Enhancing Learning and the Undergraduate Experience Parallel session

Linda Reneland-Forsman presented the first paper on Guiding Principles for course design. This project was focused on better support for students and as a three year project involved whole programmes. Contact was made with Heads of departments and teachers and 120 hours per year was given over to develop courses for this project. This was based on three principles that of minimising individual e-mail contact with students, involving students with key concepts from the course literature, assessing students by filming students to assess verbal skills and using Ipads and phones for reflection. All students did video reflections. This project worked well and students were more engaged.

The second paper presented by Sutamsa Rodchua was focused on innovative and active learning strategies in higher education boosting satisfaction and effectiveness. This was centred around graduate programmes with active learning. The project aimed to get students to work as a team although some students did not like working I teams due to variable contributions of students. There were 250 students involved in the project and the team focused on Drummonds twelve best practice steps. The benefits of the project based learning was the relevance to the real world practice. This helped developed collaborative and teamwork skills as well as critical thinking. A student charter was developed and a conference with an expert panel. There was a research poster competition and simulation games, an ethics game and a student portfolio. Personality testes were used with groups and self and group member evaluations. There was also a book donation project. This all worked well and did engage students.

Student oral presentations developing the skills and reducing the apprehension was the third paper presented by Chris Ireland and focused on accountancy students. It was difficult to solve the students problems with oral presentation when teachers did not know what the apprehension was about. Academic presentations are an efficient and effective means of assessment (Bell & Reden 2014). They looked at the factors that impacted on students and had five areas which were novelty, illusion of transparency, cognitive orientation, audience characteristics and inborn individual differences. some students were more apprehensive than others and using interventions gained mixed results. Self-efficacy Bandura was related to one’s belief in capabilities. Performance accomplishment was related to time and space to practice with peers. Vicarious experience was gained through peer observation and all provided feedback. The PRCA 24 item questionnaire for verbal presentations was used to evaluate and some interviews. Ethics approval was sought.

Martin Dvorak then presented the paper I have read the chapters but do not remember – factors affecting intake, retention and recall. The scarcity principle was a focus of this study. 57% of Swedish workers report a change in their work due to the use of technology and 12 – 15 year old students use it all the time. Cialdini (2006) said that people value items they cannot have rather than those they can. Students can browse materials on their ipads and phones but they do not value this but expect it. Mobile technology can be seen to be counterproductive for cognitive strategies. Students lack perseverance and assessment tends to support this by not requiring deep enough learning to be demonstrated. Solutions included encouraging students to use paper based materials, teaching them how to study and plan study time and having weekly quizzes.

Estelle Chamoux then discussed participation activities a tool for improving students’ self-responsibility and engagement in their learning experience. This was focused on real life and students needed to use previous knowledge. Students were to create new knowledge through individual and group work and, develop higher order skills. There were weekly activities and oral presentation but this did fit the students’ needs. This was done with students on both 3 and 4 year programmes. The challenges were other professors thought it was a waste of time, took time to grade and students didn’t know what to do. Students also thought it was a waste of time, they paid for education so should be taught and they didn’t need new approaches. The research was hoped to convince students. Three areas were noted in the research academic impact, engagement and motivation and, which one was most effective? This was undertaken with two groups of introductory students with a background in high school biology. 74 students from Autumn 2014 and 67 from Autumn 2015. For most this was their first time away from home and their exam average was 62%. The students were required to do 12 activities but only 9 were used for grading. If students did below this number then their exam results were lower. Students self-reported study time was 2-4 hours per week. 56.7% always attended class. The activities did help them understand materials and remember them. When checking which activities students remembered these were not complex ones.

The last paper in this session was Higher education for tourism industry traditions and innovations from Olga Burukina and Alexander Yandovskv. There were two problems they were interested in and these were the attitude to education in tourism and technology used for tourism. Tourism and culture in the 1990’s developed closer links and increased cultural activities. Creativity now has a big impact on tourism and education. Students need to learn creativity, empathy, curiosity, resourcefulness and resilience. There is also a need for sustainability. The team therefore developed a more project based approach to their programme and engaged participants from industry who could then use this as CPD.