Providing written feedback that students will value and read

This article outlines a study undertaken at City University London, involving 51 teaching staff (lecturers or other colleagues with a teaching or facilitation role at the University), who were all undertaking a staff-development module focused on learning, teaching and assessment issues (entitled Learning, Teaching and Assessment). Although all participants of the study were staff, they are referred to as students, as they were students of this module. The study examined whether, having undertaken a module which addressed assessment and provision of good quality feedback, these students applied the advice they received into practice when asked to self-assess and provide feedback on an essay they wrote for the module. Data for the study was collected from analysing the aforementioned self-assessment which students provided for themselves. The findings demonstrated that most had some retention of good practice principles from the day, such as providing feedback that related to the criteria, giving positive comments and outlining areas to develop. However, they provided noticeably less advice on how to develop their assessments according to the different criteria, and, despite being advised to write comments in the second person, many wrote their self-feedback as if it were for a third party. Recommendations from this study include: that there needs to be further consideration of how to emphasise the importance of writing feedback in a personalised style; and that there is a need to ensure that sufficient advice is given to students on how to develop their future assessments

Facilitating Institutional Curriculum Change in Higher Education

This paper discusses the strategies and processes used within one Higher Education institution to support curriculum design and, change the culture around this activity. The paper provides a brief discussion of two institution wide projects related to curriculum design that have been taking place over the last few years and have been used to support this area of development. The discussion will then identify some of the issues around terminology and barriers to staff engaging in curriculum design as well as processes that had been used by staff and then move to discussing the strategies used to support this activity. Throughout the paper there will also be reference to comments gained from peers during the workshop that took place at the Eighteenth International Conference on Learning in Mauritius in July 2011

Developing a community to disseminate good practice

This paper discusses the development, implementation and evaluation of a fellowship scheme to create a community of practice for enhancing learning and teaching set up in February 2010. The decision to use a community of practice approach is outlined along with how the initial scheme and members were chosen. There is then some discussion of a survey undertaken with the first group of fellows and how they would like the scheme to operate, what they feel they have to offer and what they would like to gain from the scheme. There is discussion of the activities undertaken to date and some of those proposed for the future. Further evaluation of the scheme is proposed at the end of the first year with both existing and new fellows

Reflexive Learning and Performative Failure

In this paper we emphasize the importance of context for student learning. Based on reflective logs and interview data, we explore how students learn outside of the classroom as they undertake an experiential dissertation project. We identify three different forms of reflexive learning and critique, all triggered by some form of performative failure; scholarly critique, engaged critique and engaged action. Drawing on Butler’s theory of performativity we illustrate how reflexivity is not purely the action of any individual student, rather it is a practice that is co-created within a certain context. As such, we contest individualistic understandings of reflexivity and encourage a careful consideration of the places students and managers are encouraged to be reflexive

Lessons in curriculum design and institutional change

Curriculum design and development can be undertaken either as a small or larger scale activity but is often within one or two faculty or school areas. Two projects that the presenters are involved in have been institution wide activities. This has meant that the scale of the projects is large but also diverse and leading to the need for change of both practice and culture. One of the projects which is funded by JISC on curriculum design has been focused on exploring the values and principles staff use when developing their curriculum and the models or frameworks used to support the development. This has been to identify if there are several approaches used within the institution or some key areas that all use. There has also been a desire to explore how staff would like this process to be undertaken and what support could be provided. The other project has been to undertake a review of our virtual learning environment and using stakeholder views and requirements introduce a new strategic learning environment (SLE). The project has then examined the development of using this SLE over the first year and through pilots has looked at how staff have found this change and what support they have required. Through both these projects there has been some pitfalls, challenges and opportunities which the presenters believe can provide some lessons for others. Some of pitfalls, challenges and opportunities were expected but others could not have been predicted. Sharing these lessons will enable some tips to be given on how to avoid some of the issues that occurred for us. During the presentation there will be an opportunity for the audience to consider how the lessons and tips may be useful to them but also to ask us questions

Transparent polymeric laminates

Laminate prepared from epoxy-boroxine and phenolphthalein polycarbonate has high mechanical strength at elevated temperature and is resistant to impact, fire, and high-energy thermal radiation. Polycarbonate is prepared by reaction of phenolphthalein with phosgene in presence of amine catalyst and immiscible organic solvent phase

Evaluating the reliability of NAND multiplexing with PRISM

Probabilistic-model checking is a formal verification technique for analyzing the reliability and performance of systems exhibiting stochastic behavior. In this paper, we demonstrate the applicability of this approach and, in particular, the probabilistic-model-checking tool PRISM to the evaluation of reliability and redundancy of defect-tolerant systems in the field of computer-aided design. We illustrate the technique with an example due to von Neumann, namely NAND multiplexing. We show how, having constructed a model of a defect-tolerant system incorporating probabilistic assumptions about its defects, it is straightforward to compute a range of reliability measures and investigate how they are affected by slight variations in the behavior of the system. This allows a designer to evaluate, for example, the tradeoff between redundancy and reliability in the design. We also highlight errors in analytically computed reliability bounds, recently published for the same case study

Intumescent Coatings as Fire Retardants

Fire-retardant paint, when activated by the heat of fire, reacts to form a thick, low-density, polymeric coating or char layer. Water vapor and sulphur dioxide are released during the intumescent reaction