Inclusive social learning

Abstract

An ongoing central aim in the School of Medicine is to maximise the utility of our assessments data to give students the highest quality feedback. Our analytics site, the 'Feedback Portal', is a key element in the delivery of the new programme. It is used by students to gain a real-time understanding of their level of learning, and it underpins and informs regular student-tutor meetings. This ensures all students can access rich, timely and personalised feedback, discuss improvement strategies with tutors and devise plans for their implementation. Students are able to elect to share their feedback with others, further strengthening communities of practice within the PBL-centric curriculum.

The project is based on a bespoke data collection and analysis system linked to a personalised web portal, all developed from the ground up within the school.

Students make heavy usage of the feedback portal immediately following the release of results. Separately, tutors report their satisfaction with the new streamlined electronic marking processes and their preference over the previous paper implementation.

Conclusions: A huge amount of 'meaning' can be extracted from assessments data, and this can be used to facilitate interesting new modes of learning.

Abstract

Aims: To give students a feel for a real research experience, in which they see data in context and come to a better understanding of the multidimensional nature of drug design.

Methods: Hands-on workshops using a touch-screen app give students a proactive activity to build their skills for a collaborative open-ended drug discovery exercise. Assessment is through an interactive team-talk, in which students showcase their findings in dialogue with the lecturers to stimulate reflection, explanation and debate.

Findings: Introducing more student-led sessions allows effective direction of learning. The multi-dimensional exercise effectively scaffolds the “brain explosion moment” giving a breakthrough in terms of student understanding. The team-talk checks student engagement and understanding much more effectively than a traditional presentation.

Conclusions: Conversation is a means by which the language of drug discovery is embedded in our students in a more meaningful way than traditional lectures/problem classes. Engaging students in processing multiple sources of data, dealing with conflicting information, and the need to plan and proritise ultimately achieves a deeper level of understanding.

Important to share: Interactive sessions involving extensive dialogue shape students ideas and vocabularies and develop deeper understanding of the underlying principles.

Abstract

The aim of this project is to develop a rich, closed, online learning space that can be used not only for student interaction and collaborative learning but also to run simulations of natural disaster scenarios to teach geohazard mitigation methods.

Slack is a set of online collaboration tools including themed channels (chat rooms) that can be organised into partitioned learning spaces. It has advantages over facebook or linked-in groups in that the content is closed to the outside world (important when simulating natural disasters online) and not part of the students’ own personal online spaces, whilst being easier to use than discussion boards on the KLE. Access is via web interface or desktop / smartphone apps that provide notifications of new content.

The use of Slack has been trialled with varying degrees of success. With a tool that is not part of students’ usual online platforms there is a need to provide regular content and generate tasks to create engagement. Its regular use early in the module is designed to develop familiarity with the platform, so that engagement with simulated natural disaster scenarios, that play out in faster-than-real-time online, is natural and immersive.

Abstract 

The presentation will describe and reflect on the 'Welcome Back' sessions provided for each undergraduate year group in the School of Law at the beginning of both semesters each year. It will draw from the experiences of contributors to illustrate how the collaborative nature of the sessions has contributed to collegiality between students, Law School Staff, and staff from KIITE and Information and Digital Services.
In particular, the presentation will consider how the sessions:

• model collaborative working especially between the academic School and colleagues in Professional Services Directorates);
• help students engage with activities facilitated by Professional Services as an essential and integrated element of their study and formation (including, for example, the probable impact of the sessions on attendance at careers’ workshops, one-to-one careers’ support and the DAPL5 programme);
• encourage students to recognise and reflect on their development from semester to semester, and year to year; and
• inform other activities, including collaborative research sessions and the proposed Law Fair.

The presentation will conclude with reflection on the limitations of the present provision and possible ways in which it might be developed and enhanced.

Abstract

Our aim is to initiate the development of the generic skills of early undergraduate chemistry students by focussing on scientific reporting skills.

To achieve this, we have developed an approach that draws upon chemistry journal articles as paradigms of professional conventions and practice, coupled with an assessment-feedback strategy that spans a full academic year. The strategy incorporates many aspects of contemporary thinking surrounding effective assessment-feedback practice, placing strong emphasis on the development of students’ assessment and feedback literacy through dialogue [1-5]. The approach is characterised by a series of iterative assessment-feedback cycles that are supported by scheduled assessment briefing sessions coupled to a range of formative and collaborative learning activities related to aspects of report writing.

Having evolved the approach over a number of years, we find that students recognise and appreciate its rationale, show good engagement with the associated learning activities and, providing they fully engage across the year, produce work that evidences acquisition of reporting skills to a high standard for early undergraduate students. Its originality and value lies in its clarity of purpose, the early exposure of 1st year undergraduates to journal articles, the novel assessment and feedback strategy, and the parallel, iterative development of a range of key skills including those related to information retrieval, data communication and analysis.

The approach is flexible and adaptable to local contexts and academic disciplines.