Seeds for Solutions, How does the past inform the future? Innovation projects from 2001/02 #KATS2015

Project Title: Student Profiling
Project Leader(s): Peter Knight

The aim of this project is to provide a template for undergraduate student profiling that can easily be adapted for use in any Keele undergraduate programme, thereby facilitating the adoption of profiling throughout the University.

Student profiling is a career-long procedure whereby students develop and maintain a documentary record of their learning experiences. Correctly implemented, profiling should form the core of each student's management of their own learning. Profiling has been proposed (for example by the HEFCE funded Science Education Enhancement and Development programme) as a way of improving students’ ability to take responsibility for their own learning, and of marshalling a portfolio of documented experience that students can use in seeking employment after completing their studies.

The end result of this project will be a "profiling pack", comprising all the documentation and materials required for the profiling of one student for the length of their academic career. Departments will be able to use the profiling pack "as is" or will be able to adapt it in accordance with any unique requirements of their course. For example, each course's profiling pack may make reference to specific items from that course's skills map. The project will provide set of experience-based guidelines for profiling in the Keele context.

Student Profiling - Final Report

Student Profiling - Slides

Student Profiling by Peter Knight, Keele University is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Project Title: Making (First Year) Tutorials Count
Project Leader(s): John MacMillan

“Making (First Year) Tutorials Count” seeks to develop certain difficult to assess skills of communication and argument through a radical re-structuring of the assessment regime.

Making (First Year) Tutorials Count - Final Report

Making (First Year) Tutorials Count by John MacMillan, Keele University is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Seeds for Solutions, How does the past inform the future? Innovation projects from 2000/01 #KATS2015

Project Title: Support and Assessment of Laboratory work in Chemistry

Project Leader(s): Paul Yates

This project will develop support materials for selected experiments in the first year physical chemistry laboratory. These will allow students to gain an appreciation of experimental design, to analyse appropriate data, and to produce a coherent report within an integrated non-laboratory environment. Each package will consist of a video clip of experimental apparatus, appropriate pre-laboratory exercises, a means of generating randomised data, a guided analysis tool and links to external analysis tools, post-laboratory exercises, and a pro-forma for electronic submission of the final report.

During the data generation stage, students will be required as far as possible to carry out the same readings as they would in the actual laboratory. Thus the data will be presented in the form of photographs (where colour changes need to be noted, for example) and representations of instruments (such as a thermometer when a temperature needs to be measured). This will retain some of the uncertainty associated with genuine experimental work.

The materials will be used in the cases where a student misses a laboratory practical for whatever reason, and as a reassessment vehicle where a student has not satisfied the requirements for successful completion of the laboratory course.

Support and Assessment of Laboratory work in Chemistry - Final Report

Support and Assessment of Laboratory work in Chemistry by Paul Yates, Keele University is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Project Title: Quality Enhancement of the Keele Undergraduate Psychology Provision

Project Leader(s): John Sloboda and Mark Trueman

This project will support the Psychology Department in a review of its undergraduate provision during the academic year 2000-1.

The project will deliver two outcomes:

1. A redesign of the undergraduate provision which addresses a range of internal and external factors impacting on undergraduate education in the discipline and the sector (including professional accreditation, benchmarking, new developments in course delivery and assessment, staffing changes, and the changing undergraduate market).

2. A documentation of the process by which the first outcome is achieved. This will focus on the refinement of methodology which is suitable for deployment in constraint-relevant course redesign within a resource-lean environment, and which is capable of generalisation to a range of disciplines and levels. The methodology will include (a) the design and analysis of a student experience questionnaire capable of being applied in a range of disciplines and at different points in time, separated by as much as 5 years, (b) the use of student-related data collected for quality assurance purposes, (c) a review of good practice in other institutions; (d) refinement of assessment methods and criteria in relation to the skills to be assessed and the level of study at which the assessment takes place.

Quality Enhancement of the Keele Undergraduate Psychology Provision by John Sloboda and Mark Trueman, Keele University is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Seeds for Solutions, How does the past inform the future? Innovation projects from 2000/01 #KATS2015

Project Title: Learning by Doing: Mooting and Professional Negligence
Project Leader(s): A.Manji, T.Dugdale and D.Buss 

A moot is a simulated appeal court hearing in which legal arguments for a claimant and defendant are presented by two pairs of students and a reasoned judgment is then given by the presiding member of staff or student. It is an exercise in structured argument. It provides student with an opportunity to examine a narrow issue in considerable depth, consider the argumentative strategy to be used, prepare a written outline of the argument, and give an oral presentation of the argument which includes the opportunity to rebut arguments of other side. The moots will be videoed and students will learn not just from doing but reflecting on what they have done.

Introducing this project as a compulsory element in a core level 2 law Module will strengthen the law programme in key benchmarking skills such as legal research, oral and written argument, problem solving and group work. It will also assist the development of transferable skills such as analysis, synthesis and critical judgment.

Learning by Doing: Mooting and Professional Negligence by A.Manji, T.Dugdale and D.Buss, Keele University is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
(Postponed Project)

Project Title: Video as a Tool for Self-assessment of UG Oral Presentation
Project Leader(s): Paul Yates and Dave McGarvey

Project Summary
The project will be piloted on a voluntary basis (student consent) during 1st and 2nd year Chemistry/BMC student presentations in the Spring Semester of 2000-2001.
All students giving oral presentations (videoed or not) will be peer-assessed using the assessment form attached, as is current practice.
Students whose presentations have been videoed will be asked to carry out a self-assessment after viewing the video of their presentation.
As a means of evaluating the project, students whose presentations have been videoed will be asked to complete an evaluation questionnaire (this will include a comparison of ‘peer assessment’ versus ‘self-assessment through video’).
Academic staff involved in the project will also complete an evaluation of the project.
It is anticipated that the pilot project will be completed by the end of Spring Semester 2001.

Dissemination
The experiences gained from this project will be disseminated within the University through a KTN presentation and more widely through a presentation at the annual ‘Variety in Chemistry Teaching’ meeting and/or through publication in the journal ‘University Chemistry Education’.

Video as a Tool for Self-assessment - Final Report 


Video as a Tool for Self-assessment - Presentation Slides


Video as a Tool for Self-assessment of UG Oral Presentation by Paul Yates and Dave McGarvey, Keele University is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Seeds for Solutions, How does the past inform the future? Innovation projects from 2000/01 #KATS2015

Project Title: Support and Assessment of Laboratory work in Chemistry
Project Leader(s): Paul Yates

This project will develop support materials for selected experiments in the first year physical chemistry laboratory. These will allow students to gain an appreciation of experimental design, to analyse appropriate data, and to produce a coherent report within an integrated non-laboratory environment. Each package will consist of a video clip of experimental apparatus, appropriate pre-laboratory exercises, a means of generating randomised data, a guided analysis tool and links to external analysis tools, post-laboratory exercises, and a pro-forma for electronic submission of the final report.

During the data generation stage, students will be required as far as possible to carry out the same readings as they would in the actual laboratory. Thus the data will be presented in the form of photographs (where colour changes need to be noted, for example) and representations of instruments (such as a thermometer when a temperature needs to be measured). This will retain some of the uncertainty associated with genuine experimental work.

The materials will be used in the cases where a student misses a laboratory practical for whatever reason, and as a reassessment vehicle where a student has not satisfied the requirements for successful completion of the laboratory course.

Support and Assessment of Laboratory work in Chemistry - Final Report


Support and Assessment of Laboratory work in Chemistry by Paul Yates, Keele University is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Project Title: Quality Enhancement of the Keele Undergraduate Psychology Provision
Project Leader(s): John Sloboda and Mark Trueman

This project will support the Psychology Department in a review of its undergraduate provision during the academic year 2000-1.

The project will deliver two outcomes:

1. A redesign of the undergraduate provision which addresses a range of internal and external factors impacting on undergraduate education in the discipline and the sector (including professional accreditation, benchmarking, new developments in course delivery and assessment, staffing changes, and the changing undergraduate market).

2. A documentation of the process by which the first outcome is achieved. This will focus on the refinement of methodology which is suitable for deployment in constraint-relevant course redesign within a resource-lean environment, and which is capable of generalisation to a range of disciplines and levels. The methodology will include (a) the design and analysis of a student experience questionnaire capable of being applied in a range of disciplines and at different points in time, separated by as much as 5 years, (b) the use of student-related data collected for quality assurance purposes, (c) a review of good practice in other institutions; (d) refinement of assessment methods and criteria in relation to the skills to be assessed and the level of study at which the assessment takes place.


Support and Assessment of Laboratory work in Chemistry by John Slobodan and Mark Truman, Keele University is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

An approach to Flipping the Classroom in Politics, By Matthew Wyman

The approach taken

I have used audio recordings (in MP3 format) with accompanying slides to take the place of lectures on my second year Russian politics module. As well as 12 hours of recordings, this frees up space to provide 20 or 21 hours of seminars instead of the 8 I would normally provide.

Advantages

It enables us to cover the curriculum for the module in much greater detail than previously. But at the same time it requires a great deal less preparation from me, as I don't have to prepare to give the same lecture year after year, enabling me to focus more on making the seminar time valuable, as well as providing good resources, giving more feedback, and all the other things that help enhance the student experience.

Disadvantages

I think 50 minute length is just not needed when you are exploiting audio-visual technology. A larger number of shorter recordings would be more user friendly.

Recommendations

I would pay a bit more attention to exploring the wide range of technologies I could use for lecture capture. I would also consider making the recordings available via you tube rather than the KLE for easier accessibility (you can still restrict access).

An approach to Flipping the Classroom in Politics, by Matthew Wyman of Keele University is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
Based on a work at http://lpdcsolutions.blogspot.co.uk/.

Seeds for Solutions, How does the past inform the future? Innovation projects from 2000/01 #KATS2015

Project Title: Web Support for Student Peer Review. 

Project Leader(s): Stephen Bostock 

Student peer review of coursework can be a valuable learning experience for both reviewers and authors, and offers additional feedback to students on their work without the staff time involved in additional marking. However, for courses of any size the administration of reviewing with multiple reviewers is a significant load. The need for single anonymity (authors do not know reviewers) or double anonymity (and reviewers do not know authors) adds to the complexity, requiring anonymous codes to be used if reviews are forwarded directly to authors. Other considerations include the allocation of equal reviewing loads to reviewers, and avoiding pairs of students who review each other's work.


As long as students access to have email and the web, most of this administration can be automated. This project will deliver a web site for general use allowing tutors to specify a list of authors and reviewers, the coursework to be reviewed (possibly with its URL), the number of reviews per coursework, the criteria to be used, and the type of feedback required (qualitative/quantitative). Tracking of the reviewing process and archiving of reviews will allow tutors to monitor the process and see its results conveniently

Web Support for Student Peer Review-Presentation slides

Web Support for Student Peer Review-Project Report 

Web Support for Student Peer Review. by Stephen Bostock, Keele University is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Project Title: Development of a Writing Skills Programme for First Year UG Students. 

Project Leader(s): Susan Bruce and Monica McLean 

Employers, like academics, frequently lament the decline in literacy standards of undergraduates; academics, however, have neither time nor resources to ensure that students graduate with literacy skills whose value is substantial, but whose acquisition necessitates systematic tuition. Current practice largely depends on individual academics addressing individual errors of individual students; more effective and efficient a model of delivering tuition concerning literacy skills is the North American Freshman Seminar wherein key literacy skills, embedded within discipline-specific courses, are communicated to students in their first semester. We will construct an outline for an Introductory Writing Course which could be adopted internally by different disciplines within Keele University to improve the writing skills of Keele undergraduates. We will research modes of delivery of such courses currently in operation in the UK and the USA; evaluate and select support materials such as handbooks; construct a course syllabus which would be transferable to other disciplines; organise a workshop for those who will be teaching on the course. We plan to pilot this course in the Autumn semester of the academic year 2001-2002, in the introductory module of the new Single Honours degree in English and American Literature, and to evaluate its success at the end of its initial semester.

Development of a Writing Skills Programme for First Year UG Students - Final Report

Project Title: Development of a Writing Skills Programme for First Year UG Students. by Susan Bruce and Monica McLean, Keele University is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Seeds for Solutions, How does the past inform the future? Innovation projects from 2000/01 #KATS2015

Project Title: Programmed Learning to Replace UG Lectures
Project Leader(s): P.Chevins

The application is for funds to support a teaching development which is intended to enhance learning whilst ultimately producing savings in staff time. Funds are required to enable time to be spent on developing the teaching materials, to purchase software for computer assisted assessment (CAA) and to free time for learning its use.

The outcomes will be:
A teaching innovation that will be fully evaluated, and if successful, applicable to other modules and courses.
Software for CAA, also evaluated and available for other modules and courses.
A commitment to disseminate information on the above University-wide, if appropriate, via Keele Teaching Network (KTN) or other means.

The following proposal arises from a paper written for and approved by the Biology Teaching Team (meeting held January 10th 2000. The paper "Are Lectures a Waste of Time?" ).

Most of the lectures in a specific section of a module will be replaced with a programme of study from the prescribed text. The module selected is Animal Physiology (Year 2) chosen because it is a subject heavily laden with factual content. The beginning of the module will be conventionally taught. Halfway through (week 7) the selected section (on nerve, muscle and endocrinology) will be introduced with one lecture, setting out what is expected of the students and introducing the first topic.

Each student will receive a programme of study as part of the published module guide, setting out in detail what is assumed knowledge (the starting point) and which sections of the textbook are to be covered each week. In week 8, in one of the normal scheduled teaching times, all students will have a formative objective style test on the week’s work, with immediate detailed feedback. The next topic will be introduced by a single lecture at the appropriate time, and will be followed by the same schedule of private study followed by objective test. The same procedure will be followed until the end of the module, with a selection of the tests being summative (probably alternate weeks). Students will be informed that a selection of the questions from the formative tests will be repeated in the summative ones, thus providing a good incentive to learn from their feedback. Tutorial support will be provided, so that any failures of understanding can be corrected.

It is intended that the objective tests will be administered by computer, thus automating the feedback and saving staff time. It is recognised that the savings of teaching time will not be immediate. The planning, writing of objective assessments, and learning and setting up of the computer system selected will take a considerable investment of time. However, although this is an eventual aim of the project improvement in learning quality is the more important objective, and it is hoped that this will at least begin to be achieved the first year. Evaluation and continued development is planned for the future, with any worthwhile results disseminated within Life Sciences, and if appropriate, the University, perhaps via KTN.
Software

A review of available software has been conducted using the following website recommended by Stephen Bostock at http://www.seda.demon.co.uk/eddevs/caalist.html.

The eleven systems listed here, and one other (Miranda from Strathclyde University) have been compared, and the choice narrowed down to the five most promising, which I have tried in demonstration or full working form, with the following results.
Hot potatoes is free of charge to HE, provided tests written are published to the web, but only supports six quite primitive question types.
Miranda is better, but has no graphics currently enabled, so is also limited in question format.
WebTest allows graphics in gif or jpeg format, and is an improvement on the above.
Question Mark Perception is better developed than any of the above, and has the advantage of sophisticated results analysis and reporting built in. It has been used at Keele in an earlier form in the Psychology department. It is a commercial product (in contrast to the other four) and is versatile and easy to use. The simplest solution for a single user would be to buy a licence and use it.
TRIADS is extremely impressive, and as the product of a tripartite university project (Open, Derby and Liverpool) is currently not for profit. It has even greater potential than QM Perception but the ease of question loading and results analysis potential cannot be evaluated from the on line demonstration. A number of its features are still under development. A full evaluation means entering into an agreement, whose general terms are copied below. (Graham Lees, Earth Sciences, has entered an agreement).
Software – Conclusions

TRIADS and Question Mark are in a league of their own, but TRIADS offering more features and development prospects. Cost comparisons are relevant. These show a great advantage of TRIADS, which I believe must be the system of choice now and long-term, for the University.

UK Higher Education Institutions or Departments who wish to become TRIADS evaluation sites receive full training in the use of TRIADS and are supplied with the TRIADS Engine. At the end of the formal evaluation period, Evaluation Sites would have free use of the TRIADS Engine for another year and a discounted upgrade charge for new versions after that date. There will be different levels of agreement for campus-wide & departmental sites. The small print also requires six monthly evaluation reports from course leaders, and other sharing of experience. Currently 28 UK HE institutions are evaluation sites.

Project Title: Programmed Learning to Replace UG Lectures - Final Report
Project Title: Programmed Learning to Replace UG Lectures - Presentation Slides


Programmed Learning to Replace UG Lectures by Peter Chevins, Keele University is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.