoint (12 students) and 6% another online tool - Knovio.  As a result of their experience, 75% said they are likely to use the same or another online tool in future for presentations and collaborative tasks. Just 28% (14 students) said they would only use PowerPoint going forward (suggesting that 2 students have tried online platforms and decided to revert to PowerPoint).

What did they get out of the experience?
78% thought it fun
57% thought it was technically challenging
85% said it had helped them to improve their reflective skills
82% said it had helped them improve their digital skills
80% thought it had given them confidence to create content on line
86% thought it relevant to their studies
but just 47% thought it relevant to their future career - and only 44% would mention this as a skill on their CV

Comments from the students expand a little on these results:

Positive and constructive feedback:

a. I feel like the digital story assignment was not quite challenging enough. It seemed to be more of an easy and fun task to complete . 

b. On reflection I should of challenged myself more. Been more adventures

c. I really enjoyed this assignment and it boosted my self confidence. I was very proud at what I had achieved and how much I had progressed.

d. I found the digital story difficult and daunting to begin with, but eventually enjoyed creating my story and proud that I did so.

e. Digital story was something I had usually done in the medium of film. I'm really glad we had this assignment as it opened my eyes to more digital platforms. I also think this would be a fantastic tool to use with certain more tech minded service users

f. It was very enjoyable, relevant to my studies, and gave you chance to create a bit of fun into studies rather than essays, it gave you a breather from the heavy work. Before I came to your lesson I did not know about Prezi but I will certainly use it again,

g. Enjoyable task however, talking in the video was a little tasking, a lot of preparation is needed for someone who lacks in confidence
__________________________________________________________________________________________

Negative feedback:
h. I think that it was completely pointless and irrelevant to our course. I don't know why we needed to do it personally, and I think that it should be scraped for the new people starting the course.


i. I just thought the story telling was irrelevant to what we needed to do most people didn't want to do it I perfer the other tasks this one was just too much



On the whole, the student response is a lot more positive than I had anticipated. Interestingly the two final, highly negative comments came from students in the 18-24 year old group. These were the only two completely negative responses, and even one of these (i) felt that her digital and reflective skills had improved as a result of the task. The more positive comments (c-f) came from the over 35's.

I do now have some regret about abandoning the reflective digital story this year. However, the use of digital tools to present the outcomes of research will form a large part of the final group project that they are engaged in this year. Hopefully, this will preserve the "fun" and creative elements of the assessment task as well as continuing to develop confidence in creating online content.

Teaching and learning with digital storytelling

Image: Flicker wfryer  CC BY-SA 2.0

The digital story format is something I have used this year for the first time and, because I liked the idea so much, (and because it fitted well with each) I have used it as a part of the summative assessment for both my first year "study skills" and the final year "Leading Teams" modules.

The fit with the first year module is particularly apt as this is all about developing digital skills: from finding and managing information to Harvard referencing, from learning to use the VLE and sending emails to creating online collaborative content with Google Drive, Padlet and Photopeach.

For the final year students this is very deliberately about encouraging a summative reflection of their whole three years of University study preparatory to presenting themselves to employers in the health and social care field. And its about honing their "21st century skills". It is also presented very much as an opportunity for them to reflect on their experience of team work and their potential as leaders.

Preparation for this summative assessment took virtually the same route in each module, despite the difference in levels. Probably the degree of scaffolding for the first year cohort was higher but essentially the process and the materials used were the same in each case.

Step 1 at the start of the academic year was a warm up digital exercise using Photopeach where students worked in small groups to develop a photostory about the values of health and social care.

Following this, the theme of being a reflective practitioner, which emerged as a key theme from this consideration of professional values and identity, was explored further in a workshop when students were presented with information about a number of relevant models (Kolb, Gibbs, Moon) and undertook an initial exercise reflecting on their own significant and transformative learning experiences.

Mid way through Term 2, we returned to the theme of the reflective practitioner. The final year students undertook some group reflection and self evaluation related to the student led learning activities they had just run. With the first year students, I went over the theoretical models of reflection once more and gave them a set of prompts to use in small group discussions as a stimulus for starting to develop their reflective accounts.

Both groups were introduced to the website http://digitalstorytelling.coe.uh.edu/ which has lovely examples of digital stories using a variety of media and platforms and provides a really straightforward "How to" guide. For the first year students, in response to questions and concerns, I produced some simple screencasts showing in more detail how to use Prezi as a platform. Then on second thoughts I made these available to the final year students too. Although in general the final year students were less inhibited about creating a reflective digital story, they still had some worries about the technical side of production.

Finally I ran two or three drop in technical workshops for anyone who was still struggling or needing reassurance. During the whole process I only encountered two students (out of around 200) who claimed the task was beyond them. One was a male first year student who was a self declared technophobe but who was seeking additional help from the library and learning resources staff; the other a final year student who initially panicked herself into believing the task was impossible but finally talked herself round to the realisation that she could at any rate produce a PowerPoint presentation - with audio - and went away from the drop in session with renewed determination!

There were of course many other students who encountered difficulties, made mistakes, failed to grasp the finer points of Prezi etc, but the informal workshops also provided opportunities for students to help one another, showcase their own first efforts and get feedback, as well as ask me questions. These small group sessions were among the most enjoyable of the academic year for me precisely because there was more opportunity here for peer to peer teaching. At the end of one of these classes an older student was talking to me about the difficulties he was still having in understanding Prezi. A younger student overhearing him interrupted, invited him to join her in the library for a quick tutorial and three days later he had submitted his first "draft"!

The final step in the process was to go through Moon's Levels of Learning in detail - with exemplars - as these were closely aligned to the assessment criteria. For example, the lowest level, Noticing (description without reflection) might equate to a 3rd for the learning outcome related to quality of reflection, whilst the highest level -Transformative Learning - would be a High or Exceptional 1st.

The exemplars - which were short samples of writing reflecting on working in a group - were important in really clearly illustrating what was meant by each level and seemed to help the students to  grasp the concept more easily. On the down side, one or two students did quote these examples back at me in their stories!

Comparing the reflective stories of first and final year students that are currently being submitted, some differences are emerging. Not surprisingly, the first year students are not reaching the higher level of reflections in most cases - they tend to be split between Level 2, Making Sense or Level 3 Making Meaning areas of Moon's map of learning. The final year students by comparison are split between the Level 3 (35/84) or Level 4 (Working with Meaning) areas (27/84) with only 14 in the Level 2 area or mainly descriptive.

Technically the first years are also not as adept: few have provided soundtracks or voice-overs on their presentations and one or two are rather thin in terms of content too. Notably though, one first year student who is a mature "returner" to full time study has made her year long struggle with technology (and her eventual triumph) the main focus of her digital story - which she has done to a very high standard using PowerPoint, with voice over.

Alison: A Year of Firsts

In terms of themes, top of the final year students' list of topics is team work (72% of students referred to this but that was the theme of the module after all). After this comes future plans and recognition of transferability of skills from study to work (70% each) - with graduation a few weeks away that is not a big surprise either! Next in line is increased confidence (68%), improved communication skills, reference to academic subjects and developing study skills, time management, and the value of work experience (all mentioned by around 60% of students).

For the first year students, the most popular themes are reference to academic subjects studied, moving away from home, fitting in and making friends and the support of other students. Next in order of frequency, around a half of first year students mention team work - noting this as a way of working that is very different from school or college and one which brings many challenges. Around a half of all the students also recognise how their confidence and independence have increased through overcoming personal and academic problems.

Other things I have taken note of in particular are whether or not the students specifically mention the learning process (85% of final year students do), the development of self awareness (increased understanding about themselves) (74%) or the act of reflecting (57%) . These are elements which I saw as being more of a meta reflection (a reflection on reflection) and indicative of a higher order of learning. In the case of first year students only about half mention learning and self awareness specifically. Less than 15% discuss the process of reflection.

I have also noticed a difference in the stories of mature students. In almost every case, these students seem to reflect more deeply and evidence higher levels of learning. Generally they have had a variety of challenges to overcome (returning to education after initial failure or career change), had more life experience (migrating from another country), have other demands on their time (such as family) and this manifests itself in richer content, higher levels of self awareness.

Lucy: Me,myself, my learning,my family

Donna: Change

Tinashe: Too Old for School

What about the process from my perspective? In teaching "about" reflection, I have certainly found students to be more engaged possibly because they have a summative assignment in view that has reflection as its main focus.

Teaching "about" reflection though does not create reflective practitioners. That can only happen through deliberate acts of reflection on experience that are designed to raise self awareness. The process of creating a reflective story is such an activity: it forces the student a) to think about the reflective process itself (perhaps using a specific model, such as Gibbs to add structure) b) to practise the skills - moving from describing to evaluating an experience, to analysing and formulating plans for future action and c) to perform the art of reflection. Through the use of various media - combining images with spoken words and music - the finished artefact is a creative representation of learning: reflection as performance. The digital element adds other dimensions and levels of complexity: the need to get to grips with new technologies, familiarisation with online platforms, the reality of putting an essentially private reflective activity "out there" in a public space.

So my role changes to that of audience or witness to the performance and I am also the assessor. I find this a difficult balancing act. On the one hand I have to award a grade, on the other I am in a privileged role of witnessing what is often a very personal ** account - a performance that has something of the confessional about it. I am acutely aware of the student's vulnerability in what they share, at times I feel very emotional in response: touched by a moving story of overcoming huge challenges, amused by a witty remark, proud of their achievements. I have felt these emotional responses before when students have written reflective accounts as essays - but not as often, nor as deeply.

The digital stories are for the most part fairly short - 5 to 10 minutes was the guideline - and are submitted as the final part of a portfolio of work which has already received formative feedback or grade in partial fulfilment of their summative assessment. As a capstone project for the module it is therefore not particularly time-consuming to assess, so all in all, marking these has been a genuine pleasure! The biggest drawback is when something goes wrong technically - files uploaded in a format I can't open, problems uploading large files to the VLE, url's copied incorrectly or online videos set to private. This has involved a few hurried emails to get everything sorted out which does add a little more work to the marking process and a teacher using this method of assessment does need to be fairly confident themselves in using a variety of digital tools - or have some very friendly IT or Learning Technology staff standing by! That said, some of the students have proved themselves very technically creative and I have learned some new tricks from them. That to me has been another of the aspects that has made this assessment so enjoyable.

**(Students have been made fully aware of the private/public options for the sites used and have employed pseudonyms, restricted urls or even used non-published media - such as Powerpoint or MP4 files - in order to maintain their privacy. Prezi for example is public, unless a premium subscription is paid, YouTube has non-searchable or private url options whilst Knovio can also be set to private).

Digital Storytelling as an assesment tool: the students' view

The brief was to create "an account of your personal learning from the module, commenting and reflecting on your role in the group tasks and including your thoughts about your future career. This account will be produced as a “digital story” – a mix of images, voice narration, written words and music".

Later this was expanded and the following prompts were given:

What has been the most important/surprising/interesting/exciting thing you have learnt this year?
What happened? Who else was involved?
How did you feel about it at the time? How do you feel now?
What were the positives and negatives about the experience?
Can you relate this experience to any theory or research you know about (or could you research more into this type of thing?) (for example - you found yourself taking over as the leader of your group because no one else would: how does this relate to theory about emergent leadership? OR in your group you all had different ideas about what to do - how might this apply to multidisciplinary working in Health and Social Care?)
Overall, what do you conclude from this learning - how has it changed you as a person, changed your ideas?
Looking back, what do you now think about the values you selected in the first Photopeach exercise - would you still pick the same ones? What values or attitudes seem to be most important to you now?
If you had to do this year again, what would you do differently?
What tips would you give to another student about to start their final year?
Based on this experience, how might you plan to approach similar situations in the workplace?
What are your plans after graduating?

So what did the students make of digital storytelling as an approach to assessment?
One or two students have commented to me - in personal communications and in their introductions to their final portfolios - about the process of completing this assignment:

"I came into year three really worried and felt very overwhelmed, but learning how to reflect well has really allowed me to understand any flaws I have and how to improve on this for the future, especially when I go on to study my nursing MSc next September. I really have managed to grow and learn a lot about myself [when] previously I tried to avoid fears I had." (student A)

"the digital story was not a task I was particularly looking forward to as I have never done anything of the kind before, and do not enjoy recording myself! Having said this, it was probably one of my most enjoyable assignments and once I had started it and got into it I didn't actually feel as if I was doing work. The newly learnt skill of producing a digital video is not only one I can use when applying for jobs but also one I can use in my personal life, as I am an avid traveller and can now produce videos portraying my travels. " (student B)

"Creating a digital story was not an easy ask for me at all... Looking back at this digital story and realising that I am now able to create more different ones make me very proud.....The digital story gave me an opportunity to express myself through images. "(student C)

"I personally really enjoyed working on my digital story ... I think this is important to do so as it reminds the individual of changes they have gone through and [how]they have developed ...  I have videoed myself which was very hard as I can be shy talking in front of my camera. However, I have now overcome the fears of using a camera to video myself which I think is amazing ... this skill would be beneficial for my future career, as I may have to talk in front of patients and other professionals or create a presentation." (Student D)

 The following students have also given me permission to post their work here - I think it is possible from these examples to see the variety of responses - in terms of tools and platforms used, depth of reflection and themes - to the assignment brief. In my next post I'll talk more about the teaching and learning processes involved and the impact on me as the assessor. If you'd like to leave any comments here about the students' work, please do. I'm sure they'd enjoy the feedback :)

Sarah (imovie):

Gabrielle (movie maker):

Emily (Screencast-o-matic):

Anna (Knovio):
http://view.knowledgevision.com/presentation/6cf6975f38f14a6bb5b7c4c06141ac12


Amandip (PowerPoint): http://www.authorstream.com/Presentation/jchall00-2478010-leading-teams-reflective-story/ 

Mia (Prezi):

Digital Storytelling - creativity, reflection and 21st century skills

A great article by Grete Jamissen and Goro Skou puts into words some of my instincts about digital storytelling and why reflection using creative media differs from that using a traditional essay form.

"A digital story is an example of a multimodal text where various semiotic resources and
modalities (Kress, 2003, Løvland, 2007, Liestøl, Fagerjord & Hannemyr, 2009) create meaning and involve our senses in various ways, and we believe the combination
strengthens students’ learning processes. Written text and images affect our visual
sense; spoken language, music and sound affect the auditive sense; images and music
affect our feelings, separately and in combination. We are “touched”, and in a digital
storytelling context this engagement involves the producer, the peers taking part in the
process and the audience of the finished product. Multimodal texts can be found in both new and old media, but digital media have brought opportunities to work with stories in new ways. New technologies make new semiotic resources available and influence our ability to express and interpret meaning through multimodal interaction (Løvland, 2007)."

They also discuss how the "art" of working in health and social care field is about a preconscious activity - what I would probably describe as empathy - which lies at the heart of reflective practice. The health and social care practitioner needs to develop skills in interpreting human behaviour - "reading" multilayered messages about needs, desires, fears etc - and can best be trained to do so by becoming attuned to their own. Certainly this is what provides the foundation for the training and supervision of counsellors and psychotherapists, for example.

Counselling and psychotherapy training and supervision often make use of creative media - art, poetry, storytelling, drama - to arrive at transformative understandings of human behaviour which cannot always be portrayed simply through the written word. When I trained to be a humanistic counsellor, for example, role play ("empty chair" work) drama, story telling, painting and music played a major role in the workshops.

Understanding others through an understanding of our own behaviour is one aspect of the learning available to us through storytelling, another is the act of reflection which itself leads to the creation of new possibilities for action. As Norman Jackson pointed out recently in the Lifewide Magazine, in reflecting we are often motivated to create artefacts to help us remember and make concrete our learning:

"Reflection is inherently about creation since we create new understanding through the thinking process that causes us to pay attention to the detail of what we have learnt in one situation, that might be applied in future in another situation. The new insights we gain through reflective thinking gives us the confidence to put ourselves into new unfamiliar situations which in turn will demand our creativity. Furthermore, reflective thinking may motivate us to make artefacts to record or document our experiences and represent our learning for example in diaries, scrapbooks and blogs, and this perhaps is where social media plays an increasing role."

The digital element adds yet another dimension: the student isn't "performing" in the traditional sense in front of an audience especially if the digital artefact is locked down so that only a selected few can view it. The process is more akin to 1:1 supervision or a conversation with one's mentor. The development of a digital artefact requires skills that may be unfamiliar (most of us have painted, modelled clay, acted, sung - however inexpertly - at some point during our school days). Creating a Prezi, recording a soundtrack, editing a video is not something we all have practice in and added to the usual reticence about performing or sharing our creations with another is the sheer technical difficulty to be overcome in doing this in a medium with which we are not familiar.

However as Bernard Robin (2009) points out:

"This creative work provides students with a strong foundation in what many educators (Brown, Bryan, and Brown, 2005; Jakes, 2006; Partnership for 21st Century Skills, 2004) have begun calling 21st Century Literacy, Digital Age Literacies, or 21st Century Skills. Regardless of the specific term being used, these skills are being described as the combination of:

Digital literacy—the ability to communicate with an ever-expanding community to discuss issues, gather information, and seek help;

Global literacy—the capacity to read, interpret, respond, and contextualize messages from a global perspective  

Technology literacy—the ability to use computers and other technology to improve learning, productivity, and performance;

Visual literacy—the ability to understand, produce, and communicate through visual images;  

Information literacy—the ability to find, evaluate, and synthesize information.

Digital storytelling can be a potent learning experience that encompasses much of what society hopes that students will know and be able to perform in the 21st century (Jakes and Brennan, 2005). "

 

Student Led Learning Activities: the students' view

Scale Up classroom. Image: author's own

I asked students to complete a brief questionnaire about their experience of the recent student led learning activities.

Having watched and made an initial assessment of all the performances, my main focus was on the levels of learning engaged in by students through this process - and whether they felt they had acquired any transferable skills. I also wanted to find out whether age, confidence with written/spoken English or the way the groups had come together affected their experiences. Finally, I was interested in the link between group dynamics and experiences of learning.

Out of 59 respondents, 55 were female, 48 were aged 20-25, 3 were aged 25-35 and seven gave their age as over 35 (1 student did not give their age). Nine students said that English was a second or additional language.

Gender did not seem to significantly affect responses which were far more likely to be influenced by group dynamics. Three out of the four men were in "difficult" groups (two in the same one) which they admitted (in additional comments) had coloured their views of their own learning. The fourth was part of a fairly high-functioning group of friends who had worked together previously but he stated that he would prefer to be assessed as an individual and not in a group task. He went on to say that, nonetheless "my outlook on group working has improved as a result of this activity", indicating further that he had developed team working skills and admitting "..it may be that this has an impact in the future".

Most students reported having worked together with at least some of the other members before (47). The majority of these groups had formed spontaneously out of existing friendships (reported by 37). Ten students said that their choice of group had been dictated by other groups being already full (an upper limit of 7 and a lower limit of 4 members had been imposed when groups formed). Three students reported that they had been "put in a group by the tutor" - which is an impression they had formed, even though I quite consciously avoided trying to influence group membership. It may be that they had forgotten how they came to be members of a group, or perhaps equated the lack of choice with the tutor having put the group together.

Six students said they had taken some time to choose a group where they felt they would be happiest - all but one of these went on to have a very positive experience, the remaining student reported it was positive. One cited "convenience" but had a positive outcome despite some initially difficult dynamics. Another did not give a reason for how she ended up in her group (she simply wrote "other"), but nonetheless reported an overall positive experience.

When asked about the group dynamics, most said they had been "really positive, with everyone contributing equally" (30). For 17 students, the dynamics had been generally positive and nine said that they had been occasionally difficult. Of these six, four were in groups of friends and two had ended up in a group because others were full. One person said the dynamics had been often difficult and two people very difficult - each of whom also reported that they had joined a group of people they didn't know simply because the other groups were full. 

These results bear out my gut feeling that self-selecting groups tend to make for the most cooperative and positive of group dynamics, although clearly there are exceptions. Six students indicated that they had formed groups based on friendships but they had experienced occasional difficulties in the dynamics with some people not contributing. This in turn seems to have made the learning experience less positive, five saying they thought they would have learnt just as much on their own. In each case there were some group members they had not worked with previously, despite their being friends (or maybe friends of friends). The best experiences came when students had made a conscious decision about joining a specific group of people and the worst experiences when they felt they had been forced into a group because of lack of choice. These experiences could reflect a self fulfilling prophecy on the part of the student, with a sense of choice (or lack of one) influencing subsequent responses and reactions to group dynamics.

Group formation for learning in Higher Education can be a real mine field and generally it seems to be advocated that tutors do the choosing. To form cooperative learning groups, Johnson (1991) recommends deliberate mixing of abilities. Other writers (see Arkoudis et al 2010) advocate a little social engineering to ensure a mix of culture, linguistic ability and ethnicity. Still others warn that by allowing self selection, some group members may find themselves on the periphery, feeling excluded (Collins and Goyder, 2008) - or as happened here - forced into a group of "misfits" that couldn't join the group of their choice. Self selecting groups, it is warned, may tend to be homogeneous - all the stars in one and the lower ability students clinging together in another. This obviously has disadvantages - the low ability group may persist in their less than stellar performance and get poor grades whilst the higher ability group may not learn anything new about dynamics as they work within the same old comfort zone of their clever, like-minded friends. Nonetheless, I have persisted over the years in trusting the process and allowing students to form groups, being aware as Boud, Cohen and Sampson, (1999) note, that there are still difficulties in forcing together people from different cultures, age groups and backgrounds who are not used to collaborating.

(Interestingly, as an aside, none of the over 35s in my cohort worked together in the same group. One of these mature students told me that her confidence had increased enormously from working with younger people and they in return greatly valued her considerable experience of the health and social care sector which lent an edge of authenticity and relevance to their learning activity. However, in terms of ethnicity, most though not all groups were homogenous. Most of the EAL students, for example, came together in a single group).

97% of all students were positive about their learning from the process. 55% (n=33) felt that their knowledge of their chosen topic had improved "to some extent" whilst a further 42% (n=25) felt they had learnt "a great deal" about their chosen topic through the process of enquiry-based learning. Just one felt their understanding had not increased, although in all other respects this student had found the process very positive and reported that she had also found other groups' presentations interesting and informative. She further indicated that she had developed team working and communication skills.

In 39 instances, students felt that the process of collaborating had been very positive, greatly increasing their learning and a further 17 said this had been a positive experience which had increased their learning to some extent. These figures include every one of the over 35 and EAL students (who all went on to say, in addition, that the task had had a positive or very positive impact on their personal development). Two students responded that collaborative learning had been a distraction (and both had reported difficult dynamics in their groups) -  and one person did not answer this question. 

Thirteen students felt that the task had had a very positive impact on their personal development (resulting in greatly increased skills and confidence) and a further 38 described it as positive. Seven students thought the impact neutral although all but two of these went on to indicate transferable skills they felt they had acquired.  Of the two who said they had developed no skills, one felt that overall her understanding of the topic had increased to some extent, and she found the other groups' presentations informative and interesting. In terms of her own group, she had never worked with any of the other group members previously, found the dynamics occasionally difficult but admitted they were all friends and had chosen to work together. The second student's responses were negative on every aspect of the activity, (including finding others' presentation neither interesting nor informative)  and she reported having ended up in a group that was not of her choosing because others were full.

One student said the experience had had a negative impact on her personal development and confidence. On the other hand she indicated that she had developed problem solving and IT skills. This same student said elsewhere in her responses that she had had a very negative experience of group dynamics and had not chosen the people with whom she had worked.

When asked about transferable skills developed, the top answer was Team Working which 48 students agreed they had developed during the project. Next was Communication (36), followed by IT skills (20), Problem Solving (18) and Leadership (15). Eleven students indicated "all of these". Amongst the over 35s, five (out of seven) said their IT Skills had increased. Although the numbers here are too small to draw any definite conclusions, this also tallies with anecdotal evidence from the over 35s (in individual discussions with me) that they found the technical aspects of the task fairly challenging, but also enjoyed learning about new technology in rising to meet that challenge.

In the "other" comments, students added: confidence (1) speaking in front of an audience (1) working with people who are different from me (1) and patience (2)  as additional skills acquired.

Out of the total of 59 students, 27 volunteered general closing comments in a free text box. Most of these (16) referred to the weighting of the assignment. Having initially voted by a majority to have this set at 20% of the module total, they now felt that this was too low and did not reflect the amount of hard work they had put into the development of the learning activities.

Other comments (2) referred to poor group dynamics having made the experience negative and a third spoke of wanting to be assessed individually rather than as part of a group (the male student whose response has already been discussed above).

Eight students recorded very positive final reflections on the process:

A: Though I encountered difficulty at the beginning, this task allowed me to see that barriers will arise but as professionals we must find ways to overcome this :)

B: Should have been 50%! Other than that the task was great and good experience for students to run a class. Learnt a lot from other groups :)

C: The group worked really well, but maybe if everyone had to speak in front of an audience the marking would be maybe a bit fair for these groups who all did contribute during the speaking

D: Enjoyed taking part - got out of the comfort zone and gained confidence
It was really enjoyable - think other modules ought to do a similar aspect (mature student over 35) 

E: It was interesting and had build students confidence of standing up and presenting their learning activities. (EAL student)

 F: I think the task was agreat idea especially for a new learning technique, however it was A LOT of work for 20% of the module

G: Overall enjoyed the presentation and what I learnt doing it.

H: I really enjoyed this task and learning from peers, however for future maybe two groups should not have the same theme as peers will already have the knowledge

The 59 questionnaire responses represent 63% of the cohort (n=93), it is a considerably better return than is usual in the module evaluation process for example (10-20%) and better than the percentage who voted for the group work weighting (48 returns out of 93 students) in an on line survey in October. Overall I feel this gives a snapshot which fairly reflects comments that students have made to me in passing and confirms my own observations. 

In terms of assessed outcomes, the student led learning activities were graded between 58% and 81% on the formative assessment of the performance element, although groups have the opportunity to improve these grades by submitting revised and additional documentation. They also received informal peer feedback (through surveys which they themselves designed, administered and analysed) which they will now use in a final reflective exercise. All students (but one) responding to the questionnaire said that they had learnt from others' presentations, 44 to some extent and 14 saying these had added greatly to their understanding of the module's themes. 

Compared with previous years when students were required to focus on a popular film and identify leadership characteristics in its protagonists, this year saw both a greater variety of themes (ranging from motivation, gender and emotional intelligence to job design and multi-agency working) as well as a greater application of theory to health and social care settings. Judging by the questionnaire responses, learning from one another played a significant part in the success of the module. 

In previous years, students produced web based artefacts and feedback from other groups was both sparse and generalised, indicating little inter group learning. In those cases most groups focused on the same narrow set of theories and models so there was little incentive to look closely at each others' work. This year students attendence at each others' presentations was mandatory and there was minimal duplication of topics. As can be seen from the free text comment (H) above, one or two groups did choose similar themes: notably motivation and gender, although each group took a different approach to the topic. This appears to have added to the breadth of learning.

Already through informal conversations with the students I am aware that the process has been a challenging but generally positive one. My next step is to follow up the questionnaire with some individual interviews where respondents have indicated their willingness to participate in these. In addition, the final task for the module will be an individual reflection on the learning process (in the form of a digital story) which should hopefully yield even richer qualitative data.

Refs: 

Arkoudis, S., Yu, X., Baik, C., Borland, H., Chang,S.,

Lang,I., Lang,J., Pearce, A., Watty,K. (2010) ‘Finding Common Ground: enhancing interaction between domestic and international students.’ In Report of project supported by the Australian Learning and Teaching Council Ltd, an initiative of the Australian Government Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations. Available at http://www.cshe.unimelb.edu.au/research/projectsites/enhancing_interact.html 

Boud, D.; Cohen,R.;Sampson, J. (1999) ‘Peer Learning and Assessment.’ In Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, Vol. 24, No. 4, pp413-426 http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.203.1370&rep=rep1&type=pdf

Collins, N.; Goyder, J. (2008) ‘Speed Dating: a Process of Forming Undergraduate Student Groups.’ In ECulture Vol.1 http://ro.ecu.edu.au/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1075&context=eculture

Johnson, David W. (1991) ‘Cooperative Learning: Increasing College Faculty Instructional Productivity.’ In ASHE-ERIC Higher Education Report No. 4. Available at: http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED343465.pdf 

learning-by-doing : some feedback

D. Sharon Pruitt - Flickr: Happy Girl Hopscotch in Strawberry Free CC BY 2.0

I ran a small focus group discussion yesterday with my final year students to get their views about the student led learning activities.

They all agreed they had suffered from nerves before standing up to speak in front of the whole class (the first time many of them had presented to an audience of this size) but they were even more anxious about the interactive elements of the activities - what if their fellow students refused to participate?

For this particular group of students (none of whom had worked together on the task) issues of group cohesion were not highlighted, although I am aware (through other discussions) of three somewhat dysfunctional teams (out of 15).

In two cases the problems revolved around a single member who had never shown up to meetings and who contributed little and late. Other group members were angry that this "loafer" was able to get the same marks as the rest of them with minimal contribution. In situations like this a process of peer evaluation is sometimes used but this cohort voted against such a process at the outset, preferring to deal with things informally. I have mixed views about peer evaluation as I have seen groups where individuals are deliberately marginalised or excluded from a team and I dislike the competitiveness and devisiveness it can encourage. In the real world, teams don't get to vote on the performance related pay of their colleagues ("more's the pity" did I hear you say?) - difficulties have to be dealt with or tolerated in the interests of completing the task - and in some ways I think it is right that these student teams (on a module dedicated to teamwork and leadership) learn how to deal with differences.

The third "dysfunctional" group did just that. The group effectively split into two at one point and discussions became heated - one student left the session and another was in tears. When I inquired if I could help, the unofficial leader said they were planning a final group meeting to sort things out. The following week, they seemed to be back on track and this week they have just emailed me their session plan (the only group to have done so) which looks remarkably well organised and thought through.

I also asked my small focus group about the value of the feedback they had received. They were all immensely glad I had given them a provisional grade and regarded this as useful formative feedback indicating where they could improve. They also valued the feedback they had had from their peers, most of which was generally positive and in some cases very constructive. One or two students had complained to me in class about particularly rude, negative and unconstructive comments they had received, but that was a useful opportunity to talk about how best to receive - and use - feedback (in short - ignore what isn't useful to you!) In a fortnight I'll be facilitating a session about feedback and reflection, so I may just need to go over best practice in GIVING feedback too.

The $64,000 question is: did they think the activity gave them a good understanding of their chosen topics?  All said they thought they had had to work harder and get a deeper understanding of their topics than was normally the case (in writing an essay for example) because they didn't want to be caught out by a question from other students that they couldn't answer.

They also said that they had found other students' sessions very interesting and informative and that they had learned a lot through those too.

OK- so this is just one informal discussion and other students may have different views - something I hope will emerge through their self evaluations and final reflections on the module - but I did find their views very encouraging.

For myself, I also really enjoyed week 3 of the sessions and again found much to admire in the creative learning activities students had devised for their peers - as well as noting the confidence displayed by some in the way they facilitated group discussions. One or two had decided on a formal presentation plus quiz (I am wondering here if this is a delivery model they have become familiar with during their studies?) but one had developed really interesting, health and social care based scenarios and asked groups to decide on an approach to the problem based on one of two specific managerial philosophies. I admit I picked up a couple of tips myself on how to facilitate learning around some quite dry subjects!

So, overall I do feel this has been a  positive learning experience for us all and the students' enthusiasm is still palpable, which is quite something in these cold winter days. It's the final set of sessions next Monday and I will definitely feel some regret to be returning to the more "normal" teaching mode after that. Or maybe, things will never be quite "normal" again.....

Student-led learning

Krissy Venosdale on Flickr CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

I decided this year to encourage my final year students to do something a little different for their team work assessment. Instead of me teaching the usual curriculum for the module I asked them to research whatever theories or practices (related to leadership and teamwork) interested them and then design a learning activity which would involve the whole class.

The teams were self selecting and they chose the topics - although I asked teams to negotiate these with me so that we didn't end up with 15 presentations about Tuckman....

I also emphasised that these were very much NOT mean to be presentations at all, but rather active learning experiences that would engage their audience. Some found it hard to break out of old patterns and largely read from notes in front of a Powerpoint, the interactive element of their session generally being a quiz or word search.

The more engaging sessions attempted a different approach: the first one for example divided students into three tables and gave each a relatively simple task to do (completing a jigsaw) but, unbeknown to the participants, facilitators were each using a different management style. Student reflections and feedback were encouraged to try to illustrate the differences and relate these to the theory.

Others incorporated videos of role plays that they had acted and filmed themselves to illustrate different motivational factors and a third asked the audience to role play different professional partners in a multi agency team, reviewing the communication failings in a (real) murder case.

Designing and running a teaching session has many benefits as an inquiry-based learning task. Students are having to learn on a number of levels - how to function as a collaborative team; how to divide up tasks; how to get to grips with technology; thinking about what constitutes an engaging and active learning session; how to control classroom behaviour and get the cooperation of your peers.....oh, and yes, the actual theoretical concepts they are trying to put across.

Some outcomes were unexpected: one or two students commented to me that the exercise had given them a greater insight into the challenges facing their lecturers - such as managing behavour, preparing resources and dealing with stage fright! Others have had to negotiate some very difficult team dynamics and manage differing levels of contribution. One group told me this had been a brilliant experience and they wished they'd done projects like this from the first year.

The next step is about evaluation. I asked each group to design an evaluation questionnaire and seek the feedback of their peers. Based on this - and my provisional assessment - they will now go on to produce a short self-evaluation of their sessions. I am rather wishing that I had held off giving them my feedback until they had done this next task, but hopefully the motivation for them to do a thorough job is that my grade is only provisional and may be improved if they provide more evidence in the form of references, notes and group reflections.

If I did this exercise again next year (and I am tempted to, as generally it has been very successful so far) I think I would place more emphasis on the peer and self evaluation.

What I chiefly hope from all of this is that the sessions do provide genine learning, not just for the teams who have carried out the research, but for those students in the audience. I confess I am a bit anxious about this aspect however.

I came across this interesting quote as I was researching into the idea of student-led teaching

“Becoming a teacher who helps students to search rather than follow is challenging and, in many ways, frightening” (Brooks & Brooks, 1999, p. 102) - cited here: (Kim Bouman, 2012) 

I guess my biggest fear is that, in the end, the students' learning proves to have been fairly superficial and that the module (and by association, me as a teacher) has therefore "failed". Because the quality of the presentations has been variable and some of the "reinforcing" activities a little simplistic, I suspect that understanding of the actual concepts or theories is not particularly deep.

Previous iterations of this module have required students to develop a digital resource focusing on leadership  - usually by analysing the characteristics of various leaders in history, or in popular culture. Again, I couldn't claim that learning about the theoretical concepts in those instances was particularly deep then either, as evidenced in their final reflective essays. Students though necessarily had to develop leadership and team working skills in order to successfully complete the project and they also learned a lot of useful technical skills in creating a web site or blog. This year's task has added the dimension of live presentation and facilitating learning in others - which I would say are also pretty useful skills!

For me it has been an interetsing learning experience too. I have had to let go of controlling the "content delivery" side of the module (I think this is where the "fear" creeps in) but a welcome spin off has been fewer actual "teaching" sessions. I have been able to spend more time in discussion with groups as a result -  facilitating their understanding of some concepts, challenging them to also let go of didactic approaches and be more creative in the design of their learning experiences. I have also done quite a bit of counselling when relationships have threatened to break down, with some cajoling of anxious performers along the way.

At the end of the year students will be reflecting on the module through a digital storytelling exercise. It will be interesting to see and hear what they have made of the experience and in particular of having the curriculum taught by their peers - and I guess that is the point at which I will be able to gather any evidence about the depth and breadth of their learning.

Professional Values: the video(s)

Photo: Sarah Metherell http://photopeach.com/album/d59yl3

I have taken a new approach to my final year module (Leading Teams) this year. For the past 4 years that I have taught it, I have used a project based approach which has multiple facets.

First the students must work in teams of 6-8 students to develop a digital artefact (a website or wiki most often) which has as it's theme the leadership characteristics of the protagonists in a popular film. Over the years the students have analysed Avatar, The Lion King (twice), Toy Story (so many times I had to ban it last year), Twelve Angry Men, and even Matilda.

Theoretical underpinnings for the artefacts are generally drawn from lecture material I produce, seminar discussions and of course text books and articles highlighted in the module reading list. However, a great deal is based on the independent research that the students carry out themselves.

The artefacts produced have ranged in levels of sophistication but generally there has been enough complexity in the task to ensure that all group members get to use their individual talents: some taking on the "techy" roles, others researching or writing, and some surprising themselves as they have emerged as leaders through the process. The students' own reflections on these projects (part 2 of the task) have been an eye opener for them as much as for me.

Student feedback over the years indicates that, increasingly, the students find this less and less challenging technically - and intellectually - so this year the assessment will be based on student-led learning activities. Groups of 5 or 6 have been formed and each has selected a topic which they are going to teach to their fellow students. Apart from two mini lectures introducing the module themes, my input has been minimal. My lecture material and the references are available, but the emphasis is on student-directed research. When students do the teaching  is a short and helpful post about peer to peer teaching (with a great student-produced maths video!).

A more academic discussion of the approach can be found here: David Boud , Ruth Cohen & Jane Sampson (1999) Peer Learning and Assessment, Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, 24:4, 413-426,

_________________________________________

As a warm up exercise this year, I gave the students the task of creating short slide show videos - using Photopeach - on the values of a health and social care professional (as I have for the first year students see: Reflection on Professional Identity). The purpose of this was to prepare them to a) learn how to source copyright free images b) create impactful presentations using few words and strong images c) articulate their own values in relation to potential career options on graduating. (This final point relates to the part of the module that looks at career planning and job applications).

All groups approached the task with commitment and there have been some outstanding results.

Here are some of my favourites:

Health and Social Care Values (created with students' own photos)

Social Work

Childcare 

The difference we wish to make 

Why we chose this course..

(with thanks to Gemma Tur Ferrer for the original idea!)