5 Volume
SOUTHAMPTON SOLENT UNIVERSITY
Solent Teaching and Learning Community
Dialogue January 2015
SOLENT TEACHING AND LEARNING COMMUNITY
Dialogue
Editorial Board Karen Arm • MarTec Sara Briscoe • FBSE Donna Peberdy • FCI Jenny Watson • LIS With thanks to Simon Daniels, Senior Lecturer, MarTec
NUMBER 5 • January 2015
Contents Editorial…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………3 Understanding barriers to engagement with e-portfolio tasks: An investigation into the staff and student experience David Barber…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………5 Can customised teaching software improve student learning on a Sports Science degree? David Jessop………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………15 Technology enhanced reflection and meta-reflection: guiding learners through reflective processes Patrick Ainsworth………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………24 The use of Electronic Voting Systems (EVS) in learning and teaching pedagogy Bernard Griffin……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………37 Reflective case study. My ‘Pinteresting’ project: Using Pinterest to increase student engagement, promote inclusivity and focus on employability Jayne Whistance…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………50 Book chapter summary. Using Facebook for student communication, collaboration and motivation Steve Hogg…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………59
Editorial Guidelines……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………68
Editorial In a fast changing Higher Education sector, it is increasingly important for teachers and supporters of learning at Southampton Solent University to find new and innovative ways of improving pedagogy. This not only ensures that we keep ahead in a globally competitive market, but is vital to meeting the needs and expectations of our diversifying student population. In this edition of ‘Dialogue’, we explore the potential of technology to respond to such changes and enhance the learning experience of our students. In his article, Dave Barber explains how e-portfolios have been implemented in the Maritime Business and Shipping and Port Management courses to make the portfolio element of these programmes extendable beyond the student experience. He highlights the ways in which e-portfolios can be used to encourage students to successfully record, evidence and reflect upon their personal development in both university and wider professional contexts. David Jessop reports on an inquiry which aimed to explore if customised teaching software can enhance the mathematical skills of sports science students. Whilst his research evidence suggests that this new teaching approach does not necessarily improve learning in comparison to traditional methods in this context, it is shown to be an effective method of providing a more interactive learning experience for students. Patrick Ainsworth offers a discussion of his ‘research-in-progress’ to introduce technology-enhanced reflective practice on the Popular Music Performance programme. Early evidence suggests that the introduction of online forums and spreadsheets has improved student grades on a reflective journal assessment, but it is not yet clear whether this is a direct result of the technology or simply an increased focus on reflective practice within the course. Bernard Griffin reports on his ongoing work to investigate the impact of Electronic Polling Systems on learning within the Business Information and Technology and Computing programmes. Drawing on the data collected for the project, he argues that electronic polling can offer a more inclusive learning environment for students and increase both the cognitive and social engagement levels in subjects of study with historically poor records of attendance. Jayne Whistance provides a personal account of her experience of using ‘Pinterest’ on courses across the Faculty for the Creative Industries and the Faculty of Business Sport and Enterprise. In her paper, she considers the ways in which social bookmarking sites can promote inclusivity, increase 3
engagement and develop employability skills of students. She concludes by acknowledging the need for further academic research in this area. Finally, Steve Hogg provides a summary of his chapter in the 2014 publication: ‘The social classroom: integrating social network use in education’ (by Gorg Mallia) where he discusses the pros and cons of using Facebook to encourage student communication, collaboration and motivation in learning activities. The collection of papers and case studies in this issue offer some invaluable reflections from a range of Solent staff already utilising technology in their practice. Whilst the discussions are located in particular subject areas, it is easy to see how the examples provided can be adopted and adapted to support student learning in different disciplinary contexts. Indeed we hope this edition of ‘Dialogue’ serves as an impetus for further discussion and exchange of technology-enhanced pedagogies amongst colleagues at the University.
Karen Arm, Sara Briscoe and Donna Peberdy TEACHING AND LEARNING FELLOWS
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Understanding barriers to engagement with e-portfolio tasks: An investigation into the staff and student experience. David Barber Abstract: E-portfolios have been the focus of considerable research and funding and they are being used in a variety of contexts for a number of different purposes within UK Higher Education institutions. This paper surveys some characteristics of the sector landscape before exploring an example of their use at Southampton Solent University. It provides an outline of the approach that was undertaken and discusses the underpinning rationale. Its main purpose, however, is to explore the outcomes of a survey and other investigations that sought to understand why many students failed to engage with the e-portfolio and related tasks. It concludes with a summary of changes that have been made to the unit as a result.
Introduction This paper is based on work undertaken with students from the Maritime Business and the Shipping and Port Management courses. As part of these courses, students develop a portfolio of reference points that they can use in future roles in shipping or port-based operations, and the Mahara eportfolio was identified as a tool that would make this portable and extendable beyond the scope of the student experience. Students could take it with them, in other words, and it would continue to grow through continuous professional development. Introduced during a level 4 unit on Business Skills Development, it was hoped that the e-portfolio would also enhance student learning and establish a focus on the development of professional attitudes and capabilities. The following paragraphs set out to describe the approach undertaken by the staff involved, with specific reference to the assumptions, methods and principles that informed how the e-portfolio was 5
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employed. In addition to this, the results of some research undertaken in order to evaluate the success of this approach and the overall impact of the e-portfolio, are presented. This consisted of a survey of students and an interview with the unit leader, undertaken in order to understand perceptions of the e-portfolio as a tool within Higher Education, and its relevance to broader professional contexts.
Background E-Portfolios have been a focus of interest in Higher Education, for over ten years. They’ve figured in several high profile sector policies (Burgess, 2004: p.22; Burgess 2007 p.16) and they have received considerable government funding (JISC, 2014).
The Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC)
website identifies 66 major funded projects and a brief survey of these reveals how varied this interest is. They range across innovation in curriculum delivery and assessment, agendas such as widening participation or life-long learning, and quite specific processes like admissions. However, it is possible to identify some key attributes that underpin all these projects: specifically the way that e-portfolios promote a focus on the personal and on long term, professional or vocational goals within education. Personalisation is a key strand within educational strategies at all stages and in most settings. Within schools this means supporting and challenging every child according to their individual requirements and so reach to the heart of what is problematic and challenging about teaching (Dean, 2006: pp.13). However, it also concerns choice and enshrines a view that the child is an agent in their own learning, who needs to be engaged on their own terms and allowed to participate in active ways (Alexander, 2004: p.10; Gilbert, 2006: p.6; Bransford et al., 2000: pp.12-14). In higher education, notions of personalisation have a similar character. There are certain conditions that distinguish schools and universities and examples include the relative maturity of learners and the impact of fees on their status as customers or partners in learning. A similar overall approach, however, prevails. For one thing, students want an experience that reflects their increasingly varied personal requirements and expectations (Kandiko, 2013: p.9). For another, approaches influenced by the principles of active learning - which promote choice and positive behaviours in terms of independent learning - are increasingly being adopted as the most effective means of engaging students with diverse goals and backgrounds (Entwhistle, 2004 pp 423-425, Trigwell and Prosser 2004, Laurillard, 2010: pp.17-31). In terms of their professional dimension, e-portfolios have always been seen to fit into wider aspirations for life-long learning, where an important component would be a single, portable and rich record of an individual’s learning and development.
JISC projects have sought to explore 6
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between
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Leap
2A
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project:
http://www.leapspecs.org/2A/) and we look forward to initiatives like Higher Education Achievement Report (HEAR) that will use e-portfolios or equivalent tools, to capture something more meaningful and embracing about the higher education experience than is currently encapsulated in the UK degree classification (Burgess, 2007). The motivation behind this is two-fold. From a certain perspective, it ties into notions about the knowledge economy and the need for universities to produce a rich picture of individual students’ educational outcomes (ibid. and Leitch, 2006). However, it also responds to a recognition that learning happens in all sorts of contexts - of which formal learning is only one - and segues seamlessly into processes of continuous professional development. Our intentions were two-fold, therefore. In the first instance we wanted something that would support students in achieving course learning outcomes. It was envisaged that the e-portfolio would do this by making the outcomes of each individual student’s engagement with formative activities more visible. This was intended to facilitate more timely and more personalised interventions in areas critical to the successful development of a reflective portfolio. Critically, it would make it easier for the tutor to provide feedback on formative tasks designed to support students in acquiring a critical approach to the theories and values that underpinned their emerging practice (SchÜn, 1983; Bolton, 2010). In the second we wanted to be able to use this to create a positive experience of using the eportfolio that would encourage students to continue with it outside the unit, to record, evidence and reflect upon their personal professional development.
Implementation The role of the e-portfolio was seen to play out across three stages. It was felt that in the first stage students should be introduced to the system in a way that promoted a clear understanding of how it supported learning and assessment. The university supported system, Mahara, had several features that helped in this area. Most significantly, it was possible to design and produce a template page that incorporated all the required tools alongside text explanations that illustrated their relevance to key stages of the unit. Students could then quickly and easily import this into their own portfolio, which made the induction session more efficient and allowed tutors to use the extra time to explain the purpose of the formative tasks and the relevance of the e-portfolio to the outcomes they secured. In the second phase, students were expected to work on their formative tasks and upload them to the e-portfolio at the appropriate time. It was understood that first year students would need a degree of additional motivation, and that the role of the tutor would be critical in establishing the credibility 7
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of the system and integrating it into the students’ learning practices. For this reason an undertaking was made that all work that was presented on the e-portfolio, would be reviewed by the tutor and would receive personalised feedback at a specific date in January. This feedback was timed to coincide with the second formative task, and was intended to provide students with reassurance and guidance on the standard, relevance and utility of their work. However, it would also identify issues in terms of students’ engagement with the formative tasks, their preparedness for summative assessment and a reflective account of their performance in these same activities. Interventions could be made, in other words, if students were falling behind or if the outcomes of their work were not likely to provide the kinds of evidence that they needed later. In the third phase, it was envisaged that students would be able to use the journal tools on the eportfolio to record and critique their performance in the tasks. This was an approach that was specifically recommended on the grounds that it would provide a useful link between doing the tasks and reflecting on them later. It was envisaged that the tutor would be able to use the e-portfolio to monitor progress and gain insights into students’ working practices. They would therefore be able to secure positive outcomes from formative activities and give students pointers that would assist them in preparing for subsequent reflection.
Outcomes Stage 1 began with a two hour session that introduced students to the system and explained its role. From the tutors’ perspective the tools worked well as students were able to import the template and personalise it with a minimum of fuss. It was also possible to demonstrate all the relevant processes that students needed and there was time to explore the wider relevance and value of the e-portfolio. Students, meanwhile, voiced positive views of the tool and of the training at the conclusion of the session. However, student views did change over time and this issue needs to be explored. By March we felt that students were in a better position to reflect on the relevance and effectiveness of the training they had received, and on their experience of the e-portfolio itself. A formal written survey was delivered in the form of a questionnaire and, as part of this, students were asked to indicate whether the training was pitched at an appropriate level and if it addressed relevant issues (Q3: Figure 1).
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This question revealed that 9 of the 25 students (one did not complete this section) indicated that they might have benefited from a more detailed induction. However 15 either expressed satisfaction or suggested that they required less by way of formal training (Fig. 1). This illustrates the difficulty of pitching training and induction sessions on web-based tools, given the very varied range of prior experience of members in a particular cohort. It also shows that the induction met or exceeded the needs of the majority of students.
The induction was not enough A shorter induction would have suited me better The induction and worksheets provided met all my needs I learned something, but could have worked things out for myself I did not need an induction I could not have used the system without an induction
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Figure. 1: Responses to Question 3 Nevertheless, 9 students represent a significant proportion of the group. To a certain extent this had been anticipated and – to support the large number of students who were studying in a foreign language – worksheets had been provided in printed form and made available electronically at the point of induction. Nevertheless, by week 5 - as the deadline for submission of the first formative task approached - a number of students indicated that they were having problems lodging information or were unsure that they had done it correctly. A follow up session was arranged, therefore, when students would be able to raise issues and get support in overcoming them. It was clear from this that students had mastered a wide range of skills and tools, but that issues were being created by specific processes. This was also supported by the questionnaire (Q4: Figure 2), which asked students to consider the key issues covered in the training session and to indicate whether the level of instruction was appropriate. This revealed that anxiety
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was principally caused by the processes of using journals, creating and customising pages and making and developing networks.
Making and developing networks
Creating customising and sharing pages Creating journals and making entries
I would have liked more information Uploading and ortganising files
This was the right level for me I needed less chat
Adding information about yourself
Creating your profile
Navigation and finding your way around
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Figure2. Responses to Question 4.
There are two things that might be said about this. First of all, these are activities that are difficult to model in meaningful ways during induction. They require the student to either undertake them as part of independent work, or follow from another creative or learning process. Secondly, there are features of the Mahara system that contribute to this situation. At the root of all engagement with the portfolio is the principle that the processes of adding information and displaying that information, are separate. This is a powerful feature that allows users to create different ‘views’ of information that can be created and customised for specific audiences. One can be quite specific about who sees what, and in what format, but this does make the process of publishing content more complex than is possible on commonly used social networking sites.
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In fact, written comments from the questionnaire seem to confirm this. Of the 25 responses to the survey, 9 contained comments, most of which raised other online tools or services. Some were specifically comparisons with other tools and typical examples include: ‘If someone wants to look at a portfolio of my work I would rather they did through LinkedIn. It [Mahara] feels like Bebo and there is a reason nobody uses that’ and ‘the current set up feels a little outdated, over-complicated and difficult to use when considered against easy to use social networking applications’. However, these disparaging assessments need to be seen in a wider context. Other comments made specific comparisons to Turnitin, Facebook, MyCourse and email, some of which suggest that the full potential of the e-portfolio, or its core purpose, had not been fully grasped.
Unfavourable
comparisons to Turnitin, which was presented on two occasions as a better place to put assessed work and receive feedback, were particularly concerning. They indicated a failing in terms of induction and - more broadly - about the design of the activity. To be specific, it is clear that students found Mahara complicated to use and almost all students who commented, expressed a view that they were asked to use too many separate systems. However, it is also clear that we failed to convey the benefits that accrued from having a page that could be shared with a tutor who could monitor it and feedback through its development. The most tangible outcome of this was that by the end of stage 2, when the main feedback point was arrived at, a significant number of students had either not uploaded any information or had insufficient material on the system for meaningful feedback to be provided. Discussions with the tutor allowed two related conclusions to be drawn from all of this. The first was that students had been asked to take in too much during induction and it seems that we had not conveyed the core purpose of the system clearly enough. An approach that had sought to engage students in using a wide range of the e-portfolio’s tools - implemented in an effort to ‘empower’ them as users - had potentially been counter-productive. It is clear that the majority of students would have been able to discover and explore these facets of the system independently. This being the case, a focus on the core elements and processes required for unit assessment might have been more successful in persuading students of its overall value and might have motivated people to ‘find out more’ on their own initiative. The second concerned the nature of tutor input. At the outset of the project it had been decided that an approach ought to be taken to ensure that feedback was provided ‘fairly’ and should be of high quality. For this reason, although students were encouraged to contact the tutor at any time and invite feedback informally, a single date was identified when formal, detailed feedback would be provided. This would ensure that everyone would get equal input and that tutor workload and student expectations could be managed appropriately. We might speculate that this made the process of 11
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engaging with the e-portfolio feel overly transactional and therefore more similar to the use of Turnitin than should have been the case. We concluded that, in order to make the value of the eportfolio more apparent, and to prevent students ‘turning off’ after an initially positive reception, it would be necessary to use it for communication between tutor and student on a more regular basis and from an earlier stage. This brings us to the main problem identified by the tutor in terms of their use. Interaction with the students was hampered by the fact that the process used to link students with tutors proved inefficient. Students were asked to share their pages with their tutor, which would mean that the tutor would be able to access and view these pages via her own profile page. However, an unforeseen consequence of this was that these pages joined a very long list that included others that were shared with the tutor from elsewhere within the university. This made the process of identifying students very laborious. Any attempt to increase the regularity of student tutor interaction over the system would therefore need to address this issue.
Conclusions By reflecting on the tutor’s experience of the course, and accounting for the assessments and comments made by students, the following key issues were identified:
While Mahara has features that make it challenging to use and can be perceived as hard work by students who are simultaneously required to use a number of other novel systems, the impact of this on the student experience is primarily related to the nature and scope of what they are asked to do with it. This issue might be summarised as the need to ‘keep it simple’.
Make it easier for tutors and students to engage in regular dialogue about their work using the e-portfolio. This involves refining the process from both the students’ and the tutor’s point of view.
In seeking to address these issues, and following conversations with a representative of the learning technology department, some new features of the Mahara system have been identified as being useful. Principle among these are enhancements to the ‘groups’ facility which allows students to submit pages to a group page for private viewing by the tutor. This has two potential benefits that relate to previous discussion. Firstly, the process of sharing is made much more explicit and should address student uncertainty about whether the changes they have made can be seen by the tutor and will be responded to. On this point students are unable to make further changes until the page has been released, which 12
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establishes a much clearer transaction in which both tutor and student has an explicit part to play. Secondly, the tutor is able to access a much more specific list of pages and is able, via the group page, to see which pages have and have not been responded to. By making this process more efficient it should make it possible to increase the overall amount of interaction. In addition to this, the task itself has been made much more focused and specific, which is reflected in the now more streamlined page template. Another refinement to the system, the ability to attach files to text-boxes, is also exploited here, meaning that students no longer need to use their portfolio file-space directly or the journal tools, but can work entirely within the template. It is hoped that this will promote a straightforward and hopefully positive experience of the e-portfolio, which should encourage future engagement with its wider functionality. What is more, a streamlined template allows induction to focus on unit assessment more specifically and a clearer articulation of the benefits of the e-portfolio that distinguish it from other systems and services that the students use, as learners and in the social realm. Overall the lesson learned from the previous presentation of this unit - one that was reinforced by the research that we undertook - was the danger of allowing the e-portfolio itself to become part of the challenge presented by the unit. We had initially envisaged that engagement with the portfolio would represent an outcome that aligned with unit outcomes and broader course aims. With that in mind we adopted an approach that assumed students could be motivated to engage with at least a portion of that system’s complexity and in doing so establish a solid foundation for use of the tool in future years of study. However, in this application at least, we felt that a stage had been missed, one in which students discovered, through their own engagement with the system, positive and constructive outcomes on a personal and professional level. For this to work, the e-portfolio would need to enhance existing unit activities without introducing significant additional workload for students and staff, so that it could become a part of unit delivery without appearing to make formative processes markedly more complex.
References ALEXANDER, R.J. 2004. ‘Excellence, enjoyment and personalised learning: a true foundation for choice?’ Education Review, 18 (1), pp. 15-33. BOLTON, G. 2010. Reflective Practice, Writing and Professional Development, California: SAGE. BRANSFORD J.D., A. L. BROWN and R. COCKING (eds.) 2000 .How people learn: brain, mind, experience and school, Washington DC: National Academy Press. 13
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BURGESS, R. 2004. Measuring and recording student achievement: Report of the Scoping Group chaired by Professor Robert Burgess, London: Universities UK. BURGESS, R. 2007. Beyond the honours degree classification The Burgess Group final report, London: Universities UK. DEAN, J. 2006. Meeting the Learning Needs of All Children: Personalised Learning in the Primary School, Abingdon: Routledge. ENTWISTLE, N. J. and E. PETERSON, 2004 Conceptions of learning and knowledge in higher education: relationships with study behaviour and influences of learning environments, International Journal of Educational Research, 41 (6), pp. 407-428. GILBERT, C. 2006. 2020 Vision Report of the Teaching and Learning [online] 2020 Review Group, Nottingham: DFES. [viewed 6 Jan 2015] Available from: http://dera.ioe.ac.uk/6347/1/6856-DfESTeaching%20and%20Learning.pdf JOINT INFORMATION SYSTEMS COMMITTEE (JISC) 2014. E-Portfolios: Funded Projects. [online] [Viewed on 1 October 2014]. Available from: http://www.jisc.ac.uk/whatwedo/programmes/elearning/eportfolios/jiscprojects.aspx, KANDIKO, C. B. and M. MAWER, 2013. Student Expectations and Perceptions of Higher Education: Executive Summary, London: King’s Learning Institute. LAURILLARD, D. 2010. An Approach to Curriculum Design, London: Institute of Education. [online] [Viewed on 1 October 2014]. Available from: http://www.lkl.ac.uk/ltu/files/publications/LaurillardAn_Approach_to_Curriculum_Design-WIP.pdf LEITCH, S. 2006. Prosperity for all in the global economy - world class skills, [online] London: HMSO. [Viewed on 1 October 2014]. Available from: http://www.delni.gov.uk/leitch_finalreport051206[1]2.pdf, SCHÖN, D. 1983. The Reflective Practitioner, How Professionals Think In Action, New York: Basic Books. TRIGWELL, K. and M. PROSSER, 2004 Development and Use of the Approaches to Teaching Inventory, Educational Psychology Review, 16 (4) pp. 409-424
Contact Dr. David Barber Curriculum Teaching and Learning Developer Maritime and Technology Faculty Tel: 023 8201 3706 Email dave.barber@solent.ac.uk 14
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Can customised teaching software improve student learning on a Sports Science degree? David Jessop Abstract Development of customised learning materials is commonplace in Higher Education but it is less common to develop customised pieces of teaching software. To investigate the area, data processing in Sports Science was selected as a topic. Sport science students often struggle in mathematical areas of the subject meaning that processing data can present a challenge. A data processing toolbox with interactive learning modules was developed using MatLab. A total of 72 level four Applied Sport Science and Sport Coaching (BSc Hons) students were taught a new topic. Students were split into two groups; the BIO group (using biomech tools) were taught with the use of the toolbox and the TRAD group were taught using traditional worksheets and Microsoft Excel. Students were given a test on the subject one week later and a control group (ABS) was composed of students who missed the initial session. Test scores were normalised against coursework results. Groups were compared using a one way ANOVA with post hoc Games-Howell test. There was no significant difference between BIO and TRAD group, but both scored better than ABS. BIO also finished the session faster than TRAD, who failed to finish with 50 minutes. These results suggest that the use of customised toolboxes is an efficient method of teaching.
Introduction Lecturers commonly write their own teaching materials whether it is MS PowerPoint slides, work sheets or handbooks. Currently the trend is more towards learning materials which are accessible to the modern ‘digital native’ learner, and includes electronic materials such as podcasts or videos. Innovative lecturers have even investigated issuing students with laptops or iPods pre-loaded such 15
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learning tools (Bruce-Low et al., 2014). It can be considered that customising learning tools offer teachers great opportunity, to share their knowledge and experience with their students in the suitable manner for their style of teaching and their students’ style(s) of learning. Consider taking a lecture from another tutor’s slides. It is rarely as free flowing and vibrant a lecture as when written and refined by yourself. Perhaps the area left from this investigation is the software students use to do their work. Indeed, it is relatively commonplace to provide customised instructional tools to aid students in their use of computer software, but it tends to be taken for granted that computer software is something to teach students to use rather than customise as teaching tools themselves. This paper will investigate the use of customised software to overcome a long-standing issue in Sport Science: how can we enhance the mathematical skills of sport science students? It is well established that many higher education (HE) students lack capability and confidence in their mathematical ability (Mackenzie, 2010). Even students who passed their GCSE mathematics may arrive at university doubting their ability having not studied the subject further. Additionally, undergraduate students often have difficulty learning and comprehending research methods as a subject (e.g. Burgess and Bulmer, 1981; Edwards and Thatcher, 2004), experiencing particular problems with applying research theory to future practical procedures (Benson and Blackman, 2003). These issues can result in Sport Science students having poor comprehension of how to process data that they have collected. Although Sport Science and Research Methods literature explains much of the theory in this area, such texts fail to bridge the gap to practical application, and do not cater for all learning styles. Indeed, Laurillard and McAndrew (2001, p.2) state, ‘a textbook, even with exercises and answers, is incomplete as a learning activity because of the limited iteration it offers for practice, feedback and discussion’. Programs such as Microsoft Excel and SPSS (Statistical Package for the Social Sciences) are common tools that students use in Sport Science. Excel requires the user to know exactly which equation to use and how to enter the data correctly. SPSS performs many statistical procedures but does not assist the user in selecting which test to use, explain how the data was processed, or give meaning to the output. The aim of this study was to examine if a learning module, integrated into customised interactive software, will enhance students’ understanding of data processing and analysis in Sports Science (Biomechanics) beyond traditional teaching methods. Sports Biomechanics involves collecting data to examine sporting actions, and the raw data gained is commonly quantitative, continuous ratio data. The hypotheses were that students would, 1: learn more efficiently and, 2: retain information better when learning a topic using customised software.
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The creation of such toolboxes is not a new concept (e.g. Zeimpekis and Gallopoulos; 2005) however, little evidence exists of this approach being appraised in terms of effectiveness as a learning tool. Instead the method tends to be simply presented as an innovative tool that could be used.
Methods A data processing toolbox was created in MatLab (R2013a), with a graphical user interface (GUI) and packaged so that students might use the programme as they are used to, i.e. without having to learn MatLab programming code. The programme was entitled ‘BiomechTools’ and was designed as a teaching tool for processing biomechanical data including force, digitised video coordinates and electromyography (EMG) data. For each area, interactive built-in work sheets were developed based around lecture slides. Hovering the mouse over each button on BiomechTools brought up a help hint and individual help buttons were developed for each subsection of the interface (see Figure 1).
Figure 1. BiomechTools user interface. Help buttons and worksheets take the user to interactive .pdf files based around lecture slides.
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Ethical consent for the study was gained through the University ethics committee. For the purposes of this study, force data was chosen as the topic of focus. This topic was not part of the assessed syllabus and was also new to the students. BiomechTools was evaluated through investigation with 72 level 4 (1st year) undergraduate BSc (Hons) Applied Sport Science and BSc (Hons) Sport Coaching students. Students were from a range of backgrounds and abilities and were required to gain 280 points (BBC) to gain entry on the courses. Students were split into two groups according to their seminar class, and all students received the same 12-14 min introduction to processing force data from vertical jumps. Three seminar groups then went on to investigate the topic further using BiomechTools (BIO, N=41) and two groups used traditional worksheets/ Microsoft Excel (TRAD, N=22). A control group (ABS, N=9) was made up of students who were absent during teaching. Records were kept of questions and comments made relating to the methods. Students were unexpectedly tested one week later to see what information had been retained. To normalise the results between courses and groups, marks from assessed coursework were subtracted from the test scores. A one way ANOVA with Games-Howell post hoc test was used to assess differences between groups. After the study, students were offered the opportunity to trial either method.
Results All groups scored poorly in the test even when compared with the module assessment (Figure 2). The TRAD group scored highest in the test, but also in module assessment, and the ABS control group scored the lowest (test; BIO = 39.2 ± 20.9%, TRAD = 45.7% ± 13.3%, ABS = 17.2 ± 7.1%). Normalising the data based on the module assessment did not alter the findings. The average difference when comparing the module assessment to the test were: BIO = -11%, TRAD = -6.9% and ABS = -33.3%. Using the normalised scores, there was no significant difference between BIO and TRAD (P= 0.351) but both groups performed significantly better than ABS (P= 0.00, d= 1.237 and 0.00, d= 2.405) (see Figure 1).
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60 50
Mark (%)
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Group Figure 2: Student marks in their unit work (Assessment) and for the test relating to this project (Test) (ANOVA was conducted on the difference in assessment and test scores). BIO students used customised software, TRAD students used worksheets and Excel and ABS students were absent for the session. Based on the observation data gained, TRAD groups failed to finish the work in the allotted time whereas BIO all completed the work in 24-50 minutes of the 50 min session. The BIO groups asked fewer questions than TRAD and also commented that they enjoyed this approach. Furthermore the BIO group’s questions tended to centre around use of the toolbox itself rather than the processes being undertaken. For example these included ‘how do you zoom-in on a graph’ or ‘can you change the title of a column of data’? In contrast the TRAD groups’ questions were a mix of both software based and process based questions. These included questions surrounding how to deal with the large volume of data and how to enter formulae.
Discussion The aim of this study was to examine if a learning module integrated into customised interactive software will enhance students’ understanding of data processing and analysis for Sports Science (Biomechanics), beyond traditional teaching methods. As the BIO group scored significantly better in the test than ABS, it can be considered that the toolbox produced did allow students to learn about the selected methods. However, there being no significant difference between BIO and TRAD 19
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suggested that BiomechTools was no more effective as a learning tool than traditional use of Excel and worksheets. The hypothesis that students would retain more information must therefore be rejected. Students scored poorly on the test. This is perhaps not surprising as the topic was covered in just one 50 minute session and students were not told that they would be tested on the content. Furthermore this topic is not usually approached until later in the course. Whilst higher scores would have been preferable, it did provide an even platform for testing. It would have been interesting to have another group in the study that observed only the introduction to the topic without the addition of either practical aspects to the session. This would therefore have isolated the learning effect of the practical. Indeed, none of the TRAD students finished the session but they still scored highest in the test. The lack of a significant difference in test scores between the teaching methods suggests BiomechTools to be on par with traditional teaching methods. However, as the BIO group completed in a shorter time, the hypothesis that students would ‘learn more efficiently using customised software’ is supported. In turn, the additional time could facilitate further work to deepen understanding. It is also positive that students noted enjoyment of the BiomechTools approach as this may encourage them to be more positive in their attitudes towards data processing. The observational data collected did seem to suggest that the overall learning experience was better for BIO groups. Much of this may have been due to the sense of achievement in being able to go through the work at a faster pace. This perhaps reflects current students’ experiences and expectations of having information at their fingertips. Indeed Prensky (2001, p.2) states, ‘Digital Natives are used to receiving information really fast. They like to parallel process and multi-task. They prefer their graphics before their text rather than the opposite’. The toolbox then plays into this somewhat. A large emphasis is placed on learning the theory alongside the data processing activities and, as soon as the student performs a calculation, the new data is displayed graphically. The number of questions asked by the TRAD group was lower than for the BIO group. This could mean that their instructions weren’t clear enough, that they were more curious, or what was being asked of them was more demanding. The fact that students ask questions must be seen as a good thing from the point of view that discussion has been stimulated, i.e. they are interested enough in the topic to want to know more than what has initially been presented. However, if the student is having to ask a question due to the fact the they’ve been given insufficient information to complete the task, then this could indicate lack of anticipation/ experience from the teacher’s point of view (i.e. 20
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they hadn’t foreseen/ known already that that was an area where the student would ‘get stuck’). Alternatively it could also indicate lack of problem solving ability/ desire from the student’s side, i.e. they couldn’t work out how to solve the problem set, or they couldn’t be bothered. As the questions asked by the BIO and TRAD groups were operational questions to do with both the software and equations, it seems that the later possibility is apparent. All the students were trying to do were the tasks set, rather than gain a deeper understanding. However, as the BIO group were only asking questions around the use of the software, it might be considered that their practical understanding of the processes was better. The approach examined has clearly some benefits over traditional learning methodologies. The software presented is interactive, but the learning journey that the user encounters is structured and relies to an extent on a worksheet based methods (albeit with increased interactivity). This therefore represents a stepping stone in evolution of teaching methods but scope exists to further this through the use of a computers games based approach (Prenksy, 2001). Such attention grabbing interactivity seems an elegant approach, but further limited by the skills of the tutor. Indeed, it is recognised that the approach presented relies heavily on basic MatLab programming and it is therefore an interesting question whether the teachers of the future will also be experts in writing software. This might not be such a large step to consider. Programming is now included in many school curricula and therefore providing current digital natives with the foundations to create learning materials that might be necessary for the future student. Additions to this, in the meantime, seems to lie in the development of e-learning resources (such as discussed by Laurillard and McAndrew; 2001) or ‘flipped’ classrooms. This therefore also raises interesting questions on the long term aim of teaching students these skills. Are we wanting to teach students to be able to use particular pieces of software, or are we wanting to teach them to become familiar with the processes being used? For example T-tests can be performed in both SPSS and Excel. We teach the student how the test works, and how to do the test in a particular program, but few could probably do the test with pen and paper, or even write the formulae used. The toolbox attempts to place added emphasis on understanding but does still do everything ‘behind the scene’. Therefore it still relies on the student to take an extra step in order to truly understand the processes involved, and this perhaps also helps to explain the poor scores on the test. Furthermore, skilled use of widely used software such as Excel, could be seen as important for future employment, however, as the toolboxes can be made to be downloadable and used as standalone pieces of software, the user may continue to use the programs beyond University.
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Conclusion The development of customised toolboxes is considered beneficial due to faster pace of learning and the lack of a statistical difference in normalised test scores between the different groups. Their use, however, raises interesting questions regarding the development of students’ analytical skills and ability to use established data processing software. The method presented clearly has potential for transferability into other subject areas such as engineering, or indeed any subject where data processing is involved. Future studies may consider the feasibility and impact on student learning over a longer time period, as well as impact on independent learning.
References BENSON, A. and D. BLACKMAN, 2003. Can research methods ever be interesting? Active Learning in Higher Education. 4 (1), pp. 39-55. BRUCE-LOW S. S., S. BURNET, K. ARBER, D. PRICE, L. WEBSTER and M. STOPFORTH 2013 Interactive mobile learning: a pilot study of a new approach for sport science and medical undergraduate students, Advances in Physiology Education 37 (4) pp. 292-297 Available from http://advan.physiology.org/content/37/4/292 BURGESS, R. and M. BULMER, 1981. Research methodology teaching: trends and developments. Sociology. 15, pp. 477-489 EDWARDS, D.F. and J. THATCHER, 2004. A student-centred tutor-led approach to teaching research methods, Journal of Further and Higher Education. 28 (2), pp. 195-206. LAURILLARD, D. and P. MCANDREW 2001, Virtual Teaching Tools: Bringing academics closer to the design of e-learning. In Proceedings of Third International Conference on Networked Learning, 2001 Sheffield, England, pp. 11-16. MACKENZIE, S. 2002. Can we make maths count at HE? Journal of Further and Higher Education. 26 (2), pp. 159-171. PRENSKY, M. 2001. Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants Part 1. On the Horizon. 9 (5), pp. 1-6. ZEIMPEKIS, D. and E. GALLOPOULOS, 2005. TMG: A matlab toolbox for generating term-document matrices from text collections. Technical Report HPCLAB-SCG 1/01-05, Computer Engineering and Informatics Dept. University of Patras, Greece. Also in J. Kogan, C. Nicholas and M. Teboulle, eds. Grouping Multidimensional Data: Recent Advances in Clustering, Berlin: Springer, 2005 pp. 187-210
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Contact Dr David Jessop Senior Lecturer in Sport Science (Biomechanics) Faculty of Business, Sport and Enterprise Tel: 023 8201 3543 Email: david.jessop@solent.ac.uk
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Technology enhanced reflection and metareflection: Guiding learners through reflective processes Patrick Ainsworth
Abstract Do your students submit reflective journals that read like ‘What I did On My Summer Holidays’? Inspired by the work of Professor Carolyn Mair, the purpose of this paper is to outline a ‘research project in progress’ focusing on technology-enhanced reflective practice. Findings to date will also be discussed.
In order to increase the efficiency of learning and the development of skills, students are expected to work through reflective models and produce reflective journals for assessment. Many students, however, appear not to engage with the reflective processes and often repeat unhealthy patterns. In addition to this, reflective journals submitted for assessment can lack the detail and depth required to gain higher grades and frequently take the form of simple descriptions of what happened week by week. Even when students do engage with a reflective process, there still appears to be a tendency to miss learning opportunities and not to notice barriers to learning due to the lack of regular review of reflective diaries. The effectiveness of reflective models also need to be reviewed (meta-reflection) as students also tend to neglect this even when encouraged to do so.
This paper introduces methods to guide students through reflective and meta-reflective processes using online forums and spreadsheets. There will also be a summary of the success of these methods so far in this evolving research project. Although this project is applied to the development of musical skills and ensemble performance techniques, much of the methodology applies to all disciplines.
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Background
Course: BA (Hons) Popular Music Performance
Levels: four and five
Number of staff involved: four
Number of students involved: sixty-four
Rationale To the listener, compared with other styles of music, most popular music might appear quite simple, but the devil is in the detail. The majority of bands do not play well; the evidence for this can be experienced at many ‘local’ venues throughout the United Kingdom. The minority that do play well are far more likely to gain recognition, success and employment. As a part of BA Popular Music Performance course, students are encouraged to address this issue by studying and performing classic pieces in fine detail and reflecting on their progress. In doing this, they will learn how successful pieces are put together and performed, and how technical and performance skills are developed. Ideally they will then be able to transfer this knowledge to their own recordings and performances whether these are of cover versions, or original material.
The Student Task As part of Unit MMR108: Music Performance 1, level four BA Popular Music Performance, students are given one song title per week. Their task is to access the correct version of the song and to learn their instrumental or vocal part(s) as accurately as possible. The students then perform the piece in ensembles to their peers and lecturers during a two-hour workshop. Self and peer evaluation takes place and lecturer input is provided throughout the session; performance of the piece is repeated many times during the session ideally with marked improvement each time. The ensemble line-ups are changed regularly to ensure that all students have the opportunity to perform.
Ideally the initial performance will be of a reasonable quality and the final performance will be at a professional standard, thus giving the students insight into the levels of detail required to create good 25
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performances. The students are assessed via a reflective journal at the end of the Unit and the process is repeated at level five using more challenging songs with a higher quality of performance expected.
Issues Encountered The first version of this unit was delivered in the 2007/08 academic year. At this time it was expected that students would engage with the activity and be motivated to work through reflective cycles in a self-reliant manner. For this reason the course team chose to focus on the music content with a limited amount of reflective theory running alongside. Although many students progressed well, developing skills and producing some high quality performances, there were issues for some such as: -
slow improvement
-
poor motivation
-
repetition of errors/unhealthy learning patterns
-
limited analyses of weaknesses
-
problems connecting technical exercises to improved performance
The reflective theory focused on Kolb’s (1984) model of experiential learning as follows:
Concrete Experience
Active Experimentation
Reflective Observation
Abstract Conceptualisation
Figure 1: Kolb’s model of learning
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To aid understanding of this model, students were provided with examples that related directly to music skills development, rehearsal and performance such as:
Concrete Experience: the performance
Reflective Observation: self and peer evaluation in the workshop – identification of strengths and weaknesses
Abstract Conceptualisation: identification of methods to address weaknesses
Active Experimentation: putting the above methods into practice during rehearsals
Students were encouraged to use the model to work on the fine detail of pieces and focus on musical passages that could last for less than one second, for example, for a drummer:
Concrete Experience: the performance
Reflective Observation: through self and peer evaluation, or by listening to a recording, a late entry into the chorus of the song after a drum fill at the end of the verse occurred regularly
Abstract Conceptualisation: analyse the fill, discuss with drum tutor, find appropriate technical exercise (sticking pattern) to practice
Active Experimentation: add sticking pattern to daily practice routine and apply to the drum fill
Many students did not appear to engage fully with the reflective process and tended to simply repeat the ‘concrete experience’ over and over again rather than working through the model. Even those that did engage with the process tended to move from ‘concrete experience’ to ‘active experimentation’ and back repeatedly missing two crucial stages of the cycle.
In addition to the issues outlined above, the following problems were encountered: -
poor reflective writing
-
low marks for the reflective journal assessment
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even those who did engage with Kolb’s model did not evaluate the reflective process (metareflection)
Due to the above issues it was decided to focus more heavily on reflective learning as well as music.
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Method Following a successful pilot in 2010/11 involving a level six collaborative project, a number of changes were be made to the delivery of the unit for level four students. These changes are outlined below and commenced in the academic year 2011/12. It should be noted that the ensemble skills of the level six students involved in the pilot did progress rapidly, however there was not a control sample so much of the success observed was anecdotal. (This group of students did win the annual, fiercely contested, competition to win a day’s recording at Abbey Road Studios). Lecture time focusing on reflective learning was added to the unit. In addition to an introduction to Kolb’s (1984) model, students were encouraged to use the resources available on the University Virtual Learning Environment (VLE), particularly ‘Succeed@Solent>Writing assignments>Reflective thinking and writing’ (2012) and to study the work of Moon (2004). Time was also spent comparing and contrasting academic and reflective writing styles. Without getting too bogged down in reflective theory, students were also asked to evaluate the success of their progress and the effectiveness of reflective models used. It was clear to the academics delivering the unit, that the replacement of practical music workshops by numerous lectures focusing on reflective theory, would not be popular with the students. For this reason much of the reflective content of the unit was introduced (by stealth) via the VLE. All BA Popular Music Performance students were using the VLE to access unit information; no paper handouts were provided thus good engagement with the VLE was evident. Weekly online forums were introduced and the students were asked to discuss the songs prior to the workshops. Lecturers guided these online discussions; questions were provided which encouraged students to focus on important technical and performance aspects of each piece. In order to keep the forums manageable, the year group was divided into groups based on the students’ first study instrument/voice. A small sample of a forum for drummers is shown below.
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Figure 2: A small sample of a forum for drummers From 2007, students had been encouraged to keep weekly reflective diaries. Many had done this, but even the most engaged students tended to focus on the song being studied, rather than looking back at previous weeks and using this information to inform their development. For this reason students were asked to use Microsoft Excel spreadsheets for their reflective diaries. These spreadsheets were based on a concept developed by Professor Carolyn Mair (2010) and were carefully designed to guide learners through the reflective process. These spreadsheets were attached to the forums and students were asked to download them, update them and upload them back to the forums each week. All the students in each instrumental group were able to view each other’s spreadsheets; this enabled them to share learning. As the unit lecturers also had access to all forums, they were able to track the progress of each student and view the spreadsheets as they developed.
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Mair had used Excel spreadsheets with psychology students, so the column titles were adjusted for use with music students. The columns were headed as follows: -
My strengths
-
My weaknesses
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Methods I used to address my weaknesses
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Success of these methods
-
How will I apply these methods for other pieces?
-
What have I achieved technically?
-
What have I achieved musically?
-
What have I learned?
-
How do I feel?
-
Comments regarding the forums
It can be clearly seen that working through the above titles for each song should automatically guide the students through reflective processes. In addition to this, part of Professor Mair’s concept was to format the spreadsheets so that the students could see their comments for as many weeks as possible on one page. This encouraged them to look at information from previous weeks in addition to focusing on the current song. It also enabled them to ascertain whether unhealthy learning patterns were being repeated and to evaluate the reflective process (meta-reflection). This simple idea addresses many of the issues associated with old-fashioned hand written reflective diaries. A transcription of part of a spreadsheet is shown below.
Song
My
My
Methods I
Success of
How will I
Strengths
Weaknesses
used to
these
apply these
address my
methods
methods for
weaknesses
other pieces?
Positively Fourth
I was able to
I had great
Unfortunately
I immediately
Street
identify and play
difficulty
in the session I
began to learn
the acoustic
identifying the
didn't attempt
every song I
guitar part of the
electric guitar
to figure out
had to by ear
song
part of the
the electric
to begin
competently
song, this was
guitar part fully
training my
throughout. I
partly due to
and
ears. I would
was also able to
the surprise
concentrated
also transcribe
identify the
and
mainly
elements of
structure of the
unfamiliarity of
on playing the
the songs, e.g. 30
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song and relate
the song, and
acoustic guitar
chords,
certain elements
also because
part to the best
melodies and
of the song's
in the past I
of my ability.
structures.
lyrical content
rarely learned
This would be
with
electric/ lead
good impetus
instrumental
guitar parts by
to concentrate
ornamentation.
ear.
of being able to learn the parts
Come As You
I was able to
I wasn't able to
I collaborated
This made it
If I find a future
Are
figure the 3
play the
my efforts with
a lot easier
piece overly
guitar parts of
acoustic guitar
another
to identify
difficult in parts
the song with
part exactly as
guitarist on the
the basis of
I will not
varying degrees
it was on the
course to try
the acoustic
hesitate to
of ease
track, because
and identify
guitar part
contact one of
(depending of
I couldn't
the appropriate
as we could
the other
their level in the
identify the
notes and
both
guitarists. I can
mix) with the
phrasing and
phrasing.
concentrate
also do this
exception of the
notation from
of different
using the
acoustic part in
the mix.
aspects of
forum
the second
the guitar
provided.
verse. I also
part, and
transcribed the
'two sets of
song's structure,
ears are
key and the
better than
appropriate
one’.
places for
I'm a Believer
I was able to
Due to the age
Firstly I
They gave
I am able to
identify both
of the
experimented
me some
use the forums
guitar parts
recording and
with a range of
more
each week to
quickly and
the equipment
different tone
informative
help me
efficiently so
used in the
settings
insight into
speculate
that I could
recording I
ranging from
how I could
about what I
spend more
couldn't
full treble and
achieve the
should address
time
recreate the
almost no
tone I
when learning
concentrating on
tone to my
bass, to using
wanted,
a song, e.g.
achieving the
desired
a multiple
especially
tone and
right tone for
standard.
effects pedal
for the
effects
each guitar part.
Especially with
and the digital
management. 31
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I was also able
the electric
tone modifiers
acoustic
to transcribe the
guitar part.
that are preset
guitar.
appropriate
to that.
chords and structure of the song.
Figure 3: Transcription of part of a spreadsheet with student comments
At the end of the unit, students were required to format their spreadsheets carefully so that all text was visible, import them into Microsoft Word and submit them via Turnitin as a part of the reflective journal assessment. Apart from the addition of the spreadsheets, the brief for the reflective journal remained unchanged. It should be noted at this point that, although level five students were not required to use forums or spreadsheets, additional lecture time focusing on reflective learning was also added to their unit. In the second year of this research project, many level five students (who had used spreadsheets at level four) chose voluntarily to use spreadsheets again to monitor their progress. The success of the above methodology was (and is) assessed through the following:
engagement with the forums (although the completion of spreadsheets is compulsory, adding posts to the weekly forums is not)
a comparison of marks for the reflective journal assessment before and after this project commenced
interviews with students - this part of the project is in its infancy; so far four one to one interviews have taken place (see appendix for interview questions).
Findings Engagement with the forums Academic Year 2011/12 – 23 of 32 students contributed to the forums = 72% Academic Year 2012/13 – 18 of 32 students contributed to the forums = 56%
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Average Marks for the reflective journal assessment Older marks have been adjusted to take the new grade mark scale and late penalties into account.
60 50 40 Level 4
30
Level 5 20 10 0 2008
2009
2010
2011
2012
2013
Figure 4: Average marks for the reflective journal assessment (Project begins academic year 2011/12) Summary of Findings from Interviews (quotes anonymised due to ethical considerations)
students found the system useful – ‘I could gain useful information from other students, if I missed a week, I could refer to the forums and spreadsheets to catch up. The system helped me to develop my lyric learning’.
students reflected on both positive and negative aspects of their performances.
students did look back at what they had written in previous weeks.
students found the forums useful unless inaccurate comments were posted.
students felt that their skills improved – ‘my listening skills have improved, I don’t just listen to the drum part; I listen to the other elements of the ensemble’.
students felt that the forums and spreadsheet helped them maintain focus.
Discussion of Findings In the first year of the project (2011/12) engagement with the forums was above expectation, which was encouraging. Experience shows that at level 4, music students tend to focus on the more practical aspects of the course. In the second year of the project engagement dropped. There is no explanation 33
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for this as the content and delivery of the unit did not change. Anecdotal evidence from staff and students would tend to suggest that the 2011/12 level four cohort was more socially cohesive, but this would be impossible to prove without considerable additional research. Furthermore, the effect of social cohesiveness on student engagement is not considered within this piece of research. An early finding showed that the average mark for the level four reflective journal assessment did rise after the project commenced (from 43.3% in 2010/11 to 51.4% in 2011/12). Initially this was thought to be a significant result, but once figures for all previous years were collated it was seen that for the year 2009/10 the average mark was 48.3%, so perhaps this rise is not as significant as originally thought. Interestingly, although level five students were not asked to participate in online forums or to complete spreadsheets, the average mark for this group also increased. So perhaps the mark increases shown in the findings are not due to the introduction of forums and spreadsheets but simply a result of increased focus on reflective learning and writing at both levels. Although the interview process has only recently commenced, initial findings are positive. The issue raised regarding inaccurate posts on the forums is usually dealt with within hours as lecturers receive email updates as soon as new posts are created so can monitor the forums closely.
Conclusions The fact that engagement with the forums appears good is a particularly encouraging outcome as findings from the study involving psychology students that took place in 2010 at Solent University, showed that ‘few participants uploaded to the DB [database]’ (Mair, 2010). It is possible that music students might be more likely to upload comments to the VLE as it can be observed that they regularly work together in groups and frequently access music and communicate using the Internet. Marks for the reflective journal have increased (albeit by a small margin). As previously discussed, it is not clear whether this is due to use of the forums and spreadsheets, or simply the increased focus on reflective practice. However, as marks have increased, the course team feels that it is appropriate to continue the project for the foreseeable future. Due to revalidation, unit delivery has been altered as MMR108 Music Performance 1 has been split into two new Units; one being delivered in each semester. Although the combined content of the two units is almost the same as the older unit, direct comparisons of marks for assessments will no longer be possible. 34
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Early evidence from interviews is positive, but it should be noted that, purely by coincidence, all four interviewees had engaged with the forums.
Future Development To increase student engagement, the unit team are considering handing more responsibility for the content of the online forums to the students and asking them to include references to the forums in the reflective journal assessment.
Interview Questions 1. Was the system useful? If so can you describe how it helped improve your playing and performance? 2. How often did you use the spreadsheet? 3. What issues did you reflect upon: positive, negative, or both? 4. Was it helpful to look at what you had written in previous weeks? 5. Did you find the forums useful? If so, how did you use them? 6. Has your playing/performance improved? If so, how? 7. Do you think that your reflective writing has improved? 8. What did you like about the system? 9. What is the most important aspect of reflective practice for you?
Acknowledgements Thanks to Professor Carolyn Mair for the concept, Sarah Hand for help setting up the forums and Domi Renault for myCourse (the University VLE) guidance.
References KOLB, D., 1984. Experiential Learning: Experience as the Source of Learning and Development. London: Prentice Hall
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MAIR, C., 2010. Reflection and Learning: Sharing Experience (REALISE) In: Solent Exchange 2010, Southampton, UK, September 2010. Southampton: Southampton Solent University MOON, J., 2004. A handbook of reflective and experiential learning: theory and practice. Oxon: Routledge SOUTHAMPTON SOLENT UNIVERSITY, 2012. Succeed@Solent>Writing Assignments>Reflective Thinking and Writing [online] [viewed September 2012]. Available from: http://mycourse.solent.ac.uk/mod/book/view.php?id=2732
Contact Patrick Ainsworth Senior Lecturer in Music Performance School of Media Arts and Technology Tel: 023 8201 6503 Email: Patrick.ainsworth@solent.ac.uk
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The use of Electronic Voting Systems (EVS) in learning and teaching pedagogy Bernard Griffin Abstract The use of mobile phones was evaluated as a means of increasing student engagement within timetabled sessions by encouraging students to respond to open-ended questions (Polling) within presentations and workshops. Other forms of electronic voting systems (EVS) were considered and discounted for either technical capability or availability reasons. Four subject groups across three undergraduate levels were enlisted, and twelve workshops per week were held over four weeks. Groups were observed throughout the trial, creating weekly activity summaries supported by an end of trial survey. It was found that students responded positively at all levels, and that lecturer preparation time was marginally increased. Polling within sessions was found to provide original feedback in an efficient and timely manner to both students and lecturers, enabling clearer and shared understandings to develop. Poll results were preserved for evaluation, showing the numbers of respondents along with their contributions. Phone users also retained their own contribution on their devices. The trial concluded that mobile phone EVS is a fast, fun and effective way of summarising the perspectives of a cohort, triggering higher levels of cognitive, social and reflective engagement, and that clearer goals emerged from within the process.
Background
Course: Business IT / Computing Programme / Computer Games Development
Levels: 4, 5 and, 6
Units – Systems Analysis (L4), Introduction to Professional Practice (L4), Engineering Software Systems (L5), and e-business (L6) 37
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Number of students: 170: Survey respondents : 136
Activity-led workshops form the main approach to learning and teaching at all three levels. Each unit cohort is largely male, with multi-racial backgrounds, including a small minority of mature students. A cross-section of technical abilities from beginner to advanced skills levels is evident and there is limited commercial awareness generally. Traditional teaching approaches, as well as seminar workshops, often involve questions and answers from the cohort, and the resulting outcomes may not always reflect the views of the majority of the audience, with the most enthusiastic tending to dominate. There may not always be sufficient time to accommodate all perspectives and many students lack the confidence to express their views. There is evidence of a tendency to disengage from the more technical elements of the learning process, notably at level 4, less so at levels 5 and 6.
Rationale ‘Clicker’ is a term which refers to an electronic key-pad that each member of an audience might use to select a preferred response from a presented question, such as multiple choice. By ‘clicking’ on a particular key, an electronic signal is sent to the presenter’s ‘receiver’ which gathers and summarises responses. ‘Electronic Voting System’ (EVS) and ‘Student Response System’ (SRS) are typical terms used to describe alternative ways in which audience responses can be facilitated, anonymously if required, using either ‘Clicker’ key pads or a range of desktop or mobile devices, including phones, laptops and tablets. A wide variety of studies have been conducted into the use of clickers, summarised by Nielsen et al, (2013), which suggest the following results are attainable:
Increased motivation and engagement (Draper and Brown 2004, and Masikunas et al, 2007, in Nielsen et al. 2013 p.1)
Easier clarification of misunderstandings (Rice and Bunz 2006, in Nielsen et al. 2013 p.1)
Promotion of active learning (Boyle and Nicol 2003, in Nielsen et al. 2013 p.1)
Increased student performance (Hake 1998, Rao and DiCarlo 2000, in Nielsen et al. 2013 p.1) 38
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Better conceptual understanding (Crouch and Mazar 2001, in Nielsen et al. 2013 p.1)
Following participation in a recent demonstration of ‘clickers’ as a form of electronic personal voting for question responses within seminars, it was felt that they may be useful to help create a more inclusive learning environment across a number of different situations.
Aims 1. To involve more of the class in discussions, in an inclusive atmosphere, without fear or embarrassment. 2. To increase both cognitive and social engagement levels in subjects with historically poor records of attendance and/or attainment of learning outcomes.
Method Having identified the problem area, along with a possible solution strategy, a course of action was devised whereby several providers of both ‘clickers’ and online ‘Polling’ systems were evaluated according to their respective usability, anonymity and accessibility, and www.PollEverywhere.com was selected for a trial evaluation. A trial was originally devised using in-house clickers, but as they were not always bookable within the faculty to meet scheduled timetabling, and the cost of buying our own set proved prohibitive, an alternative internet version was introduced that could be accessed via mobile phones, laptops, tablets and desktops. Teaching Units were selected at levels 4, 5 and 6 across the Business IT /Computing programmes based upon a mix of technical and non-technical subjects. The additional benefit of using a cross section of teaching facilities and accommodation, enabled further comparison to be made between mobile devices and desktops as response strategies. The final analysis showed that the split was fairly even between seminar rooms and computer labs. With the agreement of each cohort, the use of the PollEverywhere electronic voting system was scheduled to run for the month of October, using a range of open-ended, multiple choice and design ‘recognition’ polling configurations set according to preference for intended outcomes of individual units and workshops.
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Several lecturers and learning technologists provided survey responses for EVS and clicker usage, representing wider experiences for a cross-section of the different technologies available, and helped to support the action planning for the trial. A weekly survey of polled responses was devised for evaluation purposes; to assess the nature of student responses and to inform both the course content and delivery strategy on an agile basis. A series of unstructured interviews took place within each cohort, supported by polled questions as a form of recording evidence. An example of opinions gathered from Level 5 software engineers in response to a polled open question is shown below:
Figure 1: An example of opinions gathered from Level 5 software engineers in response to a polled open question The design of polls and their inclusion within the pedagogic process of teaching and learning is an ongoing transformative process which works on several levels, leading to multiple iterations within a ‘paradigm of praxis’ (Lather, 1986, Morley 1991 in O’Brien 1998). In the first instance it requires the lecturer to consider the question(s) that need to be explicitly addressed within the content and the selected delivery strategy, and to be answerable by the cohort at specific points thereafter.
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The transformation process then continues with an evaluation by the presenter of the responses to each question, in order to help determine levels of engagement, perceptions, comprehension and possible remedial strategies. This represents feedback for the presenter. Equally, from the cohort perspective, an opportunity is created within each poll to self-check anonymously their individual answers against the general consensus arising from the poll as an additional form of peer-group feedback. Comments and evidence drawn from weekly activities were gathered to form the basis of an interim student survey, using sixteen multiple choice questions to help determine the nature and extent of the student experiences from both a qualitative and quantitative perspective. A database of 136 responses was then compiled and summarised to reflect general consensus in addition to crossmatching individual cohorts to determine the areas of notable significance.
Findings A total of twelve workshops each week were used to run the trial over the four weeks, during which it was observed that an immediate sense of ‘fun’ was apparent on each occasion, with all those present taking an active part in the process of uploading responses to open-ended questions. Around half of the responses polled in the first week were relevant, and the remainder classified as ‘silly’, at both L4 and L5. In contrast, responses from L6 were measured and conservative. A few students later criticised the silly responses, whilst others stated that it ‘lightened the atmosphere between serious answers’. Anonymous responses were selected for every poll, and students stated that this served to remove the ‘fear of being wrong’ or ‘being made to look stupid’, such that they could express their views without fear of being criticised. This finding is also supported by the survey data. Each poll result was gathered in real time on the main projector screen, and weekly unstructured interviews suggested that this created a sense of anticipation about the nature of expected responses within the cohort during the polling process. Survey data also reflected the significance of ‘shared understanding’ within this aspect, and to sense of ‘improved feedback’ it engendered across the cohorts. An example of the responses to a polled question during an unstructured cohort discussion is shown below:-
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Figure 2: example of the responses to a polled question during an unstructured cohort discussion Poll results could be posted to myCourse as a source of evaluation for future reference, as evidenced by the screenshots provided. Individual polls by mobile device were found to remain in the phone memory and students could review them in subsequent workshops if they couldn’t remember the original content in subsequent discussions. The time frame for each poll may be variable, from a very short, dynamic element within the activityled workshop, to one that is being left open for several minutes, or even days, as required. The timelapse for each poll used within the trial varied according to the required depth of response: - simple questions may be open for 1-2 minutes, whereas for more complex, applied theoretical contexts involving group discussion, up to 20-25 minutes could be used, subject to levels of continued engagement within the cohort. The number of responses received per poll may represent some level of engagement in the activity, as it can be used to represent the percentage of cohort who feel confident to respond contrasted with those that don’t.
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The more traditional use of clickers are shown from previous research studies to be much faster than phones - requiring a single option choice which involves a single press of a button, compared to mobile phones which require a poll code and message to be entered and sent, which takes 1-2 minutes typically as a process. One may be quantitative and the other qualitative, but this may not necessarily be the case, although polling responses to open questions may be better facilitated by the greater sophistication of the qwerty keyboard on conventional devices. Desktops were demonstrated within the trial to be the fastest form of open-ended answer submission, as the poll opens directly onto the screen of each respondent within a workshop, and they can type their answer immediately. Therefore where an individual internet login is available within a learning environment, time savings are available over alternative response strategies for open-ended polling. Multiple open-ended questions were trialled, both sequentially and concurrently, to address either a single cohort, or a set of ‘break-out’ groups. Concurrent polling of two or more questions, each to be addressed by designated discussion groups, was found to facilitate coverage of the issues without impairing cognitive reflection time, similar to conventional seminar ‘break-outs’. Timing was found to be significant for sequential polls of two or more questions, risking the erosion of time set aside for cognitive reflection towards the end of a session. Attention to the relationship between the permitted response time and the intended learning outcome. Previous research on the use of clickers highlights the speed, scale and scope of responses available to presenters within workshops, along with audience participation levels. Within the trial, the findings from weekly workshops, unstructured interviews and survey results support the clickers research to show that EVS in general does significantly improve seminar feedback: In contrast to traditional seminars, the discussion time slot for each group was not dominated by any one individual, and nobody needed to act as scribe/interpreter as everyone could freely respond as they wished without constraint, and their answers were not being edited. By the end of the trial period, the temptation to submit ‘silly’ responses had subsided, and the cohorts all appeared equally comfortable with the technology within the learning process. It was noted for L6 that after three weeks a pattern of phone use was established as normal for certain groups who appointed a ‘phone scribe’ to poll each decision made during group discussions as it minimised distractions between members. Survey response summary: 43
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Discussion of Findings Using a summary of the four EVS strategies identified by Kay and LeSage (2009): 1. General Strategies, associated with the preparation and use of EVS, was found to add marginally to the preparation time, but significantly to the aspect of developing clear goals. 2. Motivational Strategies, which involve specific attempts to involve or engage students formed the main objective of the trial and showed the levels of attendance were high at the start of the EVS trial and a high level of engagement was observable on each occasion. 3. Assessment Strategies were effective where EVS was used to guide instruction, using formative feedback. Additionally, a responding lecturer (colleague) also stated that a cohort of 120
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students regularly used clickers for both formative and summative assessments to great effect over the past year, using multiple-choice questions. 4. Learning-based Strategies centred upon the development and use of clear goals, supported by printed activity plans and the mobile phone use itself. Peer interaction was increased and students were more focused. 5. Overall findings were consistent with Kay and LeSage, despite using different response systems. In line with the findings of Nielsen, et al, (2013) including Masikunas et al, (2007), cognitive engagement was observed to increase as the cohort took to using EVS throughout each scheduled activity, combining peer discussion and online searching to verify their perceptions before responding. It became clear that students generally are more at ease with smartphone (plus laptop and desktop) technology as communications device(s) than more traditional methods. This combined with the anonymity of responses clearly served to reduce or remove personal constraints. Consistency of future use would need to be ensured to derive maximum learning benefit, by maintaining a use level consistently beyond the level of novelty value. Social engagement was observed to increase significantly within each session as the general ‘buzz’ – level increased with the levels of peer discussion and polling activity taking place. This element may be a contributory factor towards increased learning as well as increased attendance due to a sense of fun and belonging, in support of the findings from Boyle and Nicol (2003). Clear goals are a fundamental requirement of effective learning and teaching, and this was found to increase the requirement for improved question design, in support of the findings of Rice and Bunz (in Neilsen et al. 2013 p.1). Poll results represent observable feedback as a representation of the cohort perspective, and this was used by both student and lecturer alike to fine-tune the achievement of clear goals within each activity session. Reflective engagement and evaluation of individual and shared levels of understanding were observed and reported to increase across each cohort. Students took great interest in the collective representation of their peer-group understandings, and this could be a factor towards the achievement of deeper learning, subject to further evaluation of a longer study. Several previous studies concluded that an extra time factor is observable, particularly at the outset, in thinking through the polling process to arrive at meaningful questions and their function within the
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learning process: As experience builds, the time taken to develop an effective instructional design diminishes. As shown within Nielsen et al. (2013), polling appears to have an important feedback and shared understanding role within workshops, although where individual progress is being formatively assessed, polling the cohort is not necessarily an appropriate activity. The strategic alignment of poll questions with activity learning outcomes highlights the need for reflective engagement for presenters. Open-ended polls have the inherent attribute of uncertainty, therefore responses may reveal unexpected findings, such as content overlap or duplication with another unit delivery. It was found in one instance in a shared unit at L5 that the cohort had already covered the subject element in question due to staff changes and upgrades in another part of the course, and this led to an unscheduled staff meeting to identify and take account of the changes. Poll responses may demonstrate and guide the process for agile delivery in support of the learning process of the cohort – it was found on several occasions that poll responses required the presenter to modify the pace and depth of delivery to accommodate the shared understanding of the cohort, either to go back over specific points, or to move forward on topics where high understanding is demonstrated. This factor not only affected the timing of activities, but may suggest greater confidence and experience of the presenter is needed to accomplish effectively.
Potential functional constraints and solutions for EVS
The use of desktop machines within computer labs worked marginally more fluently than mobile devices, with no reported difficulties, but with the notable exception that desktops and other Wi-Fi connected devices can only access one poll at a time, dictated by the presenter machine, in contrast to the smartphones which have unrestricted access to multiple polls as required.
On a few occasions, low phone battery levels prevented access for individual students, although others students often loaned theirs.
A few students reported unexpected charges of 20-25 pence per text where providers had routed polls via the Isle of Man. A free ‘Polleverywhere App’ was downloadable to smartphones which could then poll for free using Wi-Fi.
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On two occasions the allocated room was found to have a poor Wi-Fi signal, causing a small number of late responses, and a minority of students moved around the room to find the best signal.
In contrast to mobile phones, clickers were stated by one lecturer as having unreliable and unpredictable battery life, caused by being left on from the previous session, ‘with up to half rendered useless on the day’, although design improvements are said to have been made.
In another university it was found that clickers were in use throughout numerous courses, and a ‘clicker team’ gathered them in each day to recharge them overnight in the library (Anecdotal, colleague 2013)
Conclusions The first aim: ‘To involve more of the class in discussions, in an inclusive atmosphere, without fear or embarrassment’ was achieved and surpassed in terms of expected cohort response in all areas, levels and subjects. The second aim: To increase both cognitive and social engagement levels in subjects with historically poor records of attendance and/or attainment of learning outcomes was convincingly achieved in terms of cognitive and social engagement levels, but the second aspect of attainment of learning outcomes will require a longer period of evaluation consistent with the length of each unit.
Recommendations 1. The use of mobile/smartphones is a core expectation of many student cohorts today as a means for maintaining social connections within a personalised network. Research has shown (Shirkey, 2009) that cognitive load can be significantly increased, and learning impaired, when frequent messages are received as a habitual practice, limiting concentration spans to as little as four minutes. Using the phone to poll may remove the impairment for the duration of the response, and extend the concentration span. Further research should investigate the extent to which cognitive load can be reduced by using mobile phones to poll as a means of creating deeper learning and engagement. 2. The smartphone for many is also the first choice research tool, and the cognitive reduction element (above) combined with the anonymity of responses clearly served to reduce or remove personal constraints. Further research is needed to evaluate the implications of this
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aspect for enhanced learning and teaching activity designs, as well as higher student achievement levels in the longer term. 3. Both the cohorts and responding presenters alike reported having experienced a ‘happier’ atmosphere attributable to the use of EVS, with a sense of fun prevailing. Further research is needed to evaluate the cause and effect of this phenomenon and its value within the longer term learning and teaching design for delivery strategies. 4. Reflective engagement was found to increase as a result of the EVS, and poll results shown to represent observable feedback as a representation of the cohort perspective for both student and lecturer alike. Further evidence is needed to fine-tune the achievement of clear goals within each activity session. 5. Students took great interest in the collective representation of their peer-group understandings, and this could be a factor towards the achievement of deeper learning. Longer term collection of evidence across cohorts is needed to determine the relative effectiveness of this phenomenon towards summative assessment grades. 6. There is a need to establish a set of guidelines for the implementation of EVS, perhaps with audio-visual support. It is likely that further research could reveal a guideline process for poll question design along with application techniques and effectiveness evidence. 7. There is a need to gather supporting evidence over the academic year as part of a longer evaluation study, to establish the learning and teaching effectiveness of EVS and its value within ongoing delivery strategies.
References BOYLE, J.T. and D.J. NICOL 2003. Using classroom communication systems to support interaction and discussion in large class settings, Association for Learning Technology Journal, 3 (11) pp.43-57 KAY, R.H., and A. LESAGE, 2009, A strategic assessment of audience response systems used in higher education, Australasian Journal of Educational Technology, 25(2), pp. 235-249 MASIKUNAS, G., A. PANAYIOTIDIS, and L. BURKE, The use of electronic voting systems in lectures within business and marketing: a case study of their impact on student learning, ALT-J, Research in Learning Technology, 15, (1) pp. 3-20 NIELSEN, K.L., G. HANSEN and J.B STAV, 2013, Teaching with student response systems (SRS): teachercentric aspects that can negatively affect students’ experience of using SRS, Research in Learning Technology, 21 pp.1-13 O’BRIEN, R., 1998, An Overview of the Methodological Approach of Action Research, University of Toronto, [online] [viewed 12 October 2014]. Available from 48
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http://web.net/robrien/papers/arfinal.html SHIRKEY, C. 2009, Cognitive Surplus: Creativity and Generosity in a Connected Age, New York Penguin Books,
Contact Bernard Griffin Senior Lecturer in Computing Maritime and Technology Faculty Email: bernard.griffin@solent.ac.uk Tel: 023 8201 3806
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Reflective case study. My ‘Pinteresting’ project: Using Pinterest to increase student engagement, promote inclusivity and develop employability skills Jayne Whistance Introduction This article will give an overview of my Pinterest project, outlining a rationale for using social bookmarking sites and specifically Pinterest. It will then outline the aims of my practice, linking to research and implementation by other educators, before describing the boards I have set up with visuals and finally evaluating its impact and looking forward to future possibilities for research.
Rationale for using social bookmarking sites 1. Computer or internet devices can be used anywhere, which in turn makes social bookmarking sites accessible, especially as mobile phones have instant access with apps to enable this. Hafemann (2012) views technology as a common language, advocating: ‘Technology is the great unifier. Instead of having to master nearly 7000 languages, you can easily communicate through universal icons, terms, functionality and community.’ 2. Social bookmarking sites are convenient. Being able to search links saves time, whilst creating boards provides useful resources for students to use both inside and outside the classroom. 3. Social bookmarking sites enable you to develop professionally, as you can share and network with colleagues, gaining ideas for your area of expertise.
Background to choosing Pinterest There are many other social bookmarking sites which I could have used. For example:
Delicious, which uses a ‘tagging’ system to store websites and Diigo, which stores more than just links: for example - podcasts, screenshots and bibliographies.
Scoopit and Flipboard which allow you to create and publish your own glossy magazine. 50
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Symbaloo which uses multiple tabs to organise links on a custom ‘dashboard.’
I originally started using Delicious but found it to be too text-focused, especially for more creative students, those with dyslexia and generally for those with a preference for a visual style of learning, so I investigated Pinterest as an option since I found it to be visually appealing and user-friendly. In The Top 100 Tools for Learning 2012, Pinterest came in as a newcomer in 36 th place; by 2013, it had moved up to 22nd place, and in 2014, it is reached 14th place, which shows its increasing usefulness in educational settings across the globe. Pinterest is a social bookmarking site which looks like an online pin board. Each ‘pin’ allows you to save links to useful websites, providing direct hyperlinks, and has the capability of storing short information about them. It is also possible to curate pictures and other images such as infographics, though obviously copyright issues need to be taken into consideration when doing this. You can categorise your links using ‘boards.’ As well as being able to share links and boards with others, it is possible to search your own links and find links from other ‘pinners.’
Figure 1: An overview of some of my Pinterest boards 51
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Aims of my Pinterest practice The aims of my practice are threefold: to try to increase student engagement, promote inclusivity and develop employability skills. 1: Increasing student engagement Rockinson-Szapkiw and Szapkiw (2011), based at Liberty University in the United States, argue from a theoretical position for educators to use social media to initiate quizzing and polling, discussion and creative group work, all of which can be carried out both inside and outside the classroom. RockinsonSzapkiw and Szapkiw (2011) believe that ‘involving students in active cognitive processing’ is key for learning, drawing on Kearsley and Schneiderman’s (1999) theory of engagement (in Rockinson-Szapkiw and Szapkiw (2011) pp. 361). Further, they claim that captivating students’ interest enables the retention of information (as supported by Barkley (2005) and Shulman (2002)) and in addition, it maintains motivation (as shown by Wishart and Blease (1999) found in Rockinson-Szapkiw and Szapkiw (2011) pp. 361). Now turning to practical applications of this, Allan (2011), based in the UK, used Twitter with BTEC and A-Level ICT students ‘to explore their thinking in and outside the classroom.’ He found that it was a useful way to remind students of deadlines and give feedback, as well as encouraging them to share information about projects with each other. Rutherford (2010) used social media to engage prearrival students at Brock University in the United States, and surveyed students on their experience of the institution, correlating this with their social media use. She found that those who had engaged with this technology prior to beginning their courses were more likely to perceive a better relationship with their peers and teachers, which added to the overall quality of their educational experience. This was reflected positively in the National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE) (Rutherford, 2010, p.706). 2: Promoting inclusivity Gundara (2000) encourages cultural sharing as, by respecting cultural diversity, this can help to build a shared value system and therefore promote inclusivity. This has become particularly pertinent in recent years with The 2010 Equality Act. Cultural sharing is really important to me in the classroom as I mainly teach international students from a wide range of backgrounds. In a similar vein Thornton (2012) analysed the use of Pinterest by 57 academic libraries in the United States, and found that it can ‘draw visitors to collections, resources, and digitised archival materials, 52
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and share information and knowledge’ (p.165), thereby increasing accessibility. Hansen et al (2012) use Pinterest to promote the University of Regina’s library and suggest that its pictorial aspect is particularly helpful for visual learners (p.7) and they have received positive feedback from their users (p.9). 3: Developing employability skills Dudenhoffer (2012) studied the use of Pinterest at the Central Methodist University (CMU) in the United States and found that it improved information and digital literacies (p.330) which is really important for employability. An article published in The Guardian (2012) reported that the University of Central Lancashire is using platforms such as Twitter to enable students to develop networking and job-seeking skills. By cultivating the application of information technology, students are working towards one of the key graduate employability skills identified by the Confederation of British Industry (2009, p.8). Having a positive online presence can help secure work, as I discovered myself when the Deputy Director of the Centre for English Language Learning at De Montfort University Leicester contacted me via Twitter. He had seen my Pinterest project and wanted to know if I could deliver some training to his team on using social media in language teaching. Through this contact, I was able to deliver the training as requested in May 2014.
Method I have created various different boards for the units I teach on; for example, there is one called English for Academic Purposes (see Figure 2) which concentrates on such skills as academic writing, Harvard referencing and presentations, and which can be used with a variety of levels of students. I also promote succeed@solent by linking to it from this board, plus links from a range of sources. In addition, I have several English for Specific Purposes boards, such as Event Management, English for Arts and Media, Journalism, Advertising, PR and Comms and so on, which directly relate to units that I teach on. There are also lifestyle boards, aimed at signposting students to advice, such as Living in the UK and managing Money.
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Figure 2: A screenshot of my English for Academic Purposes (EAP) board
Pinterest boards can be directly linked from myCourse to increase engagement and monitor what students are clicking on most by generating an activity report on myCourse. As well as using Pinterest independently, you can collaborate on pin boards with colleagues to avoid duplication, which is worth considering both within your teams and across faculties and services. I have also created boards to raise awareness, such as one on Islam in the UK (see Figure 3), since I teach a number of Muslim students.
There is also a board about Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and
Transgender issues (see Figure 4), since the student age group often explore their identity, especially if it is their first time away from home. When something comes up in class that is sensitive and of a personal nature, it is not always appropriate to discuss in front of everyone, so these boards are a great way to signpost students to, and for them to pursue privately in their own time.
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Figure 3: A screenshot of my Islam in the UK board
Figure 4: A screenshot of my LGBT+ board 55
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In addition, I have set up some special boards focusing on employability - there is a general Career Advice board, and one linking to great examples of Creative CVs. These boards also link to the Employability and Enterprise service at Southampton Solent University by signposting students to their blog.
Figure 5: A screenshot of my creative CV examples board
Impact of Pinterest I have received positive verbal feedback internally from students and colleagues at Southampton Solent University about my use of Pinterest as well as from external institutions. However, data collection is needed to evaluate the impact more accurately. As a starting point, I could further analyse myCourse page interaction with the links to my Pinterest pages. I could then carry out a survey of my students to see how much they have engaged with my Pinterest pages and how useful they found them and for which specific purposes. This could then be followed up by a focus group to add more qualitative data.
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Conclusion I have aimed to use Pinterest to engage with my students more and to promote inclusivity and digital literacy skills for employability, following theoretical recommendations and practical advice from other academics. I have received positive verbal feedback so far from both students and colleagues inside and outside my workplace; however, more rigorous research needs to be carried out to evaluate the real impact of my project.
References ALLAN, C., 2011. Using Twitter to promote independent learning.... [online] [viewed 19 December 2014].
Available
from:
http://prezi.com/uk5-4xa57hjl/using-twitter-to-promote-independent-
learning/ AVOS SYSTEMS INC, 2014. Delicious. [online] [viewed 19 December 2014]. Available from: https://delicious.com/ CBI and UNIVERSITIES UK, 2009. Future fit: Preparing graduates for the world of work. [online] [viewed 19 December 2014]. Available from: http://www.cbi.org.uk/media/1121435/cbi_uuk_future_fit.pdf CENTRE FOR LEARNING and PERFORMANCE TECHNOLOGIES, 2000 – 2013. Top 100 Tools for Learning: The 2013 List. [online] [viewed 19 December 2014]. Available from: http://c4lpt.co.uk/top100tools/ CROWN COPYRIGHT, 2010. Equality Act 2010. [online] [viewed 19 December 2014]. Available from: http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2010/15/contents DIIGO INC, 2013. Home. [online] [viewed 19 December 2014]. Available from: https://www.diigo.com/ DUDENHOFFER, C., 2012. Pin it! Pinterest as a library marketing and information literacy tool. College and Research Libraries News, 73 (6), pp. 328-332. FLIPBOARD
INC,
2013.
Home.
[online]
[viewed
19
December
2014].
Available
from:
https://flipboard.com GUARDIAN NEWS and MEDIA LIMITED, 2012. Using social media to boost student employability. [online] [viewed 19 December 2014]. Available from:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/higher-education-
network/blog/2012/jun/18/social-media-to-boost-student-employability GUNDARA, J. S., 2000. Interculturalism, education and inclusion. London: Sage Publications Ltd HAFEMANN, J., 2012. Technology: A Universal Language. [online] [viewed 19 December 2014]. Available from: http://idstm.com/technology-a-universal-language/ HANSEN, K., G. NOWLAN and C. WINTER, 2012. Pinterest as a tool: Applications in academic libraries and higher education. Partnership: the Canadian Journal of Library and Information Practice and Research, 7 (2) pp 1-11. 57
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PINTEREST, 2014. Jayne Whistance. [online] [viewed 19 December 2014]. Available from: http://www.pinterest.com/jaynewhistance/ ROCKINSON-SZAPKIW, A. and M. SZAPKIW, 2011. Engaging Higher Education Students Through Tweeting. Proceedings of Global Learn Asia Pacific, AACE [online] pp. 360–364. [viewed 19 December 2014]. Available from: http://editlib.org/p/37197/ RUTHERFORD, C., 2010. Using online social media to support preservice student engagement. Journal of online learning and teaching, 6 (4), pp. 703-711. SCOOP.IT! INC, 2014. Home. [online] [viewed 19 December 2014]. Available from: http://www.scoop.it/ SYMBALOOEDU, 2014. Home. [online] [viewed 19 December 2014]. Available from: http://www.symbalooedu.com/ THORNTON, E., 2012. Is your academic library pinning? Academic libraries and Pinterest. Journal of Web Librarianship, 6 (3), pp. 164-175.
Contact Jayne Whistance Associate Lecturer in English as a Foreign Language and Study Skills Faculty of Business Sport and Enterprise and the Faculty of Creative Industries Telephone number: 02382 016724 Email: jayne.whistance@solent.ac.uk Twitter handle: @JayneWhistance
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Book chapter summary. Using Facebook for student communication, collaboration and motivation Steve Hogg This article abridges a chapter titled ‘An informal use of Facebook to encourage student collaboration and motivation for off campus activities,’ published in the book, The social classroom: integrating social network use in education, Gorg Mallia, ed.
Copyright 2014, IGI Global. http://www.igi-
global.com/book/social-classroom-integrating-social-network/78941
Background There is no escaping Facebook. With over 1 billion active users world-wide and 24 million UK users logging on daily, it is not surprising to find that the majority of your students are Facebook users. As a part-time tutor of digital production I am often teaching in I.T. rooms and only need to step out of the room for five minutes to find most of the students checking in on Facebook when I return. The students of course use Facebook to share pictures, experiences and things that they have found interesting on the Internet. Moreover, instant messaging, online presence and the fact the ‘everyone you know’ is on Facebook means Facebook is the preferred communication tool of the students. As tutors we may well be Facebook users ourselves for those very same reasons and as a way of keeping in touch with friends and family. Indeed not to have a Facebook and Twitter account may be seen to be out of touch.
The Role of the VLE in Student Learning The myCourse Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) at Southampton Solent University (SSU) is an integral part of the student learning experience. The students value a richly populated VLE unit. 59
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I populate my VLE units before the start of teaching; this allows the students to preview what is ahead. I design the learning materials in the myCourse units in such a way that they are a mirror of what happens in the classroom which gives the following advantages: If a student misses a lesson or lessons then they can catch up without holding up the rest of the class. The stronger students can move ahead of the teaching schedule. The students can preview and review the material outside of the classroom. I review the units each year and make improvements. They are constantly evolving. The role of the VLE is well established and recognised as the place our students go to access the learning materials associated with their unit of study. Online submission of assignments, recently introduced across the board at SSU, means that the VLE is no longer an optional extra. It is a core application that the students recognise as being delivered by the University and its staff. One student commented via the SUE survey about one of the VLE units: ‘Made some real progress, this was hard but fun, I watched some of the online tutorials which were posted and found them extremely useful, they are a really good resource because you can work through step by step pausing and literally doing as the tutor says, It has really helped me and will be using these online helpers a lot now, they make it really simple and you can of course pause it and go at your own speed, great help.’ It is clear that there are real advantages from effective use of the VLE for both tutors and students. At SSU the MyCourse VLE is based on the Moodle platform. The most recent versions of Moodle have greatly enhanced its functionality. However, Moodle can’t compete with Facebook’s affordance for instant communication and sharing.
Using Facebook in addition to the VLE As stated earlier, the vast majority of students are Facebook members. It affords instant communication and is a powerful tool. Facebook also allows any user to create a group and that group can have a restricted or open membership. All of Facebook’s file uploading and sharing capabilities 60
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are available to the group space that is created, so that the group area has the potential to become an effective collaboration workspace. In order to establish whether these affordances provided enough of a reason to employ Facebook regularly, I conducted two trials, which are outlined in the following case studies.
Case Study 1 – Using Facebook informally to enable student communication and collaboration I already had a myCourse unit created as always to support the classroom sessions. However, this was quite a demanding unit for the students in that they would need to come together as a group to create a short film from beginning to end, including coming up with the story idea, scripting the movie, planning the shoot, filming it, before editing the film and wrapping it all up in a movie themed website. It was a lot to ask and they would need to come together as a team. I would need to get them communicating effectively and collaborating. The students were also required to collaborate with students from other courses. However, the VLE did not offer the wider communication functionality and the VLE wasn’t an easy option. I knew all of the students were likely to be Facebook members, as not having a Facebook account is the exception rather than the norm. I set up the Facebook Interactive Movie Group as a ‘secret’ group. That way the postings would only be visible to the members of the group. The group ended up having 25 members; I was one of two tutors; thirteen of the student members were from the unit of study and the rest were students from other courses and even a couple from another university who wanted to get involved. In the first days and weeks, the other tutor and myself posted up examples of short films from YouTube that were similar to the one the students would be making. That was an easy task as Facebook embeds the video right in the posting. The idea was to give the students inspiration and get them thinking creatively. Students started to post videos that they had found on YouTube. That was an interesting and encouraging development. The real breakthrough came when the work in the classroom began to be shared by the students in the Facebook group. That was unprompted. The first post was a mobile phone picture of the classroom white board containing the story flowchart that they developed together in class. That started a flood 61
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of postings with a detailed flowchart from a student that he had developed independently based on the white board material. Story outlines were then posted from other students. Here were examples of the students working collaboratively in class then going off and doing independent work and then returning to Facebook to share that work with their peers. The next weeks witnessed the students directing each other as to who was responsible for what sections and giving each other more links to where to find helpful resources. It was gratifying to see the students really engaging with the topic.
Case Study 2 – Using Facebook informally to motivate students The students in the second case study had a long Final Major Project unit spanning two semesters. Over the period of their course the students cover photography, radio, video and online. Semester one had been designed by the teaching team to enable the students to revisit and refresh their knowledge and skills around those production strands and it was these strands that the students would be required to pull together in their project. One of those strands was photography. Practical workshop sessions were arranged where practical camera techniques were taught. A lecture was delivered that reviewed composition and seminars concentrated on practical guidance, bringing the practical and theoretical together. All of these oncampus sessions were supplemented and enhanced by comprehensive VLE materials including an innovative online camera simulator. However, the students were required to get out and practice, and put those newly refreshed skills and knowledge into use. This was a piece of work that the students had to do in their own time, didn’t have any assessment attached and was work towards a project with a deadline some way in the future. A forum in the VLE could have offered the students the opportunity to upload pictures and to comment on the pictures of others. However, Facebook has some very strong features for image uploading and sharing over and above what the VLE could offer. Not only could the students upload and comment, but they could also tag and like their own and their peers’ images. Moreover Facebook presents images very well and there is the option to create albums. I also felt that this functionality would motivate the students and if they saw their peers adding photographs then it would spur them on to do the same thing. So the task was to get the students inspired and motivated to take photographs, and hopefully to get the photography bug and keep taking pictures beyond the revision period. All of the students became members of the group. I tasked the students with taking and then uploading a minimum of three photographs that weekend. 62
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Within minutes of the group being created two of the students added excited postings: ‘The photie taking weekend starts here! Whoop!’ ‘Let’s get busy snapping! :D’ The students added over a hundred images. The images getting more ambitious and technically competent as the weeks went on. The students commented on each other’s pictures, adding likes and so on. The students were encouraging and supportive to one another.
Gathering the case study students views The students’ qualitative comments revealed their feelings towards the Facebook facilitated projects: Q. How did you feel about a learning activity being facilitated through Facebook? ‘Using Facebook to facilitate an activity was good and effective because it enabled everyone to have direct contact with the tutor and the rest of the group while serving as a space for its members to post individual work for the rest of the group to see and comment on. It was an easily accessible vehicle that helped bring the project together in a modern fashion.’ ‘I found Facebook more relaxed than email. It is less formal, and quicker, so it helped a lot to get through the project, have advice from the others and so on. I really think that we should consider it as a tool for communication within a group in a class or between the teacher and the class.’ Q. Did you feel that Facebook was a good way to communicate and collaborate on group projects? ‘I feel collaborating online using Facebook was essential to the development of our work. I feel that this helped us to keep the project well organised because we were able to remind and assist each other on tasks that were in need of completing. By specifically creating a group for the purpose of our project, I feel this kept discussions focused and separate from other Facebook activity.’ Q. Did you feel motivated by your peers sharing their work?
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‘Did I feel motivated? Yes. It felt good contributing material to the page, and to see it grow just made me want to add more items, and when somebody else posts work you can look at it and think that’s a really good idea, but I bet I can do something similar or better. Comments allow for instant feedback as well. ‘ ‘It definitely made me feel more motivated. It's embarrassing seeing how much others have done when you're a bit behind! So it does make you want to keep up with everyone.’ Q. Did Facebook have an impact on your learning? ‘I think Facebook had a great impact on my learning for the project, it's a great way to communicate ideas to your group members and since a lot of people use Facebook now these posts of ideas and news are likely to be seen straight away.’ ‘I believe the interaction we had with Facebook had an extremely positive impact on my learning. Facebook acted as central space to share ideas and gain new ways of thinking and learning. One of the most useful ways I think Facebook helped us, as a group, was its ability to manage our project documents. By simply uploading documents to the group’s page it acted as a shared viewing space as well as an additional place to securely save your work.’ Yes…but On the face of it the use of Facebook as an addition to the VLE seemed a sensible option. The students reflected very positively. As the tutor I could reflect that Classroom + VLE + Facebook = Success, but there are some considerations despite the positivity of the students.
Can we be friends? LinkedIn is another social media website where your network is referred to as contacts and connections. Contacts and connections have a different connotation to the Facebook concept of ‘friends’ and as tutors should we be ‘friends’ with our students? (Lucas, 2009) states that many teachers are reluctant to become friends with students. Moreover if the VLE is the official university space, then is Facebook the students’ space? One case study student further comments: ‘In respects to how I feel about it, in some ways it is a kind of breach of the social space as in so far as to be part of the group, you need to have tutors and lecturers as friends, which could cause
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problems for some people. I definitely think there could be issues with allowing formal contacts access to personal statuses or pictures.’ It’s an excellent point and one that reflects my own uneasiness about the blurring of the boundaries of the tutor to student relationship. In an article for the Times Higher Education website, Cunanne (2011) cautions that academics may be advised not to befriend students on social media websites for legal reasons.
Is Facebook just a big distraction? Wise et al. (2011) argue that Facebook certainly is a distraction and that conversely the more conscientious the student the less time they spend on Facebook. An article in the British Daily Mail newspaper reported on a study at an American university that concluded that ‘Facebook can lower exam results by 20%’ and further stated that the study had also revealed that students who did not use Facebook spent an average of 88% more of their time on their studies (Fleming, 2010). Interested to know the student view I asked the case study students. One responded with the comment: ‘I think Facebook is a huge distraction; it is probably a lot of people's favourite pastime. Just navigating through the newsfeed, from a page to another page to the next page... I think Facebook accounts for a lot of our time and our productivity would increase if we stayed away from it.’ A very interesting comment that raises the question of whether we should be driving our students to spend even more time on Facebook or is there another way forward?
Solution: Extending the VLE to include the affordances of Facebook It is clear that the VLE has many positive advantages to both tutors and students and when used well can have a significant impact on student learning. It is also clear that social media has many affordances for student communication and collaboration that can be brought into student learning. However there are negative aspects of drawing students and tutors together in social media that do not arise in the VLE. VLEs, whether it is the developers of Blackboard or the open source development community of Moodle, could certainly learn something from Facebook and the nature of its user created groups and networks, instant communications, alerts and like/sharing features. A VLE with extended functionality to include the features of Facebook would therefore be the ideal solution. 65
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Conclusion This article has centred on my own personal experience as a tutor and the experiences of my students. As a teacher and technology enthusiast, I continually strive to improve the learning experience of my students. Excellent teaching, combined with effective use of technology to enhance the learning experience, is at the core of modern education. The case studies revealed that the students unanimously welcomed the use of Facebook as vehicle for their learning activities and felt that their learning had been positively impacted. As their tutor I was satisfied that my goals for the students, including facilitating better communication and collaboration, had been achieved. Moreover, the majority of students reported that they felt more motivated to do the work and that was also a satisfying result. However, that was a cost in regards to my own leisure time, as I posted mostly in the evenings and therefore it wouldn’t be sustainable over long periods. It is a strategy only for the most enthusiastic of tutors who are prepared to give a lot of their own time. It did also mean that I ended up being ‘friends’ with some of my students. My preferred option would be only to accept friend requests from students once they had graduated. That is a great way to keep in touch and extend the connection beyond their time at university to see how the graduates are getting on in their careers. When they are students I don’t want to see pictures of their social activities and, by the nature of Facebook, that is difficult to avoid. I didn’t make that clear in the beginning and now I don’t want to discourage the students or ‘un-friend’ them. The tutor to student boundary has blurred, at least in the online space. Many would argue that this is no bad thing and that people come to university for the social as well as the learning experience. Indeed Facebook is an excellent way for students to make new friends and to integrate into university life. It can be a distraction from studies, as students spend many hours on Facebook, and as a tutor, I don’t wish to provide more opportunities for that distraction to happen. The solution could be a wider VLE. A VLE that is not only a delivery vehicle for teaching and learning materials, but also one that facilitates and provides all the great things about Facebook that supports learning and none of the negatives that detract from it.
References CUNANNE, S., 2011. The perils of online ‘friendship’. Times Higher Education 2 June 2011 [online] [viewed on 21 Feb 2013] Available from 66
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http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/story.asp?storycode=416420 FLEMING, N., 2010. Using Facebook can 'lower exam results by up to 20%'. Daily Mail 7 September 2010 [online] [viewed from 21 Feb 2013]. Available
from
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1309612/Using-Facebook-lower-exam-
results-20.html LUCAS, C. 2009. Should Students and Teachers Be Online ‘Friends’? Education.com 2 July 2009 [online] [viewed from 21 Feb 2013]. Available from http://www.education.com/magazine/article/Students_Teachers_Social_Networking/ UNITED KINGDOM FACEBOOK STATISTICS (n.d.). [online] [viewed on 26 February 2013]. Available from http://www.socialbakers.com/facebook-statistics/united-kingdom [Accessed: 21 Feb 2013]. WISE, L. Z., J. SKUES, and B. WILLIAMS, 2011. Facebook in higher education promotes social but not academic engagement. In G. WILLIAMS, P. STATHAM, N. BROWN and B. CLELAND eds., 2011 Changing Demands, Changing Directions. ascilite Proceedings 4-7 December 2011 Hobart. pp.1332-1342.
Contact Steve Hogg, Associate Professor, Head of Learning Technologies Email: steve.hogg@solent.ac.uk Tel: 023 8201 3860
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Editorial Guidelines Background Dialogue is the internal Solent Teaching and Learning Community (STLC) academic journal and is aimed at both practitioners and policy makers to support pedagogic research and share good pedagogic practice across SSU. It is intended that it will be published at least once a year.
Submission Articles need to be submitted electronically to Jenny Watson. The faculty Teaching and Learning Fellows will jointly review all submissions and provide feedback to the authors. The faculty Teaching and Learning Fellows are: Sara Briscoe (FBSE), Donna Peberdy (FCI) and Karen Arm (MARTEC)
Instructions for Authors Contributions to Dialogue will normally fall into one of the following categories. However, contributions of different lengths will be considered by the Editorial Board:
Articles: 2000 - 3000 words (accompanied by an abstract.)
Brief reports (up to 1000 words) on, for example, innovative practice, conference events etc.
Book Reviews
Format Articles should be typed, single spaced and have only one title. The title will appear in bold. We encourage the use of subheadings (which will also appear in bold) to divide the article. All artwork (material that is not textual) such as tables, figures, diagrams, charts, graphs, illustrations should be in black and white or shades of grey. Once your article has been accepted we will ask you to provide a hard copy of text with diagrams or other visuals to help with accurate setting at the design stage.
Use Trebuchet 11 MS Font Footnotes should be avoided. Please contact a member of the editorial group for a word document template.
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Writing Style Papers should be written in an easily accessible style, suitable for an audience of academics, policy makers and practitioners. All papers should use UK English spelling, grammar and punctuation.
Referencing Use the Harvard Referencing System. Further guidance can be obtained via http://portal.solent.ac.uk/library/help/factsheets/resources/referencing-harvard.pdf?t=1421663269481
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