A picture is worth a thousand words

last week I attended the Greenwich e-Learning conference. It was really good to see so many colleges there from the He and FE sector. It was also a chance to catch up with Malcolm Ryan one of the co - organisers and our projects critical Friend. The Conference is always informative and enjoyable - this year was no exception.

Interestingly there were also presentations from secondary schools - who it seems are really starting to use e-learning in innovative ways. A particularly interesting example was that of a school using reflective blogs with pupils, to capture their developmental journey over a year. Looking at the honesty and sophistication of the some of the later postings the pupils made and comparing them with the initial ones really showed how the students had matured in their use of reflection as a tool in personal development.

The Keynote speaker was Professor Jonathan Drori a former BBC producer. His personal insights into what made a good learning experience really opened the minds of the audience. He spoke passionately about how learning is a personal thing and was able to illustrate some of the many misconceptions people have about what constitutes a good learning experience. It was interesting to hear him relate his experiences of life as a broadcaster and the opportunities he has had to challenge peoples ideas on education. The pictures at the top of the post are from his presentation. It is of an art gallery in York that invited people to write on a wall what the pictures meant to them. The idea of being able to interact in this way - individually but also collaboratively had resonances with what we were trying to achieve.

It was good to be able to take so many of the Cable3.0 team with me to the conference. We have been working very hard for a year on developing virtual groups of students to work across the four FE colleges in Hertfordshire. And it was an excellent opportunity for them to get an idea what others were doing in the sector.

We are now in full preparation mode for the major re-engineering event planned for the 21st and 22nd July. This will involve 8 of the 9 modules we are working with. The first day will be spent reflecting on the current practice and looking at some possible solutions. This is followed by a day of re-engineering, working with the module coordinators to start to put into place the assessment for learning tasks that should add value to the student experience.

As an interesting aside we were able to travel to Greenwich on a mix of travel modes: Car, train , TUBE ,DLR and by boat along the Thames - a truly blended approach to travel !

Railway Journey

Yesterday I attended the "Engaging and Responding to Learners" workshop run by JISC 'in Birmingham. It was an extremely valuable day - both in terms of the workshop content and as a forum to network and engage with colleagues on other projects.

I took the train from Euston. The different types bright shiny new rolling stock that seemed to appear briefly and then whizz past the window provided an interesting distraction during the journey. It struck me that when there was just British Rail operating the railways, there was a one size fits all policy - such that often trains would depart having four, eight or eleven nearly empty carriages.

The situation on the railways has a parallel with education - we are investing heavily in technological solutions for the students educational journeys. There is much more willingness to look at bespoke solutions and to embrace new ways of thinking than stay with the one size fits all delivery mechanisms of the past. The result? - faster smoother journeys for all!

For those interested - on my journey the train was hauled by a EWS Class 90 and I returned to Euston on a Virgin Pendolino

Casting Bread On The Water.................

Yesterday afternoon we went live with the student assessment survey. We emailed all students registered on the nine modules that we are working with, to invite them to fill in the survey. The university exam period only ended last Friday . We were unsure when students would log on again to pick up their university emails after their post exam celebrations and the consequent recuperation period ! When I checked this morning there were 51 responses already! many students have given quite detailed feedback on their assessment experience , filling out the optional parts of the survey with their thoughts and suggestions. Lets hope that this level of response continues.This data is really important - along with the module case studies, it will provide us with the information to ensure the assessment benchmarking exercise is as comprehensive as it can be.

Regarding our two day event - one of our module teams is having difficulty making the dates - 21 and 22 July, so we are looking to have a separate event . This module is the most complex in terms of the delivery and assessment modes and has the largest module team. It is a Bio Science double credit module that encompasses three different areas of science.

It's a Two Day Event

Things are starting to pick up speed with the project. We are planning a two day off site event at the university conference venue - the Fielder Centre. The likely date is towards the end of July - once all the exam boards are out of the way. The aim of the event is to give the nine module teams that we are working with the time and space to critically examine their assessment and feedback practices. And also then to start the reengineering process. We are planing ( at this early stage)the two days to be a mixture of presentations , facilitated workshops and module team meetings. The module teams will be able to call on the resources of BLU and the LTI to examine the particular pedagogical and technological aspects of possible assessment scenarios. In particular we are calling on our experts in curriculum design and change management.

By the end of this week all the module coordinators will have had appreciative enquiry reflective interviews in order to build up case studies of how the module is delivered and assessed . These case studies along with data from the student assessment surveys that we are carrying out, will give us a really clear picture of the issues surrounding each particular module. They will become the jumpimg off point for the reengineering process .

What if ?................

It has been another busy couple of weeks.The reflective interviews are continuing with the module coordinators and module teams from the four Business School modules that we are working with. As I transcribe these interviews the passion that the lecturers have for their subject shines through. I suspect as long as the passion is there any problems can be overcome. I have had a positive reception from every one in the schools I have been working with and people are keen to share what they feel the issues are and how they (and we!) can work towards a improving the student engagement and attainment.

The next phase is to start to build up case studies using the interview material and the information gleaned from the base line audit of assessment practice that we have carried out. The case studies are quite comprehensive as the explore the module assessment landscape from the perspective of the people who set and assess the assignments . It will detail the role played by individual lecturers in assessment and teaching on a module and look to build a holistic picture of the subsequent assessment experience of a student taking the module. We are looking beneath the surface of the assessment practice to see exactly how and why the module works the way it does.

We are also trying to capture the student view via a student assessment questionnaire and are looking to conduct some focus groups. This information will be critical to our evaluation of the project to look at the before and after picture of student engagement and attainment on the modules.

We are now starting to thing about the next phase of the project - the most exciting - that of the re engineering of the module - this is when we dare to ask "What if ?"

Twitter - a tool for education 2!

Had a really stimulating comment to my earlier post re Twitter and education - Thank you Anne Marie - It's just great that people read this stuff :-)

Okay, I know I should post this as a comment but I did not want to lose my thoughts in a comment - I also cheekily thought that other comments might flow to this post with some other ideas.

Blogging, by the way, is just great for getting you thinking and comments on the blog take that thinking to the next level. I like blogging me and I like learning too :-) Keep them comments coming. Rambling now. hmm, not so good after all. To business ...

The comment related to the use of Twitter as a tool for educational purposes and what might it *really* add in terms of communicating with students. I have to agree that was aligned with my original thoughts too. i.e. What seriously can we do with 140 chars? But after my introductory tour from Lindsay Jordan, and observations that I should immerse myself and have a go, I have become converted.

... and so I can honestly see some uses of Twitter for genuine educational gains. Sure, it's not the answer to everything, but little is. An essay does not explore students' numerical understanding nor their practical problem solving ability. In fact you might argue that a 3000 word essay does little to promote crispness of thought. Equally, Twitter has a certain functionality that might limit it's use but its functionality might be useful in specific situations.

I have dumped a few thoughts together with a minor preamble ...

I'm keen on Just-In-Time-Teaching (JiTT) (Novak et al) and also the Classroom Assessment Techniques (CAT) wonderfully described, collated and themed by Angelo and Cross.

Hence how about using Twitter as a tool to collect responses to a One Minute Paper?

* What did you learn today?
* what was the stickiest / muddiest point?
* What questions remian uppermost in your mind?
* What two things do you want me to cover next week?
* What question do you think your peers should be able to answer based on this weeks lecture.

I'm sure you get the picture and can add to my quick question list. Using a #hashtag will allow you to keep all the response together for each weeks questions. Not only do you get them thinking but you get a large resource for them to review.

I'm keen too that we see our students as valuable resources and so from one post each (in a class of 100) they get to see 100 posts - not a bad return.

I have written elsewhere that some of these questions they might just copy - and indeed that might be okay for the muddiest point etc, but other questions might explicitly require an individual response.

i.e. drawing on today's lecture relate the content / concept / idea to an experience that you have had. i.e. get them to relate it to them. That way they can't copy.

And then you write if your idea is already on the list then you have to write another. Not only does that get reading what others have posted, which in itself is good, but it gets them doing stuff quickly - i.e. reduces cramming - helps develop reflection and inculcates an appropriate study pattern

* What about asking students to post think-alouds to Twitter outside the class as they are thinking about the module? Guess these should really be called tweet-alouds (Russell, 2009).

* You might go further and ask if you had 140 characters per post and you could 5 posts two days after the lecture what would you posts be? Make those posts now.

* Or, as you open up the coursework what things are you thinking?
What theories will you draw on?
How will you show that ...

I think all of these have some genuine potential and could be used both inside the class (CAT) and also outside the class Non-CAT! and to support adaptive teaching, student centered teaching or JiTT.

Thoughts?

(ps am I rambling still?)

Mark

Twitter - a tool for education?

A couple of weeks back I posted a fairly edgy item to a discussion forum entitled ‘twitter – tool or toy?’ http://blendedlearningconference.ning.com/forum/topics/twitter-tool-or-toy

My motivation was to see how it was being used and gain some insights into what we can really do in a teaching, learning and assessment context with 140 characters.

Twitter is limited to 140 character input and also was founded on the simple premise of the staus update found in Facebook etc. i.e. what are you doing now.

The forum entry took a couple of quick responses (notably from Twitter enthusiasts that were gentle enough not to berate my ignorance but to say, ‘have a go’. I wanted to make a reasoned judgement on its usefulness and so ‘have a go I did’ Or rather am!

I was fortunate enough to get a bit of a guided tour and given advice as to what it might / might not do. Twitter, I was told, does not do everything and rather than think of it a tool to engage in meaningful dialogue, why not use it as a seed to establish the dialogue and then take it elsewhere?

Well, I have to say that (at the moment) I’m sold. I like the connections I am forming and I like the so-called micro-blogging. I have used it to engage in back channel conversations at conferences and also at JISC meetings. I tweeted whilst at the recent Curriculum Delivery Programme meeting relating to Change and enjoyed reading the tweets coming out of sister Curriculum Design Programme meeting relating to Change.

Sure, I tell my followers what I’m up to – which includes my gym habits but I also use it for throwing out some thoughts relating to teaching, learning and assessment.

I really think Twitter-type tools have a place in education. 140 characters is much less daunting to a student than a blank blog page when responding to the questions such as ‘what did you get from today’s lecture?’

I’m going to take twitter to our ESCAPE teams and see what they make of it.

Oh, want to follow me and my gym exploits? I’m MarkRussell