Decolonising The Digital Learning Environment:Tips For Inclusive Education

Decolonising digital environments involves identifying and challenging the biases that underpin digital platforms, as well as exploring ways to make them more inclusive and accessible to diverse groups. It requires institutions to explore how digital technologies reproduce and represent the ideas and values of the dominant white anglophone majority, through coding, language, icons, images and navigation structures

Developing A Model Approximation Method and Parameter Estimates for Solid State Reaction Kinetics

The James S. Markiewicz Solar Energy Research Facility was built to research solar chemistry and currently being used to research the change in metal oxides such as iron or magnesium oxide that act as a medium for the production of hydrogen from water. This is significant because hydrogen can be used in vehicles equipped with appropriate fuel cells and due the decreased cost of producing hydrogen with this method. The shrinking core model which governs this process has proved difficult to solve due to the high number of unknown constants and its non-linearity. We detail in this work the implementation of less common heuristics, mainly Particle Swarm Optimization. This technique was used because of its wide unbiased search for the possible constants. The development and method we are using to solve these unknown constants will be shown

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

How to effectively use synchronous virtual classroom technologies

The rapid advancements of computer and internet technologies over the past decade have expanded the educational possibilities offered by virtual communication tools to mediate teaching and learning activities. Furthermore, the COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in unprecedented transformations in medical education, with a shift from face-to-face learning activities to digital education. Virtual classroom technologies have played a pivotal role in supporting such transformations, mediating real-time interactions from different places. This guide aims to help medical educators use virtual classroom solutions more effectively to promote learner engagement and learning

Twelve tips for managing change in medical education

Healthcare systems and organisations are continually exposed to change, and medical educators are increasingly expected to manage change, such as curriculum transformations and educational reforms. However, leading change can often be challenging, and medical educators often lack the resources, knowledge, and skills to successfully manage change initiatives. In managing change, it is important to recognise that organisations do not change, rather it is people that change, one person at a time. However, change can have a destabilising effect on individuals and an approach to support individuals through change is strongly advocated. This article offers twelve tips for managing change using the Prosci ADKAR model for achieving individual change. The article explores how ADKAR can be used as a systematic framework to guide the formulation of change management plans. Finally, the article considers the current context of the COVID-19 pandemic and offers an appraisal of such frameworks and models during a time of unprecedented change and transform

The pause/play button actor-network: lecture capture recordings and (re)configuring multi-spatial learning practices

Lecture recording is an increasingly common practice in UK universities, whereby audio, video, and multimedia content from lecture theatres can be captured and distributed online. Despite a large body of recent lecture capture literature, much of the empirical research adopts positivist paradigms, which overlooks the complex and unpredictable nature of teaching and learning. Addressing this knowledge gap, this exploratory case study adopts sociomaterial approaches, specifically perspectives from the domain of actor-network theory (ANT), to view learning technologies as complex assemblages involving heterogeneous human and non-human entities or actors. This paper explores the entanglements involved in enacting online pedagogy and learning across spatiotemporal dimensions using trace ethnography and visualisation mapping. Examining the student-led study practices revealed that multitasking and fluid task switching, between contrasting networks and spaces, was a significant activity during the playback of lecture recordings. Exploring an innocuous and ubiquitous practice, such as video pausing, affords nuanced perspectives into the sociomaterial entanglements involved in enacting study practices. Moreover, adopting multimodal sensitivities reveals how often overlooked modes, such as iconography, can become actors within an assemblage. This may offer new insights into how modes help produce or stabilise configurations and advance efforts in attending to the non-human within actor-networks

Twelve tips for using synchronous virtual classroom technologies in medical education

The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in unprecedented transformations in medical education, with a shift from face-to-face learning activities to digital education. Virtual classroom technologies have played a pivotal role in supporting synchronous teaching activities; however, it can be extremely challenging for many educators to use virtual classrooms tools effectively. This article presents twelve tips based on best practices in educational design, learning theories, current research in online learning, and the authors’ personal experiences of designing online activities within medical education. The twelve tips aim to help medical educators use virtual classroom solutions more effectively to promote learner engagement and learning

Twelve tips for designing an inclusive curriculum in medical education using Universal Design for Learning (UDL) principles

An inclusive curriculum anticipates and provides strategies to support a diverse range of learners. Universal Design for Learning (UDL) offers medical educators three core principles, which can be used to design curriculum objectives, activities, instructional materials, and assessments with embedded flexibility, equitability, and representation to support diverse learners. Drawing on the available literature and author experience, this article presents twelve tips based on UDL principles for designing and implementing an inclusive curriculum in medical education. This article also questions the purpose of medical curricula and makes recommendations for fostering inclusivity within and beyond the curriculum setting