RUSTLE Really Useful Stuff on Teaching, Learning Etc.
Autumn 2010
An Inspiring Encounter in Ukraine Higher Education is increasingly international, but often this is just about students studying outside their home country. One Sussex academic, however, has been making different and interesting links between people teaching in different countries. John David Rhodes (English) is one of 4 core faculty members taking part in a 3-year project funded by the Open Society in which teams of academics based in the Anglophone world go to places in the post-Soviet region and hold a series of seminars around a particular topic.
ences, for example John David found it ‘really striking that some of the participants had undergone such an intense classical education they had a depth of learning that is now missing here’. Also, many of the texts which it had been assumed participants would all have in common were very new to the region, only recently having been translated. However, the collegial atmosphere meant that everyone involved learnt from each other in ‘an incredibly inspiring encounter’.
The topic in this case is the relationship between media studies and philosophy – a cutting edge area in contemporary media studies which is not yet fully developed in the UK or USA but which is less advanced in the post-Soviet region. Whilst the seminars are content-oriented and include discussion around contemporary research and scholarship the main focus of the ReSET project (Regional Seminar for Excellence in Teaching) is thinking about ways of teaching this topic. John David and his colleagues model contemporary pedagogic practices from the UK and US through the way in which the seminars are organised and they ask the participants to reflect on the pedagogic practices in the seminars or that they use in their own teaching.
The 7-10 day seminars, which will take place twice a year for 3 years are in a different part of the region each time, but the same participants, most of whom are young scholars just starting out in university teaching, will be attending all the sessions. Already John David and his colleagues are developing a reading list with input from the participants but as the project moves on they will take a larger part in steering the seminars. It is also intended that the 20 or so members of the group will start to form small research groupings to meet ‘virtually’ via the project website to share material or upload conference papers or articles they are working on for feedback. John David pointed out that ‘it is relatively unusual for so many academics from different parts of the region to get together as the tendency is to travel outside the region for academic conferences’. It is hoped, therefore, that this opportunity to create a learning community will feed into their career development within the region. But as always, the focus is not so much on research as ‘trying to make connections between teaching and research’.
Very aware of the risk of a missionary tone creeping into the endeavour, John David and his colleagues made sure that everyone understood that they wanted ‘a conversation, not just about media and philosophy but also pedagogy and teaching’. This was a complex international situation where interesting national contexts were brought together in the classroom and the diversity of approach from different parts of the region was clear. In fact there were different perspectives and languages even within Ukraine. There were also unexpected differ-
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Also in this issue... Helping International Students Write for US A Different Look at Internationalisation Top Teaching Tips The Student Voice Library Support for Researchers Turnitin at Sussex Skillclouds for All AHEA Successes Echo 360 Personal Capture Better Writing with the RLF
The AT Team Conference News and Resources The Subject-Specifics of Teaching Forthcoming External Events Happy Birthday to the Doctoral School Really Useful Web Links Getting Teaching into Print New Resources from the TLDU TLD Events for the Autumn Term
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Activities which we take for granted such as small group work or close analysis of film clips or passages of text were new to the participants who had generally experienced a very ‘top down’ model of instruction. John David found that he ‘really was bringing something new and exciting for them’ as well as having the ‘opportunity to review pedagogic practices that had become invisible’ to him and his colleagues. He came back with ‘a refreshed understanding of the potential for small group work’ and is now thinking about sharpening his own approach to it. This new awareness of his own teaching practices came in part from the necessity of talking through, with a really sceptical group, the reasons for approaching a text in a particu lar way. The group were also challenged by the idea of tackling difficult texts with students, but as John David says: ‘sometimes we go into the classroom feeling insufficient to the task of teaching difficult material … we can be intimidated by the material we teach and yet we are the point around which the conversation has to happen. We are not masters of this material but we use it in our teaching’. To participants whose previous experience of teaching was confined to reading a lecture, the idea that a seminar can be the place for students and tutor to come together as a group trying to produce a reading of a text was very new and exciting. They experienced this approach first hand as ‘noticing exercises’ were used to ‘accumulate a concrete list of formal elements’ as a basis for a philosophical discussion.
If you are in this business your teaching is your most socially productive role … contact with students is much greater than with readers.
For John David the whole experience was ‘incredibly intellectually stimulating’ not least because no-one really knew each other before they came together and the seminar was ‘like a floating world – a contingent community that felt extremely vital’. He has also found that it has revitalised his own teaching by giving him the opportunity to reflect on his practice and engage in discussion with a vibrant group of international colleagues.
When in Rome… Helping International Students to Write for US Learning to write critically is one of the challenges facing students when they start studying at Sussex. This is especially true for international students who may have come from a very different educational culture and may only be here for a short time. The Institute of Development Studies (IDS) welcomes many such students each year and Diana Conyers (winner of a Sussex Teaching Award) has been developing a guide to help their students with ‘critical writing’. For as she says: ‘We want critical writing, but some other educational cultures don’t expect that’. Over the years Diana has become increasingly aware of some of the different writing styles and language rules that students are used to. The absence of capital letters in the Japanese language, for example, can make it difficult for Japanese students to correctly distinguish in their writing between the generic and the specific. There are also differences in writing styles across the world, with LatinAmerican writers for example, often avoiding a direct argument in favour of a more meandering style that leaves the reader to work out what the argument is. In both these examples some support is necessary to enable students to produce work that represents their learning in a way that is expected in the UK. Work on the Critical Writing Guide began when Diana’s colleague Mick Moore came across an article on the problems experienced by international students in writing. He wanted to circulate the ideas in the article more widely and turn them into something useful. Diana volunteered to spend some time last Summer Diana (3rd from left back row) with IDS students (2009) writing something, and found that there was a whole literature on the subject. In the end, she produced a draft guide that included a review of some of the history, so that students realise they are not the only ones that have problems, as well as practical advice. After using the draft guide with her students in 2009-10 Diana found that there was interest from colleagues, so an updated version has been produced for wider use. Whilst in no way denigrating the writing practices that students have developed throughout their lives, the guide offers suggestions on the appropriate writing styles for different purposes as well as formulating, presenting and supporting an argument. And many of the issues and skills identified in Diana’s guide are relevant to all our students because the sort of academic language and writing required at Sussex is by no means the way that most new students are used to writing. That is why there is now a link to the guide on the S3 (Study Success at Success) website, but ideally Diana prefers to use it to work with students in face-to-face sessions rather than just giving it to them to read. It remains, however, a useful resource that students can refer to throughout their studies.
Links: The Institute of Development Studies: www.ids.ac.uk/ Study Success at Sussex - S3: www.sussex.ac.uk/s3/ Diana’s Critical Writing Guide: www.sussex.ac.uk/s3/Writing_Skills_Guide.2010.pdf 2
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A Universal University? taking a different look at Internationalisation This summer Sussex welcomed four external speakers to join over 100 colleagues from across the schools, professional services and partner colleges to discuss different ways of looking at the question of internationalising the university and its curriculum. The annual Sussex Teaching and Learning Conference on 3rd June moved beyond issues of attracting and supporting international students to discuss how we might offer all our students a global perspective. The day was opened by the new Pro-Vice-Chancellor (Teaching and Learning) Professor Clare Mackie and Professor Chris Marlin, Pro-Vice-Chancellor (International) gave a keynote address emphasizing how important it is that every student has an international learning experience. He said: ‘A university experience that gives [students] an appreciation of other cultures and some of the issues in terms of interacting with other cultures, will prepare them better for a world that is increasingly globalised’. The main focus of the conference was on how staff could help to make Sussex a truly international university and what staff and students, both UK and overseas, could gain from that. Ideas explored included supervision; overseas field work; assessment; interaction between students; the creation of a global curriculum; cross-cultural capability and the use of technology for international teaching and learning. Materials from the conference, including videos of the keynote addresses, reports from workshops, slides and handouts are now available on the conference website and have also been linked into the pages on Internationalisation, where there are many more resources on this important topic.
Web Links: Sussex Teaching and Learning Conferences: www.sussex.ac.uk/tldu/events/conf TLDU Internationalisation Pages: www.sussex.ac.uk/tldu/initiatives/internationalisation TLDU bookmarks on Internationalisation: www.delicious.com/tlduteam/international
Top Teaching Tips Use post-it notes in seminars. When putting students into small groups for discussion, tell them that before they start talking you want each of them to write 2 points for the discussion on separate post-it notes, and that everyone gets a turn to talk about their points. This helps students who are more confident when putting their ideas in writing, and ensures that the quieter group members get to be heard - and the chattier ones listen. You can go on to ask the groups to arrange their post-its into a logical argument, which helps develop their essay-writing skills. At the start of a course give everyone a relatively easy (and above all easily accessible) piece of 'essential reading', to be read before the seminar. Do everything to encourage them all to read it. During the seminar find a way to enable every student who has done the reading to let all the others know that s/he has done so (e.g. by asking straightforward questions about the reading, to be answered by 'someone who hasn't spoken yet'). Hopefully all the students will have done so by the end of the seminar. So each student will know that all the others have done the essential reading for this seminar, and will expect them to do the same for the next seminar. Since no-one likes to be left out, each will have a strong incentive to do the essential reading for the next seminar him/herself. Then do the same thing at the next seminar (for which the essential reading will have been a bit harder) and the following ones. That way doing the essential reading for the seminars becomes a 'collective habit' of the students on the course. Small group work needs to be directed. If students are asked to just ‘talk about’ a topic they are unlikely to engage deeply and really achieve learning. Good small group work sets a very specific task or problem and calls for specific products at the end. That could be an informal presentation, a poster, a set of answers to questions or any number of other things depending on disciplinary context – but there needs to be a clear structure to the activity and an end product in mind if the group work is to be effective. To avoid repetition in small group work it is useful to break up a task. For example, when analysing a poem each group could look at one verse in detail and report back to the whole group which will then have created together a sort of essay on the poem. This can be a good way of introducing students to a process for writing an essay.
Web Links and Credits: Thanks to Andrew Chitty, Nikki Luke and John David Rhodes for these tips. More Teaching Tips from RUSTLE: www.sussex.ac.uk/tldu/resources/rustle/tips 3
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The Student Voice In June the new team of Students’ Union full-time elected officers took up their posts, so RUSTLE got together with Lita Wallis, who is this year’s Education Officer to talk about what she and the Students’ Union want to achieve this year. As a representative of the student body, Lita spends a lot of her time gathering information from students and finding out what things they would like to change. She is then able to take a wide range of opinions with her into meetings such as Senate and the Teaching and Learning Committee ensuring that ‘students have input into high-level committees making decisions about academic matters’.
is keen to emphasize that being a rep is not always the highly-politicized role that some assume it to be – rather it is often politics with a small ‘p’ which focuses on people’s day-to-day lives and working together to improve things. Student representatives working with the university have achieved great things in the past – including the extended library opening hours which now benefit all students and as Lita says: ‘If you feel like you are all in it together then it becomes about problem solving together rather than you taking a problem and giving it to someone – it is all about if you feel important, responsible, needed and on a level where you are capable of making those changes…. Hopefully the union will be able to spread that kind of attitude across the schools.’
Lita also holds a drop-in surgery once a week where students can come for advice on academic-related problems. The Students’ Union provides a source of support and adLita’s other major concern for vice that is independent of the 2010-11 is helping students university, so much of Lita’s facing academic misconduct work involves advising or reppanels and trying to reduce resenting students involved in the number of plagiarism academic misconduct cases cases for the future. Followor appeals against the instituing on from the work in this tion. It was no surprise, then area by her predecessor, The Full-Time Elected Officers 2010-11. Lita front right. Josh Jones, Lita will be gathto hear that Lita’s main goals for the year are around student representation and plagiaering statistics and identifying target areas for extra information and training. The Students’ Union is backing the rism. introduction of Turnitin this year as a way of giving students Following through on her manifesto promises, Lita is focusthe feedback they need to avoid plagiarism and Josh ing a lot of energy on developing and strengthening the worked in the TLDU over the summer to review student student rep scheme. She sees it as fundamentally imporacademic practice resources, develop student guidance for tant that representatives from the student body be involved using Turnitin and add pages to the S3 website to help stuin the decision-making processes of the university. As term dents with referencing (for more on the introduction of Turstarts the Students’ Union team will be out encouraging nitin see page 5). students to get involved so that every year group in every school can have a representative who will feed concerns As part of the team of elected officers, Lita will also be infrom the student body through to School Reps and the fullvolved in the general Students’ Union priorities for the year which include developing contacts with three groups of students who have sometimes felt on the periphery of Union I hope that after last year when there was activities: postgraduates, international students and stua lot of protesting on campus that people dents with dependants. Much of this year will be spent realise how valuable it is to have formal working out the best ways to include those students so that channels of communication. sustainable plans can be in place for next year. And although it will not be happening until after their year in office, time elected officers. It is a big task as there could be up to Lita and the team are excited about the possibilities for a 250 reps who will need to be supported in their roles, but student-led element to the 50th anniversary celebrations. Lita has been working hard with staff within the Union and What that might be won’t be clear until the students arrive the university over the summer to have everything in place and start getting involved, but Lita hopes that it will be by the time that the freshers arrive. something that captures what it is that is so special about the Sussex student experience. Ideally, the Students’ Union would like to see competition for the role of student rep, and as people increasingly look You can read more about the Students’ Union’s work and for ways to make their CV stand out, a stint as a student plans for the future on their website, or by following memrep can be a great asset in terms of employability skills. Lita bers of the team on Twitter (see links below).
Web Links and Contacts: University of Sussex Students’ Union website: www.ussu.info/ Students’ Union Twitter: www.twitter.com/USSU Education Elected Officer Twitter: www.twitter.com/EducationUSSU Education Elected Officer e-mail: education@ussu.sussex.ac.uk 4
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Library Support for Researchers The Library’s Research Liaison team offers one-to-one awareness raising and advice sessions for all postgraduate and postdoctoral researchers within the University. These sessions are tailored to an individual’s research interests and specific needs, and can cover a wide range of topics, for example:
Which external collections or archives will help my research and how can I access them? I’m finding too many search results and I need to narrow them down. I can’t find any articles in my subject area – am I using the wrong resources/keywords? The team try to be as flexible as possible so that sessions can be arranged at a time to suit you. For research staff, they offer to visit you in your office. The sessions get excellent feedback because although they usually last about an hour, they can save a researcher many hours of work. People comment on the time they have saved by getting help in setting up alerts for newly published work, rather than having to trawl for information.
What online resources are available in my subject area? How can I use all the features of the electronic databases? Where do I find statistics for my research? How do I set up alerts from databases so I am updated when new work is published in my research area?
For researchers unable to visit campus for a one-to-one session, or who just need to grab hold of some information quickly, the team has developed infoPlus, an online tool for researchers, which covers some of the generic training and information offered in the one-to-one sessions. A mix of short video demonstrations and text, infoPlus has guidance on how to search effectively using some of the most popular resources, referencing and evaluating articles, as well as bringing together useful library-related information for researchers, such as how to place inter library requests and use other libraries.
Web Links and Contacts: One-to-one booking form: www.sussex.ac.uk/library/informationfor/postgraduates.html infoPlus: www.sussex.ac.uk/library/infoplus/ Library Research Liaison team: library.researchliaison@sussex.ac.uk
Turnitin to Support Sussex Students’ Skills From November students on taught programmes at Sussex will have access to Turnitin, an online essay checking tool that compares a piece of written work to a huge database of other files and shows where there are strong similarities. It is often referred to as plagiarism detection software but although the great majority of UK universities use Turnitin, the precise way in which it is deployed varies. At Sussex Turnitin, at least initially, will be used in a formative way. This means that only students will be allowed to submit their work and receive a report on the extent to which it matches with other work submitted to Turnitin. By taking this approach the University hopes that Turnitin will contribute to the education of students in scholarly writing and referencing practices in higher education, so that the work that students themselves create will always meet at least acceptable standards of academic integrity. As a consequence it is hoped that there will be a reduction in the number of cases of plagiarism reported annually. Students will be able to access Turnitin via a Study Direct site and a parallel site has been set up so that staff can see for themselves how the service works and try submitting some of their own writing. There will also be workshops so that colleagues who, for example, have an Academic Advisor role and might be asked by students to offer advice based on the originality reports they have received from Turnitin can get to understand the service. The first workshop will be on 21st October and details of that and other sessions are available on the TLDU website (see link below).
Web Links and Contacts: Turnitin at Sussex: www.sussex.ac.uk/tldu/initiatives/turn Turnitin Workshops for staff: www.sussex.ac.uk/tldu/events/tldevents/innlt#tii Turnitin: http://turnitin.com/static/index.html For more information about Turnitin at Sussex contact Gill Johnston: g.johnston@sussex.ac.uk 5
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Skillclouds for All RUSTLE has reported before on the Skillclouds project and the way in which this resource, embedded in Sussex Direct, presents students with the main skills they are developing on their degree programme. Skillclouds is now going live across campus so all departments will have a Skillcloud for their students. Students can click on any skill listed in the cloud to show further information about that skill which might include: information, specific to each student, pulled in from the student database on the courses taken, overall marks, assessments and any available online feedback that may have developed that skill and examples of how they could demonstrate that skill on a CV. Skillclouds is a great complement to Sussex Plus which helps students to think about and plan for future employment or further study, to develop additional skills through extra-curricular activities and build a web-based portfolio of evidence of these activities. The personalised information about the skills gained through their degree programme, which Skillclouds provides will be valuable for
writing job and/or further degree applications and can also be included in the Sussex Plus webfolio. If, as a member of staff, you want to see the Skillcloud for your department just log in to Sussex Direct and select ‘Skillclouds’ from your ‘Teaching’ or 'Admin' tab. This will allow you to look at the 'Staff view of Skillclouds' and choose any department from the drop down menu to see what that Skillcloud looks like. Academic Advisors will have access to their advisees’ personal Skillclouds so that they can be used to inform discussions. Students can find their Skillcloud by logging into Sussex Direct and then selecting ‘Skillclouds’ from their ‘Study’ tab. To encourage students to use this resource postcards and posters have been circulated to advertise Skillclouds during induction / reinduction or as part of an Academic Advising session. If you would like more of these for your department or have any queries about Skillclouds please contact Clare Hardman (details below).
Web Links and Contacts: Using Skillclouds with Students: www.sussex.ac.uk/tldu/studentskills/skillclouds/staff/use Information about Skillclouds for staff: www.sussex.ac.uk/tldu/studentskills/skillclouds/staff Information about Skillclouds for students: www.sussex.ac.uk/skillclouds Clare Hardman: c.l.m.hardman@sussex.ac.uk or telephone 01273 873657)
Sussex ATs Continue to Show their Commitment to Good Teaching Virtually every term RUSTLE is able to report on more Sussex Associate Tutors gaining accreditation from the Higher Education Academy (HEA) for their teaching. This issue is no different with news of 8 ATs successfully completing the Sussex Pathway to Associate status (AHEA ). Undertaking this entirely voluntary follow-on to the standard AT training courses shows the participants’ commitment to their students’ learning and their own professional development which is to be applauded. The flexible, work-based Pathway is designed to support ATs in developing their teaching, and whilst gaining this nationally recognised professional status is particularly useful to tutors intending to pursue an academic career, it also has immediate benefits to the numerous Sussex students who are being taught by tutors actively engaged in reflecting on and working to improve their professional practice.
New Associates of the Higher Education Academy Laurence Clennett-Sirois, Media, Film & Music Daniela DeBono, Law, Politics and Sociology Aristea Fotopoulou, Media, Film & Music Lara Lewington, Engineering &Design Alexandra Loske, History, Art History and Philosophy Andrew Mansfield, History, Art History and Philosophy Karen Veitch, Media, Film & Music Benjamin Zeitlyn, Global Studies
The AHEA Pathway is the third stage of AT training at Sussex. The first step is the online Preparing to Teach course which is open to anyone on campus and serves as a good introduction for people thinking about teaching at Sussex. Once appointed as an Associate Tutor or Graduate Teaching Assistant, people take one of the Starting to Teach courses and then, if they wish, can progress to the AHEA Pathway. ATs can also continue to develop their teaching practice in specific areas by attending sessions from the extensive programme of Teaching and Learning Development Events run by TLDU (see back page).
Web Links and Contacts: Preparing to Teach Study Direct course: www.sussex.ac.uk/tldu/events/at/ptt Starting to Teach training courses: www.sussex.ac.uk/tldu/events/at/stt The AHEA Pathway: www.sussex.ac.uk/tldu/events/at/ahea For more information on AT courses, please contact: Tina.O-Donnell@sussex.ac.uk 6
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The Next Step for Echo 360 The Echo 360 Lecture Capture system went into lecture theatres at Sussex a year ago and is now installed in most of the main lecture theatres. There has been a good uptake by academic colleagues, initial fears of a negative impact on lecture attendance have not been realised and recordings of lectures with audio and slides have proved popular with students - especially for revision. Now Sussex has been awarded a research grant to investigate how the ‘Personal Capture’ version of Echo 360 might be used to further enhance student learning. The project team includes John Davies and Clare Hardman in TLDU and Bill Ashraf, Director of Technology Enhanced Learning. Personal Capture is flexible and easy to use, allowing people to capture sound and visuals in learning sessions outside of a lecture theatre. As well as ‘capturing’ face-to-face learning situations of various kinds, the Me2U project will look at how the technology can be used to help student learning in different ways. The project team will be asking colleagues to think about how they can record short pieces at critical points in a course to support student learning. Evidence from the National Student Survey (NSS) has shown that universities tend to score more poorly on feedback than other aspects of teaching and John thinks that ‘there is a real opportunity here to use Echo 360 Personal Capture to provide more generic feedback’ but also to give a sort of ‘feedback’ at the beginning of course to help set the course in context, to
‘help students know where they are going with the course, how it might relate to other courses and what the tutor expects. To help scaffold learning at the very start of the course’. For first years it might be helpful for tutors to introduce themselves before students encounter them in a lecture theatre, lab or seminar room. A short 2-minute video could really set the scene for a term’s work or explain the purpose of a Study Direct site, and although the information in such an introduction might be available elsewhere, putting it in a succinct, personalised form that students can look at on Study Direct or even download and take away could be very effective. The project will also look at using short recordings at the midpoint or later in the life of a course. If there have been questions raised by students on a particular topic or concept, or if the first piece of assessment has highlighted areas that need to be clarified a short video could be very useful to students. Other points at which short videos could be used are the end of a course, or just before end-of-year exams. Ten academics from a range of disciplines will be trying out these approaches in their courses during the academic year and data will be collected to evaluate the effectiveness of this way of using Echo 360. If you would like to find out more about Echo 360 Personal Capture you may wish to attend the TLD Event on this topic to be held on 2nd November or contact John Davies.
Web Links and Contact: Lecture or Personal Capture with Echo 360 event: www.sussex.ac.uk/tldu/events/tldevents/innlt#echo Echo 360 Research Grants Program: www.echo360.com/grantsprogram/ John Davies, TLDU: j.m.davies@sussex.ac.uk
Better Writing with the RLF Better Writing with the RLF is a scheme, funded by the Royal Literary Fund, that provides invaluable support to students by allowing professional writers to spend time on campus working with students to improve their writing skills Sussex has been fortunate to have Writers-in-Residence for a number of years and there has been a steady rise in the number of students taking advantage of this opportunity and excellent feedback from students. Siân Rees
This year Sussex is pleased to welcome Siân Rees and Jackie Wills who will be running one-to-one tutorials to provide support for students who would like to improve their writing skills and therefore their marks for essays, projects or dissertations.
The boost in skills and confidence that students get from this scheme is clear from one student’s comment that ‘I was really dreading starting writing my long essay and didn’t know where to start but now I’m really looking forward to getting stuck into it’ . And the sense of direction Jackie Wills which these tutorials give is shown by another student’s comment that ‘I felt I was floundering with essay planning and writing. Now I feel like I have a map and know where to go’ The RLF Fellows will be available during term time each Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday and are located in Essex House, room 232. Students from any discipline are welcome to sign up via Study Direct for a free 45 minute individual tutorial.
Web Links and Contacts: Further information on Better Writing with the RLF: www.sussex.ac.uk/tldu/studentskills/rlf Signing up via Study Direct: https://studydirect.sussex.ac.uk/course/view.php?id=8705 The Royal Literary Fund: www.rlf.org.uk/ Queries about Better Writing with the RLF: tldu@sussex.ac.uk 7
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The AT Team Associate Tutors (ATs) and Graduate Teaching Assistants (GTAs) play an invaluable role in the life of the university, but if they are going to deliver the excellent learning experience that our students deserve they need support and guidance. TLDU runs training courses for new ATs and GTAs but some schools also provide additional resources and support for this group of staff. In Psychology, for example, AT Representatives (Reps) have worked hard over several years to develop an impressive range of support and advice resources for tutors. This year’s AT Reps for Psychology are Nikki Luke and Tom Wright, who are taking over from Anneka Dawson and William Farr. The main role of the AT reps is to represent the tutors and to improve communication between them and the school so Nikki and Tom sit on the School Teaching and Learning Committee and attend school meetings where they can ask questions that are relevant to ATs and help faculty to understand some of the issues that ATs face. This recently led to some ATs being paid to provide office hours to support students on two courses. The reps also make themselves available to individual tutors who want to discuss any problems or issues they are facing in their teaching. In Psychology, however, the AT reps are doing much more. Each term they run a Subject-Specific Teaching Training Workshop and these very popular events are usually oversubscribed because as Anneka pointed out: ‘Most ATs are really enthusiastic and interested in doing well for students’. These sessions build on the AT training provided by TLDU, giving ATs the opportunity to talk together about the particular challenges and practices of teaching Psychology at Sussex. The workshops are interactive and responsive to the ATs’ needs, combining materials and resources from TLDU with the opportunity to talk to each other about day-
to-day issues in their teaching. Because the sessions are open to all ATs there is always a good mix of participants who are tutoring on different courses and who have different amounts of teaching experience. The most recent workshop focused on inclusive teaching and tutors were given hypothetical cases of diverse students and asked to plan a session that would be inclusive. Over the years the workshops have benefitted from excellent support from the school which has funded them, and from members of faculty such as Zoltan Dienes who has attended several meetings to answer questions and Graham Hole who has talked through lab reports and assessment. This once a term activity, however, is only the tip of the iceberg as far as peer support for Psychology ATs is concerned. For several years there has been a Study Direct site called PSYCHAT where Psychology tutors can access resources relevant to their teaching practice and share experiences and teaching resources. ATs are encouraged to upload any materials, such as PowerPoint presentations or handouts, that they create for a particular course so that future tutors can make use of them. Most courses now have some materials uploaded and this year Nikki and Tom are going to contact new ATs to make them aware of the resources available for their course. The more people who contribute to this collection of materials the more useful it will be for busy ATs who are juggling teaching preparation with research. Working together, improving communication between the school, faculty, professional services staff and associate tutors has enabled the Psychology AT reps to build a great peer support network and make ATs feel a part of the teaching community. Now they are keen to start connecting with AT reps in other schools to share experiences and approaches so if you are an AT rep, please get in touch with Nikki or Tom.
Contacts: Nikki Luke: N.Luke@sussex.ac.uk Tom Wright: T.D.Wright@sussex.ac.uk
External Conference News and Resources Towards an Authentic Future: the 4th International Plagiarism Conference. The papers presented at this conference in June looked at many aspects of plagiarism, from the legalistic to detection software and training options. Abstracts, slides and videos from the conference are now online. Into something rich and strange - making sense of the sea-change: The Association for Learning Technology Conference. Carol Shergold (ITS) and John Davies (TLDU) presented a paper on ‘ Quantity and Quality: using site metrics to measure VLE adoption and inform planning’ reporting on research carried out on the use of Study Direct. John highly recommends the video of Sugata Mitra’s keynote where he talks about his inspiring work on how children can learn and you can also see the keynote by Donald Clark on the value of lectures (and conferences) that sent Twitter into overdrive.
Web Links: Plagiarism conference: www.plagiarismadvice.org/conference ALT-C conference proceedings: http://repository.alt.ac.uk/797/ Sugata Mitra: www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ps8MwyJH8Zo Donald Clark: www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tbl-xXF8NPY 8
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Focusing on the Subject-Specifics of Teaching Past issues of RUSTLE have included profiles of some of the HEA Subject Centres but this term we get to hear firsthand from someone who has benefitted from one of the Subject Centre events. Yi Wang, a new lecturer in Climate Change (Global Studies), attended the 2-day Early Career Lecturers Workshop run by the Geography, Environment and Earth Sciences (GEES) Subject Centre. These events, which are run by many of the subject centres, bring together people starting out in HE teaching to discuss issues and approaches in a subject-specific context, for example, Yi attended sessions on using problem based learning (PBL) in Geography and using PDAs (Personal Digital Assistants) or a portable communications network to improve learning on field trips. Yi was not familiar with PBL and had questions about how shy students could be encouraged to participate, but he was given useful suggestions for ways to involve even quiet students by including small group tasks or giving students the opportunity to give answers on post-it notes (using ‘clickers’ would be another anonymous way to do this). Even when looking at more general topics, such as the ways in which project management can help students to learn more effectively, the participants were able to use
examples from their own discipline to contextualise the ideas. Yi was particularly excited by a session on encouraging undergraduate students to start researching and publishing. The Geoverse project supported by GEES is piloting a national e-journal of undergraduate research in Geography and Yi is keen to get his own students involved. He was also fascinated to hear one speaker talk about how his teaching had enhanced his research. We usually expect it to be the other way around, but Yi was inspired by the idea that by asking students to create posters with different solutions to research challenges they were able to learn ‘in interaction with the lecturer and the science’ and produced interesting questions and suggestions. As always at these events there were numerous opportunities to get to know other people in a similar position and talk about what everyone had learnt and would want to use in their teaching. Yi came back from the event bubbling with new ideas for his teaching, but was also pleased to have made valuable connections with other early career academics in his field with whom he is now starting research collaborations.
Web Links: Links to HEA Subject Centre Events: www.sussex.ac.uk/tldu/events/heaevents/sc GeoVerse: http://geoverse.brookes.ac.uk/index.html Using ‘clickers’: www.sussex.ac.uk/elearning/personal_response_systems.php
External Events The Higher Education Academy (HEA) and other organisations run many teaching and learning related events. This is just a selection of forthcoming ones, but there is an up-to-date list on the TLDU website and links to more subject-specific events. Developing an employer responsive learning provision, 27th October, Newport Aspiring academics workshop for philosophical and religious studies, 27 October 2010, University of Edinburgh HLST Annual Conference: Going for Gold - enriching student learning through the 2012 Games, 9 November 2010, St Hugh's College, Oxford Evidence-based Practice Synthesis: Enhancing learning and teaching through the use of technology for Assessment and Feedback, 10 November 2010, University of Southampton The Creativity and Work Conference: Transfer and transformation of learning between education and work, 12th November, London Evidence-based Practice Synthesis: Enhancing learning and teaching through the use of technology for Employability and Employee Learning, 9 December 2010, Leeds Metropolitan University Learning in Law Annual Conference 2011: experiencing legal education, 28-29 January 2011, University of Warwick
More Events: Details of events listed here: www.sussex.ac.uk/tldu/events/heaevents Subject-specific events: www.sussex.ac.uk/tldu/events/heaevents/sc 9
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Happy Birthday to the Doctoral School Now one year old, the Doctoral School is working hard to improve the way Sussex supports its researcher community. Unlike a graduate school, the Doctoral School extends beyond postgraduate researchers and includes all research staff. The academic schools will always be the first point of contact and community for researchers, but the Doctoral School has a lot to offer that supplements school provision. So if you aren’t yet familiar with it yet, here is an overview of what the Do ctoral School offers to all Sussex researchers.
Regardless of discipline, career stage, or geographical location, if your primary identity at Sussex is that of a Researcher, then you are a member of the Doctoral School.
The Doctoral School provides support for a range of researcher issues such as: doctoral funding and studentship applications; admissions; career and professional development; policy development (e.g. annual monitoring, student and supervisor handbooks) as well as organising the Junior Research Associate scheme for undergraduates. It also coordinates the Researcher Mentoring programme, which was successfully piloted in 2009/10. The programme sees research staff mentor doctoral researchers for a year, providing professional and career benefits for both parties.
The professional development of researchers is a particular focus for the Doctoral School which coordinates activities and events delivered by central units (e.g. the Library, Careers and Employability Centre, Teaching & Learning Development Unit and Technical Skills for Researchers). These activities are designed specifically for researchers, provide for a range of skill and experience levels, and are often presented in a disciplinary context (for Arts and Humanities; for Social Sciences; and for Sciences) to maximise the benefits to researchers in their particular field of study. Workshops and seminars cover the use of software (e.g. EndNote, STATA, NVivo, SPSS); Engagement skills (e.g. media training, research impact & bibliometrics, getting published, public engagement, peer review); Research skills (e.g. literature review, writing retreats, gett ing research funded, ethics and integrity) and Professional skills (e.g. managing relationships, organising time, projects, career). Part-time and distance researchers may be particularly interested in the Doctoral School’s online learning provision which includes 14 multimedia research skills modules and 3 films covering topics such as: ethics, getting published, reviewing literature, research methods, intellectual property, project management, career planning, conferences, managing your supervisory relationship, the viva voce exam, and good supervision.
Web Links and Contacts: Doctoral School Offices: Chichester 1, room 103 Telephone: +44 (0)1273 877767 or 877114 E-mail: doctoralschool@sussex.ac.uk Website: www.sussex.ac.uk/doctoralschool Blog: http://doctoralschool.wordpress.com Twitter: www.twitter.com/SussexDocSchool Facebook: www.facebook.com/SussexDocSchool Yammer: www.yammer.com/sussex.ac.uk/groups/DocSchool. Yammer allows for extended nested messaging, uploading of attachments, and collaborative work within the institution (Sussex email address required). The Doctoral School has an open group on Yammer.
Really Useful Web Links The Multimedia Educational Resource for Learning and Online Teaching (MERLOT). A great website where you can find peer reviewed online teaching and learning materials: www.merlot.org TinEye is a reverse image search engine. It finds out where an image came from, how it is being used, if modified versions of the image exist, or if there is a higher resolution version: www.tineye.com Box of Broadcasts is an off-air recording system which allows users to schedule a recording of a programme appearing on the freeview spectrum or on free to air satellite services: http://tinyurl.com/sussex-bob 10
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Getting Teaching into Print Whenever possible RUSTLE likes to share news of colleagues who are publishing pedagogic research. This term we are featuring the work of Darrell Evans from the Brighton and Sussex Medical School. Over the last few years Darrell has been publishing more and more about the teaching he does - alongside his disciplinary research publication. Below are listed some of his recent articles, including one he co-authored with BSMS colleague Tracey Cuffe. Evans DJR, Cuffe T. 2009, ’Near-peer teaching in anatomy: an approach for deeper learning’, Anatomical Sciences Education, 2:227-233. Fraher J and Evans DJR. 2009, ‘The training of the next generation of anatomy teachers’, Anatomical Sciences Education, 2:119-125. Evans DJR, Canavan A. 2008, ‘Designing a clinical skills programme: a partnership between students, patients and faculty’, International Journal of Clinical Skills, 2:130-134. Evans DJR. 2008, ’Writing for the lay person -- developing medical student communication skills’, Anatomical Sciences Education, 1:41-45. Evans DJR. 2007, ‘The role of the anatomist in communicating anatomy to a lay audience’, European Journal of Anatomy, 11:227-231. Evans DJR, Watt DW. 2005, ‘Provision of anatomical teaching in a new British medical school: Getting the right mix’, Anatomical Record, 284B: 22-27. If you would like to find out more about developing a publication about teaching and learning practice in HE or how
to access, find and approach educational literature you might like to attend a session that Darrell is co-hosting with Emma Walton from the library on ’Taking a scholarly approach to Teaching and Learning’. And if you have published any pedagogic research that you would like to share with your colleagues across campus please contact RUSTLE. Web Links and Contact: Taking A Scholarly Approach to Teaching and Learning: www.sussex.ac.uk/tldu/events/tldevents/enh#sotl Scholarship of Teaching and Learning Web Pages: www.sussex.ac.uk/tldu/ideas/profdev/sotl Contact RUSTLE: tldu@sussex.ac.uk
New Resources from the Teaching and Learning Development Unit Over the summer there have been some new additions to the range of resources that are available via the TLDU web pages. Ideas and Guidance pages have been created that bring together advice and materials on a wide range of teaching and learning topics. Some of the pages are still being developed but already there is a wealth of information from Sussex and beyond on themes such as: curriculum design and development; assessment and feedback; teaching modes and methods; student evaluation and developing teaching practice. New Books have been added to the TLDU library and you can browse the collection by arrangement with TLDU or search by author or title using the spreadsheet available on the website. Books can be borrowed. The library is housed in the TLDU Training Room so if you come to one of the TLD Events you will get a chance to have a look at the books and other publications available. The TLDU Delicious Tag Cloud has been updated and annotated. There are now over 1000 bookmarks arranged into 325 tags so you should be able to find an interesting and relevant web link on just about any teaching and learning topic. If you follow TLDU on Twitter you will receive a tweeted ‘tag of the day’ to whet your appetite.
Web Links: TLDU website: www.sussex.ac.uk/tldu Ideas and Guidance Pages: www.sussex.ac.uk/tldu/ideas TLDU library: www.sussex.ac.uk/tldu/resources/lib Bookmarks tag cloud: www.sussex.ac.uk/tldu/resources/web TLDU on Twitter: http://twitter.com/SussexTLDU 11
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Teaching and Learning Development Events TLDU offer an exciting programme of sessions on a wide range of topics related to teaching, learning, assessment, supervision and innovation. These events have been designed to be of value to all staff with teaching or tutoring responsibilities and ar e varied in terms of topic, format, timing and location so that as many colleagues as possible can take part. The Autumn term sessions are listed here and session outlines and online booking are available on the TLDU website.
Planning Sessions Wednesday 13th October 2010, 10-12am Academic Advising Tuesday 19th October 2010, 12-2pm Turnitin Originality Checking Thursday 21st October 2010, 11-12am Using Clickers Tuesday 26th October 2010, 2-3pm Mental Health Awareness Wednesday 27th October 2010, 2-3.30pm Learning in Small Groups Thursday 28th October 2010, 10-12am Introduction to Asperger's Tuesday 2nd November 2010, 10-11.30am Play it Again: Lecture or Personal Capture with Echo360 Tuesday 2nd November 2010, 12-2pm Marking & Feedback (text-based subjects) Wednesday 3rd November 2010, 10-12am Using Study Direct as part of your teaching Thursday 4th November 2010, 10-12am Marking & Feedback (numerical based subjects) Tuesday 9th November 2010, 2-4pm Effective Lecturing Wednesday 10th November 2010, 10am-1pm Working with Students who Experience Panic Attacks Wednesday 10th November 2010, 2-4pm Using an Interactive White Board Thursday 11th November 2010, 10-12am 10 Minutes of Fame - your lecture in the spotlight Tuesday 16th November 2010, Supervising Doctoral Students with Disabilities Wednesday 17th November 2010, 2-4pm LiveScribe Digital Pen Demonstration Tuesday 23rd November 2010, 1-2pm UK Education for New International Staff Wednesday 24th November 2010, 10-12am Giving Effective Feedback Thursday 25th November 2010, 2-4pm Supporting International Students Tuesday 30th November, 12-2pm Student Learning: some concepts and approaches Wednesday 1st December 2010, 10-12am Technology Hands-on Drop-in Wednesday 1st December 2010, 2-3.30pm Designing Assessment Tuesday 7th December 2010, 10-12am Preparing a Teaching Portfolio Wednesday 8th December 2010, 11.30am-1pm Supervising Research Students Tuesday 14th December 2010, 9.30am-4.30pm
Web Links TLD Events 2010-11: www.sussex.ac.uk/tldu/events/tldevents Related Resources: www.sussex.ac.uk/tldu/ideas RUSTLE is produced by the Teaching and Learning Development Unit (TLDU) and is online at www.sussex.ac.uk/tldu/resources/rustle If you wish to comment or contribute please e-mail tldu@sussex.ac.uk
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