The poster presentation was about a small scale project using digital SmartPens with 3 dyslexic students and 3 students with English as a second language at Bath Spa University.
The digital SmartPen digitally records audio as it writes on a special dot-matrix paper. In a lecture the students can record the lecturer’s voice whilst making notes and doing diagrams and then play this back later. The pen can record for 200 hours and the data can then be transferred to a computer.
In the study the findings indicated that digital SmartPens do assist study both in and outside class for both groups of students. This was a valuable intervention for these students and is a lower-cost alternative to a note-taker.
This project had two strands one around transition support for mentors (these were students), community building and early stage academic development and the other strand was around mentor support and academic development.
The session focused on the mentee support using a tried and tested model. This was time bound, voluntary enrolment and unpaid. The focus was on a student partnership approach from an evolving scheme. There was an extended pilot in 2014-15 which had 9 schools involved and the plan was to have mandatory roll out in 2015-2016. This involved a tricampus vision with one of these being international. Technology was therefore used to support this. All first year students in the schools would be mentored by the third year students. When this is rolled out there will be 30 schools involved. The focus was on training the mentors which had always been done face to face. This was not going to be practical and so blended learning was the chosen approach.
Students develop through the process of role modelling and so there was also encouragement on sharing practice with other mentors and asking questions. Sharing approaches to responding to questions was felt to be useful and reflecting on personal learning. There was encouragement to gain accreditation of the mentoring role through an optional award which had a reflection as the assessment. There was also a senior mentorship for leadership route which included sustainability and partnership.
The premise was that blended learning would create a better community than traditional face to face teaching or online only. Community building develops connectedness and peer support which then leads to growth. There were forums, guidebooks apps and a facebook. There were some issues around reflection with students not able to do this with no training and many not wanting to share. Some tools used for reflection can also be expensive and so only about 1/3rd progressed to an award.
This session started with a view that technology is now completely embedded in our lives and drives what we do daily and often this is outside our control. This has also changed our academic identities and we are no longer just lecturers but also administrators, counsellors, plagiarism police, technicians and actors.
The investment in technology is now substantial but has also led to academics having to do things they may not have signed up to do. Some feel disempowered. Staff who don’t use technology can gain poor evaluations although their teaching may be good but student expectations are that technology is used.
Technology is not new in education but human interaction is essential in learning and teaching.
Kathryn had undertaken an Ed D project which focused on humanities and technology. The language which supports technology has now become embedded but has it? Kathryn interviewed 25 colleagues and asked what learning technologies do humanities academics use and why?
Some initial findings are:
- There is a limited range
- Mostly it is used to provide materials and for revision
- Treated with caution because it is too flexible, too easy for students to find information and they lack understanding of that information
- Can fragment content and hid nuances
- Can be used for data mining
- Exercising their own view of technology by what is used
One overall view was that learning is to question things and technology does not always support this.
The importance of e-learning can be seen in several areas now and includes:
- Support, interaction and communication
- Developing digital literacy skills
- Promoting different pedagogies
- Fostering creativity and innovation
- Connecting students
- Preparing them for employment
A timeline around technologies was outlined which has now spanned across more than three decades.
- 1980’s multimedia resources
- 1993 the web
- 1994 learning objects
- 1995 learning management systems
- 1998 mobile devices
- 1999 learning design
- 2000 gaming technologies
- 2001 open educational resources
- 2004 social and participatory media
- 2005 virtual worlds (not often heard of now)
- 2007 e-books and smart devices
- 2008 MOOCs
- 2010 Learning analytics
Technology can be described as disruptive innovation with changes, something new, the unexpected and changing mind sets. Grainne referred to Ken Robinson and his question about is today’s education system out of date? Here is a link to his TED talk http://www.ted.com/talks/ken_robinson_changing_education_paradigms
So what will education in 2020 be like a future vision is that students will use both real and virtual worlds for education but linked to situated learning. The emergent technologies will be hybrid online activities and focused on collaborative learning.
There will be innovating pedagogies such as MOOCs, badges to accredit learning, learning analytics, seamless learning and crowd learning. Disruptive learning such as flipped classrooms will be important and OER repositories and ITunes.
Learning design is about supporting practitioners to make design decisions that are pedagogically informed. The 7 C’s of learning design
Conceptualisation – key principles are decided and the nature of the learners
Activities that get undertaken
- Create
- Communicate
- Collaborate
- Consider
- Combine
- Consolidate
Traditional institutions will need to consider new business models and pedagogies to be able to work with the changing world.
This research arose from a request to assist the army to develop and maintain its status as a learning organisation. The speaker wanted to know how to measure the army’s learning culture, what the drivers and enablers as well as inhibitors to learning were and what the levers for change were.
A literature review was undertaken looking at learning theories, approaches to education, organisational structures, knowledge, teaching roles and culture but the speaker’s view was much of this was prescriptive and lacked grounding in practice.
A workshop to look at the army as a learning organisation was undertaken with 25 people across two days. Those taking part had been chosen to look at a broad array of expertise and diverse roles. From the workshop 10 army learning organisation characteristics were developed. The research then adopted a mixed method approach so quantitative data was collected through a questionnaire and qualitative data was collected through focus groups and ethnographic observations. It was hoped that the output from this study would be a profile of the army’s learning capability at individual, team and organisational levels. Senior leadership endorsed the study which enabled doors to be opened and meeting people was also important to get them to take part.
4,000 staff responded to the questionnaire and 35 focus groups took place. The groups were made up of different ranks, roles, functions and sites. Topics shared at the focus groups were shared vision, professional mastery, team learning, strategic learning and lessons. A draft model has been developed but the speaker will be undertaking another round of data collection to confirm aspects of the model and amend where needed.
This paper was focused on a project about literacies and modality. 21st Century schooling as competing agendas with league tables, standards for teaching, student performance, education markets and then expectations of students to be able to change, communicate, work in teams, solve problems and improve performance.
The team considered ubiquitous learning and multimodel meaning. Agency in the classroom was important recognising capacities to articulate opinions, take up new identities and have sophisticated opportunities for engaging students and adults to work collaboratively.
This was a practitioner led project and focused on literacy learning. The case study was of one teacher and the students were all from mixed backgrounds mostly mid-low socio-economic backgrounds. The data collection was over one school year and there were interviews with the teacher and students, online surveys which included parents and classroom observations. The data was mapped against themes of learning, respect and trust and sharing power and responsibility for learning.
This was focused on using different technologies for teaching. The teacher asked the students to undertake a collaborative assessments task which was to design an ad on a wiki. The teacher then set up a blog to gather feedback about a digital story that had developed and all the students had watched 3 episodes of. The students then had to write the fourth episode. Students also wrote a self-reflection and got feedback from their peers and their parents. The students also wrote a feature article using a blog. The students did take responsibility for their learning and enjoyed the different tasks so the last one was that they had to design their own assessment and the assessment rubric and then self -assess.
This was very successful in getting students engaged in their learning and so the teacher decided to ask the students what the teachers should learn on their next planning day and eventually the students were invited to that day and micro-blogged throughout the day. The students also set up a parent – teacher planning day.
At the end of this project the students had more agency through the teacher promoting risk-taking and co-construction of knowledge.
This study used Piaget’s constructivism – learning is a self-regulating process of struggling with conflicts between existing personal world and discrepancies between the observed or experienced so assimilation and accommodation. Also Vygotsky’s social learning was relevant.
This was focused on a 35 week curriculum which had:
- Case based learning 7 weeks
- Experiential learning in placements 20 weeks
- Problem based learning 8 weeks
These students had been using case based learning in the first two years of their programme. Case based learning prepared students with skills to solve cases and lectures were given, experiential learning prepared students for the real world and problem based learning provides skills for problem solving but n lectures are given. Case based learning scaffolds learning using a template with guiding questions. Kolb’s learning cycle is used and FILA which equals facts, ideas, learning issues and action plan. This design was used from 2006 – 2012. Then due to placement issues the design had to change in 2013 to Case based learning 7 weeks, problem based learning 4 weeks, experiential learning 20 weeks and problem based learning for another 4 weeks.
The study then focused on the change and the question – How has the pedagogical structure planned been effective in encouraging students to engage in meaningful learning? Ausubel’s 2000 definition of meaningful learning was used as a basis.
The methodology was:
- Case based learning students were surveyed but not anonymously because students wanted for interview needed to be identified.
- Interviews were undertaken one after the case based learning, one after the first problem based learning and then one after the experiential learning.
- In total there were five students who took part in the interviews and interpretative phenomenological analysis was used.
The findings were that all approaches developed information literacy, problem based learning, analytical skills and collaborative skills. However when looking at communication skills case based learning enabled rapport to be built, experiential learning enabled students to ask questions and problem based learning enabled good all round communication skills to be developed. In addition higher order skills may develop in all but experiential learning skills enabled students to solve real life skills.
Overall the project supported the change.
This was a study focused on “How new teachers use conceptual and pedagogical tools to foster writing instruction”. The conceptual tools focus on understanding the learning and teaching processes and the pedagogical tools were focused on what teachers need to learn to teach. This was predominantly a qualitative study. The data was collected through semi-structured interviews, classroom observations and teachers artefacts. There were three interviews conducted in each student’s practicum placement focused on teaching writing. In total the team also conducted twelve interviews with each student throughout the first three years of teaching. The interviews ranged from 40 – 90 minutes. The students also were observed at least three times in their practicum and then nine times in their first three years of teaching. The team took observation notes, transcribed the interviews, audio-taped the student’s instruction in class and collected their teaching artefacts. The data analysis was ongoing, recursive and iterative.
The findings included the importance of building a relationship with students and flexibility of teaching to meet students’ needs. Teaching tools used for writing development included notebooks, sketching, journaling, webbing, sentence starters, peer talks and whole class discussions, revision boot camp and chopping assessments.
Conclusions include: teachers needing to use all three conceptual tools, pedagogical tools and courage, teachers clearly differentiate between teaching for a writing test and teaching writing and fostering writing means encouraging a range of writing – creative, expressive as well as analytical.
This topic was explored due to different teaching strategies being used, a diverse student body, international students, student centred pedagogies and internationalisation of the curriculum.
There are many international students in the US HE system with 1:8 being international. This does enrich the campus diversity, there is a willingness to pay for education but there are a range of abilities in education and language competence.
Challenges include teachers who make assumptions about student knowledge level, the skills learned may not match expectations and class preparation and expectation may be unfamiliar. The strategy had been to identify the skills you wanted the students to learn and apply, checks for comprehension should be incorporated into the classroom, presentation style needs thought, there should be clear guidelines given to students about participation, clear and specific instructions should be given to students about policies, grading and assessments and there should be explicit discussion of classroom practice.
Interviews with students showed that they thought:
- Professors have all the knowledge
- Students should take notes and listen
- A professors credibility is not questioned
- Students do not discuss
- Groups projects are not done
- Students are encouraged to present original work but there is no mention of plagiarism
Interviews with students showed that they thought:
- There should be a shared balance
- Students should come prepared
- Plagiarism is punishable
- Students should be co-creators
Suggestions for future educators include:
- Present a background overview for students
- Ensure cultural sensitivity
- Use diverse teaching approaches
- Watch pacing
- Discuss plagiarism
- Explain common phases
- Helps students adjust to academic life
Institutions need to consider how to teach mixed groups with international students in more detail.
This study examined one strategy to address perceived communication challenges of giving feedback to pre-service teachers. The questions for the study were:
- How important is consistent and guided feedback to pre-service teaching?
- Does having a set of questions and goals foster step for improvement?
- Does changing pre-service teachers responsibility help?
The project arose through frustration at triad meetings where co-ordinating teachers had not raised any issues and then in the final meeting they said I think the student will fail. The methodology was 42 pre-service teachers and 42 co-ordinating teachers. The data was collected from a 33 item likert type survey with a few open questions, interview data and reflections.
The findings included that if pre-service teachers understood the feedback then the outcome tended to be positive but if they did not then negative things often happened. Setting goals did help with lesson plans. There was improved classroom management if the teachers understood the feedback. Using focused discussion tool enabled pre-service teachers to ask for help.
Limitations of the study are that it is small and some who agreed to take part did not complete the questionnaire fully nor attend the interviews.
The implications are that training is needed for communication so feedback can be provided.
Future research is to examine the University supervisor role.
