Staff and Departmental Development Unit

Visitors & Residents: What do students really get up to online and why should we care? led by Dr David White on Tuesday 9 April 2013, 1.30 - 4.30 

The seminar:
It is essential that we understand the 'digital literacies' that our students are developing online around information seeking and collaboration if we are to be able to successfully support their learning in the context of the web. Based on the ongoing work of the Digital Visitors & Residents project this interactive session will explore the various  'modes of engagement' students operate in online for their learning and their perceptions of credibility in the digital environment.

View / Download the session presentation (PDF)

More about the project from JISC  http://www.jisc.ac.uk/whatwedo/projects/visitorsandresidents.aspx and from the project team http://www.oclc.org/research/activities/vandr.html and David’s blog  http://tallblog.conted.ox.ac.uk/index.php/2008/07/23/not-natives-immigrants-but-visitors-residents/

The Speaker:
David works in the overlapping space between education, academia and technology. He currently co-manages Technology-Assisted Lifelong Learning (TALL), an award winning online-learning research and development group at the University of Oxford. He researches how students and staff engage with the web for their learning and the ways in which they develop their identities online. David has led national studies on Online Learning and OER and is currently Co-PI on the international Digital Visitors and Residents project. 

More about David at http://www.conted.ox.ac.uk/staff/academicstaff/profile.php?a=alpha&id=8

Keynote at Hands on the Future 2013 -  Dr Fancois Desjardins, University of Ontario

"Heads in the Clouds - Learners at the Helm. Synchronous technology and social media as tools to finally give the control of learning to the learner: a pardigm shift."

This interactive one-hour session was delivered online via Adobe Connect.

To find out more about the keynote, download the summary, below, or view a recording of the event (via Adobe Connect):

Keynote summary PDF
Keynote summary Word

Threading ethics into the curriculum led by Professor Chris Megone was held on Monday 11 March 2013, 12.30 - 1.30

The seminar:
Chris Megone discussed the introduction of the ethics thread into the curriculum at Leeds.  In light of his experience as IDEA CETL Director he will discuss:
•    the aims of such a thread
•    common, possible hurdles to successful development, and some possible solutions
•    intersections between this thread and the other two threads - global society, and employability.

View/Download session presentation (PowerPoint)

The Speaker:
Chris Megone is Professor of Interdisciplinary Applied Ethics at the University of Leeds.  He has been the Director of Inter-Disciplinary Ethics Applied, a national Centre for Excellence, since its inception in 2005.  The Centre’s mission has been to work with disciplines across the University to integrate ethics into the undergraduate curriculum for all Leeds’ students.  The aim is to help them identify, analyse, and respond effectively to ethical issues in their discipline/profession and in their personal lives.  The Centre also runs an Online MA in Applied and Professional Ethics (unique world-wide, as far as we know), as well as an MA in Health Care Ethics; it also conducts research with the range of current projects including well-being/happiness, ethics and leadership, ethics and consent, responsibility and climate change, exploitation, and museum ethics.  Find out more about the Centre at www.idea.leeds.ac.uk   Chris was awarded a National Teaching Fellowship in 2006.

Programme-Focussed Assessment: enhancing student learning through programme-level assessment strategies

Every HE programme confronts the issue of designing an effective, efficient, inclusive and sustainable assessment strategy which can both deliver key programme outcomes and minimise problems relating to academic integrity and plagiarism.  However, broad strategic perspectives can easily be neglected in programme planning given the increasing pressures on academic staff and programme teams in HE.  As a result, assessment strategies in programme documents are often weak or limited; the student experience suffers as a direct consequence.  To improve student learning, programmes need more substantial and evidence-based assessment strategies.  One way forward is to focus on programme-level rather than module level assessment. 

View/Download session presentation (PowerPoint)

Building on the extensive experience within partner institutions (including 2 assessment-focused CETLs (ASKE and AfL) and four HEIs of different types and sizes - Bradford, Leeds Metropolitan, Exeter and Plymouth), the PASS project set out to identify essential principles of programme-focussed assessment (PFA) and use these to implement and test the effectiveness of programme assessment strategies.  [Website http://www.pass.brad.ac.uk]

This workshop reviewed the main principles of PFA, introduce different approaches which have been adopted, and discuss both the advantages of and potential barriers to successful implementation.  Participants will have the opportunity to consider and contribute their views on the benefits and implications of PFA to their own programmes and context.

The Speaker:

Peter Hartley is Professor of Education Development at the University of Bradford and Visiting Professor at Edge Hill University. He has been involved in several national initiatives to enhance student learning, including the LearnHigher CETL, and has run development projects for JISC and the Higher Education Academy, including work on assessment feedback and computer-aided assessment.  He led the NTFS Group Project on Programme-Focussed Assessment (PASS) and is currently working on further development of interactive software to improve student skills (Interviewer and Interviewer Viva).

Making use of the concepts of student engagement to enhance learning and teaching

The notion of student engagement  is currently very popular.  However the term is used in all sorts of ambiguous ways.  We shall attempt to shed some clarity on the concepts on which student engagement is based.  This will draw on research from around the world and particularly on studies which have focussed on how students actually engage.  Making sense of this complex construct may then offer some constructive ways of enhancing practice, and we shall explore some attempts to do that in a variety of settings.  Key to this is working in partnership with the students – a very engaging practice in its own right.  This is the central tenet of the RAISE Network and this will be discussed too.  We shall conclude by sharing reflections and evaluation of current initiatives to adopt a holistic student engagement strategy at Newcastle.  We challenge you to consider 'letting go' and the benefits that offers.

The Speaker and his students:

Colin Bryson's present post is Director of the Combined honours Centre at Newcastle University.  He has been researching on student engagement for many years.  He is the co-founder and Chair of RAISE, and was awarded a National Teaching Fellowship in 2009.  He is fortunate enough to have rather superb students on the degree he manages who need no prompting at all to become super-engaged and who made Colin realise that it is better to 'let go'.

Session Presentation (PowerPoint)

Find out more about RAISE at: http://raise-network.ning.com/

For some background papers: http://newcastle.academia.edu/ColinBryson

Student Engagement: Bridging the gap in expectations between staff and students

Student engagement is linked to positive learning outcomes such as retention, satisfaction, achievement and academic success.  This seminar will demonstrate how results from the qualitative and quantitative measurement of student engagement amongst earth and environmental science staff and undergraduate students over the past two years have been used to:

Help identify, target, promote and evaluate the effectiveness of interventions (student and staff led) to build academic community and enhance engagement;

Identify gaps between student engagement and staff expectations and thereby provided a forum to engage staff in discussions about student engagement; 

Develop a school strategic framework for enhancing student engagement produced through staff and students working together.

Participants will have the opportunity to reflect on the opportunities that the approach presented may provide within their own school / department.

Session Presentation (PDF)

Student Experience Survey Leeds 2012 (PDF)

Staff Survey (PDF)

The Speaker

Andrea Jackson is a senior lecturer within the School of Earth and Environment.  She is an atmospheric scientist by background but has pedagogic research interests in the challenges presented by the transition of students from school to University and in how to strengthen academic community between staff and students. 

Student Engagement – sources of information

Names working in this are: Graham Gibbs, George Kuh, Sally Kift, Karen Nelson, Kerri lee Krause, Keith Trigwell.

Web links

Australian Council for Educational Research: Australasian Survey of Student Engagement (AUSSE) http://www.acer.edu.au/research/ausse

North American Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE) http://nsse.iub.edu/

HEA Retention and Success Resources & Dimensions of Student Engagement http://www.heacademy.ac.uk/resources/detail/retention/research_and_practice_resources

Some fundamental references that I’ve used in my work but there are many more out there:

ACER (2010) Doing more for learning: Enhancing engagement and outcomes. 2009 Australasian Student Engagement Report. Victoria: Australian Council for Educational Research Ltd.

Astin A W (1985). Achieving educational excellence. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. 

Bransford, J D et al. (Eds). (1999) How people learn: Brain, mind, experience, and school. Washington, DC: National Academy Press.

Chickering A W & Gamson Z F (1987) Seven principles for good practice in undergraduate education.  American Association of Higher Education Bulletin, 39 (7) pp 3-7.  

Hammond L D, Austin K, Orcutt S & Rosso J (2001) Chapter 1. How People Learn: Introduction to Learning Theories from The Learning Classroom: Theory into Practice. A Telecourse for Teacher Education and Professional Development. Stanford University School of Education.

Kift S (2009) Articulating a transition pedagogy to scaffold and to enhance the first year student learning experience in Australian higher education. Final Report for the Australian Learning and Teaching Council Senior Fellowship Program.

Krause K (2005) Understanding and promoting student engagement in university learning Communities. Sharing Scholarship in Learning and Teaching: Engaging Students, James Cook University, Queensland, 21-22 September 2005.

Little B, Locke W, Scesa A & Williams R (2009) Report to HEFCE on student engagement. The Open University.

Understanding what influences our assessment of student work: key outcomes from the MARK project 

The Seminar

The seminar outlined the key outcomes from the ADF funded MARK project which, across seven school from four faculties, explored the triangulation between marks, feedback, marking criteria and what features of students’ work actually inform assessors’ marks.  By using a ‘think aloud’ protocol, we have captured typically hidden aspects of the assessment process that allow us to explore issues such as calibration, drivers for feedback and the role that inferences about students play in our judgement of the quality of their work.  The project has also captured students’ immediate behaviour and reactions on receipt of feedback, allowing us to examine the transparency of the assessment process from their perspective. This is large-scale, original primary research, with some illuminating findings about some of the fundamental practice involved in assessment and feedback.

The Speakers

Dr Siobhan Hugh-Jones is a Lecturer in Psychology at the Institute of Psychological Sciences.  A developmental psychologist by training, her interest in scholarship lies in the use of psychological methods to explore assumed or hidden aspects of assessment practice.  

Dr Mitch Waterman is Pro-Dean for Student Education in the Faculty of Medicine and Health, whose research interests focus on forensic psychological issues.  His interests in educational practice include assessment and feedback and differential attainment.

Session resources

• Session presentation

Sharing content openly: an Oxford Education by Melissa Highton

The Seminar

Oxford University's open educational resources (OER) projects have publicly released hundreds of hours of lecture content. Academic colleagues have been supported in changing practice by becoming 'open content literate' to make informed choices regarding the materials they release and choose to reuse.  In this discussion workshop you will have an opportunity to explore what motivates academic colleagues to become involved in activities like this and consider ways in which this kind of activity fits with research-led, academic practice.

This workshop focused on delivering OER as a service through strategic, institutional learning and encouraging cultural change.  Approaches to support researchers and students across the institution were be explored.  The OpenSpires project has provided the opportunity to explore with academic colleagues their perceptions of IPR and their position of comfort in relation to new media platforms. 

The key to learning technology success has always been in matching the technology to the task and the activity to the institution.  In linking the learning technology (podcasting) to activity widespread in Oxford (inspirational lecturing and dissemination of research) a rich stream of content has been published for learners worldwide.  By focusing on ‘born-digital’ materials the challenges that copyright clearing third party materials caused in other institutions was avoided for the most part.  By aligning support to ideals of internationalisation, outreach, public understanding, impact and giving, colleagues whose own academic ethos and identity that fitted with the values of OER were attracted to the projects.

This workshop drew upon the research findings from several JISC-funded projects at Oxford University including: OpenSpires; Listening for Impact; RunCoCo; Triton; Ripple; OER Impact Study; Great Writers: Learning from the Past; as well as an Open University SCORE-funded fellowship project entitled Authorship and use of OER as academic practice for research.  By sharing experiences with similar institutions it is hoped that the volume of materials appropriate for reuse in our teaching will increase, and that the lessons learned at Oxford can be of use more widely.

The Speaker

Melissa Highton is Head of the Learning Technologies Group at University of Oxford.  She is the senior manager responsible for institution-wide OER projects and services at Oxford University, including Oxford podcasts and the VLE.  Before working at Oxford she was a senior staff development officer in SDDU at University of Leeds. She blogs at: http://blogs.oucs.ox.ac.uk/melissa/

Additional resources

Making Academic OER Easy: Reflections on Technologyand Openness at Oxford University - Melissa Highton, Oxford University; Jill Fresen, Oxford University; Joanna Wild, Oxford University

The audio recording of the session

Using technology to enhance the quality of the student experience, Dr Neil Morris.  

The session capture
The session PowerPoint presentation (exported as a PDF) 

The Keynote

Technology is taking an increasingly important role in higher education and can enhance student learning opportunities dramatically.  However, it also provides many challenges for institutions, teachers and students, particularly in the areas of IT competence, rapid pace of change, pedagogic advantage and time investment. In this seminar, Neil explored some technologies which are proven to enhance students’ learning opportunities and which are easy to deploy and scale up to an institutional level, providing evidence of their effectiveness.  Neil also asked which current and future technologies are likely to offer long-term, realistic and sustainable improvements in student learning.  

The Speaker

Neil Morris is a senior lecturer in neuroscience at the University of Leeds.  His research interests are in educational technology and he has conducted a number of research studies investigating the impact of technology on students’ learning experiences.  Neil is the former director of the Undergraduate School in Biological Sciences, and has led implementations of the VLE, student voting handsets, lecture audio recordings and generic video feedback within the Faculty.  He heads the University of Leeds Bioscience Education Research Group and is the Editor-in-Chief of Bioscience Horizons, the National Undergraduate Bioscience Research Journal.  Neil has won a number of awards for teaching excellence, including the Otto Hutter Teaching award from The Physiological Society and the Most Innovative Teacher award at the Leeds University Union Student Choice Awards.  Neil is a University Teaching Fellow and chairs the University of Leeds Blended Learning and Learning Technology Innovation Group.  His forthcoming book, with Dr Stella Cottrell, is Study Skills Connected: Using technology to support your studies (Palgrave MacMillan).  

Teaching as a design science: a sustainable approach to pedagogic innovation by Professor Diana Laurillard 

Session presentation
Session handout 

The Seminar

Pedagogic innovation is increasingly important as we try to respond to an economic, social, cultural, and technological environment that changes almost too quickly for our education systems to keep pace.  Teachers have to negotiate responsive curricula that will not date by the time their students have graduated, and have to teach in a way that enables more students to attain a higher level than historically has been necessary.

To achieve this professional miracle we will need to change the nature of our professional activity, and will need technology to assist us.  First, we have to recognise that teaching is a ‘design science’, that uses what we know about teaching and learning, and takes an iterative approach to discovering how to make it optimally effective.  Second, we have to exploit to the full the capabilities of digital technology if we are to achieve this difficult task of producing larger scale and higher quality learning.

In this presentation, the speaker illustrated the approach explored in the ESRC/EPSRC-funded project to produce the Learning Designer, a design support tool for teachers and lecturers.  The aim is to support teachers as experimental designers of the learning process, who collaborate on discovering how best to exploit technology for learning.  Participants were given details of the tools developed, for their own use after the session.

The Speaker

Diana Laurillard is Professor of Learning with Digital Technologies at the London Knowledge Lab, Institute of Education, leading externally-funded research projects on

1. developing a learning design support environment for teachers, and 
2. developing software interventions for learners with low numeracy and dyscalculia. 

This work relates closely to her roles as Assistant Director for Open Mode learning, and as a founder member of the Planning Board for the cross-institutional Centre for Educational Neuroscience (IOE, Birkbeck, UCL).

She is joint coordinator for the MSc in Learning Technologies with Birkbeck, and is also involved in consultancies for the Institute of Education Hong Kong, and Temasek Polytechnic Singapore. 

Previous roles include:

• Head of the e-Learning Strategy Unit at the Department for Education and Skills, where she developed the first cross-sector e-learning strategy on ‘Harnessing Technology’; 
• Pro-Vice-Chancellor for learning technologies and teaching at The Open University; 
• the Visiting Committee on IT at Harvard University; 
• Royal Society Working Group on Educational Neuroscience.  

Her book Rethinking University Teaching: A conversational framework for the effective use of learning technologies (2002, RoutledgeFalmer), one of the most widely cited in the field, is now translated into Chinese (ECU Press, 2011).  Her forthcoming book is Teaching as a Design Science: Building Pedagogical Patterns for Learning and Technology (Routledge).

How can we enhance feedback to students in times of constrained resources? Dai Hounsell (University of Edinburgh)

• The presentation
• The first handout
• The second handout

The Session

The speaker writes, ‘Across UK higher education there is abundant evidence of student discontent with the adequacy of feedback on their progress and performance.  But since it is equally evident that academic staff are already hard-pressed and resources limited or shrinking, a commitment to give more or better feedback that depends on greatly increased time and effort is not tenable.

It's against that backdrop that Dai explored how we might enhance the quality and effectiveness of feedback to students. How could feedback be boosted in ways that needn't over-burden lecturers and tutors?  And how could courses be reconfigured to yield feedback that has greater impact?  Addressing those two questions calls for a rethink of what counts as 'feedback', and what purposes it can best serve.’

The Speaker

Dai Hounsell is Vice Principal for Academic Enhancement at the University of Edinburgh, where he is also Professor of Higher Education.  He has published widely on student and staff experiences of learning, teaching and assessment in higher education, has led various multi-university research and development projects in these fields, and has been an adviser to universities and higher education organisations in Sweden, Norway, Australia and South Africa as well as in the UK.  In 2007 he was awarded a Fellowship of the Society for Research into Higher Education.  Since 2008 he has been Honorary Visiting Professor at Glasgow Caledonian University.  His current teaching responsibilities include a master's course in online assessment and supervising doctoral students.  He also co-edits the website Enhancing Feedback, which links over thirty strategies for improving feedback with more than 200 case-examples from across the subject range. 

Useful links:

Dai Hounsell's website

In his talk, Dai mentioned PeerWise (http://peerwise.cs.auckland.ac.nz/) and Remarks  (http://www.remarkspdf.com/products/remarkspdf).

The student voice: enhancing learning not just satisfaction - Gwen Van Der Velden (University of Bath)

Session presentation: The student voice

The Session

This seminar sets out the approach taken at the University of Bath which aims to engage students in a role of academic citizenship, rather than just as consumers.  Despite the media and politicians’ suggestions to the contrary, most of our students still engage with their studies as an experience rather than a product.

Bath is a university that was founded in the 1960s as part of a socio-economical effort to broaden access to the intellectual wealth of universities.  Many of the principles of democracy are still present in our efforts to encourage academic citizenship for students and this realisation has transformed our quality management in recent years.  Based on good preparation and full access to university information, students at Bath not only take part in setting teaching enhancement agendas, they also share with staff the responsibility for implementing change.  In recent years the National Student Survey, Students’ Union’s surveys and other sources have shown us that our students are appreciative and very aware of this approach, whilst external indicators show us this may be a way of avoiding the consumerist attitudes that are promoted in current discussions about the student fee-cap.

The seminar will set out the underlying principles of student engagement at Bath, what this means in practice for quality and educational management, and provide an insight in the ways in which impact of this approach are measured.

The Speaker

Gwen van der Velden is Director of Learning and Teaching Enhancement at the University of Bath.

Her career started in the Netherlands and included student activist, teacher and educational innovator.  At the Katholieke Universiteit Nijmegen (now Radboud University, NL), she supported individual staff in the Science Faculty developing advanced teaching practices.  On her departure to Britain, she received an award for Excellence from the University of Nijmegen and was put forward for a national award for HE teaching innovation.

Having joined the University of Kent in 1995, Gwen worked with a number of Universities on institution-wide implementation of e-learning.  Since the mid nineties, she has led teams of academic staff developers, student learning advisors, quality officers and teaching innovators and took on advisory roles for national HE organisations.  Her current professional interests include the professionalisation of educational development, supporting governance change to empower the student voice and the re-alignment of quality assurance and enhancement.

The Post-Humboldtian Doctorate: implications for supervisory practice - Stan Taylor (University of Durham)

Session resources:

• Leeds Post-Humboldtian doctorate
• Flyer Post-Humboldtian Doctorate
• Handout 1 - Post-Humboldtian doctorate
• Handout 2 - implications for supervisory practice
• Brown-Atkins questionnaire.pdf

1. AFAL Project: Optimising Audio Feedback to Maximise Student and Staff Experience - Dr. I-Chant Chiang (University of Aberystwyth) | Project details and video presentation

2. ASEL Project: Audio Supported Enhanced Learning - Will Stewart (University of Bradford) | Project details and video presentation

3. ASSET Project: Moving Forward Through Feedback - Prof. Julian Park (University of Reading) | Project details and video presentation

Evaluating feedback mechanisms - Rob Mortimer & Graham McLeod (University of Leeds)

Session slides

UTF Interim Report 

NEW RESOURCES:

• Evaluating feedback mechanisms in the School of Earth and Environment
• New staff feedback flyer (PDF)
• New staff feedback flyer (Adobe Illustrator)
• Assessment criteria (bad example)
• Assessment criteria (good example)
• Essay feedback (bad example)
• Essay feedback (good example)
• Model essay

Poster files

Here are the poster files in both PDF (finished product) and Adobe Illustrator (AI - editable product) formats, as well as both A1 and A5 sizes. If you'd like them edited to reflect your School/Faculty, please contact Graham McLeod.

Feedback events - A1 poster
Feedback events - A1 poster (Illustrator format)

Feedback events - A5 flyer
Feedback events - A5 flyer (Illustrator format) 

Staff feedback - A1 poster
Staff feedback - A1 poster (Illustrator format)

Staff feedback - A5 flyer
Staff feedback - A5 flyer (Illustrator format)

Student feedback - A1 poster
Student feedback - A1 poster (Illustrator format)

Student feedback - A5 flyer
Student feedback - A5 flyer (Illustrator format)

Student feedback handbook - A5 size (because of the A5 size, this handbook may look different when opened in MS Word)

21st century curricula in research-intensive universities

Professor Paul Blackmore

Professor Blackmore's presentation

The Kings-Warwick Curriculum Project

Mobile technologies in the field 

Gary presented  a case study based around geography field exercises undertaken recently in the Lake District, focussing on student’s own assessment of the effectiveness of a range of mobile technologies for augmenting the experience of the real landscape.  The session explored the broader adoption of mobile devices, digital data and positioning technologies in a teaching and learning context in HE with opportunity to share experiences. 

For more information about Gary's work, please click here.

The presenter:
Gary Priestnall is an Associate Professor within the School of Geography at the University of Nottingham.  His teaching and research activities combine interests in Geography, Art, and Computer Science.  Interests in the use of digital geographic representations have led to fieldwork based exercises designed to encourage students to think more critically about such datasets by immersing them in the real environment.  Most recently such exercises have been extended to include the use of geographic data via a range of mobile technologies, and have asked students to reflect upon the effectiveness of such techniques in the field

New learning spaces and how to use them. What works for us

Critical thinking and reflective learning as difficult-to-understand concepts 

Designing and delivering PG courses for home and international students - Dr Phil Kelly

International students’ transition into UK HE - on the relevance of prior educational experiences in China, India and Greece - Dr. Anja Timm

Presentation

This seminar aimed to stimulate a re-consideration of the relationship between international students and their British ‘host’ institutions.  Most international students come to the UK to join taught graduate programmes and, oftentimes, they are moving into a new subject area.  This seminar started out by showcasing research into educational practices at undergraduate level in the largest sending countries – China, India and Greece.  A short film was shown to highlight what it means to be a student in one of these countries.

This material raised questions about recruitment processes, the use of education agents, the robustness of admissions criteria as well as the scope and focus of pre-sessional language courses.  In terms of teaching, it emphasised the importance of articulating, demonstrating and modelling desirable academic practices and the relationship between teaching and research that is often taken for granted.  Within the context of academic writing, the facilitation of information literacy emerges as particularly important.  Finally, the talk sought to introduce ‘the international student perspective’ on the division of labour between teaching and support staff and the distribution of support services within UK universities.  There was plenty of room for discussion about the significance of the findings to the context at Leeds.   

The presenter, Anja Timm, is a social anthropologist who studies higher education institutions and HE students.  She has taught and conducted research at several universities in the UK as well as in Sweden and Latvia.  For this talk she reported on a project she had coordinated on behalf of Lancaster University Management School and the London School of Economics: Student Diversity and Academic Writing.  The project ran between 2005 and 2007.  In January 2008 Anja joined the University of Southampton, as a Senior Research Fellow in Education, where she is responsible for a series of projects on medical students and medical education.

Useful links

International Students, Academic Writing, & Plagiarism Project

Dr. Anja Timm's profile

Threshold Concepts and Troublesome Knowledge: a transformational model of learning - Professor Ray Land

Simon Gray and Ray Land discuss Threshold Concepts

Ray Land - session presentation

Glynis Cousin. An introduction to threshold concepts. Planet. no.17, December 2006

Glynis Cousin. Exploring threshold concepts for linking teaching and research. HE Academy.

Challenging or conforming: the art of blended learning - Allison Littlejohn,
Chair of Learning Technology at Glasgow Caledonian University

Presentation

Handout

Blending is an art that has been practiced by inspirational teachers for centuries. It centres on the integration of different types of space, time, activities and media. to support learners’ interactions and knowledge construction. Blended e-learning broadens the range of activities and resources we can combine and extends the space and time in which students can carry out tasks, blurring the boundaries as to where and when learning takes place. While these new forms of collaboration open up exciting opportunities for learning, they can be confusing for faculty and students. The question is no longer what to blend, but how to blend. Therefore it is important to explore the tactics educators might use to help them think through the effects of blending.

Since learning is a social activity, the integration of social and academic activities would appear to be a positive step. Similarly, the ability to transfer literacies from social to formal learning situations combined with the potential to extend students’ social capital through online networking would appear to add value to education.

Based on a new text ‘Preparing for Blended Learning’ (Littlejohn and Pegler, Routledge) this facilitated session will explore these assumptions, exploring ways in which blended e-learning might be disseminated and questioning whether the opportunities offered through these approaches are encouraging educators and learners to challenge or conform to social norms. Participants will have opportunity to plan and document blended e-learning from the context of their own teaching.

Professor Allison Littlejohn is Chair of Learning Technology at Glasgow Caledonian University and Director of the Caledonian Academy; an academic support centre integrating research, advanced scholarship and transformational change in learning innovation. Allison leads a range of research projects exploring learning innovation and educational development, learning design, learning technology interoperability and professional development in Higher Education. As Shell Senior Researcher, Allison is investigating new approaches to blended learning in both corporate and higher education contexts. In 2003 she published the first international textbook in sustainable e-learning: Reusing Online Resources (Routledge, London). In 2007 she published ‘Preparing for blended learning’ and launched a new book series for Routledge, ‘Connecting with eLearning', with Chris Pegler (UK Open University).

Useful links

2007 Horizon Report

2006 Horizon Report

JISC In Their Own Words

Enhancing assessment and feedback: an evidence-based response 

- Deputy Director ASKe Centre for Excellence in Teaching and Learning (Assessment Standards Knowledge exchange); 
- Head, Oxford Centre for Staff & Learning Development, Oxford Brookes University

PowerPoint slides

Bibliography

Additional resources that Dr. Chris Rust has very kindly provided:

How to make your feedback work in three easy steps!

Improve your students' performance in 90 minutes!

Peer Assisted Study Scheme (PAS) - the Manchester Experience

Marcia Ody works at the University of Manchester as Senior Adviser to the Students as Partners initiative

Topics covered during the presentation – by kind permission of Marcia Ody

PowerPoint slides

If you would like material provided in an alternative format or would like further details, please contact Chris Butcher

Departmental Leadership of Teaching in Research - Intensive Environments

Linking research and teaching to benefit student learning

Professor of Geography at the University of Gloucestershire.  He is the Director of the Geography Discipline Network and the Centre for Active Learning in Geography, Environment and Related Disciplines, a HEFCE funded Centre for Excellence in Teaching and Learning.

Institutional strategies to link teaching and research Jenkins and Healey  

Topics covered during the presentation – by kind permission of Mick Healey

PowerPoint slides

Handout (rtf)

Provide a case study

If you would like material provided in an alternative format or would like further details, please contact Chris Butcher.

Problem-based learning

Reg Dennick - Assistant Director of Medical Education in the University of Nottingham

Topics covered during the presentation – by kind permission of Reg Dennick

• PowerPoint slides

• Handout

If you would like material provided in an alternative format or would like further details, please contact Chris Butcher

Increasing the chance of student success in the first year of full-time study

Mantz Yorke - (formerly) Professor of Education at Liverpool John Moores University

Topics covered during the presentation – by kind permission of Mantz Yorke

PowerPoint slides (ppt)

Some issues that Mantz asked the audience to consider

• factors that might be adversely affecting students’ success (rtf)
• interpreting feedback from students (doc)
• eleven conditions under which assessment supports student learning (rtf)

If you would like material provided in an alternative format or would like further details, please contact Chris Butcher.

Designing teaching-learning environments to promote disciplinary ways of thinking

Noel Entwistle - Professor Emeritus of Education at the University of Edinburgh and Co-Director of the ETL project

ETL - Enhancing Teaching-Learning Environments in Undergraduate Courses

Topics covered during the presentation – by kind permission of Noel Entwistle

• PowerPoint slides (ppt)
• A sample questionnaire (rtf)

If you would like material provided in an alternative format or would like further details, please contact Chris Butcher

Peer learning: varieties, benefits and problems (13/04/05)

Nancy Falchikov - Research Fellow, Higher & Community Education, University of Edinburgh

Overhead transparencies (rtf)

The books:

Learning Together: Peer Tutoring in Higher Education (2001)

Improving Assessment Through Student Involvement: Practical Solutions for Higher and Further Education Teaching and Learning (2004)

Topics covered during the presentation – by kind permission of Nancy Falchikov

Peer tutoring

Varieties of peer tutoring (rtf)

Cross level techniques (rtf)

Same level techniques (rtf)

Benefits of same level techniques (rtf)

Selecting an evaluative technique (rtf)

Peer assessment

FAQs about peer assessment (rtf)

If you would like material provided in an alternative format or would like further details, please contact Chris Butcher

Materials on this page have been published with permission of Taylor and Francis Publishing Services. University of Leeds staff may make a single copy for their own use.

Reducing Assessment whilst Maintaining the Learning

Chris Rust - Head of the Oxford Centre for Staff & Learning Development

PDF of PowerPoint slides

A Briefing on the Assessment of Large Groups

Background

Topics covered during the presentations by kind permission of Chris Rust

Self assessment

• Geography example
• Psychology example

Marking exercise

• Example

Peer marking

• Electronic engineering example

Mechanised

• Essay front sheet

MCQ

• Example of impact

Electronic feedback

• Philip Denton

Bibliography