Session 15: The MasteryPath – an adaptive learning approach that promotes online learning

Session overview: Many higher education institutions are now tapping into the growing number of educational technologies accessible for teaching and learning (T&L) purposes. Indeed, the opportunity and ability to embed digital tools into the T&L process have transformed higher education. The use of such practices has been amplified further by COVID-19, as well as pedagogical research and institutions (i.e., Advance HE) advocating for a hybrid and/or blended approach to learning. One such adaptive learning tool available to teachers is the MasteryPath (MP), a tool that breaks down subject matter into small units of online learning that students can undertake at their own pace. Here, only once a learner has a thorough comprehension of a specific topic can they move onto the next. As a team, we initially constructed two automated MPs, which had the primary objective of encouraging students to explore certain areas of the LJMU website (referencing and student systems). Over the past 4 years this adaptive learning approach has been utilised across the business school, with, more recently, this approach being piloted with student futures remodelling the ‘Future Focus’ task. Over this time, qualitative and quantitative data has been collected from both students and staff across three programmes with over 1000 students completing a MP as both a summative and a formative assessment. In this presentation, we will discuss the positive impact of these MPs on student learning through the data collected within the context of the constant evolution of this tool. Key learning points from this session: To see the impact of adaptive learning tool on student learning. Evidence will be drawn from a range of different assessments, subsequent assessments, student feedback, and colleague feedback within the Business School. The MasteryPath – an adaptive learning approach that promotes online learning PowerPoint. Only LJMU staff and students have access to this resource

Session 43: Exploring the impact that UCAS entry grades and attendance have on first-year assessment performance

Session overview: The LL.B (law undergraduate) degree at LJMU typically requires students to attain 120-128 UCAS points in order to be offered a place on the course. However, the 2024/25 recruitment cycle saw a high proportion of our current level four students joining via clearing, when this requirement was lowered significantly. As lecturers and student retention co-ordinators, we wanted to track whether this would impact upon academic achievement and gauge whether additional support was necessary for these students. We therefore opted to map the mark achieved at the point of the students’ first written assessment against their UCAS entry points, and then mapped this against Canvas usage and attendance at scheduled teaching sessions. This presentation will explore our preliminary findings. Key learning points from this session: Attendees will come away from this session with a better understanding of the potential correlation between entry grades, Canvas engagement, and attendance at teaching sessions (e.g. seminars and lectures), and a students performance in their first written assessment at university. This will help us to better understand our newly arrived students academic needs, and determine the appropriate support we should be giving them, and when we should be giving it. Exploring the impact that UCAS entry grades and attendance have on first-year assessment performance PowerPoint. Only LJMU staff and students have access to this resource

Case Study: Peer Reviews and Reflective Discussion Boards

Details of Process   Clare is the module leader for a Research Methods module. She\u27s been using a variety of technologies and media to reach out to students and engage them. These include discussion boards quizzes and an activity using a system built into canvas called peer review. This short write up will concentrate on the peer review and the discussion board activities. The Peer Review Activity  This was a formative task and it was completely up to the students as to whether they wanted to take part or not. Clare promoted the ideas and benefits of peer review particularly as a transferable skill for employment. She also provided some links to resources that would help students understand this process. She also highlighted how this task would help them read more efficiently and effectively. However, she did note that a number of students were underconfident about their abilities to complete this task and did not undertake it.   The peer review activity was a real time live session where she asked the students to read the same article and write up a short paragraph that summarised it within an hour as an individual task. The students then submitted this to canvas and Clare used canvas to organise the distribution of those submissions so that every student had two submissions to peer review.   The article was of a generic nature talking about how researchers approach the idea of culture. She selected that article because she didn\u27t want to exclude any students that may have less knowledge of the wider curriculum she was teaching and which linked to their forthcoming assessment. The students were encouraged to leave annotations on the paper and comments using the actual marking criteria for the module assessment. All feedback was anonymized although the tutor did have an overview of who had written what for whom. Clare followed up the activity by providing feedback via Canvas for all those involved which included helping the students to understand the students’ comments. The students’ comments were overwhelmingly positive but many of them found suggestions to help their peers improved their own writing.   Feedback from the students highlighted how they found this useful in understanding the process of marking, thus giving them a better understanding of this process and their role within it. The feedback from the process also included comments about how daunting it was for students and how some of them found that this put them in a position of power which some found difficult as they believed that they were not worthy of passing comment on another student’s work. All the students agreed that this had changed their viewpoint on the assignment process. They enjoyed the challenge of being asked to write academically early on in the semester. So, they appreciated it but also hated being put on the spot. The students that took part would like more of these activities and Clare is already working on an idea for an annotated bibliography task in a similar way.   Reflecting on this Clare believes that what can help improve this is for the students to know each other better and form greater levels of trust, providing more information for the students to highlight the benefits that this could bring them and reduce the anxiety it may be causing them. Discussion boards Clare has used a number of discussion board activities so far on this module, these tend to be tied to some type of activity around the theme for the lecture that week. The resources she offers the students to interact with are carefully selected to include something to read, something to listen to and something to watch. This is to maximise the medium by which the students can gain an understanding of the topic. They are not expected to engage with all of the resources but to pick the one which will help them the most. An example of this would be a podcast she shared with students around building a research project. The students listened to somebody describe their research project design and were encouraged to discuss in the discussion board what questions they would ask this particular person. Students offered up questions, and this generated wider discussion with many students posting to each other. Clare uses the discussion board setting that prevents students from reading the posts without first making a contribution. However, she did find that some students got around this system and didn\u27t write more than a single word. Having said that it is still encouraging that students wanted to read each others’ contributions. Clare spends a small amount of time each week following up on these tasks dipping in and out to offer up comments and encouragement. She finds now that she is used to the system that this is not over burdensome, as it helps her get an idea of how her students are doing and to make improvements to the sessions that follow each activity. Clare recommends talking to the skills@ljmu team, as they have many useful resources that can help the students improve their learning. Clare would like to continue with this process and improve it and has seen the possibility of offering a variety of methods for students to engage in the course as helping everyone

Case Study: Using Quizzes to Encourage Students and Assess Progress

Liz uses quizzes regularly on her L5 and L6 modules, comprising 40 to 250 students, depending on the module. She would post a recording of a lecture or content, including resources supporting this content followed by the release of a quiz, relating to both the lecture and resources. Each of these quizzes had a maximum of 8 questions and was a mix of questions including multiple-choice, essay, etc – choice of question was topic dependant. Liz used these quizzes to test student understanding of key points. The students could re-do these as many times as they liked. However, if students were struggling with a particular topic/area, Liz would ask them to complete the quiz – but not re-do it until they got the answers all correct. She would then use the quiz as a basis for a follow up tutorial, so she would know which aspects of the topic/area that student was struggling with the most. She also used these quizzes for assessing student comprehension of the assessment requirements. For example, she would set up an assessment quiz, asking them questions such as: ‘What is the word count for the assignment?’ She would then check these to ensure students’ understood the assessment requirements. Completion of quizzes was not strictly mandatory (although she always asked students to complete these). She found that completion was high in the beginning of a module, dipped in the middle and increased again during revision time. Student feedback on these weekly quizzes has been positive – students have commented that when they don’t know where to start with a task/assessment, the quiz is a quick and easy way to remind themselves. Liz is running a module of 500 in 2020/2021 and intends to continue using a mix of Panopto and quizzes to encourage engagement. Liz also used a live video session for recording and found this useful. She utilised this in a session with 20 students present in a physical space and part time students using the video conferencing tool to ‘attend’. She found the chat function very useful. She would have chat open on her ipad and pass this to students in the room to read out the questions from the distance students. The students in physical attendance, as well as those attending virtually, really valued this and asked to continue to work in this way (even when a large enough space became available to teach all together in one room). Liz felt the chat function gave students a sense of anonymity, so they developed in confidence in terms of asking questions. It also helped students to not forget questions they may have – they could pop them in the chat, without either interrupting the tutor or forgetting to ask them at the end

Session 69: Project decolonisation: carbon footprints and compensation payments

Session overview: How can topics related to decolonisation be integrated in the curriculum so that it is relevant and interesting to students? A group of students and lecturers have worked together to develop project-based activities for students in the mathematics programs at LJMU on two exciting real-world challenges related to decolonisation: 1. Calculate your personal carbon footprint and 2. Develop a fair and transparent compensation scheme for the impact of slavery. The activities will consist of three pillars - an analysis component where the students will develop mathematical frameworks for calculating the carbon footprint or a compensation payment for the impact of slavery, a presentation component where each team will present their projects to the class and an evaluation component where the team will reflect how their ideas could be implemented in practice. The decision of asking students to take the drivers\u27 seats in designing the project tasks is to ensure that the tasks are genuinely relevant to future students in the mathematics programs. The interdisciplinary, open-ended activities are much closer to the challenges that mathematics graduates will face in their future workplaces but they are still relatively uncommon in mathematics programs. Key learning points from this session: After this talk, delegates will... ... take home fresh ideas how new student activities related to decolonisation can be developed. ... see examples how real-world challenges that go beyond the core of a particular discipline can be integrated into the curriculum. The project activities developed will be implemented in existing modules of the mathematics program. We expect that our approach to designing project-based student activities related to decolonisation can be easily transferred to other disciplines. Project decolonisation: carbon footprints and compensation payments PowerPoint. Only LJMU staff and students have access to this resource

Melodies of mindfulness: outcomes of a music-embedded mindfulness intervention for neurodiverse students from marginalised genders

Session overview: \u27Melodies for Mindfulness\u27 is an innovative research project and student-based intervention aiming to advance knowledge on the experiences of neurodiverse undergraduate students from marginalised genders in HE, and identify challenges and good practices related to academic resilience. The project will explore the feasibility and student experiences of the use of a novel music-embedded mindfulness program to enhance cognitive processes and promote psychological wellbeing of neurodiverse undergraduate students from marginalised genders. The intervention is running through Feb-March 2025 and this poster will summarise the key insights gained following the intervention, both quantitative changes in psychological wellbeing, cognition, resilience and feelings of social support/belonging as well as qualitative insights from neurodiverse students who take part in the intervention. The implications and recommendations for student-based interventions for neurodiverse and gender marginalised students will be discussed. Key learning points from this session: Audiences will learn about the development and implementation of a music-embedded mindfulness intervention, gaining insight of how the intervention was experienced by neurodiverse and gender marginal students. Key messages will be based on the outcomes of psychological wellbeing, cognitive and student belonging. Recommendation for future interventions will be discussed. Melodies of mindfulness: outcomes of a music-embedded mindfulness intervention for neurodiverse students from marginalised genders poster, only LJMU staff and students have access to this resource

Session 16: Developing commercial enterprise projects to enhance knowledge and skills to external stakeholders

Session overview: Schools within the faculty have delivered bespoke education to a number of organisations external to  the university. These were commercial enterprise activities, the aim being to enhance income generation for the university, as well as equipping the workforce with essential skills and knowledge.  NHS, charity, and regional council staff have benefited from this tailored  education, and this partnership working  is essential for enhancing planning and provision of care for people in our community. Education was delivered in a series of study days at LJMU. They included a focus on evidenced based theory and case study learning as well as role play and scenario-based activities, delivered by healthcare experts within the faculty.  This dynamic and interactive learning model significantly enhances delegate  engagement by providing concrete examples of abstract concepts,  facilitating the development of analytical, procedural and decision-making skills through real life applications. The delegates where thus moved from a passive listening learning environment to active participation. Delegates where required to critically analyse, evaluate and synthesise information to solve problems. The role play drew upon empathetic and perspective taking skills, whilst also collaborating and communicating as a group to articulate ideas and listen to others.  These pedagogic teaching approaches also aimed to enhance the delegate motivation and interest in the subject matter. The delivery teams captured pre and post  training day knowledge and confidence levels, and a further survey will be distributed to measure the impact the training has had on their roles, contributing to University REF. Key learning points from this session: This session will demonstrate the use of educational commercial enterprise activities, to enhance skills and knowledge to external organisations. How this fits with the LJMU Mission and strategy and supporting plans will be examined. Developing commercial enterprise projects to enhance knowledge and skills to external stakeholders PowerPoint. Only LJMU staff and students have access to this resource

Case Study: Encouraging belonging and togetherness in an early intervention activity

Sarah shares her ideas for encouraging a sense of belonging and togetherness as part of an early interaction activity, such as an online induction process with new and returning students. The idea stems from ‘Learning Together’, an initiative which addresses the widening participation agenda for people with criminal convictions and challenges the perception of the exclusivity within Higher Education often experienced by students. The unique LJMU version of Learning Together works with approximately 10 postgraduate students and 10 students from local criminal justice services, and consists of 15, 2-hour sessions from October to April. The programme also included optional weekly Creative Response sessions. The aim of the Creative Response sessions was to use a personal narrative to create a sense of belonging, both between students themselves, and with an education system which judicial system-experienced students may not otherwise feel. It is this element of the project that Sarah feels could be used to foster belonging and togetherness as part of early intervention activities in the wider university setting. The weekly creative response sessions explored a range of topics including: Observation and discovery A day in the life/a day in the past Stereotypes and archetypes Points of view Storytelling and alternative narratives Sessions aimed to engage students collaboratively with issues, events and stories that had personal meaning through poetry, short stories, flash-fiction and creative non-fiction, drawing upon the lived experience of the student. During the session students shared their writing with the group and engaged in a meaningful discussion about their own experiences. In sharing creative pieces that carried personal meaning and stemmed from their own lives, students developed a sense of ‘mattering’ and self confidence in the worth of their own experience. Discussion around each other’s lived experiences created moments of epiphanic learning and mutual understanding between students. Adopting a creative pedagogy approach to these activities also enabled students to shed the fear of ‘getting it wrong’. A common barrier to one’s ability to be creative is the fear of failure. Creative Response sessions allowed students to reconnect with their creativity and fostered an environment where the notion of ’getting it wrong’ was banished. Telling your own story is something you cannot be wrong about and so can create confidence and a sense of place in the world. The Creative Response sessions have been very successful in fostering a sense of belonging in marginalised, disadvantaged or unconfident students. They may help to increase belonging in other underrepresented groups of students in Higher Education by adding value to the experience of students who may otherwise have felt excluded or harbor a sense of un-belonging in an education setting. Care needs to be taken when selecting topics, for example avoiding assumptions about shared experiences in childhood; subjects should be explored in ways that allow the participants to feel comfortable in sharing their experiences. It is important to create an accepting and supportive space where students feel that they can communicate and not be judged. Top tips: Help the group to create their own code of conduct/workshop etiquette. Model vulnerability; share your own stories. Dismantle the tutor/student hierarchy - learn together! Further reading/more information: We are more than one story: Embracing creativity and compassion through Learning Together - Sarah Maclennan & Dr Helena Goslin

Case Study Drawing Out Confidence: How Creative Workshops Can Transform Student Presentation Experiences

This case study demonstrates how an innovative workshop approach can transform traditional presentation experiences into engaging, supportive learning environments through creative storyboarding activities. By reimagining how students share their knowledge through informal, artistic expression rather than formal presentations, students develop both confidence and communication skills while maintaining high levels of engagement. The success of this approach is evidenced by strong student feedback, particularly from those who traditionally find presentations challenging, and the natural way peer support emerges through the workshop format. The case study examines how creating a "human environment where people begin to trust one another" can lead to authentic learning experiences. This approach suggests a model for other programs seeking to develop more inclusive and supportive ways for students to demonstrate their understanding beyond traditional presentation formats.&nbsp

Session 6: More than a bed: Improving the experience of LJMU students in halls

Session overview: LJMU has collaborated with private partners in order to offer hall accommodation to our new students for more than two decades. We have traditionally contracted with these firms for one academic year at a time. However agreement was recently reached with a group of providers for a period of up to five academic years, commencing in 2025/26.   This longer term planning horizon gives us an opportunity to further strengthen relationships with our partners, to the benefit of our students. This is timely given regulatory demands on the sector plus the work required in order to achieve Mental Health Charter status. This session will summarise progress made to date and highlight initiatives undertaken by the Accommodation and Student Living team. It will also (hopefully) inspire ideas from colleagues across LJMU about ways in which these partnerships could be developed. Key learning points from this session: Attendees will gain an understanding of how we work with our accommodation partners plus a summary of how we plan to develop those relationships further in the next 5 academic years. They will also hopefully be inspired to contribute their own suggestions for taking this agenda forward. More than a bed: Improving the experience of LJMU students in halls PowerPoint. Only LJMU staff and students have access to this resource