Changing Light: a plethora of digital tools as slides gasp their last?

The title 'Changing Light' reflects the enormous changeover from analogue slides to digital images, both a cultural shift and a physical shift down to the change in light from the smoky beams of dual slide projectors piercing the dark of a classroom, to the bright white classrooms of the digital age. The evidence for the 'death of slides' has been mounting for a number of years and reported by visual resources curators in the US and the UK. In 2005 JISC funded AHDS Visual Arts to report on 'the effects of the digital image revolution on the UK arts education community'; the Association of Curators of Art and Design Images (ACADI), the Association of Art Historians (AAH), and the Art Libraries Society (ARLIS/UK & Ireland) contributed significantly to the Digital Picture initiative. However some of the issues highlighted by the final report are yet to be addressed such as provision of copyright-cleared digital images for use in education. This paper considers what arts education stands to lose from the 'death of slides' in the context of digital images and the plethora of digital presentation tools. As well as a change in light, there is a change from the physical tangible slide technology to the virtual digital image and computing in the cloud

Faith Integration in the Higher Education Online Classroom: Perspectives and Practice

Online instruction in higher education has grown dramatically in recent years, and more faith-based colleges and universities are including online courses as a part of their educational offerings. The integration of faith in learning is an important goal in many of these faith-based institutions; however, the practice of faith integration in online settings presents unique challenges for faculty members. The purpose of this article is to provide support for faculty members teaching online in Christian colleges and universities with faith integration by presenting a series of strategies for their use. Approaches to faith integration are grouped utilizing a model presented by Dulaney et al. (2015) and adapted here for online contexts. Recommendations for working with students of differing faith backgrounds are also provided

Artificial Intelligence-Enabled Intelligent Assistant for Personalized and Adaptive Learning in Higher Education

This paper presents a novel framework, Artificial Intelligence-Enabled Intelligent Assistant (AIIA), for personalized and adaptive learning in higher education. The AIIA system leverages advanced AI and Natural Language Processing (NLP) techniques to create an interactive and engaging learning platform. This platform is engineered to reduce cognitive load on learners by providing easy access to information, facilitating knowledge assessment, and delivering personalized learning support tailored to individual needs and learning styles. The AIIA's capabilities include understanding and responding to student inquiries, generating quizzes and flashcards, and offering personalized learning pathways. The research findings have the potential to significantly impact the design, implementation, and evaluation of AI-enabled Virtual Teaching Assistants (VTAs) in higher education, informing the development of innovative educational tools that can enhance student learning outcomes, engagement, and satisfaction. The paper presents the methodology, system architecture, intelligent services, and integration with Learning Management Systems (LMSs) while discussing the challenges, limitations, and future directions for the development of AI-enabled intelligent assistants in education.Comment: 29 pages, 10 figures, 9659 word

An Examination of the Application of Problem Based Learning: A Valuable Tool to Improve Student Learning or a Challenging Teaching Adjustment?

Pedagogic transitions towards constructivist, student-centred learning models have increased applications of active teaching methods such as problem-based learning (PBL), but little research has explored student perceptions of PBL applications within undergraduate geography curricula. This paper aims to determine whether PBL applications are beneficial to student learning and development; and to determine whether PBL applications such as a migration management case study are suitable for continued use within the undergraduate geography degree programme at the University of Hertfordshire. This study examines the utility of PBL by reviewing existing education and discipline specific literature and by studying geography student reflections of a PBL migration management activity. The findings suggest that undergraduate geography students are largely receptive to PBL applications and find the inclusion of PBL activities within lectures to be useful and engaging. Although challenges can be associated with implementing PBL into higher education curricula, these challenges can be alleviated by using recommendations for best practice and it appears that the advantages of PBL applications for student learning and development strongly outweigh initial adjustment challenges. The predominantly positive student feedback demonstrates that the PBL migration case study is a beneficial addition to the geography degree programme at the University of Hertfordshire and that further applications of PBL within the curricula could be extremely valuable for undergraduate geography students

Academic leadership at the programme level to address the BME attainment gap

© 2018 Leadership Foundation for Higher Education. As the publisher of this work, the Leadership Foundation would like to encourage its circulation as widely as possible while retaining the copyright. Permission is granted to reproduce for personal and educational use only. Commercial copying, hiring, lending are prohibited. If you would like to use this work for your own non-commercial personal or educational purposes – for example download, save, perform or distribute it in any format, including translation – you may do so without written permission. Please note that the following will be required: The Leadership Foundation and the author(s) are credited, Our website address www.lfhe.ac.uk is prominently displayed, The text is not altered and is used in full, The work is not resold, and a copy of the work or link to its use online is sent to the Leadership Foundation.The BME attainment gap (i.e. the difference in the percentage of White students achieving a first or upper second class degree (2i) compared to the percentage of Black and Minority Ethnic (BME) students achieving a first or 2i degree) has been a long-standing concern within the higher education sector. Many initiatives and projects have identified the need for Institutional commitment and senior leadership to develop inclusive practice strategies but there has been limited discussion on the importance of localised leadership to ensure that strategies are operationalised and enhancements are embedded and sustained. Within the University we have recognised the crucial role of the programme leader and the impact of localised leadership on the student experience. This project provided us with an ideal opportunity to consider how programme leaders reviewed their programmes and identified inclusivity related enhancements. The consideration of programme level data (Value Added (VA) scores) enabled programme leaders to consider ethnicity related attainment gaps within their courses and to discuss appropriate actions with their programme teams. The aim of the project was to support academic leadership at the programme level to enable inclusive curriculum enhancements and subsequent improvements in outcomes for students from Black and Minority Ethnic (BME) backgrounds. The project thus enabled the integrated discussion of leadership, equality and learning and teaching. Following attendance at workshops that focused on promoting inclusive curriculum approaches for programme leaders, and up to three members of their programme team, structured interviews were conducted with 30 programme leaders. The aims of the interviews were to: explore examples of inclusive practice and actions identified by the programme leader as well as any potential challenges they perceived in trying to enhance inclusive practice. Objective review of annual monitoring and evaluation reports (AMERs) plus follow up discussions with programme leaders, enabled the identification of the range of actions implemented by programme teams as well as consideration of any benefits and challenges associated with implementing inclusive practice changes. Analysis of the initial interview transcriptions resulted in classification of responses into one of three categories on the basis of their expressed intention, or lack of intention to influence change. The three categories were: • Effecting programme level change • Personal commitment to inclusivity • Limited action Effecting programme level change: some programme leaders had an in-depth understanding of the challenges associated with ethnicity related attainment gaps. They had engaged in training previously and were aware of national data and in some cases, discipline related data. They had already made some changes to their own practice and identified clear actions to influence change across the programme. Some examples included; programme leaders raising the profile of BME authors by reviewing reading lists and resources to ensure they were inclusive and representative; increasing the use of BME case studies in the curriculum; and showcasing BME role models within the programme. Personal commitment to inclusivity: for some programme leaders, the workshop stimulated personal change, for example, in their own teaching, and/or within their module. They identified the need for enhancements but were not yet influencing change in the wider programme team. Barriers identified by programme leaders in this group included the challenge of leading without line management responsibility. Limited action: A number of programme leaders identified limited actions or no actions. Lack of action seemed to relate to one of four themes: i) general lack of awareness; ii) competing priorities and discussion of other issues such as gender equality; iii) deficit approaches where actions focused on student support; iv) deflection of responsibility. The reviewing of AMERs enabled the identification of a range of actions associated with inclusive practice and follow-up discussions with programme leaders provided details on how actions were being implemented as well as challenges associated with implementing change. Despite all programme leaders having attended a very similar workshop there was variability in approach when considering inclusive curriculum actions. Programme leaders had different levels of understanding based on their own previous experiences as well as the amount of race-related staff development in which they had previously engaged and their willingness to consider their practice and their own privilege. To support programme leaders in leading change at the programme level, 11 case studies of good practice have been produced. The case studies provide different examples of race related actions and are drawn from programmes reflecting a range of disciplines, size of cohort and level of study

Staff and student views of lecture capture: a qualitative study

Many universities now use lecture capture. We used focus groups to investigate perceptions of lectures and their capture in staff (N = 8) and students (N = 17). We found that staff and students held different views of lectures and this impacted on their perceptions of lecture capture. Our findings confirmed a range of previously identified uses of lecture capture and additionally demonstrated its use to model expert behaviour. Furthermore, we report here that students felt lecture capture reduced anxiety, particularly for those with disabilities, indicating that lecture capture may be a useful tool in creating an environment that supports mental wellbeing. Despite this potential value of lecture capture, it was still perceived to have some negative impact on the live lecture; reducing the interaction with students and prevent staff using anecdotes and humour in their teaching, which could reduce the value of the lecture capture

Lecture capture and peer working: exploring study practices through staff-student partnerships

As lecture capture technology and practice become ever more widespread in UK universities there is a growing body of literature that assesses the impact of these changes. However, there is still much to be understood about lecture capture and the full impact on student learning, especially in different institutional and subject contexts. This article describes two projects from a UK Russell Group University that worked in partnership with students to gain insights into the student experience regarding lecture capture. The article highlights insights gained in terms of how and why students use lecture recordings. This article focuses on one area in particular which has been less reported and warrants further investigation – students’ use of lecture recordings in collaborative settings. The article considers some practical implications of such insights and argues that a nuanced understanding regarding the way students use lecture recordings for learning is required. The article also highlights how educationists can harness student partnerships to further our understanding of the complex interplays between technology and student learning