4 Volume
SOUTHAMPTON SOLENT UNIVERSITY
Solent Teaching and Learning Community
Dialogue January 2014
SOLENT TEACHING AND LEARNING COMMUNITY
Dialogue
Sara Briscoe • FBSE Dr Donna Peberdy • FCIS Karen Arm • MARTEC
Editor - Jenny Watson
NUMBER 4 • January 2014
Contents Editorial ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….………3 Reconciling Perspectives on Feedback on Assessment Dr Fiona Handley and Mihaela Cosac …………………………………………………………………………………………………….5
Squaring the Learning Loop-using New Technologies to Provide Opportunities for Reflection and Experience Verity Bird………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………15
MOOCs: A First-hand Experience on EDC MOOC and a Speculation of their Future Impact in Higher Education Timos Almpanis………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………26
HEA Project Reports
Positive Perspectives of Employability in Business Professor Georgina Andrews and Caroline Carpenter………………………………………………………………………….35
Closing the Graduate Employability Skills Gap: Ruth McLellan…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………47
Editorial Guidelines……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….58
Editorial
Welcome to this fourth edition of ‘Dialogue’; the journal of the Solent Teaching and Learning Community (STLC) at Southampton Solent University. Dialogue is an in-house publication which aims to share and celebrate pedagogic practice and research across the institution. This edition contains papers and reports covering a range of issues which we hope will be of interest to you as teachers and supporters of learning. Dr Fiona Handley and Mihaela Cosac report on an inquiry jointly undertaken by the University and the Students’ Union into feedback on assessment. In the paper they highlight the contested nature of feedback and present three viewpoints on what constitutes ‘good’ feedback; that of students, teachers, and external examiners. Drawing on the data collected for their project, the authors make some useful recommendations for how students can better engage with the feedback given to them. Verity Bird offers a discussion of how technology can be used to facilitate learning in Built Environment Education. Drawing on Kolb’s experiential learning cycle (1984) she argues that online resources, such as video tutorials and quizzes, can help students move into the latter stages of the cycle (i.e. ‘concrete experience’ and ‘reflective observation’) in ways which are not so easily achievable using other pedagogic methods in this discipline. Timos Almpanis provides a personal account of his experience of using Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) and considers both the tutor’s role in, and the student’s experience of, this platform for learning. The paper concludes by raising some questions aimed at opening up further discussion about the wider impact and sustainability of these short online courses in the higher education sector. Finally, two reports on Higher Education Academy funded projects are included; ‘Positive Perspectives on Employability in Business’ by Professor Georgina Andrews and ‘Closing the Graduate Employability Skills Gap: Development of a reciprocal skills exchange framework for marketing students and local marketing graduate employers’ by Ruth McLellan. Both reports demonstrate the value of seeking funding from external bodies to support the development of pedagogic research and the very real impact that projects such as these can have on enhancing the student experience at the University. 3
Thank you to all of these colleagues for contributing to this edition of Dialogue. We hope you will consider submitting an article for inclusion in future editions. As always, we would like to express our gratitude to Jenny Watson for her ongoing work on the journal.
EDITORIAL BOARD Sara Briscoe, Dr Donna Peberdy and Karen Arm
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Reconciling Perspectives on Feedback on Assessment Dr Fiona Handley and Mihaela Cosac Abstract Southampton Solent’s feedback initiative is looking at finding and disseminating good practice relating to feedback on assessment across the institution. The initiative is a collaboration between the Students’ Union and the University and was the result of research undertaken by the Students’ Union in 2011-12 into students’ experiences of the feedback given to them (Solent Students’ Union, 2012). While students at Southampton Solent are given increasing amounts of feedback on their assessed work, which is generally well received, this paper explores feedback across the sector as a contested area within assessment, where both staff and students are often dissatisfied with the feedback process, and where there is often little shared ground on what constitutes ‘good’ feedback. This is particularly important as feedback on assessed work is an important mechanism for direct communication between staff and student, and is a key learning opportunity that can easily be overlooked. Recent writing has highlighted that the traditional one-way feedback pervasive in Higher Education is ineffective in engendering student learning, and has called for better communication between staff and student about the purposes of feedback and for greater dialogue within the feedback process. This paper explores these issues and moves the discussion towards how students can engage with the feedback given to them.
Why is feedback on assessment important? Recent research into the motivations for student learning have focused on assessment, and within this, increasing attention has been paid to feedback, and particularly feedback on summative assessment (e.g. Boud and Molloy, 2013; Merry et al, 2013). Feedback on summative assessment is the mechanism of correcting students’ work, of communicating to students how successful they have been in achieving the learning outcomes of the assessment or unit, of explaining the mark given and of informing them of how they can improve their work in the 5
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future. Feedback on assessed work allows staff to undertake a deep and detailed examination of students’ comprehension that cannot take place in class or tutorials. This one-to-one attention is increasingly valuable to students (see Kandiko and Mawer 2013 p. 27) as the time for direct, personal communication between staff and students becomes harder to find. Giving feedback on assessed work is also one of the key responsibilities of academic staff, and one which has become increasingly important in their work loads. Increases in student numbers within Higher Education have had a disproportionate impact on marking when looked at in comparison to teaching, because increases in class sizes have minimal impact on teaching regimes but directly correlate to marking load. This means staff struggle to present students with individualised feedback within a time frame that allows students to gain the most from it. For staff there is also a professional pressure associated with marking, as marks and feedback comments are scrutinised by colleagues via internal moderation and external examining. Comments from external examiners about feedback are looked at by, for example, programme leaders and senior management, and contribute to actions targeted at improving the feedback practice of individual staff. For many reasons then, staff commit a lot of time and energy to giving feedback. Reports from Southampton Solent’s external examiners confirm that staff are mostly successful in giving feedback, commenting that the majority of feedback was detailed and supportive, guiding students to improve their grades, and this was an area of good practice noted in many reports (Southampton Solent University 2013). In contrast, students are less satisfied with their experience of assessment and feedback. Within the NSS, the scores for the five questions on assessment and feedback are, sector wide, the lowest of all measures, for example at Solent 64% students were satisfied (agree and strongly agree) with the assessment and feedback regimes, compared with 78% being satisfied with their experience overall (Southampton Solent University 2012). The negative responses of students to their experiences of feedback can be bewildering to staff, who are conscious of both the huge amount of time and effort the feedback represents, and that external examiners are very positive about it. This is particularly the case when staff report that students have failed to collect feedback, or ignore the feedback and only look for their mark. In summary, giving and receiving feedback on assessed work are high stakes activities for both staff and students, for institutional, personal, professional and academic reasons yet there are 6
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opposing views on its quality, and many of those involved are dissatisfied with the current system.
‘Good’ feedback While there is little consensus on the effectiveness of the current feedback regime within HE, there is a surprisingly good correlation between what students and staff consider to be ‘good’ feedback, at least at a superficial level. Following on from a survey that took place in 2011 collecting students’ opinions about feedback, Solent Students’ Union asked a group of course representatives about what they considered good feedback to be. Overall, students like personal, detailed feedback that highlights strengths and weaknesses, and tells them exactly what to do to improve their next piece of work. “Clearly highlight certain phrases on the document and comment on those specific things, rather than generic things about the whole piece of work”. “Provide some solutions” “Highlight certain phrases... and comment on those specific things” “The tutor should always give the student the opportunity to discuss and question feedback – tutorials, face to face feedback in order to discuss in detail what should be improved”. These comments contain clear messages about the importance of feedback being personalised, on feeding forward to the next assignment, and about detailed and explicit instructions. Students were also keen that the feedback reflected the mark given, as positive comments were sometimes written in conjunction with a poor mark. This is supported by external research, for example researchers from Oxford Brookes found that students conceptualise good feedback as guidance that provides not just a summative judgment but gives opportunities for discussion “which identifies areas of improvement and scaffolds the student to help achieve higher grades” (Beaumont et al., 2011).
The external examiner perspective A qualitative analysis of the 2011-12 Southampton Solent’s external examiners’ comments (Southampton Solent University 2013) gives an indication of what they consider to be good 7
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feedback. Of the 142 responses relating to feedback, 148 comments relating to feedback were identified of which 110 gave some indication of what is good about the feedback seen, and these focused on detail and feedforward, with clarity, consistency and constructiveness also being important.
Total number of comments by category 50 45 40 35 30 25 20 15 10 5 0
Table showing qualitative analysis of Southampton Solent’s external examiners’ comments on good feedback 2011-12 Feedforward There were 44 comments which related to feedforward or to suggestions given to students on how to improve their work. “Feedback was good and showed where and how students could improve 8
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FB is excellent. If heeded, students will be able to significantly improve their submissions. [Staff] deserve to be commended for their feedback - detailed and exemplary in approach enabling real student learning through assessment and feedforward knowledge”. Detail There were also 44 comments that mentioned detail or extensiveness, often in conjunction with a comment on clarity. “Feedback was very detailed and helpful to students and shows a commitment to the subject”. “Comments were often very full and students should have had no difficulty understanding how grades were arrived at”. “I was impressed by the feedback students receive. The feedback is clear and detailed”. Quantity There was not necessarily a clear dividing line between extensive, as in detailed, and extensive as in quantity, feedback, so the 13 comments that directly mentioned the quantity of feedback are possibly a slight underestimate. “Students were provided with plenty of accurate and helpful feedback.” “Many students were given excellent, helpful and extensive feedback while others were provided with somewhat less feedback.” “The very best feedback provided extremely extensive comments by both first and second markers. Undoubtedly these markers took a considerable amount of time for grading.” Further to this, six noted that feedback was concise, four in a positive way. “I was sceptical of the quality that could be provided through the submission and return of work via MyCourse as this was outside my experience but I was pleased to see brief but meaningful feedback provided to students”. “The quality of feedback was constructive and concise with plenty of 'feedforward'~ Exemplary.” “The comments and feedback to students are plentiful.”
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Clearly then, External Examiners consider feedforward as key, especially if less specific terms which imply feedforward such as ‘constructive’ or ‘supportive’ are included. The issue of ‘detail’ in feedback is interesting. This could refer to specific rather than generic feedback, it may indicate something about quantity, it might indicate that the feedback is thoughtful and thorough.
Student Perspective From the consultation undertaken by the Students’ Union, it is clear that from a student perspective, ‘detail’ is about receiving careful comments on problem areas, and precise instructions about how to improve them. The difficulty with this expectation is that every assignment is different, and giving instructions regarding improving work is difficult when the marker doesn’t know when the feedback will be returned to students, or is not aware of the next assignment. More problematically detailed comments may not be directly applicable to other work, simply because their detail is specific to that assignment. Further to this, the student focus on having detailed instructions to follow as a key way to improve their work, may be a ‘false friend’, and not just because comments may be of minimal use in feeding forward. Research has shown that it is students who do not singularly focus on the detailed instructions within feedback but on the wider picture, tend to do better in assessments, as “low achieving students are much more focused on the surface features of feedback messages than high-achieving students, who sought the meaning behind the message” (Orsmond and Merry 2009, cited in Nicol 2010a, p2). So not only is the dependency on following detailed instructive feedback to improve marks unreliable, student achievement is more clearly related to engaging with the higher level comments in feedback. This student focus on instruction also has implications for the utility of feedback being focussed on the next assignment. The results of one project noted that: “Most students, even when they did see the feed-forward function of feedback, took a more short-termist view than staff of the timeframe in which they could apply the feedback. The consequence of this difference was that students often considered feedback from staff to be vague and ambiguous because they could not immediately apply it to another piece of work” (Price et al 2010, p. 285).
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Further to this, it may well be that students tend to have ‘tunnel vision’ in their response to feedback, with a reflexive presumption that the appropriate place to apply feedback is in future assessments, rather than in other behaviours that lead to learning such as engagement with classroom activities.
Feedback as a learning activity It is clear that an aspect of good feedback is its ability to influence what students do, whether that is expressed as instructions, constructive feedback, or feedforward. What is perhaps less clear is the cognitive process that leads to students changing their behaviour or thought processes thus demonstrating that learning has occurred. A useful starting point is David Nicol’s work (e.g. Nicol and Macfarlane-Dick 2006). He describes students as: “actively decoding feedback information, internalising it, comparing it against their own work, using it to make judgements about its quality and ultimately to make improvements in future work” (Nicol 2010b, p.504) . Supporting these processes involves getting students to practice decoding, reviewing, comparing, judging and suggesting improvements. Ideally this should take place through activities that encourage students to articulate and therefore make conscious what they are doing. This may be the traditional tutorial where students receive one-to-one feedback, but equally could be through seminar discussions with the lecturer, with peers or through internal dialogue. The concept of dialogue runs through much recent work on this (e.g. Beaumont, 2011; Boud and Molloy, 2012; Nicol, 2010). Nicol in particular suggests peer critiquing as an activity to encourage external articulation of thought processes that has minimal impact on the workloads of tutors. The aim of this is to improve students’ ability to have the inner dialogue of comparing and reviewing, making them better self-regulated learners, and able to find the ‘meaning behind the message’. Perhaps the key points to take from this recent work is that giving feedback is a starting point of a process rather than an end point, and that if feedback is to be effective as a learning tool, it needs to be acted upon. Creating activities around the feedback given is key to creating situations where learning will occur and can be monitored, because if it is not acted upon, feedback is wasted. 11
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A vision for feedback Making the most of the contribution that feedback can have to student learning means changing perceptions about the role of feedback in learning, and in what ‘good’ feedback entails. While giving detailed feedback to students remains important and should be encouraged, students need to look beyond instructions for their next assignment to understand and act upon the less specific aspects of their feedback. The ability to uncover those messages within feedback and apply them, are skills that students need to develop, and are ones that can be supported through taking a dialogue based approach to feedback which encourages those cognitive skills to be developed. Giving feedback therefore becomes the starting point for activities that encourage learning. Increasing the activities that staff need to organise, may seem like a recipe for more work, but a strong theme of all of the recent work on dialogic feedback has been on finding efficient ways of increasing engagement with feedback that do not impose further workloads on staff. Part of this involves changing perceptions of ‘good’ feedback as solely about extensive amounts of detailed feedback, to understanding that feedback is good when students learn from it through appropriate follow-on activities. What is clear is that the student desire for more instructional advice is neither achievable in terms of staff workload, nor desirable pedagogically. In conclusion, there needs to be a shift from thinking about giving feedback on assessment as an end point, to a more integrated approach where student engagement with feedback is planned into the overall learning and teaching activities of a unit or course. In recognising the learning opportunities that responding to feedback presents, staff will be able to better justify the amount of time and effort dedicated to creating feedback. These learning opportunities can be made through dialogues around feedback that will help students move beyond surface readings of feedback to finding the ‘message within’, and from the ‘tunnel vision’ of thinking that feedback on assessment only applies to assessments. By practicing the cognitive processes involved in this, students will be able to develop the skills to find meaning within feedback and thus develop as independent learners. Just as we are now surprised that lecturers ever stood and presented information to students and expected them to learn, in the future we may well be surprised that tutors handed students written feedback and expected them to learn from it. Recognising feedback on assessed work as a key learning opportunity is the first step towards this. 12
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Postscript Writing this paper helped form Southampton Solent’s approach to student engagement in feedback, which was subsequently taken forward through a working group of the Teaching and Learning Sub-Committee, drawing on the expertise and interests of the Students’ Union and staff from Academic Services, LIS, and the Faculties. As a result, in 2013 the Students’ Union launched the Feedforward: Your Feedback campaign, a year of activities highlighting how and why students should engage with the feedback given to them, and communicating the initiatives the University was taking to enhance staff feedback practice. Academic Services and the Students’ Union continue to work in partnership to engage students with quality processes in this and other initiatives (see QAA 2012 for further background). Mihaela Cosac would like to thank both her predecessor as Vice President (Education) at the Students’ Union, Daisy Edwards, who undertook the initial student consultation which started this initiative, and her replacement, Hannah Watts who is leading the Feedforward: Your Feedback project.
References BEAUMONT, C. M. O’DOHERTY and L. SHANNON, 2011, Reconceptualising assessment feedback: A key to improving student learning? In Studies in Higher Education, 36 (6), 671-687 BOUD, D. and E. MOLLOY, 2012, Rethinking models of feedback for learning: the challenge of design. In Assessment and Evaluation in Higher Education 2012, 1 (15), iFirst Article BOUD, D. and E. MOLLOY, 2013, Feedback in Higher and Professional Education: understanding it and doing it well. London: Routledge KANDIKO, C. B. and MAWER, M., 2013, Student Expectations and Perceptions of Higher Education London: King’s Learning Institute MERRY, S., M. PRICE, D. CARLESS and M. TARAS (eds.), 2013, Reconceptualising Feedback in Higher Education: developing dialogue with students. London: Routledge NICOL, D., 2010a, Four Recent Papers on Assessment and Feedback with Significant Implications for Practice. Graduates for the 21st Century: Integrating the Enhancement Themes Series. Glasgow: QAA Scotland (online) [viewed January 2013]. Available at www.enhancementthemes.ac.uk 13
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NICOL, D., 2010b, From monologue to dialogue: improving written feedback processes in mass higher education. In Assessment and Evaluation in Higher Education, 35 (5), 501-517 NICOL, D. J. and D. MACFARLANE-DICK, 2006, Formative Assessment and self regulated learning: A model and seven principles of good feedback practice. Studies in Higher Education 2006, 31 (2), 199-218 PRICE, M., K. HANDLE, J. MILLAR and B. O’DONOVAN, 2010, Feedback: all that effort, but what is the effect? In Assessment and Evaluation in Higher Education, 35 (3), 277-289 QUALITY ASSURANCE AGENCY, 2012, UK Quality Code for Higher Education, Chapter B5 Student Engagement. Gloucester: QAA SOLENT STUDENTS’ UNION, 2012 Assessment and Feedback, written by Mihaela Cosac, 12/TLSC/22, internal paper on file SOUTHAMPTON SOLENT UNIVERSITY, 2012, Quantitative and Qualitative Analysis of the 2012 National Student Survey, written by the Research and Information Unit, 12/ASDC/65, internal paper on file SOUTHAMPTON SOLENT UNIVERSITY, 2013, Emergent Themes External Examiner Reports 2011-12, written by Andrew Stevenson, Academic Services, 13/ASDC/12, internal paper on file
Contact Dr Fiona Handley Quality Enhancement Officer (Teaching and Learning), Academic Services Email fiona.handley@solent.ac.uk Tel: 02380 319420 Mihaela Cosac VP Education Solent Students’ Union 2012-13
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Squaring the Learning Loop - Using New Technologies to Provide Opportunities for Reflection and Experience Verity Bird Introduction The Built Environment programme at Southampton Solent University has a lengthy history within the University; our Construction Management course dates back to 1992, with Architectural Technology starting soon after, in 1996. The Interior Design course was introduced in place of an interiors-focused branch of the Architectural Technology course in 2006. The focus of the team tends significantly towards learning and teaching, employability and widening participation which are all core elements of the University’s strategic vision which the programme embraces wholeheartedly and seeks to embed throughout the student learning experience. Our students come from a wide range of educational backgrounds, and while a proportion would be classified as ‘traditional’ university students, we typically have a significant proportion of students from non-traditional backgrounds. This article explores how e-resources, particularly in the form of quizzes and video podcasts, may be used to complete Kolb’s learning cycle, the ‘learning loop’(1984). This provides regular opportunities for feedback and reinforcement and encourages cycles of review and reflection, thereby improving student knowledge and understanding. In doing so, we help to develop the students’ ability to make the best use of a practical skills base. Two subject areas in particular, construction technology and architectural drawing, are problematic for many students in that the written resources, even with considerable graphic content, are frequently not the most effective learning materials for what is essentially practical content. It was therefore decided to develop and pilot a range of e-resources to appeal to students with varying learning styles.
Background and rationale The programme, especially the part-time pathway, draws in students from a wide range of backgrounds, many of whom are non-traditional entrants to the higher education (HE). 15
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environment. A proportion will already be actively employed in practice, seeking to ‘up-skill’ with a view to professional progression. Some of this group will be mature students entering HE for the first time; others will already have related qualifications and be seeking a change of career. Each year, there are a few students with a long experience of construction at a very practical level (as bricklayers, joiners etc.) who have decided that the time has come to move into a management or design role. This group generally has a very sound perspective of the process of construction, with minimal academic experience. Traditional approaches to learning are likely to be the most suited to the traditional learner. With so many students who do not fall into this category, it is desirable to look for alternative ways to facilitate student learning. The programme team is therefore increasingly using eresources that are available within myCourse, to support learning. This is particularly the case for first year units geared to the principles of construction technology (how buildings are built) and the practical application of these principles through graphic means. From an employability perspective, successfully engaging with the subject material is essential to all our students. Architectural technologists and interior designers communicate primarily through visual means, with written aspects adding detail that cannot be shown graphically rather than the other way around. Drawings in professional practice nowadays are almost invariably produced using Computer Aided Design (CAD) software, so the ability to use CAD is a core employability skill for both architectural technologists and interior designers seeking to work in mainstream, commercial architectural/interiors practice. The leading CAD package is AutoCAD, which was initially developed as a Disk Operating System (DOS) based programme prior to the widespread introduction of Windows and similar operating systems. AutoCAD is more complex than students are accustomed to simply because CAD packages like AutoCAD, can deliver anything from basic plans, elevations and sections to complex threedimensional modelling. Considerable care was put into developing paper-based teaching resources for AutoCAD but this approach resembles instructions for flat packed furniture. Many students do not find written resources to be the best method of learning an essentially practical skill, so providing resources to suit different learning styles is clearly desirable.
Designing learning for students from non-traditional backgrounds This section is a summary of some of the sources and approaches that have influenced curriculum design that support student learning, and especially students from non-traditional backgrounds. 16
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Prosser and Trigwell (1999, p71-74) raise an aspect of the deep versus the surface approach that is seldom addressed in textbooks relating to learning in higher education; that some young people do not consistently adopt either a deep or surface approach. Entwhistle et al. (1991) identify this third set of approaches as ‘disintegrated’ and these students are simply ‘failing’, that is unable to succeed in and/or unlikely to access the higher education environment. A disintegrated learner adopts a strategic approach to learning, using either a surface or a deep approach but not consistently applying either. Studies cited in Prosser and Trigwell (1999, p7273) show that students who do not adopt a consistent approach tend to do less well, even than consistently surface learners. With our diverse range of student backgrounds at Southampton Solent University, it is likely that this is an issue that particularly affects students from nontraditional backgrounds. One of the gaps that our teaching design aims to bridge is that between the disintegrated learner and students exhibiting approaches more characteristic of typical university students. Much of the emphasis in Prosser and Trigwell (1999, p. 37-41) concerns the needs of the student in terms of his or her prior experience of education and educational objectives. It is also worth considering the changing nature of the student cohort, especially taking into account widening participation initiatives in higher education. Design for learning as discussed in Beetham (2007, p.26-39) develops the concept of learning design, specifically in relation to the use of digital resources, and emphasises that specific approaches to learning should be aligned with different types of subject area. This study looks at how this approach has been applied in relation to students within the built environment programme studying essentially practical subject material. Biggs and Tang (2007, p.213-215) discuss the difference between educational technology and information technology. The danger of the ‘information technology’ approach is that it can be perceived as leading to a surface-oriented, quantitative increase in knowledge (discussed in Prosser and Trigwell, 1999, p.37-41). Effective use of any resource or activity, including online, should be designed to encourage abstraction of meaning. It is interesting to note how the language differs between the educational writer touching on the role of technology (Biggs and Tang, 2007, p.195-216), compared to Salmon’s (2002) perspective derived from her involvement in an almost entirely virtual community of learning.
It would appear that an academic’s
perception of the depth, or otherwise, of any learning resource may be linked to the academic’s experience of how such a resource may be utilised. The traditional student is likely to be able to abstract and apply high level skills almost entirely from books, whereas the non-traditional learner, a digital native brought up with a range of media but possibly without an ideal approach to learning, needs considerably more guidance to adopt an effective strategy. 17
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Consideration of deep, compared to surface learning, or of the taxonomies linked to deep rather than surface approaches, leads to the conclusion that effective learning is in some way transformative. In other words, the student is able to manage and apply learning in ways that do not derive solely from the initial learning experience (see Saljo, 1979 in Bennett et al, 2000 p.73). In the case of our students, a transformative learning experience is needed to set them on the road to being effective professionals in a built-environment context and the use of new technologies was piloted to see if this would fill the gap.
Linking learning and teaching in construction technology to Kolb’s learning cycle Kolb’s (1984) model of experiential learning is widely accepted as the key to developing an effective learning experience. For learning to be transformative, there needs to be a cycle of: •
abstract conceptualisation: developing the underlying concepts and ideas underpinning the subject; thinking,
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active experimentation: making use of the concepts in some way; doing,
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concrete experience: getting stuck in and doing something at a practical level; feeling (as opposed to thinking),
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reflective observation: reflecting on the outcomes of the experience; watching,
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the reflective stage will then lead into further cycles of thinking, doing, experiencing and reflecting that progressively build the deep, transformative learning experience.
The delivery aspects of the learning and teaching strategy in the construction unit are predominantly through lectures and tutorials. Construction technology is a very content-heavy subject; the lectures are the main tool for delivery, utilising images in the PowerPoint slides and graphic representations of construction on the whiteboard to introduce and explain terminology and ideas that are new to most of the students. While considerable effort is put into making the subject ‘real’ for students, the part of Kolb’s cycle closest to the lecture scenario is probably the abstract conceptualisation stage, and at level 4 is more about delivery of content which will later be used in other contexts. In the small group tutorials the emphasis is on the activity of the students, rather than the lecturer. We use information from British Standards, Building Research Establishment Guides and 18
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manufacturers to actively engage students in finding out or working out something related to the topic area under consideration (for example, sizing a lintel for a specific opening and looking at the construction around a window head). This aspect comes closest to the active experimentation stage of Kolb’s cycle. This is as far as traditional delivery can take us, leaving the concrete experience and reflective stages up to the learner. Clearly the best way to address the concrete experience side of construction would be to get the students onto a building site and physically making buildings. After all, none of the subject material, especially in relation to how buildings are constructed, is beyond their comprehension. However, practicalities like health and safety issues on construction sites preclude the possibility. Ideally, then, we would seek ways to provide for the concrete experience and reflective observation stages of the learning cycle by other means, and the availability of e-resources gives us some new ways of achieving this.
The place of video tutorials in the learning cycle One e-resource is the video which are used somewhat differently in the practical Introduction to Architectural Technology unit, where students are learning the basic skills of architectural drawing and then applying their knowledge to research and resolving construction problems. The AutoCAD workbook developed by the unit team contains some background information related to architectural drawing, and a series of six exercises that introduce a range of basic drawing commands in AutoCAD. It also introduces accepted standards of architectural drawing, whether created manually or electronically. In effect this is the background theory – the abstract conceptualisation stage – but in learning and teaching terms this runs parallel to active experimentation. In order to support deep learning in our students, and make use of new technologies, a short video on roof structures was therefore created by the author and uploaded to YouTube in midFebruary 2012 and by mid-March 2013 there had been nearly 12,000 hits. By the end of October 2013 this had risen to over 60,000 views and permission has been requested to use it as a sample learning resource in a JISC resource encouraging the use of e-resources in teaching and learning; a demonstration of how technology is recognised to enhance learning. For the more visual/aural learner, the video with voiceover provides an alternative approach to learning. Due to the success of the first video, eleven more videos were created by the author over a period of months, and were embedded in a myCourse book paralleling the six written 19
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workbook exercises. They show at least the same amount of background theory, but it is presented in a different way. As this is the first year of using these resources, research into the effectiveness of the videos as a learning tool is on-going as the project is being evaluated, however the first couple of videos in particular, proved very useful in class during the early stages of the unit the year. The videos were used at the start of the CAD sessions to give paced guidance to the whole class for the first workbook exercises. By the end of the first exercise the wide range of abilities had already become evident, but thereafter, students can use the video resources at their own pace to progress through the workbook, with one-to-one guidance from staff as they need it. A major advantage is that students can access the resource wherever and whenever they need it, whether or not they are in a formal classroom setting.
Using online quizzes as a learning tool Another technology to support student learning is using the increased sophistication of the quiz available in myCourse. For the first three years in the delivery of the construction unit, the final tutorial session was a revision quiz covering the whole syllabus, delivered via a PowerPoint presentation and marked in-class. Staff delivering the unit recognised that this could form a useful assessment tool and in 2009/10 an online quiz was trialLed as 40% of the assessment for the construction technology unit (Bird, 2011, p.5). While a simple multiple choice quiz is a relatively crude tool for assessing primarily lower level learning outcomes, as quiz usage for the construction unit developed it became evident that the variety of question formats available within myCourse could offer surprisingly sophisticated outcomes that could be utilised to reinforce the learning process as the unit developed. Consequently, in the recently revalidated course, the value of the quiz was increased to 50% of the new unit value from 20% in the previous version of the unit. The quiz can test not just the students’ ability to recognise and name different elements in the construction, but also their ability to apply considerably higher level skills in generating responses from a scenario provided. See example below:
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Figure 1: Example question from the final assessment quiz
To answer the above question the student needs to understand that heave is the swelling of soil caused by an increase in water content; that water content increases when vegetation is removed because prior to removal the vegetation would utilise the water in the soil and that some soils are highly prone to changes in volume and others are not (Bird, 2011, p.5). Questions can be set up so that the student needs to select all correct answers and no wrong ones to get full marks, to match elements to descriptions or images and to demonstrate the language of construction through short answer questions. With such a range of question types and the random shuffling of options, it is not possible for students to approach the quiz successfully with a strategic, surface approach to the subject. The close correlation of the marks for the written assignment and the quiz marks, demonstrate that the quiz is as effective a tool for assessment as more traditional measures, certainly at level 4. The exception this year has been that three students doing the new unit who did not pass the written assignment worked really hard to gain a grasp of the subject material prior to the final summative quiz and were able to use it to significantly improve their unit outcomes.
Formative use of quizzes to encourage engagement in the reflective observation stage of the cycle While the usefulness of quizzes as a tool for summative assessment is clearly demonstrable, they also provide an excellent tool for reinforcing and feeding back on learning as the unit progresses. It is relatively easy to consider construction technology as a series of topics, for example 21
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substructure, floors, walls, roofs and small elements. Quizzes are therefore used as an eresource at the end of each topic area (only 10 to 15 questions in the early stages of the unit), with a reasonably long period for completion (typically 40 minutes), is provided for a limited period. Students can make as many attempts as they wish but there is an enforced time gap of three hours between attempts, to encourage them to revise and reflect on the subject. By encouraging students to revisit and reflect on the lecture information and tutorial activities at regular intervals, the quiz provides a means for students to build on and reinforce their learning, as in the reflective observation stage of Kolb’s cycle. Students who repeatedly attempt the quizzes demonstrate clear improvement between attempts. A feedback loop has been built into the quiz, so rather than telling the student the answer after the attempt, the feedback makes suggestions for further study. By encouraging reference to lecture notes and textbooks the student will, of necessity, be reading more widely around the subject, building understanding and enhancing the learning opportunity. This year’s results (2012/13) demonstrate similar trends to previous years. In the old unit, students had four formative quizzes as the unit progressed and these were made available again over the Christmas break. The final summative quiz was sat in the last tutorial session at the end of period 1. Students doing the new unit, for which the quiz was of greater value, sat it two weeks after the end of period 1; these students had an additional two revision quizzes, one of which was solely for short-answer questions. Marks for 90 apparently active students are under consideration for this year, 22 of whom did not pass the construction technology element. Of these, 11 have failed due to non-submission; five sat the quiz without having submitted the assignment and a further six submitted an assignment before Christmas but did not sit the quiz after. Of the remaining 11 students who did not pass construction technology: •
four had attempted no formative quizzes, so they would have had little or no idea what to expect of the final one, though one did, in fact, pass the quiz;
•
four had attempted one quiz, with little success (the highest mark of the three being 27%), again, one of these passed the final quiz,
•
one had attempted two quizzes averaging a mark of 25%; the final quiz mark of 27% was therefore unsurprising,
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two had attempted half of the formative quizzes and passed the final one, but not with a high enough mark to bring their overall mark up to a pass level, 22
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Finally, three students, all of whom had tried half or more of the formative quizzes, achieved a significantly better mark in the summative quiz than their average of formative quizzes would have predicted.
At the upper end of the scale, 41 students with a mark of 55% or more overall, had done half or more of the formative quizzes and 25 had done all the quizzes.
Between 40% and 54% the
picture is more mixed, although even of these 26 students only 1 had attempted no quizzes and two had attempted only 1; 19 had tried half or more. The correlation between quiz participation and eventual outcomes is clear; effective participation in formative quizzes, i.e. using them as a revision tool with a view to achieving a consistently good result, is practically a guarantee of a successful outcome, both in the final summative quiz and in the written assignment where students are expected to demonstrate higher order skills of applying the technology. Students who do not engage, or engage only marginally, clearly show the reverse to be the case.
Conclusions There is considerable research demonstrating that the thoughtful inclusion of appropriate eresources, which are aligned to the intended learning outcomes and the level of the students involved and combined into a fully considered programme, can enrich the learning experience and facilitate delivery and assessment for the teaching team. While the quizzes take some time to set up, once the questions are created they can be re-used and/or edited as required. Marking and feedback are automated although it is necessary to review responses to ensure that there are no anomalous answers. The length and consequent marking load of the written aspects of the assignment are also reduced to the benefit of both student and teacher. There is a clear correlation between participation in learning opportunities – such as the formative quizzes – and student outcomes. While at one level this could be viewed, simplistically, as ‘good’ students versus ‘bad’ ones, or engaged versus disengaged, if we come back to Kolb’s learning cycle it is evident that students who engage in activities that encourage reflection and further study are more likely to succeed, thus squaring the circle of the learning loop. In conclusion it is worth coming back to the nature of our students. The learner from a nontraditional background is less likely to have habits of learning that would encourage more than a strategic, surface approach giving rise to an expectation of lower achievement. By using eresources to provide opportunities to make it easier for students to develop good learning habits as the unit progresses, a situation is achieved where two-thirds of students are achieving a good 2:2 level and 90% of these are at 2:1 or above. 23
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The two JISC studies (HEFCE, 2009 p.8-14, 45 and 2010 p.38-39) demonstrate the need for a range of e-resources and associated approaches available to enrich the student learning experience. It is evident, however, that embedding e-resources must arise out of a considered reflection on the student’s needs and prior experience, alongside the learning objectives of the course and the particular unit. E-resources cannot be a ‘magic bullet’ to engage the uninterested. However, appropriately and skilfully used, they can add a dimension of added diversity, accessibility and availability.
References BEETHAM, H., 2007, An approach to learning activity design. In Beetham, H & Sharpe, R (ed); Rethinking pedagogy for a digital age,. Abingdon: Routledge.
BENNETT, N., E. DUNNE and C. CARRE, 2000, Skills Development in Higher Education and Employment: Buckingham, Open University Press
BIGGS, J. and C. TANG, 2007, Teaching for Quality Learning at University 3rd ed. Maidenhead: Open University Press
BIRD, V., 2011, Using e-learning resources to ‘level the playing field’ between traditional and non-traditional learners Access and Retention: Experiences of Non-traditional Learners in Higher Education Seville, Spain: University of Seville (online) [Retrieved January 10, 2012] Available from www.ranlhe.dsw.edu.pl/files/Bird.pdf .
ENTWHISTLE, N.J., J.H.F. MEYER, and H. TAIT, 1991, Student failure: disintegrated patterns of study strategies and perceptions of learning environments, Higher Education, 21(2), 246-261
HARVEY, L. and P. KNIGHT, 1996, Transforming higher education, Buckingham: SRHE and Open University Press
HIGHER EDUCATION FUNDING COUNCIL FOR ENGLAND, 2009, Effective practice in a digital age London: JISC 24
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HIGHER EDUCATION FUNDING COUNCIL FOR ENGLAND, 2010, Effective assessment in a digital age London: JISC
KOLB, D. A., 1984, Experiential learning: experience as the source of learning and development; Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, NJ
PROSSER, M. and K. TRIGWELL, 1999, Understanding Learning and Teaching; Maidenhead, Open University Press,
SALMON, G., 2002, E-tivities: The key to active online learning. London: Routledge Falmer, Resources SALMON, G., 2004, E-Moderating: the key to teaching and learning online, 2nd ed. London: Routledge Falmer
The YouTube videos are available by searching for solentbird •
Foundation basics - https://www.youtube.com/user/SolentBird
•
Roof truss video - https://i1.ytimg.com/vi/n0CrtpuWL4w/mqdefault.jpg
Contact Verity Bird Senior Lecturer in Architecture and Interior Design, MARTEC Email: verity.bird@solent.ac.uk Tel: 012380 319302
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MOOCs: A First-hand Experience on EDC MOOC and a Speculation of their Future Impact in Higher Education Timos Almpanis Introduction Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) – a term coined by Dave Cormier back in 2008 when the first experimental MOOC ran - came to prominence in 2012 with the launch of Coursera, EdX and Udacity platforms in the United States. Most often MOOCs are short courses with duration varied between a couple of weeks to a couple of months. At the moment, they do not provide academic credit, but some do provide a certificate of completion or statement of accomplishment. MOOCs are currently free for participants and are funded by public and/or private sources. However, there is speculation that in the near future, that Universities involved may profit by providing certification to successful participants and by building hybrid courses around MOOCs that carry academic credit (Lederman 2013, Young 2012). This article summarises my personal reflections from participating in a MOOC and provides a brief evaluation of the connectivist MOOC (cMOOC) learning design. Following that, MOOCs’ future sustainability in general is discussed and a speculation of their future impact in Higher Education (HE) is attempted. In lieu of a conclusion, important questions raised by MOOCs and the ways they may impact HE are provided, with an aim to open up the discussion around MOOCs to include their socio-political dimension alongside its pedagogical one.
A MOOC Experience - E-Learning and Digital Cultures MOOC (edcmooc) delivered by the University of Edinburgh on Coursera As I work in Higher Education and my specialism lies in learning technologies, I was inclined to take part on a MOOC to gain some first-hand experience. I was looking for something really massive – not just an open course; I was also looking for something interesting and, due to time 26
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limitations, not too demanding or heavy. So, when a colleague mentioned the ‘E-Learning & Digital Cultures’ MOOC (edcmooc), it ticked all the boxes: the subject sounded interesting, the duration neither too long nor too short - five weeks - and I could have a look at the Coursera platform, which at the time of writing is the largest MOOC hosting platform with more than three million enrolments. My decision was to commit a few hours per week and read/watch the course content and participate in discussions about it. This led me to discussion forums on the Coursera site, but I also followed and participated in the #edcmooc chat on Twitter as well as the edcmooc group on Facebook. On top of that, I participated in two live, hour-long Twitter chats that were taking place on a Saturday evening in UK time. I also watched the first hangout meeting which was streamed live from Edinburgh via Google Hangouts and YouTube. As part of the optional formative activity I created a picture during week three; in the end of week five, I submitted my ‘digital artefact’ for assessment, which was a three-minute video debate on MOOCs, and took part in the peer assessment activity, assessing the work of three other participants. This was done so that I would get the full picture of the activities that took place throughout the fiveweek course. Tutors’ role – presence on MOOCs The tutors of the edcmooc did a good job in setting the scene, creating multiple channels for student communication and moderating every now and then some of the forum threads. Tutor time spent for the edcmooc was estimated to be approximately 30 days in preparing the course, which was mostly based on openly available content. A minimum of another 30 days of tutors’ time was spent during the delivery of the course, as each tutor devoted one day per week on it, according to the edcmooc second Google hangout. Another source suggests that the edcmooc’s cost may be about £30,000 from development to delivery (Parr 2013). The Coursera edcmooc site was well presented, with clear navigation and nicely laid out resources. The site itself was not overloaded; resources were kept to a minimum of one or two short articles and a few short videos per week. The discussion forums were mostly not moderated by the instructors, but this is to be expected in a MOOC where the staff-to-student ratio is 1:8,000. In some cases, the instructors initiated a conversation and attempted to summarise some of the posts, but due to the volume of the postings, this could not possibly be done consistently or systematically. In order to set realistic student expectations, instructors had made it clear in advance that they would only read and reply to posts sporadically. Taking into 27
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account that this was a MOOC, in my view, there is nothing wrong with that and I anticipated that this would be the case from the beginning. The instructions on assessment and peer feedback were clear; however, as the task was designed to allow for flexibility in both presentation and content, some participants were still confused about what they had to do and requested further explanations and examples. Formal and informal platforms used; the medium does dictate the message The course utilised various platforms for communication among its participants; Facebook was used mostly for posting links to images, articles and videos among participants who sometimes ‘liked’ each others’ postings and, occasionally also left brief comments. In the Coursera forums, the discussions varied widely from brief comments to long multi-paragraph postings, with many offering factual information, an opinion or a reflection, or a combination of those. The more in depth, reflective postings took place in some participants’ individual blogs and were disseminated via Twitter and Facebook, by circulating the links to the respective source. Many of those participants’ blogposts were also aggregated in a Newsletter. The student experience Some participants mentioned that they found the experience overwhelming. My view is that content–wise this was not the case, as the materials provided each week – a few short videos and one or two papers - could easily be covered in a couple of hours. On top of that, participants were encouraged to participate in the forum discussions by reading and posting on the Coursera platform, which would take some more time depending on the effort put into the activity. Trying to catch up with everything that takes place on a MOOC course however, is where it can all go wrong with time management. With so many platforms available for informal learning – Facebook, Twitter, Google Hangouts – it is not difficult to get carried away; there is always one more link to click onto an interesting article, picture or video; time management skills are therefore hugely important when participating in a MOOC. The edcmooc offered an unprecedented opportunity for networked learning so, understandably, some participants felt overwhelmed by it. That said, my impression is that those who became overwhelmed, did so due to the never-ending interactions and discussions that created a feeling that there is constantly something interesting going on in the MOOC, rather than the content itself. If one was disciplined enough not to get too much carried away by the never-ending conversations on the various platforms, then they could actively participate and successfully finish the course by just spending a couple of hours a week. 28
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Connectivist MOOCs’ (cMOOCs) Learning Design and Assessment The edcmooc was designed around connectivist principles. This section takes a closer look at the learning design employed by connectivist MOOCs (cMOOCs) and highlights some of the issues around assessment and quality assurance. Connectivist pedagogy – limitations MOOCs can offer inclusivity by opening access to everyone with internet access. A significant number of MOOCs are built around connectivist principles. Connectivists move beyond the traditional argument of previously established learning theories and claim that learning can also reside outside us, in non-human actants. According to Siemens (2004). Connectivism is the integration of principles explored by chaos, network, and complexity and self organization theories. Learning is a process that occurs within nebulous environments of shifting core elements – not entirely under the control of the individual. Learning (defined as actionable knowledge) can reside outside ourselves (within an organization or a database), is focused on connecting specialized information sets, and the connections that enable us to learn more are more important than our current state of knowing. (Siemens, 2004 P28) Therefore, ‘the pipe is more important than the content within the pipe’, according to connectivism (Siemens 2004). This theory has been uncritically adopted by cMOOC evangelists, however, as Bell (2011) rightly points out, it is still contested whether connectivism is a 'learning theory' and not simply a 'phenomenon' and, as connectivism is very new, it is yet untested and unproven. Furthermore, while connectivism may work for well-resourced professionals, it is still questionable whether it has any value for those who need nurturing and guidance in order to avoid getting lost and drowned in an ocean of content and opinions. Due to their very nature, MOOCs may be particularly useful to those motivated, independent learners who have learned how to learn and are seeking some further personal development in their own time. These learners are likely to be early or mid career professionals. On the other hand, those learners that MOOCs are supposed to be targeted to – ‘widening participation’ students - are likely to need tutor guidance, as otherwise they may get confused or lost in the vastness and the multiple
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mediums utilised, unable to make choices in using their time effectively and struggling with the broadly defined assessment tasks and assessment criteria. Another limitation of MOOCs is that they are one-size-fits-all, which prevents them from accommodating the diverse needs of the students. The way MOOC platforms are trying to address that is by utilising learning analytics, which collate a huge amount of data from early MOOCs, including participants’ preferred individual pathways, for the benefit of future MOOCs. Learning analytics combined with adaptive learning may enable future MOOCs to provide individual learning experiences (Carr 2012), however, the pedagogical benefits of such approaches are yet to be proven. Some of MOOCs' affordances and limitations have also been described in two threeminute long animated videos, which are available on youtube (Almpanis 2013a, 2013b). Assessment tasks and peer assessment Due to the vast number of participants, assessments in MOOCs are opting for one of the following two practices: a) automated assessments via quizzes or b) peer assessment of coursework, which may be a short written article or other type of coursework, such as a digital artefact. (An example of some of the digital artefacts submitted for peer assessment as part of the EDCMOOC can be found on Padlet). Both practices have their limitations, but their biggest advantage is that they are time efficient from the tutors’ point of view, as they require no tutor intervention. Some of the limitations of such methods include fitness for purpose, inconsistent marking but also any type of academic misconduct, including false identity, plagiarism and collusion. These issues become of crucial importance for the quality of such courses, and need to be resolved before MOOCs can be considered to offer academic credit.
MOOCs future sustainability – Speculation of their future impact in HEIs If the idea that MOOCs will transform Higher Education is overly ambitious and optimistic, the idea that MOOCs are philanthropic is simply naive. Two of the three biggest USA based platforms are for profit – Coursera and Udacity - and they are backed up by venture capitalists who have 30
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invested millions following a Silicon Valley start up mentality, 'build fast and worry about it later' (Young 2012). Unfortunately, as Shullenberger (2013) points out, ‘much of the global policy elite treats the major Silicon Valley corporations as if they were humanitarian organizations rather than profit-seeking enterprises’. MOOCs currently work as marketing for Universities’ paid for courses. There is speculation that in the near future MOOCs will be monetised in one of two ways; giving the course for free but charging for certification and assessment, or by offering follow-up, short campus-based courses where upon completion of a series of MOOCs, students come to pay and get certified (Korn 2013, Lederman 2013, Young 2012). MOOCs' emerging monopolies Although MOOCs emerged from the Open Educational Resource (OER) movement and the first MOOCs were delivered independently since 2008, the MOOC platform phenomenon was started by Ivy League universities in the United States. There is a danger that most universities globally may be eventually excluded as MOOCs require a significant upfront investment and platform hosting. Aggressive politics around MOOCs may lead to educational imperialism in which few Universities dictate the curricula (Shullenberger 2013) and smaller Universities and colleges are eventually forced to adapt their own courses around these in order to survive. MOOC global developments and the UK’s approach Futurelearn is the UK's response to the USA MOOC platforms; Futurelearn was announced on the 14th of December 2012 with a website and a press release and the first FutureLearn MOOCs are planned to be delivered in Autumn 2013. Meanwhile, elsewhere in the world, Open2Study was launched in March the 21st 2013 as the main Australian MOOC platform, while in Europe, OpenupEd was announced on the 23rd of Apr 2013. Futurelearn has been warmly welcomed by the UK government. The Minister for Universities and Science responsible for higher education in England, David Willetts, said: The UK must be at the forefront of developments in education technology. Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) present an opportunity for us to widen access to, and meet the global demand for, higher education. This is growing rapidly in emerging economies like Brazil, India and China (The Open University, 2012). 31
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However, most main MOOC platforms, including the UK's FutureLearn, have been criticised for elitism (Almpanis 2013a, Rivard 2013) as they are very selective in their recruiting policy and demonstrate a strong preference for highly ranked Universities to join their platforms.
Questions raised by MOOCs MOOCs are an interesting experiment in progress; their evangelists claim that MOOCs will transform Higher Education while the sceptics fear that they will destroy it. While both these opinions are extreme, one needs to recognise that MOOCs are a phenomenon not to be ignored, and which raises many questions for Higher Education globally. Some of those questions are listed below. It is beyond the scope of this short paper to attempt to answer them and they are offered as food for thought and as a starting point for an ongoing discussion that needs to be held by those interested in and involved with Higher Education. MOOCs after all, are still a workin progress experiment. 1.
What do Universities stand for in the 21st century?
2.
How can learning in MOOCs be measured?
3.
Can we trust the future of Higher Education to venture capitalists?
4.
Are the employers globally going to become interested in MOOC statements of completion?
5.
If recorded video lectures are as effective as face-to-face lectures, how is this going to affect learning on campus? Will MOOCs enforce traditional Universities to focus more on seminars, small group and individual tutoring, coaching and high quality feedback on fitfor-purpose assessments?
6.
Are MOOCs going to create a 'global localisation' where participants study a series of global MOOCs, then come to a nearby campus to 'top up' their learning, get assessed and certified?
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What is going to be the impact of MOOCs on the paid for, generic, online distance learning courses?
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References ALMPANIS, T., 2013a, Dr Precarious Discusses MOOCs. YouTube video. [online] [accessed 15 Mar 2013] Available from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H65bCRpVK2o ALMPANIS, T., 2013b, Dr Precarious Vs Dr Gregarious MOOC Debate .YouTube video. [online] [accessed 15 Mar 2013] Available from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ej3UkeAPkLE BELL, F., 2011, Connectivism: Its Place in Theory-Informed Research and Innovation in Technology-Enabled Learning. International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning, Vol 12(3) p.98-118. [online] [accessed 15 Mar 2013] Available from http://www.irrodl.org/index.php/irrodl/article/view/902 CARR, N., 2012, The Crisis in Higher Education. MIT Technology Review [online] [accessed 15 Mar 2013] Available from http://www.technologyreview.com/featuredstory/429376/the-crisis-inhigher-education/ KORN, M., 2013, Big MOOC Coursera Moves Closer to Academic Acceptance. The Wall Street Journal. [online] [accessed 15 Mar 2013] Available from http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324906004578288341039095024.html LEDERMAN, D., 2013, Expanding Pathways to MOOC Credit. Inside Higher Education [online] [accessed 12 Mar 2013] Available from http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2013/02/07/acedeems-5-massive-open-courses-worthy-credit#ixzz2KCuQ7KKB NORMAN, C. D., 2013, Much Ado about MOOC. [online] [accessed 18 Mar 2013] Available from http://censemaking.com/2013/02/08/much-ado-about-mooc/ PARR, C., 2013, How was it? The UK’s first Coursera Moocs assessed. Times Higher Education. [online] [accessed 20 Apr 2013] Available from http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/news/how-was-it-the-uks-first-moocassessed/2003218.fullarticle
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RIVARD, R., 2013, Coursera’s Contractual Elitism. Inside Higher Education [online] [accessed 25 Mar 2013] Available from http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2013/03/22/coursera-commitsadmitting-only-elite-universities SHULLENBERGER, G., 2013, The MOOC Revolution: A Sketchy Deal for Higher Education [online] [accessed 15 Mar 2013] Available from http://www.dissentmagazine.org/online_articles/themooc-revolution-a-sketchy-deal-for-higher-education SIEMENS, G., 2004, Connectivism: A Learning Theory for the Digital Age [online] [accessed 15 Mar 2013] Available from http://www.elearnspace.org/Articles/connectivism.htm THE OPEN UNIVERSITY, 2012, UK Universities embrace the Free, Open, Online Future of Higher Education powered by the Open University. [online] [accessed 15 Mar 2013] Available from http://www3.open.ac.uk/media/fullstory.aspx?id=24794 YOUNG, J., 2012, Inside the Coursera Contract: How an Upstart Company Might Profit from free courses. The Chronicle of Higher Education. [online] [accessed 11 Mar 2013] Available from http://chronicle.com/article/How-an-Upstart-Company-Might/133065/ MOOC Platforms mentioned: •
Coursera https://www.coursera.org
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EdX https://www.edx.org/
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Udacity https://www.udacity.com/
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FutureLearn http://futurelearn.com/
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OpenupEd http://www.openuped.eu/
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Open2Study https://www.open2study.com
Contact Associate Professor Timos Almpanis Learning Technologist, LIS Email: timos.almpanis@solent.ac.uk Tel: 02380 319728 34
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Positive Perspectives of Employability in Business, HEA Project report 2013 Professor Georgina Andrews (with Caroline Carpenter)
Teaching Development Grants Project completion report Project Details
Project Title
Positive Perspectives of Employability in Business
Project Lead
Georgina Andrews (with Caroline Carpenter)
Institution
Georgina.andrews@solent.ac.uk
Email address
Southampton Solent University
Project Summary •
Please provide a short summary (max 350 words) of your project, for dissemination through the HEA website.
Graduate employability has been a key concern for the UK Higher Education Sector for decades. Official reports highlight issues of employability, and the need for business – university collaboration (Browne, 2010; Wilson, 2012). Concerns about ‘education to employment’ are not confined to the UK. A recent international survey highlighted differences in the perspectives of key stakeholders, concluding that ‘Employers, education providers, and youth live in parallel universes’ (McKinsey & Company, 2012.) Employability is one of the ways in which, increasingly, universities seek to differentiate themselves and their provision. Employment data inclusion in KIS may raise it even higher up the institutional research agenda. ‘Positive Perspectives of Employability in Business’ is a project which engaged graduates and students as partners to identify improvements in the way business schools prepare graduates for employment. The project comprised three stages. A survey of business school alumni, an appreciative inquiry (Cooperrider, D. & Whitney, D. 2005) of current business school students, and a 35
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student led dissemination workshop.
Alumni survey •Emerging themes report •Word cloud
Appreciative Inquiry with students
Student led workshop
•Propositional statements •Student presentations
•Action plans •Conclusion and evaluation
Themes and Subthemes •
Please select any of the listed thematic areas that are covered by your project. You may also supply your own subthemes if desired. Employability Re-conceptualising employability
X
Integrating work experience Addressing employer perspectives Making and evaluating resources Other (please specify): Internationalisation Internationalising the curriculum Integration of home and international students Promoting intercultural understanding Student and staff mobility Other (please specify): Project Report • Please outline the milestones and deliverables that have been met against the timescale (max 1000 words). • Please include: o activities that have been completed in the period covered by this report; o any changes or additions to the original activities/milestones outlined in the original project plan, including the reasons for these changes; o a summary of your aims and objectives, and whether they changed during the project; o a narrative of what you did and how you achieved it; o a discussion of the project methodology (technical implementation, how you went about your evaluation activities, and how you engaged your stakeholders); 36
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a summary of what you have learned and would like to share with others.
Positive perspectives of employability in business Summary of aims and objectives • • •
To engage business school staff and students in a collaborative partnership to develop inclusive teaching strategies and activities that promote graduate employability. To explore student perceptions of graduate employability development, including perceptions of students from different ethnic groups. To share and promote best practice, taking into account issues relating to equality and diversity.
Project methodology, activities and key milestones Stage 1 – Alumni Survey A survey instrument was designed to explore with employed business graduates, their perspectives of employability development at university. The survey combined open and closed questions to elicit qualitative and quantitative data. The survey was delivered and completed online and was promoted through university alumni networks. The survey included questions on the following:
Demographic information Employability skills developed during the course Activities during the course to prepare for employment Extracurricular activities Challenges on starting first job after graduation Strategies for overcoming challenges Advice to universities
The alumni survey was launched on 24th September and closed on 22nd October 2012. The survey was advertised on our Blog, on the Association of Business Schools members website, using social media such as Facebook and Twitter and via alumni networks contacted through personal networks. Incentives were offered in the form of £100 Amazon vouchers that were awarded as prizes to 4 respondents through a weekly prize draw. The name of the first prize winner was publicised (with permission) to build credibility. Frequent reminders were sent out. 418 eligible responses were received from 17 Universities. This was a very pleasing level of response which has provided us with a rich database (our original target was 100 responses.) Two universities accounted for 397 respondents. Respondents came from 161 UG and PG courses. The most commonly reported year of graduation was 2009 with 101 respondents. Quantitative analysis was undertaken in respect of responses to closed questions. Comparative analysis was used to contrast responses provided by different demographic groups. A literature review was undertaken, and the results of the survey were considered in context, leading to the formulation of a number of conclusions and recommendations. 37
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Stage 2 – Appreciative Inquiry Originally developed by Cooperrider (Cooperrider and Whitney, 2005) AI promotes and develops a reflective approach to change. It starts from a positive position and builds through four stages (see adapted model diagram below). •What would we ideally like to happen?
•When are we most engaged in developing our employability?
Expertise
Envisage
Positive perspectives of employability in business
•How can we make this happen?
Empower
Engineer
•How can we build on this?
Work at the University of Worcester has highlighted the value of student participation in an Appreciative Inquiry as a way of identifying and developing teaching and learning practices they find particularly helpful. 11 students from business courses at Southampton Solent University took part in an Appreciative inquiry (AI) on 4th February 2013.This involved students in an extended piece of work and, recognising the commitment involved, students were paid for their time. Participating students were encouraged to reflect on their learning. Students were asked to identify those aspects of their teaching and learning that they believed to be most helpful in developing employability. They imagined ideal scenarios and suggested actions for improvement. A film was created to capture the essence of the AI. This proved to be an impactful resource, which supported and enriched the transcripts of the AI. Stage 3 – Student led workshop A development day was held on the 18th March 2013. The event was attended by 45 members of staff, and the 11 business school students who took part in the AI. The majority were business school academics, or members of the University Employability and Enterprise Service. A senior academic from the University of Worcester also attended the event to share our experience of the use of AI. The development day started with a presentation of the results of the alumni survey. The film created during the AI with students was then shown, followed by a presentation by the 11 students. Delegates then took part in themed parallel round table discussions, chaired by 38
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students, and identified joint actions to improve employability. Structured evaluation forms were completed by staff and student participants, which also identified personal actions to enhance employability. Key Findings from the alumni survey The vast majority of graduates surveyed (91.6%) felt that it is very important or essential for university courses to prepare graduates for employment. Research, presentations and work placements were identified as the activities that provided the most useful preparation. Essay writing was, perhaps not surprisingly, identified as the least useful activity. Other activities that academics and employers value, such as volunteering and business simulations, were also perceived by graduates as less useful. Less than 50% of respondents reported developing numeracy, application of IT or creativity and innovation on their courses. 30% of graduates said they didn’t take part in any extracurricular activities. Respondents identified adjusting to working life and organisational cultures as the biggest challenges they faced when starting their first job after graduation. Developing networking skills was cited as one of the key strategies for overcoming challenges. The majority of the other approaches to overcoming challenges were behavioural. Respondents recommended that courses should include more work experience opportunities, careers advice, and opportunities for the practical application of knowledge. When asked which activities on your course provided the MOST useful preparation for employment, the responses were as follows:
research presentations work placement working with people from different cultures report writing group work using IT
The following activities were identified LEAST useful preparation for employment:
Essay writing Volunteering Business games / simulations Role Play Extra curricular activities
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The biggest challenges faced by graduates were identified as: • • • •
adjusting to work life (e.g. early morning, 25 days holidays.) adjusting to organisational culture lack of work experience finding a job
These challenges were overcome by: • • •
working hard networking asking for advice/help
Key advice offered by graduates to universities when developing courses was to focus on : • • • • • •
work experience career advice practical application of knowledge industry knowledge networking guest speakers
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Key findings from Appreciative Inquiry and development day A number of common themes emerged from both the AI and the alumni survey. Participants in the development day were invited to select from a ‘menu’ of common themes in rotation as a warm up exercise. The selected themes then formed the focus of the student led round table discussions and action planning. • • • • • • •
Networking Guest speakers Working across cultures Live briefs / consultancy projects Interview preparation Behaviours Relevant work experience
Project evaluation has not yet been completed, however, we have identified an evaluator and by the time this report is submitted the process will be underway.
Outputs • What are the outputs that have already been achieved and can be shared across the sector? (max 500 words). • Please include: o a summary of learning and teaching resource materials you have produced – for example, teaching materials, reports, publications, annotated or academic bibliographies, course outlines, websites/online resources (including URLs); o any cognate resources related to your work that you’ve found useful and might be equally useful for others. An edited version of the film created during the Appreciative Inquiry could be made available. A series of ‘word clouds’ have been created from the qualitative responses to the alumni survey which could be shared. This example is taken from the responses to a question asking what advice graduates would give to Universities when developing courses.
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http://www.wordle.net/create
The project evaluation report could be made available. Other outputs include PowerPoint slides from conference presentations, journal articles and the project evaluation report. Impacts • Please identify the immediate and expected impacts of the work on the student learning experience (max 500 words). o What difference has your project made to your own work, department and/or institution (for example, raised awareness, increased understanding or changes in practice and policy)? o How has your project changed the attitude of your stakeholders? o How has the wider community benefited from your project? o What evidence do you have for this? The project has already begun to make a positive impact on student learning at Southampton Solent University. A Graduate Associate has been appointed to develop an international student buddy scheme for students as a direct result of feedback from students through the Appreciative Inquiry, disseminated through the development day. Another direct outcome from the development day was an alumni call that was put out over Linked-in. 33 responses were received to request to alumni to engage with the University to provide live briefs / consultancy projects, guest lecturers, business mentors, placements, internships, course validation support. In addition, the University has resolved to include a requirement in tender documentation for contractors to identify added value that they are willing to provide in terms of live client briefs, consultancy projects, guest lectures, work experience opportunities etc where 42
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appropriate. Other actions identified by staff and students to improve graduate employability are also being implemented, and it is hoped that further impacts will be recorded. Impact in the wider HE environment will be measured by taking into account a range of factors, some of which will only become apparent over a longer period of time. Academic impact and quality will be measured taking into account the status of publications and conferences (high quality refereed national and international journals and conferences will be targeted.) Citations in other high quality journals (this will be monitored over time.) Impact on the curriculum at Southampton Solent University and beyond. A senior colleague, Steve Rose, Head of Library and Learning Services has agreed to conduct an independent evaluation of the project and to prepare an evaluation report which will be available by the beginning of September. Implications for the student learning experience • What are the thematic or discipline implications of your work for professionals in the field, for students, or for the wider HE community and its stakeholders? • What new development work could be undertaken to build on your work or carry it further? • Provide information on the long-term management and sustainability of your project outputs – how can interested individuals access them and, if applicable, get involved with the area of work? How will your innovations continue now that the funding has ended? (max 500 words). Business schools could be more effective in preparing graduates for employment by reviewing curriculum design to plug perceived skills gaps, and by developing inclusive teaching and learning strategies that promote employability. This might include focusing more on the development of networking, creativity and innovation, numeracy, application of IT, and behavioural skills. Universities might also consider reducing the reliance on essays as an assessment mode and providing more work experience opportunities. Since respondents were graduates from several universities, the implications are significant. The findings could be applied innovatively by universities to improve their practice and enhance the student experience. While much of the work to develop employability was found to be useful by graduates when they entered employment post-graduation, university staff may be developing curricular that either do not meet the practical needs of students when they first start work, or whose usefulness and applicability to work needs to be made more apparent. There may also be some fundamental gaps in the development of skills and behaviours that graduates need to succeed in the workplace. If universities are to develop effective learning and teaching strategies to promote graduate employability, then the views and experiences of stakeholders such as alumni are valuable to inform development. Current data provided by national surveys such as the Destinations of Leavers from Higher Education survey provide useful key performance indicators, but the sector would also benefit from insights into graduate perspectives of employability 43
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development, across a range of disciplines. This will help universities to engage students more effectively as partners in developing learning and teaching strategies that promote employability.
Dissemination • Please give details of any dissemination activities that have occurred during the reporting period or are still to be undertaken (max 500 words). ‘Engaging business graduates and students as partners to help make employability development work.’ Higher Education Institutional Research conference, Birmingham, July 2013. ‘Business School Graduate Insights’ Association of Business Schools / British Academy of Management / Higher Education Academy conference, Nottingham, April 2013. ‘Perspectives of Employability and Inclusion: Graduate Insights’ Faculty Learning and Teaching Conference, Southampton Solent University, November 2012. ‘Developing inclusive strategies to enhance employability’ STLC Conference, Southampton Solent University, March 2013. Southampton Solent Business School Development Day, March 2013. ‘Employability impact assessment’, Faculty Research and Enterprise Conference, Southampton Solent University, June 2013. Journal article planned for Business and Management Education in HE: An international journal (BMHE). Journal articles are also planned for the STLC Dialogue journal, and for Educational Developments, SEDA.
Budget • Please report on how you have spent the funds awarded by the HEA. o Please include details of any divergence from the original budget plan and the reasons for this. There has been some divergence from the original budget plan. More of the senior manager staff time devoted to the project has been provided out of match funding than originally anticipated. The AI with students also involved less time, which resulted in lower fees. This has freed up funds to pay for dissemination (conference attendance) filming and editing. DESCRIPTION COST Associate Lecturer fees £714 Catering for AI (2.5 days x 12 people) workshop (1 day x 30 people) and £1,011 meetings 44
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Incentives for alumni Payment for student participants in AI and workshop (11 students x £100) Release of time from teaching, research and administrative duties for Senior Lecturer (30 hours x £50) Project oversight and support from 2 senior managers (10 days x £500 = £5,000) Facilities hire (venue for AI, workshop and meetings) (£800) Support from senior lecturers (30 hours x £50 = £1,500) Dissemination costs (conference fees, travel and subsistence) Administrative support (20 hours x £25 = £500)
£409 £1,100 £1,500 Match funding Match funding Match funding £1,601
Fees for filming and editing
Match funding Match funding £365
TOTAL COST OF PROJECT
£15,000
TOTAL INSTITUTIONAL SUPPORT/ MATCH FUNDING
£8,300
TOTAL HEA FUNDS ALLOCATED
£6,700
Impact evaluation (1 day x £500)
Lessons learned • Please report on any issues or problems that have impacted on the development and implementation of the project, how you have addressed or overcome them, and any advice you would give to others (max 500 words). Ensuring a good response rate to the alumni survey was challenging. This was overcome by monitoring and promoting it through as many channels as possible, including personal connections. Universities with effective alumni networks were particularly helpful and contributed significantly to the response rate. On reflection, the project was perhaps too ambitious for a small grant. This could easily have been two or more separate projects. We overcame problems relating to the scale of the project by dividing tasks and responsibility for the first two stages of the project between different members of the project team. This was very effective in many ways, however it also gave rise to further challenges. The links between the three stages of the project were less obvious then we originally envisaged and may have been due, in part, to the separation of tasks between members of the team. We addressed this through communication, and by identifying common themes emerging from both the graduate survey and the appreciative inquiry. The development day served to draw the first two stages together by sharing findings and focusing on the common themes. We found that mapping out the project methodology in detail during the bidding process, and setting key milestones and deadlines was time-consuming, but ultimately very worthwhile in helping to keep us on track.
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References • If appropriate, please provide a list of relevant bibliographic references, compiled in your preferred referencing style. Andrews, G. & Russell, M. ,2012, Employability skills development: strategy, evaluation and impact’. Higher Education, Skills and Work Based Learning, 2 (1), pp33-44 Browne, J., 2010, ‘Securing a Sustainable Future for Higher Education’. An Independent Review of Higher Education Funding and Student Finance [online] [viewed 18 October 2010]. Available from: www.independent.gov.uk/browne-report Mourshed, M. Farrell, D. & Barton, D.,2012, ‘Education to employment: Designing a system that works’. McKinsey& Company. [online] [viewed 19 January 2013]. http://mckinseyonsociety.com/downloads/reports/Education/Education-toEmployment_FINAL.pdf Purcell, K., Elias, P., et al., 2012, Futuretrack Stage 4: transitions into employment, further study and other outcomes.’[online] [viewed 18 February 2013]. http://www.hecsu.ac.uk/assets/assets/documents/Futuretrack_Stage_4_Final_report_6th_No v_2012.pdf Thomas, L. and H. May, 2010, Inclusive learning and teaching in higher education. Higher Education Academy [online] [viewed 19 January 2013]. http://www.heacademy.ac.uk/assets/documents/inclusion/InclusiveLearningandTeaching_Fin alReport.pdf Wilson, T., 2012, A review of business–university collaboration. HEFCE [online] [viewed 19 January 2013] http://www.hefce.ac.uk/media/hefce/content/news/news/2012/wilson.pdf
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Closing the Graduate Employability Gap, HEA Project report 2013 Ruth McLellan
Teaching Development Grants Individual Grant Scheme Report Form for Final Stage Grant Payment Project Details
Project Title
Closing the graduate employability skills gap: Development of a reciprocal skills exchange framework for marketing students and local marketing graduate employers.
Project Lead
Ruth McLellan
Institution
Southampton Solent University
Email address
Ruth.mclellan@solent.ac.uk
Project Summary • Please provide a short summary (max 350 words) of your project, for dissemination through the HEA website.
This pioneering project aimed to develop and pilot a framework which HEI’s can follow to set up a reciprocal skills exchange between students and businesses in order to close an identified skills gap. This project focused on the marketing subject discipline and worked with marketing academics, marketing students and marketing employers. The reciprocal skills exchange was identified as a concept that would increase student employability opportunities and a direct action to close the skills gap which has been created in part by non-trained marketing graduates and exacerbated by an innovative, creative and fast moving industry. The reciprocal exchange allowed for partnership working with marketing employers, marketing students and marketing academic staff. It allowed all three stakeholders to work together to close the identified skills gap which exists in local small-medium enterprises (SMEs) and marketing students. The services provided by each party are as follows: •
Marketing employers: provided workplace based opportunities and consultancy type projects for marketing students to practice their marketing skills. 47
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Marketing students: engaged in workplace based opportunities to practice their marketing skills. Marketing academics: worked alongside both students and employers ensuring that both parties had relevant support.
In order to maximise student engagement and learning in the project the students were employed as ‘student research assistants’, ensuring they were a pivotal part of the research process. The students helped to develop and undertake all of the primary research. Project aim: To produce a holistic and transferable framework which can be used by other HEIs to set up their own reciprocal marketing skills exchange. Objectives: 1. To identify what makes up the existing skills gap between recent marketing graduates of SSU and local graduate employers. 2. To explore with students, academics and employers how they would envisage the reciprocal skills exchange working. 3. To undertake a pilot working with an identified local business consortium to establish the framework and good working practices. 4. To develop a framework and open educational resource (OER) materials to disseminate across other HEI’s.
Themes and Subthemes • Please select any of the listed thematic areas that are covered by your project. You may also supply your own subthemes if desired. Employability Re-conceptualising employability Integrating work experience Addressing employer perspectives Making and evaluating resources Other (please specify): Internationalisation Internationalising the curriculum Integration of home and international students Promoting intercultural understanding Student and staff mobility Other (please specify): Project Report • Please outline the milestones and deliverables that have been met against the timescale (max 1000 words). • Please include: o activities that have been completed in the period covered by this report; o any changes or additions to the original activities/milestones outlined in the original project plan, including the reasons for these changes; 48
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a narrative of what you did and how you achieved it; a summary of your aims and objectives, and whether they changed during the project; a discussion of the project methodology – technical implementation, how you went about your evaluation activities, and how you engaged your stakeholders; anything you learned that you would like to share with others.
This section breaks down the milestones and deliverables into distinct research objectives. The project team held an initial meeting in September prior to the start of the academic year to run through the action plan; assign roles and plan a schedule of meetings. It took longer to get the project going than anticipated. It was not as straightforward as initially perceived to recruit both students and employers. The team initially planned to recruit both level 4 and level 5 students, however we initially achieved a mix of one level 4 and five level 5 students; it soon became apparent that the level 4 student was struggling to commit to the project and therefore they were counselled about continuing. The student decided that they would not continue and therefore the research team recruited a level 3 student to take the previous students place. Lessons learned from this are that level 4 students are going through a major transition phase including leaving home, new social mix, new city, new studies, etc, and therefore they require time to settle in to their new surroundings, etc, prior to being involved in a project. Employers did want to participate in the project; however, they were unsure of their ability to commit to the project over the academic year. Each employer having a different set of circumstances and requirements. The team decided to match specific students to a specific employer in order to minimise disruption. The project team envisaged that employers would be prepared to provide their ‘work experience’ student with a ‘1 day a week’ placement or something very similar. However, each employer had a different vision for how they were going to work with the student and as such each student had a different experience, which ultimately enriched the project. Research Participants: The project recruited six students to participate in the study and these were given the title of ‘student research assistants’. The student breakdown was: One level 3 Business Foundation year student, who had applied to study marketing at level 4 Five level 5 BA (Hons) Marketing students Six local Small and Medium Enterprises (SME) marketing graduate employers were recruited and students were carefully matched to the employer taking into account a range variables which included both employer and student considerations, for example the most confident student was placed with the employer that required their student to be able to ‘hit the ground running’, due to the nature of their business. Four marketing lecturers formed the academic part of the project team; two full-time lecturers and two associate lecturers. One of the associate lecturers was also involved in the university outreach/widening participation activities. Research Objective 1: To identify what makes up the existing skills gap between recent marketing graduates of SSU and local graduate employers. Time Frame September 2011October 2011
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Questionnaire targeted at a stratified sample of local employers The project team developed a questionnaire targeted at a stratified sample of local employers, focusing on SMEs and public authorities across a range of segments to identify the existing marketing skills gap. The questionnaire was sent to 130 employers of marketing graduates and a response rate of 22 was achieved. This allowed the project team to obtain a strong understanding of the marketing skills gap which underpinned the project. This information also timely fed into the marketing course revalidation in March 2012 and allowed the course team to think about how we were going to actively plug those gaps. From the 22 that responded, we were also able to develop relationships with two employers who indicated that they wanted to work with us on the project. This was undertaken prior to students being recruited to the project. Personal interviews The personal interviews were developed to ascertain in more depth the marketing graduate skills deficit. The student research team was trained by a member of the university careers/employability service on how to present oneself at an interview. The academics provided personal interview training to the students. Each student undertook a personal interview on the employer’s premises to ascertain in considerable depth the skills gap. Students were provided with a Dictaphone in order to record the interviews. Ethical clearance for both students and employers was sought prior to undertaking the interviews. Interviews lasted between 30-60 minutes. Focus group A focus group was run with a range of marketing graduate employers and employer forum representatives to elicit their valuable knowledge of the skills gap. These employers were not the employers that had matched with the students. This allowed us to build upon any gaps identified in the initial questionnaire and personal interview analysis. The student research team was trained by academics regarding how to facilitate a focus group. The student research team decided upon their roles and topics schedule. The project team held a practice focus group, which allowed each student to practice and openly discuss their own role to ensure that they were comfortable. Employers were invited to an evening focus group at the end of January 2012. This was attended by 6 employers. Research Objective 2: To explore with students, academics and employers how they would envisage the reciprocal skills exchange working. Time Frame October 2011- December 2011 A mixture of personal interviews and focus groups was planned with the participating students, academics and employers to illuminate and define their own perceived needs and expectations of a skills exchange programme. Students carried out personal interviews with their employers at the same time that they undertook research objective one; to minimise ‘research fatigue’ by the employers. The academic staff carried out a focus group with the students, and the students carried out a focus group with the academic staff. 50
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Research Objective 3: To undertake a pilot skills exchange working with matched employers and subsequent evaluation to establish good working practices. Time Frame January 2012April 2012 Personal interviews with employers were undertaken to ascertain the impact, success and process used to develop the skills exchange. A focus group was undertaken with the project students to evaluate the impact, success and process used to develop the skills exchange. In addition, we used student feedback at each fortnightly meeting to gauge how the exchange was working and to support an ongoing evaluation. Finally, the project and framework was presented at two internal and one external conference, in which participants were asked for their feedback to support good working practice. Research Objective 4: To develop a framework and open educational resource (OER) materials to disseminate findings across other HEIs. Time Frame May 2012- September 2012 As previously stated the project and evolving framework was presented at two internal and one external conference, in which participants were asked for their feedback on the format of the OER and what would be most accessible to them (academics). This feedback has been used to improve the OER plan in order to make it as accessible as possible to both academics and students. The updated framework is presented below. A problem encountered with development of the OER was that students had their assessments and exams during March-May, plus a three week Easter break, and were therefore unable to contribute during this time; studies take priority. The project team planned to work on the OER in the first two weeks of May, however, three of the students were unable to participate in this due to personal and unforeseen circumstances. One student had unfortunately disappeared from the project altogether and was not responding to any emails. This left the development of the OER to two remaining students and academic staff. The remaining project team undertook as much as they possibly could and made the decision that the rest would have to be completed in late September early October when the three students returned. The OER consists of: (1) Storyboard presentation of the framework in the format of an interactive set of webpages. The OER will present two storyboards, one for academics and one for their students. The webpages will present a range of videos and “how to” information sheets, both are detailed below. The story board is still under production, as we are waiting for some of the students to complete their videos in conjunction with their employers. (2) Resource files/document which presents and explains the development framework of a skills exchange framework and “how to” information sheets. These were developed by both the marketing students and supported by academics to ensure that the documentation meets the communication needs of all parties. (3) A number of supporting videos made by project team which introduces the framework and provides academic staff, student and employer perspectives on developing the reciprocal skills exchange. The videos were made in house by Solent Productions who produced the videos to 51
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industry standard. We are currently waiting for the three students mentioned above to return to university in order to film them with their employer discussing their perspectives. (4) A forum which will allow the learning community to both pose and answer questions about setting up their own skills exchange programme. Outputs • What are the outputs that have already been achieved that can be shared across the sector? • Are there lessons that should be shared with colleagues? • Please include a summary of learning and teaching resource materials you produced – these might be teaching materials, annotated bibliographies, course outlines, websites or academic bibliographies. • You are also likely to be aware of a range of cognate resources related to your work that you’ve found useful and might be equally useful for others. • Please include any URLs, reports or publications that you may have produced (max 500 words). Outputs: We have undertaken extensive research from local SMEs via a questionnaire, interview and focus group regarding the local graduate marketing skills gap. The project has built on these findings. In addition, these findings were shared with the Marketing subject group, who were in the process of revalidating their undergraduate courses; this allowed the subject group to build courses to ensure that the development of marketing skills that employers wanted were included. The new courses now provide all students with the opportunity to obtain; CIM Professional Certificate accreditation, PRINCE2 and Google Analytics qualification whilst also studying for their marketing degree. Presentation of findings at two internal and one external; Association of Business School Conference (ABS), April 12, Manchester. These conferences have provided both internal and external dissemination opportunities. Furthermore, the project team have discussed the format and accessibility of the OER and collected ideas regarding future developments and sustainability of the project. All conferences have included the student researchers as an integral part of the presenting team. The ABS conference was presented by one academic and two students. The team have written up a number of blogs which have been shown on the SBS blog site, available on: http://southamptonsolentbusinessschool.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/HEA%20Teaching%20Dev elopment%20Grant We have plans for a number of journals including; Journal of Teaching and Learning for Graduate Employability Solent Dialogue (internal pedagogic journal) Warwick Reinvention student journal CIM professional body magazine ‘The Marketer’ Students will co-author the research papers; the project team have been keeping reflective diaries which will be used to write the papers. Emerging lessons: It has been more difficult to recruit both employers and students than anticipated. When conceptualising the project, the project team felt that students and employers would easily buy into the project and see the many benefits. However, it has been very time consuming 52
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trying to convince employers and students of the benefits. The OER includes a strand on helping to convince students of the benefits of the project. (a) Dealing with employers: Employers didn’t see the benefits of being involved in the project. The feedback was that students would be “more trouble than worth” (based on previous experience of working with students). We had to find a ‘hook’/motivation/benefit. The solution was to offer them ‘Visiting Fellowship’. This process takes quite a while but the outcome is that the employers feel like they are part of the university – it really helps to develop a relationship. We are planning on organising a PR event, whereby the employers get presented with an official university name badge/certificate – we will undertake interviews/photos – this is another opportunity to publicise the project. PR will be made available to the employers and they can use it on their websites. (b) Dealing with students: The students want a certificate/something tangible from the project which we will provide. They will be invited to the same PR event for ‘Associate Fellowship’ and present them with their certificates, plus find them something tangible. Another benefit is a personalised reference from the project leader. Meetings with the students were held every other week on a Thursday evening as that is the only time that we can all get together. We provided the students with a hot drink, food and ensured that they got home safely. Summary of learning and teaching resource materials - teaching materials: Interview training Focus group training Presentation training Useful resources: Notions of Belonging: First year, first semester HE students – key themes and actions for successful engagement. David Chalcraft, University of Westminster. Presented at ‘Innovation in challenging times: The ABS Learning and Teaching Conference in association with the Higher Education Academy. April 2012
Impacts • Please identify the immediate and expected impacts of the work on the student learning experience (max 500 words). o What difference has your project made on your own work, department and/or institution? o How has the wider community benefited from your project? o What evidence do you have for this? o How has your project changed the attitude of your stakeholders?
What kind of difference has your project made in your institution? Being awarded the TDG for this project is a very prestigious award for Southampton Solent University. The University and Faculty were very pleased and proud to be a recipient. A number of other academics have requested the project details as they think about preparing 53
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their own courses for a more structured employability approach. How has the wider community benefitted from your project? We are now working with 6 employers who we would not have been engaging with previously. In addition, the employers are not just working with their own student, but also providing guest lectures and client briefs for all students to benefit from. Employers have also had the opportunity to network amongst themselves, which they have valued. What evidence do you have for this? • The team have written a range of blog articles that were written after guest lectures, activities and internal conferences • Publication of internal conference proceedings • Videos and photos of guest lectures • Photographs of focus group How has your project changed the attitude of your stakeholders? We have found that the employers see that students have a lot to give to an organisation and are not ‘more trouble than they are worth’. Students have found that this is an incredibly valuable experience which will provide them with a lot of ‘added value’ opportunities, and set them apart from other graduates. One of the six students has already been actively involved in real-life client meetings whilst spending a day with his allocated employer. Following on from this project, one of the students was successful in gaining an Internship (1 day a week with a marketing SME), the student was up against a number of candidates from SSU and another local university. The employer was very impressed with our student and offered them the internship. The university academic has had an opportunity to find out about the positive benefits of the exchange framework and would know where to access resources in order to develop one for their own discipline. Implications for the student learning experience • What are the implications of your work for other professionals in the field, for users, or for the community? • What new development work could be undertaken to build on your work or carry it further? • Provide information on the sustainability of your project outputs. How will your innovations continue now that the funding has ended? • Provide information (where applicable) on the long term project contact, how your outputs (e.g. software, toolkits etc.) will be managed, and whether there is a user community that interested individuals could get involved with (max 500 words). What are the implications of your work for other professionals in the field, for users, or for the community? The outcome of this project is that it has provided a framework which will allow other disciplines, (not just marketing) to set up their own reciprocal skills exchange. The OER ‘storyboard’ will take users through step by step and show both academic and student perspectives. What new development work could be undertaken to build on your work or carry it further? The project team are looking at working with Al Monger’s United Kingdom Council for 54
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International Student Affairs(UKCISA)/Higher education Academy (HEA) Transnational Work Based Learning funded Connections project team; to learn lessons from both project and how the teams, faculty and university can benefit from the project. The team will continue to promote the project and OER in the university, to allow others to benefit from our experiences. One of the project employers is now partnering the University and intends to become much more involved with the university, particularly in relation to new course development. It is hoped that this collaboration may produce conference/journal material Provide information on the sustainability of your project outputs. How will your innovations continue now that the funding has ended? Next year the team want to embed the project into a unit to ensure its sustainability and ensure that all students benefit from work experience to enhance their employability skills. Provide information (where applicable) on the long term project contact, how your outputs (e.g. software, toolkits etc.) will be managed, and whether there is a user community that interested individuals could get involved with. The OER will be hosted by the HEA website but managed by the University’s ‘Learning Technologies’ team. The OER includes a forum which will allow users to talk to each other; posing and answering questions.
Dissemination • Please give details of any dissemination activities that have occurred during the reporting period or are still to be undertaken (max 500 words). The project has been disseminated via a number of formats: a) University ‘Campus News’ b) Faculty (Southampton Business School) Blog – December 11, February 12 and May 12 c) University ‘Learning and Teaching Symposium’ – how to work with employers; student input relating to benefits of HEA involvement – March 12 d) Association of Business Schools (ABS) Conference, April 12, Manchester e) Faculty ‘Research and Enterprise’ Conference, May 12 The three conferences were presented by academics and student researchers. The project team have plans for a number of journals including; Journal of Teaching and Learning for Graduate Employability Solent Dialogue (internal pedagogic journal) Warwick Reinvention student journal CIM professional body magazine ‘The Marketer’ Students will co-author the research papers; the project team have been keeping reflective diaries which will be used to write the papers. In addition, all interviews and focus groups 55
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were recorded and these have been transcribed. This qualitative research data will underpin the forthcoming research papers. Budget • Please report on how you have spent the funds awarded by the HEA. o Please include any discrepancies against the original budget plan and the reasons for this. The project team have come in under budget. The Finance Officer is compiling a budget report which will be sent at the end of the project funding on 31st July 12. Any discrepancies are highlighted in blue. DESCRIPTION: COST M=Match funding by institution £ H = HEA funding requested Project management and support from one senior manager (3 days x £500) M £1,500 Release of academic time from teaching, research and administrative duties to £1,500 undertake project management (30 hours x £50) H Release of academic time from teaching, research and administrative duties to £3,000 undertake project management from Research and Scholarly Activity time (60 hours x50) M Research assistant to undertake data collection and training and supervision of £2,250 student researcher assistants (marketing undergraduate students), data analysis and administrative support (90 hours x £25) H Student Research Assistants employed through Careers and Employability Service £1000 (100 hours x £10) H Students were employed to: (a) Work with the project team to undertake the research (b) Transcribe employer interviews and focus group interviews (c) Graphic design of OER storyboard Fee payable to independent evaluator H £800 This action did not happen – the team used conferences to support evaluation of OER ideas. Instead the HEA agreed that we could use this money to pay our student researcher assistants, who each contributed about 60 hours worth of work into project. The amount of money that they will receive will be commensurate with the amount of work that they have done. Solent Productions fee for filming and editing H £1,000 Production of resource documents/fact sheets M £800 Hospitality (room hire, catering for onsite focus groups) M £1,200 Travel expenses (interviews with SMEs) H £400 This expense did not occur – the team held a focus group on-campus. As SME’s were local, students who did drive or take the bus did not provide travel receipts. Telephone calls M £120 Dissemination (conference fees, travel and subsistence) M £1,500 Issues and challenges • Please report on any issues or problems that have impacted on the development and implementation of the project during the reporting period (max 500 words). 56
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It took until November to get the momentum really going on the project. Between September and October (term began 3/10) the team worked really hard to recruit the students and employers – some employers who initially expressed an interest in the project did not then respond to further communication whilst others changed their minds about the actual project, many of them have offered to give a guest lecture/provide a live project brief instead. The team didn’t envisage that it would take this amount of time to establish the foundations of the project as initially, it looked as though employer volunteers were plentiful - and we anticipated that students would be really motivated by such a fantastic opportunity - so numbers of volunteers would be high. In addition, the time of year has been instrumental in delaying things as ‘after Christmas’ seems to be a key starting point for employers. However, some of the employers were more keen than others to get the ball rolling with their allocated student and initial meetings have taken place and, in one case, the student has spent a day with the company. Although it has been useful for those students who have already begun to work with their employers to share their experiences, it can be frustrating and de-motivational for those who are still waiting. This is a very ambitious project and there were certain things that we didn’t consider in the application. For example, much time has been spent with the 6 students preparing them to meet their employer and providing training to ensure that the students know how to present themselves as professionals in the workplace. This is something that will be built into the final project outcomes. The project was developed to utilise and develop student researchers, unfortunately due to unforeseen circumstances; the team ‘lost’ three of the students at the start of May. As such, the project OER cannot be completed until early October. However, the project end date of 31st July doesn’t provide the required flexibility (in this instance), especially in terms of budget funding, which needs to be finalised by 31st July 2012.
References • If appropriate, please provide a list of relevant bibliographic references, compiled in your favoured referencing style. Chalcraft, D., April, 2012, Notions of Belonging: First year, first semester HE students – key themes and actions for successful engagement. Unpublished paper presented at The ABS Learning and Teaching Conference in association with the Higher Education Academy, Manchester. Monger, A., July, 2012, Development of Transnational Work-Based Learning in the Curriculum An Approach Informed by the Student Experience. Dissemination the results of a pilot HEA/UKCISA “Connections” project. Paper presented at Southampton Solent University.
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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 FCIS and Karen Arm MARTEC
Instructions for Authors Contributions to Dialogue will normally fall into 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.
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The title will appear in bold.
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We encourage the use of subheadings (which will also appear in bold) to divide the article.
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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.
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Use Trebuchet 11 MS Font 58
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Footnotes should be avoided.
Please contact a member of the editorial group for a word document template.
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://portallive.solent.ac.uk/library/leaflets/resources/US06.pdf
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