13 January
2012

Supervisory Practice and RiT

Posted on January 13, 2012 by Mark

Supervisory Practice

The last day of the PGCAP teaching began with a discussion about supervisory roles and the good and bad characteristics of a supervisor, narrowing this down we focused on the best positive points, which were:

Inspiring
Knowledge
Motivating
Available
Critical friend

One characteristic we were also talking about was ‘helpful’, but I felt that all of the five points listed above added up to the meaning helpful, and that helpful is a hard term to define in this instance. What on person finds helpful, the next may find disrupting.

This was an intriguing discussion that I really enjoyed, I kept thinking back to my undergraduate studies and and critiquing my project supervisors which were assisting and supporting my areas of study.

In terms of the knowledge knowledge characteristic , I think ‘networking’ could sit alongside. If you don’t know all the answers as a supervisor you should know where to look for the answer.

Research Informed Teaching

Debbie Cotton took this session and we talked about how research and teaching relate to each other. Topics included how in theory ideas about informed teaching and research are managed and what the expectations are. Do good researchers make good teachers? The conclusion was yes and no. Research evidence is sporadic as many different factors come into play such as time, preference on teaching or research for the individual, etc. However in departmental structures both research and teaching was more aligned, possibly because the best researchers in a department can focus on research and the best teachers can focus on teaching, as long as there is communication between the two parties, the research can inform the teaching and holes in the teaching could possibly inform the research. Departmental research structures looks like a good balance, relating this to the text from the homework (Barnett, R, 1990) it makes sense that our University has an institute of research, the output of is research then informs the teachers, who may find it difficult to find the time for engage in their own research. Also researchers across Faculties/Schools/Directorates can bid for money and the outcomes are fed back into the institution, then being distributed to all interested within the institution.

12 January
2012

Assessment and Feedback

Posted on January 12, 2012 by Mark

Assessment

Today our session began with a discussion about what assessors do and what role they play. Assessors designed the assessment scheme, they set the assignments, introduce the task, supports students through the process, they mark the work, they provide feedback, take part in modernisation and attend the assessment panel. We also discussed at length the different assessment types. In my role I come across mostly Computer Aided Assessment which gets utilised mainly in two different ways: formative and summative. In this session it was good to see more types of assessment and how they can be used. In this session we covered, Diagnostic, Norm referencing, Criterion referencing, Rubrics, Reliability, Validity, and SOLO taxonomy. Plymouth University academic relations state that, the purposes of assessment are to objectively measure a student’s achievements against the learning outcomes of the module, to assist student learning by providing appropriate feedback on performance, and to provide a reliable consistent basis for the recommendation of an appropriate award. Types of Assessment Assessment types in my area can be formative, summative usually appearing in Computer Aided Assessment, provided by QuestionMark Perception. Other assessment types that I might see are self-assessment exercises either built in to Xerte Online Toolkits or small bespoke systems (LPC).

Feedback

Feed-in – is the process where you are setting up, briefing and prep work, setting the learning ethos. Make sure the rules are set and people who what they are doing and what they are assessed on.
Feed-forward – formative ‘feedback’ cues discussion mid-way reviews, peer feedback. Contributing to their learning and understanding.
Feedback – at the end of the task, written verbal, mp3, marks/grades. This is given at the end, and can happen in a variety of ways. Remember these terms, if you do all three you are enhancing their learning experience. Students will know where they stand and what is expected.

11 January
2012

Programme Design, Module Design and Session Planning

Posted on January 11, 2012 by Mark

Today kicked off with a discussion surrounding factors which can affect programme design. Some of these factors were QAA National Qualifications Framework, SEEC Level Descriptors, QAA Subject Benchmarks, Professional Accreditation, QAA Code of Practice and the Equality Act (2010).

SEEC Level Descriptors and QAA Subject Benchmarks

SEEC (south east education consortium) credit level descriptors, they have been adopted pretty much across the UK. By visiting the SEEC Credit Level Decriptors for higher eduction document you can view ‘The SEEC Descriptors: by Level’ (e.g. Masters – Level7). QAA have subject benchmarks which have more specific guidelines at subject level.

Teaching has moved from content based to outcomes based, Ramsden, 2003. Outcomes based uses verbs that describe what students can do and assessment to provide evidence that students can do something. We also have processed based (McGill and Beaty, 2001), which is where we are shifting towards. Process based requires activities for learning and can include: Problem Based Learning, field work, working in teams; effectively learning through problem solving.

When designing programme and modules constructive alignment need to take place. Firstly write your Intended Learning Outcomes, then align the learning and teaching activities so they are designed with meeting those outcomes. Next align the assessment methods so they designed to assess those Intended Learning Outcomes. Writing bad learning outcomes will alway make it harder to come up with activities.

Programme level aims and outcomes are more broad and should only comprise of 3-5 bullet points. Aims broken down in bullet points – yes as the programme is broad. Module level aims and outcomes are much more detailed.

Next we looked at Definitive Module Records (DMRs). DMR’s should have SMART outcomes:

S pecific
M easureable
A chievable
R ealistic
T imely/Tracked/Targeted

It is a good idea to use verbs for designing aims and outcomes so the learning becomes active, try to avoid using the word understand. The word understand is not measurable, instead use words like analyse, compare, assess develop or criticise.

Designing a session plan

Firstly design a programme spec, then module DMRs, then scheme of work. This is not required by Plymouth University, but session planning is necessary for the session lead.

Design a session plan template. This is where I have been guilty of not planning thoroughly. I have used session plans before in my sessions but they have been lacking in some key areas. For instance I have never really planned for sessions dependent on the number of students in the room. Sadly my focus on the sessions have always been about what i need to teach rather than what the audience need to learn. This sounds silly as I write this but from now on I shall be building my session plans with activities in mind that will need the learning outcomes of the session, not simply building activities in order of what information I have to disseminate.

10 January
2012

Exploring the role of the Personal Tutor

Posted on January 10, 2012 by Mark

This afternoon we explored the role of a personal tutor. Personal tutoring is very personal experience between tutor and student. Being a personal tutor gives you the opportunity to build a relationship with a student. There is usually very little guidance available and it hasn’t been evaluated properly as it falls outside of the curriculum.

Experiences from the group were appalling. Experiences as tutees showed there was no routes or structure to approach the person and personal tutoring to them was just a name. Another problem was some staff weren’t interested in listening and it seemed they just wanted to get back their research, the tutee easily saw this and saw the entire process a complete waste of time. As a tutor, staff found that the biggest problems were with different cultures and there wasn’t enough time for the tutee to gain trust in their tutor, and they didn’t come out of their shell and share their thoughts, experiences and concerns.

Personal tutoring is very important because is helps the students make the most of their student experience. It gives support to the student possibly in difficult times, and it and leads to student retention.

Personal tutors are left to decide for themselves how to work effectively in this role. Obviously depending on how many students you have, frequency of meetings, what you discuss and your approach to meetings all add up to how effective you are. But it is typical to meet 3 times throughout the year, but it is also a good idea to appear approachable so a student can request a meeting if something important needs discussing (either academic support, personal development or problems).

10 January
2012

Equality and Diversity

Posted on January 10, 2012 by Mark

Today we started by looking at Equality and Diversity at Plymouth University and some of the education challenges faced as an institution. Equality and Diversity for teachers is about Inclusive Learning.

To help support this there are many different resources, first the Plymouth University Equality and Diversity Policy which illustrates our institutions commitments and responsibilities to promote equality and eliminate discrimination in the workplace or at study. Also we were directed to the Learning Development team who can assist staff and students with academic skills, such as writing. Learning Development have a web resource for this called WrAssE, which is something I am very familiar with as I was involved in the development of the project. Also on the subject of inclusivity the JISC TechDis resources were also highlighted. Looking at the words themselves, equality is a vision or aim, and diversity is the difference in values.

What experience have we encountered in education, either as student or tutor, where diversity played a part. For me it was coming into Higher Education as a student to study my degree, working with people from different cultures was a new challenge but also a international student, where the biggest issue was language. I think this is common for Higher Education as the number of international students increases, there will be issues to with.
After a short break, we then has a presentation from Plymouth University’s Equality and Diversity department (3 people) who’s role is to promote an open and inclusive environment. The co-ordinate the university’s equalities policies as well as co-ordinating a network of harassment advisors.

We should be treating people of different cultures and diversity with the same manner. Not only for the moral and social aspects by also as a business case, we want to keep staff from moving on and retain our current students. We want to build a solid reputation in the sector, and also comply with legislation, (Equality Act 2010).

The equality acts brings other discrimination acts under one umbrella of legislation.
Protected characterises includes: age, disability, race, religion or belief, sexual orientation, sex, gender, assignment, pregnancy or maternity, marital or civil partnership status.

Type of discrimination can happen in two ways, either directly or indirectly. Indirect discrimination is the hardest to identify. This can be teaching certain tasks in class when indirectly you are discriminating a certain group (perhaps students with dyslexia for example). Direct discrimination is simply breaching a protected characteristic towards a person or group, whether they be staff or students.

Public sector equality duty tells us that we need to eliminate discrimination, harassment and any other conduct prohibited under the equality act, advancing equality and opportunities. Plymouth University has but together an equality scheme in response to the duty which is designed to encourage faculties and directorates to build on the considerable progress the university has made in promoting race, disability and gender quality.

For me, dealing with the issues is inclusivity, it makes sense to have visual elements to teach, issue handouts, have them available electronically and in other formats, run tasks in class so there is peer-assisted learning, but be aware of showing respect to the characteristics listed in the equality act either in a direct way but also in an indirect way, which needs close attention as it could be easier to breach.

For students with a disability (a physical or mental impairment) that influence there ability to carry out day-to-day activities, students are advised to visit Disability Assist Services (DAS).