LTEA2008: induction, treasure hunts and interactivity

Before I forget, just wanted to post one or two random points arising from last week's LTEA conference.

In a session jointly hosted by colleagues from ACSE, Mech Eng. and HCS, a number of similar themes emerged around the importance of engaging students in pre-entry, induction week and follow-up activities which can help to foreground the importance of generic academic skills enhancement, the development of information literacy, and the acquisition of academic literacy in specific disciplinary contexts; and crucially to do this through active learning processes (rather than screeds of lectures and information sessions in large rooms). You can see the accompanying powerpoint here.

Something which all three departments seem to have introduced with positive results is the development of "learning trails" or "treasure hunts" to encouraged students to go out and find information and resources for themselves. This is also an activity I've used successfully with prospective students coming in to the University for taster sessions, and I wonder whether some kind of online quest might also be developed on TASH's site.

Further, Jen Rowson described an induction activity (a "design and build" task similar to a level one Mech Eng module) in which groups of students compete directly with one another to design something which will go the furthest, carry the most etc. etc. using limited materials. In the assessed module, grades are entirely dependent upon how well individual designs fare relative to other groups. To a lily-livered social scientist, this sounded a bit harsh, but as Jen notes it does closely mirror the reality of becoming a design engineer ("we might provide them with the tool box, but engineering is essentially about creative problem solving, and it's the most creative solution in the context of the brief which gets the contract", was something like how Jen put it) .

The element of competition (particularly when working as a group) seems often to engage students in very positive ways (and having assessed part of a module by group work this year for the first time, I have also seen the related benefits of peer-motivation in action). Again, Jen put it something like this: "show 'em the sky and invite them to reach for it" ... which I rather liked (even if it might also sound a bit cheesy if you're having a bad day).

So I wonder whether we might consider certain strategically targetted time-limited competitions for the hub - for example an online treasure hunt released via the hub in induction week with the best responses by week two earning a prize of some sort or another. Likewise, we could do similar things in and around other key transition areas - something to do with revision strategies released in the week before Xmas, time limited for entries in the first week of the new year; something in the first week of July targeted at students going from first to second or second to third year which gets them thinking about useful stuff to be thinking about and/or doing over the summer etc.?

The group I was in the induction session also turned to the issue of how to get students up and running most effectively at the beginning of their second year when suddenly grades really count (no longer enough simply to coast and scrape a pass), some of that study skills stuff from induction in year one might seem a bit rusty, and when additional pressures or challenges may be added by the move from halls of residence to private rented accommodation etc.

Getting students mentoring one another across levels was one obvious solution which is of course being supported and developed very effectively in a number of central support departments already, and is one which we've already batted about a bit in relation to TASH.

Finally, I had a conversation with Tash Semmens after the conference dinner (I think), the details of which are a little hazy - but revolved around our reminiscences of the central importance of law libraries in our own (increasingly distant) undergraduate studies ... and their relative lack of importance in many students minds today. One effect, Tash mused, of the increased accessibility of online sources in law today (but also many other disciplines, I have no doubt), is that students find it increasingly difficult to appreciate the distinction between primary, secondary and other sources, and their relative importance in the research and/or legal process. I very well remember myself that in the 1980s it wasn't difficult to spot whether you were dealing with statute law, common law, or text book opinion, because you found the books in different parts of the library and they all looked different, felt different and smelt different depending upon the type of source you were dealing with (and I'm sure this isn't simply the post-hoc rationalisation of a lawyer-turned-archaeologist more interested in law libraries as material culture than anything else these days). So the importance of getting students out and about, engaging with the very materiality of their individual disciplines, remains an important task which the treasure hunt can again achieve in part, I would suggest.

Feedback from the Engineering Group at the 24th June TASH event

Feedback from the Engineering Group:

Group membership: Plato Kapranos (Materials Eng), Juliet Wilson (plagiarism working group ) , Jen Rowson (Mech Eng), Tom O’Brien (student – Biomedical Engineering) , Alice Lawrence (ELTC), Linda Gray (ACSE)

Priorities/ what does Engineering need from TASH:

• Lab reports – how to write. (Please note that Tom O’Brien is writing a guide. Also Jen Rowson (Mech Eng) has a guide - see below)
• Observing that engineering students have lots of contact time early on, and that therefore engineering students appear to expect that all work must be done in contact time. Engineering departments want to move students on from much contact time/little independent work to little contact time/much independent work as their academic career progresses. To do this, one priority is to encourage student skill acquisition in information gathering and to get students to buy into doing this information gathering.
• Referencing – with a real need for consistency within departments and across departments. At the moment students are either told to use one method for one piece of work and another method for another, or they aren’t given a specific system to use at all.
• Helping students relate criteria used in assessment to examples of real work. Helping students understand how different assessment criteria reflect developmental stages.
• Helping to show students how they are expected to develop through their academic careers.
  

Resources already available:

• ELTC resources – online and face-to-face
• Library’s ISR , in which there is a specific Engineering hub (which ACSE contributed to)
• MATLAB tutorials – several available in University, and Tom is writing another MATLAB tutorial
• JAR’s (Anthony Rossiter's) animations on MOLE for systems related to modelling electrical circuits. JAR’s simulations on MOLE for pendulum and particle3D.
• MASH material – extensive support for Maths
• MECH eng has guides to
  o Writing lab reports
  o Literature reviews
  o Referencing
  o Plagiarism
• ACSE and AERO have material for educating about plagiarism and collusion, which has also been adopted by the Uni plagiarism working group
• Peter Judd (EEE) has developed some animations to support teaching the C programming language
  

How could TASH be used in departments:

• Linked to from student portal - with noticeable pop-up or other attention getting icon.
• Buy-in by lecturing staff, to include mention of during lectures/assignment descriptions. If appropriate could also demonstrate interaction with TASH during lectures
• Personal tutors – could devote personal tutorial session to showing tutees material on TASH
• Perhaps don’t talk about TASH much in induction, because of the information overload problem.
• “Foreground expectations” – repeatedly make it clear that lecturers intend students to use the TASH resource.
• Weekly calendar reminding students of academic schedule (specific to department), with mention of relevant material in TASH for the current assignment/task
  

Challenges for the TASH project:

• Making it specific enough for individual students
• Every department will want different things from it
• Finding material that is already available
• Embedding into the subject discipline, because TASH type material is not of itself interesting. For this reason a large example set for subject specific tutors will be necessary.
• Making resources available to allow students to catch up to already assumed levels. (This is a particular issue in the service-module oriented engineering faculty).
• Overseas students (of which the engineering faculty has a large number) – may be overwhelmed by visual information if their English language skills are weak, so the design needs to carefully limit the information on the page without being too simplistic therefore patronising.
• Overseas students’ previous experience of using IT will vary depending on country.