Medical students opinions on the inclusion of non-traditional skills in the curriculum.

Background: Up to 50% of foundation year 2 doctors do not proceed directly into speciality training. This change in direction of our profession places increasing demands on an already stretched NHS. In the UK, medical school teaching is understandably focused on the skills students will need as junior doctors. With the shift in career trajectories of these students it is important that medical education evolves with this. Methods: Final year medical students have been surveyed regarding their exposure to entrepreneurship and management, as well as their interest in their inclusion in the curriculum. Results: A 10-point survey was completed by final year medical students. No undergraduate students reported having had teaching on entrepreneurship during their degree. Only two students reported having teaching on management skills. 48% reported that they were considering a career outside of clinical medicine, fitting with the findings of the Foundation Programme Career Destination Report. Conclusion: Whilst entrepreneurship is now accepted as an important skill for doctors, this is clearly not filtering through to undergraduate medical education. With the help of student feedback, we are now setting-up a pilot programme in entrepreneurship and management for final year students. This will be part of a cross-discipline National teaching programme in entrepreneurship

Computing students learning outcomes in learning by developing action model.

The purpose of this paper is to present the results of research aimed at finding out the learning outcomes of computing students with a study module implementation based on the Learning by Developing (LbD) Action Model used in Laurea University of Applied Sciences (Laurea). The aim of the study is to find out how the students' competence develops during the study module and what are they general experience of learning according to the LbD. The LbD Action Model has been developed in Laurea by closely examining teaching and learning across a number of Universities of Applied Sciences. The LbD has been used in Laurea since 2004, and it has been shown to be a successful way of teaching within higher educational contexts. Studies on LbD based learning in Laurea have been conducted amongst students in social sciences and health care, but not among students within computing related disciplines. The LbD Action Model is intended to learn new ways of working and renew working life, and therefore a study module, which involved customers and their real-world projects, was chosen as the subject of research. Computing students have been chosen as the research topic also because studies that only examine the experiences of computing students in teaching according to the LbD Action Model have not been conducted before. An important area of the study, besides the student’s own learning experiences, is how their problem-solving skills and other competencies developing in the LbD projects that have been implemented in cooperation with the working life. The study also examines the lecturers' experiences of using the LbD and its suitability for computing studies, as well as the experiences of the clients involved in the study module on using the LbD in real customer projects. The research strategy chosen for the study is action research, which is a discipline-based research conducted by a teacher, the purpose of which is to obtain information and, on the basis of the information received, to change his or her practice in the future. In this process, participants systematically and carefully review their own teaching practices using research methods. Action research is well-suited to educational research and can involve just a single teacher, a group of teachers with a common problem, or the entire school faculty. The first cycle of study will be carried out in Laurea in Finland but the next two cycles of the study will be carried out within similar study modules at the Robert Gordon University (RGU) in the UK. This will allow the researcher to determine whether LbD can be successful in other institutions, and to further analyse the implications and drawbacks of such an implementation. The first cycle research data has been collected from students at Laurea through a survey and learning diaries across a full semester in the 2019-20 academic session. Thematic interviews were used as a method for collecting research data from experts, lecturers and clients. The next phase of the study will be carried out in the 2020-21 autumn when the LbD Action Model which will piloted at RGU in UK. The purpose of this research is to further develop the LbD and examine whether it can be implemented successfully in RGU. The aim of this study is also to identify further development for the LbD to ensure it maintains an international perspective for future needs

Through the lens: enhancing assessment with video-based presentation.

This paper discusses a video-based approach trialled within Robert Gordon University. Students are typically asked to formally deliver presentations (either individually, or in groups) for summative assessment. Timetabling issues, large student numbers and staff availability can prevent these presentations from being conducted in effective learning environments. Marking is often completed after the presentations, with markers referring to shorthand notes in order to award a grade, potentially missing out specific feedback and action points. Furthermore, students are sometimes reluctant to present, and feel that they only have one chance to "get it right". Students were asked to film their presentations and submit them digitally for grading. This assessment style was trialled over four modules across two semesters and showed a number of benefits: students gave positive feedback about the experience and indicated that they appreciated the fact that they could review and rehearse their submission multiple times, thus submitting their best version for assessment. Staff found that marking time was reduced and they were delivering more specific feedback, as they were able to review the work multiple times

Student concerns regarding transition into higher education CS.

This paper discusses a study where 249 students from 18 secondary schools around Scotland who were on the verge of applying to study Computing Science at a higher education institution were surveyed on their concerns about the upcoming transition. Preliminary conclusions from this work point to the fact that this transition process is one that seems to evolve with the student as they progress through their education, and as such, should be treated differently at various stages within that process

A case study of Facebook use:outlining a multi-layer strategy for higher education

Many students are looking to appropriate social networking sites, amongst them, Facebook, to enhance their learning experience. A growing body of literature reports on the motivation of students and staff to engage with Facebook as a learning platform as well as mapping such activities to pedagogy and curricula. This paper presents student opinions of the use of a Facebook strategy within higher education through the use of focus groups. Results show that the Facebook strategy is useful in promoting collaborative learning alongside the face-to-face delivery of content. Participants rebuked the perceived blurring of educational and social purposes, which is prevalent in the literature, with the current structure allowing a clear divide between their different uses of the site. The development of further guidelines for the use of Facebook for education is encouraged and recommendations are provided

Embedding entrepreneurial skills within computing.

The Scottish government launched a nationwide drive to increase entrepreneurial skills, looking to become a “world-leading entrepreneurial and innovative nation". One of the key ambitions of this is to build an education system with entrepreneurship and innovation at its core. Within computing degrees, however, there is traditionally a focus on preparing students for employment within industry, rather than preparing them with an entrepreneurial skillset. This chapter discusses lessons learnt from the design and implementation of an entrepreneurship module taught to Honours-year computing students during the 2016 to 2017 academic year and defines a proposed series of workshops showcasing its future implementation

Diagnosis of Setbacks and Intervention in Introductory Programming at Scale

It can be challenging to support and motivate programming students in introductory contexts. Although computing education in secondary schools now receives more attention, due to advocacy and revised curricula, there is still considerable variance in the programming ability of new undergraduate students. Many have little to no prior experience. As a result, university teaching staff are required to apply pedagogies that are elastic. However, elastic pedagogies, such as soft-scaffolding, are non-trivial to implement in large classes. This means that it is difficult to provide enough challenge to maintain some students’ interest while also being accessible enough to avoid intimidating others, and even more so when diagnosing student setbacks and implementing targeted interventions. To this end, the authors explore practical approaches to diagnosis and intervention in large introductory programming classes. Firstly, using robot challenges and games, such as Lego Mindstorms, SpaceChem and Blockly, as a proxy measures for computational thinking. Secondly, using psychometric instruments on SoScience to evaluate key variables such as: self-concept; mindset; and anxiety; as well as learning style. Thirdly, using Socrative to apply peer instruction methods to identify key areas of difficulty, such as assignment, as early as possible. Such data can be used to diagnose key issues and better inform teaching assistants on in-lab support, the design of peer-review activities, as well as CPD (continuing personal development) activities in small-group tutorials. While the validity and reliability of these approaches remains under investigation by the authors, initial student and staff feedback suggests the approaches are useful

Student interaction with a virtual learning environment: an empirical study of online engagement behaviours during and since the time of COVID-19.

This paper presents an experience report of online attendance and associated behavioural patterns during a module in the first complete semester undertaken fully online in the autumn of 2020, and the corresponding module deliveries in 2021 and 2022. The COVID-19 pandemic of 2020 resulted in a sudden move of most university teaching online, at a global and large-scale level. This, combined with the need to maintain "business as usual" resulted in new levels of student engagement data for largely unchanged pedagogical processes. Engagement data continued to be gathered throughout the subsequent, phased return to face-to-face and hybrid learning, although at a lesser level of granularity. The wealth of student engagement data gathered during this time allows quantitative insights into how student behaviour continued to adapt during and after the enforced online learning during the COVID-19 pandemic. The anonymous subjects of this case study are computing science students in their final year of undergraduate study. We examine their engagement with the virtual learning environment, including engagement with recorded lecture material, attendance in online sessions and engagement during in-person labs. We relate this to both the students' final grades and the content of the module itself. A number of conclusions are drawn based on this empirical data, relating to observations made by staff and pedagogical theory. There was a moderate, but significant, correlation between engagement in synchronous online lecture sessions and grades during thelockdown phase, but the strength of this correlation has reduced in subsequent years as normality has returned. From monitoring behaviour in online sessions down to minute-by-minute accuracy, it can also be seen that some students strategised their engagement based on sessions they perceived to be most directly contributory to their assessment, placing little value on live guest lecturer sessions. During enforced online learning, the most successful students, on average, engaged with less repeat content than less successful students, instead apparently utilising lecture recordings to "catch up" with missed live lectures

Non-traditional skills in undergraduate medical education: the development of a teaching programme.

As a junior doctor in what is an increasingly struggling healthcare system, I am concerned to see that many of my junior and senior colleagues have opted not to continue onto the next stage of training. Whilst entrepreneurship, leadership and management are now accepted as important skills for doctors to be exposed to, this is clearly not filtering through to medical education at the undergraduate level. We have surveyed final year medical students regarding this and used these results to develop a national teaching programme which aims to provide junior doctors with skills such as management, leadership and enterprise which they would otherwise not be exposed to