Catching up

In case you are wondering, it's not that we have given up on the great Scale Up experiment, it's that we are having a little break from teaching. At the moment the first year students are having 5 weeks input on research from a colleague. This is in preparation for the final assignment which is a group research project.

Since Christmas we have also divided the group into two once again, in response to students' complaints about space and noise (too little of the former and far too much of the latter). The research sessions are more traditionally teacher led although each week there are on line search activities for them to carry out and worksheets to be completed on the laptops.

Because the groups are smaller there is no longer the need to use the microphone, which makes communication actually a bit easier (once the class quietens down). Continuing problems with the audio system still make it difficult to play videos at a reasonable volume. Input from technical staff (and interest from the centre) seems to have waned but there is a meeting coming up this month when I am sure there will be an opportunity to voice these concerns and ask for some solutions to be found at least before the next academic year.

Students complain less about the Macs but still struggle with the continuous Pop Up messages and find it nigh on impossible to complete work, save it and or email it to themselves, so this is not a useful way of working. Delays in linking to Apple TV have also caused that to be abandoned as a teaching technique. It is something I may return to next year when I have smaller classes and 2 hour workshops.

I am overall though still happy with the tables and seating plan as it facilitates group work and when I return to take over leading the group again in 2 weeks' time it will be far easier to support their project work in this environment, and far easier for them to do their research and present their work with the macs or their own devices on hand.

The final project has two options: the first, to design a survey questionnaire using Google Forms OR to curate web based resources on a health and social care theme, using Pinterest, Storify, a Facebook Page, Tumblr or something similar.

The first option is what the students did last year and it was fairly successful. The second option is a bit of an experiment but relates well to the themes of the module and particularly to digital literacy competencies.

The teaching team, together with student mentors, library and CADQ partners are going to be presenting our work at the Annual Learning and Teaching Conference. The particular focus will be on how we have used this module and this new teaching environment to explore ways of enhancing students' digital literacies. Together with the "before and after" surveys previously discussed, we will be anlaysing the observation logs made by our student mentors and also conducting some small focus groups amongst the first year students to find out what they make of all this.

In tandem with the classroom work, the student mentors have also been observing the support work that happens in the library to see whether changes need to be made there to support student transition and digital skills. This is moving us towards thinking about having digital skills mentors permanently on hand and about how we can use students as change agents in embedding digital literacies into the curriculum.

More statistics anyone?

I have blogged more about the digital skills survey results here:
 http://thevirtualleader.blogspot.co.uk/2013/12/all-i-want-for-xmas-is-more-statistics.html

More statistics about that Marmite....

I ran an online survey about the module at the end of Term 1. Here are the results so far (50 students responded).

Students do seem to dislike the delivery of the seminars in the Scale Up environment. 58% feel that the classes are NOT well organised although 74% say they get good tutor support in class and 82% feel they get equally good support outside of class. 56% say they enjoy the group based activities but 96% think the class size is too big. (The room is intended to be for 108 students seated at 12 tables each holding 9 students).

"..l have a bit of problem with the research and professional practise module.It goes very fast and the group is too big.At times l get lost whilst carrying out a task.lt takes long to get back on track."

is a fairly typical comment.

I have to agree that the size of the class is absolutely overwhelming and the much vaunted advantages of Scale Up seem not to be being realised (e.g improved attendance). It is interesting that since these problems started to emerge I have found some information on line about the well known problems of this style of teaching. These were not discussed when the pilot was mooted and volunteers sought!

From my survey and other discussions with students I would say that noise levels, the use of the microphone and cramped seating conditions are the most frequent complaints about the physical environment.

Half of the students say they have not experienced too many difficulties with the Macs (56% say they are easy to use) but that leaves 44% who have struggled and again, anecdotally, the students complain about the need to adjust to the Mac operating environment for this one class - it has slowed down their productivity and made them feel stressed and lagging behind.

Generally though the session specific satisfaction ratings are fairly positive:

60% found the sessions on digital identity to be useful
88% rated the sessions on Harvard referencing very positively :)
92% found the plagiarism and Turnitin session useful :D
82% were very satisfied with the session on search techniques using the library catalogue, databases and Google Scholar
60% also say they have learned new ITC skills in the classes.
There was quite a lot of support for sessions we ran on Evernote, Diigo and Google Drive (60% satisfaction for each), but the verdict was 60% against the use of Twitter - some enjoyed it but  the majority found it irrelevant or an intrusion on their private spaces.

A couple of positive comments were:
"its amazing what we can find for ourselves with a pc or a laptop"
 ".. it is more interesting to learn about new techniques and how you go about it,and that can boost my confidence up and be able to do a lot on the internet through my studies"
".. It is very interactive ... and I enjoy the different tasks eg. the collaborative task."

Generally I think there is something about the readiness of the class to work independently and smaller class sizes may be helpful at this point to be able to give more support to students in carrying out the group tasks. There is also an argument for putting some of this teaching into drop in workshops or integrating the skills into other tasks - even into other modules?

We have already adjusted the timetable so that the next two terms will be taught in 2 smaller groups, but still in Scale Up. The project continues....

The marmite experience

I've now finished my teaching for this module (apart from the assessment session around Easter), and gathered some written feedback from the students at the end of my last session. There's a ranking scale of 1-4, with 1 being poor, and 4 being excellent. Normally I receive 3s and 4s, but there were quite a few 1s and 2s this time. I'm trying not to take it personally, as the comments show the students either really enjoy the group work, or they hate it, so these extremes of feeling are reflected in their opinion of the session. Despite the majority (fortunately) rating the session as good or excellent, quite a few commented on the size of the class and would prefer to learn in groups, but as part of a smaller class. I felt happy at the end of my last workshop as every group made progress with the task, and not one resorted to searching Google instead of the prescribed databases. In fact, far more had a go at searching Academic Search Complete than students in previous years, so this was a positive result for them and for me.

Student mentor bogs 2

My name is Holly and I am a second year Health and Social Care student. I am a Digital Skills Mentor for the module Research and Professional Practice for the first year students studying Health and Social Care.

My experience of being a Digital Skills Mentor has been a good one. It has given me an insight in to the different ways of teaching. Having taken part in the same module last year, I think using Scale Up with the MAC computers has given the module a more interesting and interactive perspective, making it more enjoyable for the students in learning the module.

However, the Scale Up project hasn’t come without its problems. At first, the students weren’t very confident with using the MACs, as most of them had never used one before so it took time to get used to learning in this way, and using a different operating system to Windows. By the end of the first term however, the students have been much more confident in using the MACs and haven’t needed as much support in finding their way around one, for example knowing the keyboard shortcuts for copy and paste and how to use the mouse.

Also, the NOW system, for the students, took a lot of getting used to especially finding the resources for the sessions such as Padlet and the discussion boards. The class size has seemed quite big to teach for the lecturers and having smaller class sizes would maybe be a benefit but it would be difficult to fit that many seminars into one week of teaching.

However, I think having two mentors in the classroom for students has been helpful to them. Even though at first the students seemed to be quite wary of us being in the classroom, it didn’t take long for them to get used to the idea and were soon asking us for help as well as the lecturer. It has offered them help from people who have experienced and completed the module before so have an idea of what should be happening and how the tasks should be completed. It also offers them a way of getting help from someone who may know how to explain a task in a simpler way from how the lecturer may have explained it for them, to get a better understanding of what to do. Also, another benefit for the students has been that they have been able to ask us questions about second year and our experience of first year generally. Even though that’s not our reason to be in the classroom, I think the students have found it helpful being told from someone who has been through first year what it will be like and how different second year may or may not be. 

Student mentor blogs 1

Hello!

My name is Sarah Metherell, I am a 2^nd Year Health and Social Care Student/Digital Skills Mentor.

When I first started as a Digital Skills Mentor, I was excited to get started and help develop the Learning Landscape and felt this would be something I would enjoy, especially as I have a skilled background in ICT. Before we started the job we were given relevant training and introduced to all the staff we would be working with who were all very welcoming and supportive.

The role of a digital skills mentor, involves attending a first year Health and Social Care (Research and Professional Practice) class every Monday for an hour and observing the way they learn. The session I attend on the Monday is called a Scale Up session, which is a new interactive way of learning on a large scale, where students get to use MacBooks to complete activities (usually in groups) that tutors have set them. A few examples were, using Google Docs and Diigo to help students become more organized in the future when finding resources to use in their work. Another task was to create a power point presentation as a class, where each table was assigned one task each. Personally, from observing these classes, I am jealous that we were not taught using the Scale Up method in first year, as it seems engaging, interactive and fun compared to last year, where we had to sit there and listen to a power point presentation.

As the year first started off, many students seemed very shaky and unconfident using the MacBooks, but a couple of weeks later, students had begun to get the hang of using them, and I think the installation of the mouse’s most definitely helped. The majority of the students, found the tasks pretty easy to complete, although there were a few comments here and there that said the tasks can be difficult at times and sometimes boring. Also, there were some students that suggested they prefer working in smaller groups, as big groups feel very disorganised and students feel they can’t get the best possible help they can. However, the general gist of the class seem to find the tasks easygoing. The other observations I found, were usually technical difficulties such as adding a picture, or copying and pasting.

As a digital skills mentor, I was invited to attend a Learning the Landscape conference, in which those who are involved in the project gathered to discuss what could be done to develop ways of teaching. I found this very interesting and it really gave me an insight as to what the project is about.

I have very much enjoyed my first term of being a digital skills mentor and have found observing very fascinating and I look forward to the second term.

the story so far ......

Well, today's session went smoothly - more smoothly than expected in fact. I set up a Google Presentation and allocated one slide per table to be done within about 20 minutes. The aim was to develop a presentation about the course and studying at this University.

I figured most would be comfortable with Powerpoint, but there are added complications when using Google Drive and multiple users editing at once.

The students seemed to get on with the task fairly easily and the round up session where I showed the whole finished presentation and read it back to them was well received. People actually said they had had fun!

Then I had a tutorial group where one of the student reps relayed a number of concerns about the module.

The first major complaint is that the group is too big. Students don't feel comfortable working in the SCALE UP environment with such large numbers. They feel they don't get enough teaching input or one to one help and the time it takes them to set up the laptops and get started on the task makes them feel they are short of time and missing key information about what they are supposed to be doing. Lots of students apparently mentioned the Macs as big factors in feeling confused, stressed and frustrated, and although I suspect some of the tasks would be challenging whatever the hardware, the unfamiliar interface is definitely adding complexity and confusion.

Interestingly when I asked them about specific sessions and asked if they were useful, the response was fairly positive and those students I spoke to did also feel that although they felt confused at the time, they recognised later that they had picked up some useful knowledge and skills.

The single biggest issue though appears to be navigating through the VLE. They felt that at least one session needs to be devoted to this and they would like help on this built into personal tutorials.

One of the things that emerges for me is the difficulty of trying to develop digital information literacy through just one module. It really makes a nonesense of the idea of "embedding" these skills in the curriculum. Our approach has to be far more holistic. There should indeed be follow up through the tutorial system, but that would mean tutors being comfortable in these areas too and I don't think they would be, 100%.

An alternative could be to provide drop in sessions on a smaller scale, using the technology available in Scale Up, with student mentors and staff on hand.

For me personally, I am disappointed with the feedback so far. I am asking students to take a survey which explores all of these issues in more depth and I think there is a lot we can learn, but my main worry is that the vote will definitely be for smaller sessions.

In some ways I agree as the task of managing 100+ students is stressful and exhausting. But equally running small groups multiple times with very few attendees is just demoralising and a poor use of my time.

I feel I am short on inspiration right now and a bit disappointed that the feedback isn't better, but there's still a way to go till the end of the academic year and I am sure our student mentors' observations will continue to provide valuable insights into this big experiment.