Foundation Press: using active learning to establish research methodologies in Art and Design

Foundation Press: using active learning to establish research methodologies in Art and Design, HEA Conference, Inspire: sharing great practice in Arts and Humanities teaching and learning. Brighton, 2016

Collaborative Development of Open Educational Resources for Open and Distance Learning

Open and distance learning (ODL) is mostly characterised by the up front development of self study educational resources that have to be paid for over time through use with larger student cohorts (typically in the hundreds per annum) than for conventional face to face classes. This different level of up front investment in educational resources, and increasing pressures to utilise more expensive formats such as rich media, means that collaborative development is necessary to firstly make use of diverse professional skills and secondly to defray these costs across institutions. The Open University (OU) has over 40 years of experience of using multi professional course teams to develop courses; of working with a wide range of other institutions to develop educational resources; and of licensing use of its educational resources to other HEIs. Many of these arrangements require formal contracts to work properly and clearly identify IPR and partner responsibilities. With the emergence of open educational resources (OER) through the use of open licences, the OU and other institutions has now been able to experiment with new ways of collaborating on the development of educational resources that are not so dependent on tight legal contracts because each partner is effectively granting rights to the others to use the educational resources they supply through the open licensing (Lane, 2011; Van Dorp and Lane, 2011). This set of case studies examines the many different collaborative models used for developing and using educational resources and explain how open licensing is making it easier to share the effort involved in developing educational resources between institutions as well as how it may enable new institutions to be able to start up open and distance learning programmes more easily and at less initial cost. Thus it looks at three initiatives involving people from the OU (namely TESSA, LECH-e, openED2.0) and contrasts these with the Peer-2-Peer University and the OER University as exemplars of how OER may change some of the fundamental features of open and distance learning in a Web 2.0 world. It concludes that while there may be multiple reasons and models for collaborating on the development of educational resources the very openness provided by the open licensing aligns both with general academic values and practice but also with well established principles of open innovation in businesses

Accreditation of in-company training provision: an overview of models and issues.

Accreditation is the formal recognition of learning achievements of an individual, linked to an internal or external standard. Professional accreditation involves meeting standards agreed by a particular sector’s governing body. In academe it is normal for qualifications and programmes to be credit-bearing; furthermore processes also exist to award university credit for evidenced learning from both inside and outside the higher education institution. Therefore academic credits can be attached to programmes delivered outside formal higher education award structures. Universities can utilise the accreditation process to confirm that an individual’s performance or training at work, or indeed a training programme itself, conforms to standards that are agreed and approved by a higher education institution or a further education college. Accreditation not only provides a quality assurance process of an assessed learning activity, but also enables the university to benefit from the opportunities to form new external partnerships and confirms to learners that the programme of study is robust and of a high standard

Developing the structural capital of higher education institutions to support work based learning

This chapter considers issues related to the provision of work-based learning [WBL] programmes by higher education institutions and discusses these programmes using the concept of structural capital. ‘Structural capital’ is defined as the organising and structuring capability of the organisation as expressed in formal instruments, policies, regulations, procedures, codes, functional business units, task groups, committees or less formal culture, networks and practices (Stewart, 1997) that influence practices and procedures. Our experiences of operating work-based learning programmes in two very different higher education institutions provide illustrations of structural factors that enable and facilitate work-based learning. The discussion outlines the forms of work-based learning that both universities employ, and considers some key aspects of WBL delivery that are directly impacted upon by the structures and processes within institutions, and contribute to intra-institutional structural capital. A summary of practical examples is given as an appendix to the chapter

Listening to Learners

As Hammersley (2002) argues, one of the fundamental challenges for educational research is making the journey from research to policy and practice. For too long the perspective of learners has been ignored in educational research: “….rarely are their voices taken seriously into account in policies devised to improve teaching, learning and achievement” (Wood, 2003:365-6), despite the fact that learners, as Pollard, Triggs, Broadfoot et al (2000) have noted, are expert commentators. Learner voice is coming of age and through research, practice is developing and understanding deepening. This report is organised into two parts: the first part is a review of the literature on learner voice, which was used to inform our ongoing learner voice work as well as highlighting issues of common concern across all phases of education, primary, secondary and tertiary as well as identify gaps in the literature which could be discussed at the one day conference linked to this work. The one day conference: Listening to Learners: Partnerships in Action, aimed to disseminate innovative work in progress as well as good practice from other projects and initiatives. There were key note presentations from a number of speakers: researchers, academics and practitioners who provided details of current research (Pippa Lord), theoretical underpinnings (Michael Fielding), good practice (Gill Mullis and Laurie Goodlad). However the most important contributions came from young people, secondary school pupils, who presented during the plenary session and also facilitated the workshops. Following the event a conference wiki (http://listeningtolearners.pbworks.com)was set up to enable delegates to continue discussions and conversations on learner voice as well as a repository for conference materials. There have been a number of reviews of the literature on learner voice undertaken by individuals and organisations, which are reviewed and cited in our own work. Our review cannot claim to be comprehensive nor exhaustive but serves as a useful starting point in setting out the policy background and context to learner voice, the various typologies and theoretical frameworks that have been developed, as well as some of the methodological issues and ethical concerns associated with learner voice work. The second part is a case study of a student voice project which UEL has been engaged in since 2007. This case study is significant for three reasons. Firstly, it examines some of the tensions and ambiguities that exist when students are asked to become independent researchers. Secondly, it considers the extent to which student voice represents joint responsibility in the developments taking place or just the minority voices within pupil and teacher communities of practice. Thirdly, it raises questions about societal values and the contrived distance between adults and children in different cultural contexts. At a time when research reveals that British children represent some of the unhappiest within the industrialised world, recognising the pervasiveness of the “ideology of immaturity” (Ruddock and Fielding, 2006:225) that exists in many schools in England can reduce hope in an increasingly complex world. Often couched in terms of inevitability, such an ideology can drain energy and commitment of both learners and teachers. The case study illustrates how young people, if listened to, have the potential to transform school processes, purposes and procedures. The voices of the learners in the study and their concerns give rise to complex hope in exceedingly complex times

Midwifery education and technology enhanced learning: Evaluating online story telling in preregistration midwifery education

Background A major issue regarding the implementation of blended learning for preregistration health programmes is the analysis of students' perceptions and attitudes towards their learning. It is the extent of the embedding of Technology Enhanced Learning (TEL) into the higher education curriculum that makes this analysis so vital. Objectives This paper reports on the quantitative results of a UK based study that was set up to respond to the apparent disconnect between technology enhanced education provision and reliable student evaluation of this mode of learning. Design Employing a mixed methods research design, the research described here was carried to develop a reliable and valid evaluation tool to measure acceptability of and satisfaction with a blended learning approach, specifically designed for a preregistration midwifery module offered at level 4. Methods Feasibility testing of 46 completed blended learning evaluation questionnaires - Student Midwife Evaluation of Online Learning Effectiveness (SMEOLE) - using descriptive statistics, reliability and internal consistency tests. Results Standard deviations and mean scores all followed predicted pattern. Results from the reliability and internal consistency testing confirm the feasibility of SMEOLE as an effective tool for measuring student satisfaction with a blended learning approach to preregistration learning. Conclusions The analysis presented in this paper suggests that we have been successful in our aim to produce an evaluation tool capable of assessing the quality of technology enhanced, University level learning in Midwifery. This work can provide future benchmarking against which midwifery, and other health, blended learning curriculum planning could be structured and evaluated

Assessment innovation and student experience: a new assessment challenge and call for a multi-perspective approach to assessment research

The impact of innovative assessment on student experience in higher education is a neglected research topic. This represents an important gap in the literature given debate around the marketization of higher education, international focus on student satisfaction measurement tools and political calls to put students at the heart of higher education in the UK. This paper reports on qualitative findings from a research project examining the impact of assessment preferences and familiarity on student attainment and experience. It argues that innovation is defined by the student, shaped by diverse assessment experiences and preferences and therefore its impact is difficult to predict. It proposes that future innovations must explore assessment choice mechanisms which allow students to shape their own assessments. Cultural change and staff development will be required to achieve this. To be accepted, assessment for student experience must be viewed as a complementary layer within a complex multi perspective model of assessment which also embraces assessment of learning, assessment for learning and assessment for life long learning. Further research is required to build a meta theory of assessment to enhance the synergies between these alternative approaches and to minimise tensions between them

Supporting both learning and research in a UK post-1992 university library: a case study

Nationally, there has been debate on the role of research within higher education and increased interest in the teaching/research nexus. A team of Academic Liaison Librarians at Anglia Polytechnic University was awarded funding to investigate the extent to which learning resources overlap with research resources, whether researcher/teachers encourage their students to use the resources they use themselves and how far electronic resources have affected the relationship between learning and research materials. Semistructured interviews were carried out with 21 academics who are both teachers and researchers. They proved to be committed to using research in their teaching. Students were encouraged to engage with research through the recommendation of resources, seminar discussion, and researchers’ own work for reading and illustrating methodologies. Respondents claimed to be making significant use of the APU library website, online databases and journals. The majority of them were also recommending the same resources to their students. Convenience, speed and variety of information sources were quoted as some of the advantages of the new e-environment. A loss of a relationship with librarians and with the physical library was cited as an example of negative effects of the electronic resource environment

The introduction and refinement of the assessment of digitally recorded audio presentations

This case study critically evaluates benefits and challenges of a form of assessment included in a final year undergraduate Religious Studies Open University module, which combines a written essay task with a digital audio recording of a short oral presentation. Based on the analysis of student and tutor feedback and sample assignments, this study critically examines how teaching and learning practices linked to this novel form of assessment have been iteratively developed in light of the project findings over a period of two years. It concludes that while this form of assessment poses a number of challenges, it can create valuable opportunities for the development of transferable twenty-first-century graduate employability skills as well as deep, effective learning experiences, particularly – though not exclusively – in distance learning settings

The new professional: A case analysis exploring the teacher-student dynamic during an informal learning opportunity in global health

Medical education is under growing scrutiny to deliver a cadre of professional and competent doctors. Rising healthcare expectations from patients, professionals and the general public alongside contemporary forces at global and national levels have garnered a new era of discussion of the sort of doctors that society would like; many are beginning to question whether the social contract between doctors and society is requiring rewriting. This paper describes an educational experience between a student and a mentor in which the educational outcomes of 'Tomorrow's Doctors' were achieved by the student during a year out of undergraduate medical training. The authors reflect on this experience and argue for an engaged conversation between educationalists, practitioners and the public on how medicine can reposition itself in the 21st Century context