Challinor, J

Metherall, S

Pettifor, H

Potter, S

Price, S

Swift, E

English

Nottingham Trent Institutional Repository (IRep)

Nottingham Trent University Annual Learning and Teaching Conference 40 Scaling the digital landscape Elaine Swift, Sarah Metherall, Holly Pettifor, Sharon Potter, Sandra Price, Jane Challinor The HEFCE-funded Changing the Learning Landscape programme is supporting small scale projects looking at embedding technologies within learning and teaching. As part of the SCALE-UP project, working wi th the Library, we have used CLL funding to investigate how employing students as Digital Skills Mentors can support the change in pedagogical approaches. These Digital Skills Mentors are acting as agents of change (Dunne and Zandstra, 2011) and are being employed within a first year module employing problem based learning methodologies to develop digital literacies (Gaffney et a l , 2008) . Introduct ion The Changing the Learning Landscape Programme is a sector wide programme that is strategically supporting the use of technology in learning and teaching. At NTU we are involved wi th the programme via an initiative that is looking at embedding Digital Practice as a core competence. Small scale funding of £500 offered us the opportunity to look at supporting digital practice in relation to the SCALE-UP project by employing two second year students as Digital Skills Mentors to work on one of the SCALE-UP modules, led by Jane Challinor, to focus on the digital skills of students participating in a flipped learning approach. The l ibrary, which also supported the module was also interested in how its support for Digital Practice could change, particularly in l ight of the observations f rom the SCALE-UP module. Digital Skills Mentors Supporting Students The workshop outlined how the library was keen to enable students as drivers of innovative practice and look at opportunities for developing staff-student partnerships. As part of the workshop the activities that the Digital Skills Mentors undertook were outl ined, including shadowing on the information desk, following library staff supporting students and shadowing other methods the library uses to currently support Digital Practice for students. Numerous observations came out of the shadowing. (YouTube l ink) The SCALE-UP module gave the Digital Skills Mentors the opportunity to work with a large class and observe some of the students’ use of technology. The sessions were generally designed to be highly interactive with a variety of online activities utilising technologies such as Google Drive, Padlet and TwitterFall. I t was interesting to note how students on the module adapted to the flipped learning approach. In Term 1 they experienced problems with getting to grips with the Apple Macs and not finding materials on NOW but by Term 2 the students were using their own devices and recognising the importance of the using the techniques and technologies they were introduced to in the first term. In terms of the overall experience the Digital Skills Mentors valued the experience beyond supporting the students with their Digital Practice skills especially in terms of supporting first years’ transition into the second year. (YouTube link). The workshop gave participants an opportunity to reflect on how they might introduce more digital skills into modules or courses and what support they might need to achieve this. Key themes that came out of those discussions were: Student Digital Skills Attitude of staff and students. Need to recognise transferable skills Data handling, critical reviewing information, critical thinking Digital note taking, managing information Confidence Staff Digital Skills Time and confidence Clarity of purpose Environment BYOD Quieter, smaller classrooms rather than lecture theatres Support Removing barriers Collaboration technologies, i.e. forums, wikis etc Link to Presentation: https://now.ntu.ac.uk/d2l/ lor/viewer/view.d2l? ou=6605&loIdentId=40967 Return to contents page References Dunne E. and Zandstra R. Students as Change Agents, 2 0 1 1 , University of Exeter, HEA Escalate. http://dera.ioe.ac.uk/14767/1/8242.pdf Gaffney, J . D. H., Richards, E., Kustusch, M. B., Ding, L., and Beichner, R., "Scaling Up Educational Reform." Journal of College Science Teaching ( 5 ) , 48-53 (2008) . 37 41 

Students as Change Agents,

Scaling the digital landscape

Scaling the digital landscape

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