Building Students' Research Skills - Reflections

An unintended consequence of the Undergraduate Research Conference we ran in April is that it is being held up as an example (within my University at least) of how we can prepare and support BTEC students in their transition to University AND of widening participation.

I say unintended because the original plan was simply to try and get our existing students engaged in research. Inviting local colleges to participate - especially those in disadvantaged areas - and focusing on current BTEC students ticked the boxes around widening participation for our Schools Colleges and Community Outreach team, but the focus on research skills also provided extra study skills support for those current undergraduates with a BTEC background.

I was invited (along with my colleague Sarah Barkley from SCCO) to talk about the event at a recent BTEC Symposium - here is the Prezi:

Celebrating student research

There are number of problems in getting students to engage with research: it can be quite difficult for first year students in particular (but not first years exclusively!) to "get" the point of research; it can be a challenge for them to design their own research projects and it is even more challenging for them to read academic research articles. Nonetheless, I think it is a nettle worth grasping for all sorts of reasons - and as early as possible in the undergraduate life-cycle.

This year I have been engaged in a year long project trying out a new way (for me) of encouraging first year students to engage with research - one that is to culminate in a few weeks' time (18 April 2016) with an undergraduate research conference.

The process began back in the first term with an open door conversation between first and second year students on the significance of research in their studies and the sharing of ideas about possible research themes. I then invited library and learning support staff and a couple of early career researchers to come in to my classes and teach basic skills. I also provided an introduction to research methodologies, methods and ethics, and devised various activities around constructing surveys and interview questions.

Since Christmas the students have been working in small groups to investigate a topic of their own choosing - firstly outlining this in a five minute presentation to the rest of the cohort, and secondly, designing a research poster which has to include a literature review and some primary research of their own (mainly based on surveys of their fellow students).

On the whole - judging from the results so far - the students seem to have enjoyed this activity and are certainly showing evidence of beginning to "get" research. Some of the primary research has been creative: one group surveyed a small group of social work lecturers to get a professional's eye-view of child protection; others sent out survey invitations via the course Facebook group. Similarly, the approach to poster design has allowed many to show their artistic and technical flair with a number using Prezi, and many incorporating really eye catching visuals.

The skills the students acquire during this process are multiple: information searching; evaluation of literature and research results; managing group work; presentation of information in graphical form; writing concisely; citation and referencing; finding, downloading, inserting and editing copyright free images; communicating ideas verbally and in public..... and probably lots more.

And yes - if you are thinking this all sounds like really hard work - it is. Students constantly complain to me that the whole business of working in groups is painful (and I empathise to some extent: it's damned painful for me sorting out squabbles and no-shows!); they extol the virtues of lecturers who simply give them handouts and essay questions to turn in at the year end; I get dispirited by the rubbish module evaluation results I get as a result ... and on top of all that I have a bloomin' conference to organise! I have to keep telling myself  - and them - that it will all be worth it in the end: and now the posters are being submitted for marking - you know what? I almost believe it is!

So the conference will be a chance for the students to show off all their hard work: students from local school and colleges will make up the audience. There will be short, themed discussions; presentations from post graduate researchers and final year students; and I am hoping the course budget will stretch to tea and cake .....

I promise there will be a full report here on my blog, with photos and examples of students' work, just as soon as I have recovered! In the meantime - here's a short video I created for the schools and colleges we have invited to participate, explaining how to create a research poster.

Engaging with Feedback

http://mindinbexley.org.uk/feedback/

It's a common complaint of teaching staff that they spend hours carefully crafting feedback only to have students ignore it - especially first and second years. I know in my own team we have discussed this endlessly, raised it in course committees, berated students in class, introduced the topic into tutor groups....

This year I think I may have accidentally hit on something. Students in year 1 have just finished a group presentation which is worth 30% of their final grade and is the precursor to a more in depth piece of work that results in an academic research poster (and undergraduate mini-conference: more of that later!)

Feedback on their presentation was virtually instantaneous: I typed it up as they presented and published the feedback on the VLE a couple of hours later. Naturally they all immediately looked to see what grade they had received.

Then in this week's class I gave them an exercise to do on using Gibbs' reflective cycle. Principally, my intention was to get them to think about how they had performed as a team. I know the process of working in a group was very difficult for some individuals and I wanted to get some feedback from the majority on how it had gone. However, in their reflections they also took the opportunity to READ THE FEEDBACK I had given them and to use that to think about how they could improve their presentation and communication skills going forward.

A key factor in this is that I had given them another two weeks after their presentation to work on and formally submit their PowerPoint or Prezi, thereby potentially improving their grade. This has also stimulated them to read and understand the feedback they have been given. I think another factor not to be ignored is that they performed their presentations in front of one another and they were able to learn from this how other groups had approached the task. One of the problems with tutor/student dialogue is that it is most often private: other students rarely see how their peers perform and don't know how to judge themselves against any benchmark other than the grading criteria. As well as socially constructed learning at the level of knowledge and understanding, these types of group based public assessments can help to construct a shared understanding of practical approaches and skills.

I have done an activity along these lines with the final year students for the past couple of years: following on from their student-led learning activities, each group reflects on a) the group process b) the feedback from me c) the evaluations provided by their peers and d) their own evaluation of how the session went, and they then present this evaluation as an assessed submission.

The reflective exercise I did with the first years was not assessed but it certainly yielded some interesting comments:

On "what I would do differently next time", they said:

"do more research"
"have note cards instead of reading from the screen"
"less text and more images on the slides"
"use our personal experience to give examples"
"add citations"
"speak slowly and loudly"
"use academic journals instead of websites"
"include statistics"
"be more organised and don't start at the last minute"
"arrange more team meetings"

Ah! music to my ears......now lets just hope they put it all into practice!

#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.

#ueef15 - "Conta’m un conte... digital, per favor"/ "Tell Me a Story - make it digital!"

On Wednesday 9th September I am going to present at the Summer School of the Unversity of the Balearic Isands (UIB) Ibiza - sadly, by Skype and not in person.

The theme is "trending topics in ITC" and my session is about the digital storytelling project I have been working on with Gemmar Tur and Victoria Marin from UIB over the past year.

Here is the Prezi in Spanish:


and the English version:

Tell me a story from Jane Challinor

So what is a digital story? For me, this means a mixed media presentation, living on the web, which probably incorporates music, images, written words and – possibly – the author’s voice.

When I Googled "cuentos digitales" on Google.es, in preparation for this event, I mainly found stories for children, but in the collaborative study, our use of digital storytelling focused on reflection on learning by students in HE who are engaged in professional education (teaching and health and social care professions).

Storytelling is a very ancient human activity and one that has been used for millennia in the realm of education. Stories contact deeper emotions and call for greater creativity than the usual essay, report or portfolio and they are almost innately reflective – indeed, reflection in a professional setting often starts with the recounting of a story. The story form allows us to make sense of events and our own thoughts, but also allows us to see things from a different perspective.

Why a DIGITAL story? 

Firstly, the platforms available to us on which to create digital stories lend themselves to a multimedia creation which engages the audience on many different levels: music and imagery combine to affect us emotionally and aesthetically. Also, for students preparing for employment these days, the development of 21^st century skills – including digital competence – is essential. Creating a digital story therefore provides an authentic task (reflection on learning/reflection for professional development) which at the same time develops digital skills. Furthermore, the use of OER (as embedded resources and as a finished artefact) teaches important lessons about collaboration, digital identity and copyright whilst providing a platform on which to share our ideas, our stories, with the wider world.

What are the benefits of digital storytelling?

Obviously – increasing digital confidence and competence. But also - allowing creative expression, giving a voice to those with little confidence in academic writing, giving students the opportunity to practise speaking in public. And most students (over 80% in my end of year survey) find it a fun assignment to do.

Are there any disadvantages?

It can be a real challenge for anyone not used to working on the web or using digital tools – students AND teachers.

For the teacher - it can take longer to plan classes, putting appropriate scaffolding in place to guide the less confident students. If you are going to grade the finished story, you need to think about marking schemes or rubrics – for both the digital and the reflective elements.

For the student – some guidance is needed on keeping safe on a public platform and thinking about the crafting of your digital identity

So – HOW do you make a digital story?

Fortunately there are lots of step by step guides available. My favourite website is: http://digitalstorytelling.coe.uh.edu/  (which also gives guidance on platforms and tools you can use)  and this is the original digital storytelling site http://storycenter.org/

What did the students think?

It was:

Fun 82%

Technically challenging 62%

Improved my digital skills 90%

Helped me to become more reflective 83%

Relevant to my studies 85%

Relevant to my future career 44%

As a result I am more likely to:

reflect on my learning 90%

reflect on my professional practice 86%

use the same tool again 75%

try other online tools 75%

stick to PowerPoint 28%

be cautious about sharing personal information on line 75%

mention this as a skill on my CV 46%

Interestingly, the students I surveyed (in their first year) generally didn't see this as an "employability skill",  although this was an aspect mentioned by the final year students. (For more detail about themes explored in the stories -  and more student feedback -  see previous blog posts)

This is not really so surprising given the stage the students are at, but it does perhaps point to the fact that more work needs to be done to set the professional context for this activity in future.

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.

Aim higher?

So my final year group are currently planning their student led learning activities. I am enjoying the process of negotiating with them about their topics - ensuring a good spread so that the curriculum is covered but allowing for personal preferences and interests to direct the process.

Yesterday I tried out a new approach to developing the assessment criteria for the presentations - by getting them to contribute to writing them. I have toyed with doing this for some time but been put off by the complexity - especially when working with a large group.

Here's what I did. In preparation I created a blank spreadsheet listing the learning outcomes for the module and suggesting four key areas that might be relevant for this assignment: communication and IT skills; research; Academic Skills (such as referencing) and collaborative teamwork.

On the spreadsheet I gave them the core descriptors for each grade band (as prescribed by the University) to indicate the spread from Exceptional First to Fail.

Then, in small groups they worked to come up with descriptors for specified outcomes at specified levels:  Communication Skills - First and Fail;  Academic skills: 2:1 and 3rd etc

At the end of the exercise I collected in their descriptors and used these to construct the finished assessment feedback sheet.

In truth this wasn't radically different from grading matrices used elsewhere on the course (which is good because it demonstrates that they have engaged with those!). Most interesting was the discussions we had on differentiating between a 2:1 and a first: most tend to think that if they tick the boxes then they should get a first whereas the assessment model used in this University would say that a first is beyond what would normally be expected. This is a useful point to try and get across, especially for final year students who are hoping for those important higher degree classifications, and this is perhaps a good time to be reminding them of the standards for the level to which they aspire.

Peer evaluation is also built into the process and the next phase will be to work with the students on designing an evaluation questionnaire which they will distribute following their sessions.The final step is to use the assessment criteria to create a self-evaluation of their own work.

Refection on professional identity

The first assignment I am planning for the new intake of students is going to be a digital reflection on professional identity. This is based on work that Gemma Tur Ferrar has been doing in Ibiza with first year primary school teachers which we have been discussing over the summer. As well as analysing the work of her students over the last couple of years, we are planning - together with Victoria Marin - to run the same activities with our respective cohorts and compare outcomes. Victoria and Gemma's students are all trainee primary school teachers and are Catalan speakers, mine are health and social care students and English speakers. Victoria and I have very large seminar groups (70 -80 in each) whilst Gemma's is much smaller. We hope to consider differences in class size and technical (digital) skills; the influence of language and culture and the different emphasis that health and social care and educational values might place on different aspects of professional identity.

To kick start the process with my students I have decided to give them as an example the work of one group from Gemma's class (in Catalan with translation - courtesy of Google translate -  below):

http://photopeach.com/album/15407v6

“The teachers we want to be…..

Because the text book is already outdated

… and rows of desks also,

a new day dawns in education.

There are many ways of learning

and many situations in which to learn

incorporating new technology,

valuing diversity,

promoting respect for the environment.

Continually developing ourselves,

we are committed to developing people for the 21^st century”.

I like the idea of sharing the work of students from different cultures - internationalising the curriculum is big on all our agendas at the moment but language can create barriers. It would be great if we could find more ways of using technology to overcome them..... now there's a challenge!