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Friday, 26 March 2010
Fwd: Please participate in this forum...
Thursday, 25 March 2010
Lectures and boredom
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Friday, 19 March 2010
NSSE Survey: Enhancement of student engagement and high impact activities (a...
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via MASHe by Martin Hawksey on 08/03/10
Unlike the NSS which is looking at general student satisfaction, NSSE is a survey which aims to "assess the extent to which students engage in educational practices associated with high levels of learning and development". It assesses this by asking how students spend their time and what they gain from attending their institution. My understanding is that NSSE is
using engagement as an indicator of "grades, persistence, student satisfaction and gains across a range of desired outcomes"
The survey is broken into four main areas: student behaviours; institutional actions and requirements; reactions to the institution; and student background information. For examples of type of questions asked you can view past and present NSSE surveys.
The NSSE has been widely adopted in North America (US: 3million responses from 1,400 institutions; Canada: 64 HEIs), South Africa and Australia and been used since 2000 resulting in a rice dataset.
Student engagement varies more within than between institutions
The NSSE has found that there is more local than inter institutional variation in student engagement. i.e. there is little difference in student engagement between the best and the worse institutions, but the differences between institutional departments is major.
'How can you get students more engaged?' I hear you ask, why with 'high-impact' learning activities. As it happens George has written book on the topic, High-Impact Educational Practices: What They Are, Who Has Access to Them, and Why They Matter. Although it wasn't explicitly mentioned I image George has used the NSSE survey to identify 'high-impact' activities. His top 10 were:
- First-Year Seminars and Experiences
- Common Intellectual Experiences
- Learning Communities
- Writing-Intensive Courses
- Collaborative Assignments and Projects
- "Science as Science Is Done"; Undergraduate Research
- Diversity/Global Learning
- Community-Based Learning
- Internships
- Capstone Courses and Projects
There are some Americanisms in this list but hopefully you get the picture. I would say all of these activities are reflected in the existing academic research on best teaching/learning practices.
Engaging in these activities George suggested that students are more likely to:
- Invest time and effort
- Interact with faculty and peers about substantive matters
- Experience diversity
- Get more frequent feedback
- Reflect & integrate learning
- Discover relevance of learning through real-world applications
The Enhancement Themes have already generated a number of resources covering these areas including research teaching linkages, integrative assessment and assessment, the first year and responding to student needs (as well as flexible delivery). The conference also saw the publication of 5 new briefing papers under the current 'Graduates for the 21st Century strand:
In George's presentation he highlighted three action steps:
- Use engaging pedagogies campus wide
- Put money where it will make a difference to student success
- Ensure programs are high quality
I'm sure you would agree that all of these are what we are striving for anyway and not particularly earth shattering. If you adopted the NSSE locally there is an opportunity to use the data diagnostically to identify the your 'local variations', identifying courses that are not engaging students. I'm sure many of you are already doing this through end of module surveys, but I would recommend looking at the NSSE questions to see if these need to be re-examined.
Slides for all the conference keynote sessions including George Kuh's are available on the Enhancement Themes plenary presentations page (videos of the sessions will be available shortly).
*pronounced Nessie, hence the title of this post
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Tuesday, 16 March 2010
Study and Communication Skills for the Biosciences
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via Developing stuff » Study and Communication Skills for the Biosciences by Stuart Johnson on 16/03/10
This is a very delayed blog post as this is a book that I co-authored with Jon Scott that was published in January 2009. I didn't blog about it at the time but I'm tidying up my blog so for completeness here it is – available in all good bookshops (I've even temporarily decoupled my twitterfeed so as not to annoy people with a retrospective post)!
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Saturday, 13 March 2010
Thursday, 11 March 2010
Wednesday, 10 March 2010
Sunday, 7 March 2010
Pontydysgu – Bridge to Learning - Educational Research
Pontydysgu – Bridge to Learning - Educational Research
Article on activity theory and personal learning networks
Interesting example of use of prezi and introduction to game based learning in maths
http://prezi.com/r2lbb3lfomg5/playing-to-learn-math/
David Andrew
Head of Academic Practice
ESD Queen Mary, University of London
Mile End, E1 4NS
02078822803 or 02081446753
Saturday, 6 March 2010
Developing Laboratory Skills for the 21st Century, Graduate Centre, London M...
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via Centre for Bioscience Events Feed on 03/03/10
This event will highlight the work on student practicals from both the Centre For Excellence in Active and Intractive Learning, Experiential Learning CETL and the UK Centre for Bioscience. The educational literature clearly supports learning by doing and the benefits of practical work to the majority of students are clear. At this event you will have have the opportunity to hear from key researchers in the area, learn about various project as well as discuss pertinent issues with colleagues.Things you can do from here:
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Friday, 5 March 2010
Fwd: UK Centre for Bioscience New Publications and Spring 2010 Events
Please share the following publications and events from the UK Centre for Bioscience with your community.
New Publications from the Centre:
· Assessment Briefing brings together resources and references on various aspects of assessment including assessing practical and fieldwork, assessment of group work as well as elements of feedback and feed-forward. To view the publication visit www.bioscience.heacademy.ac.uk/resources/briefings/assessment.aspx
· Improving first-year laboratory classes in bioscience – students' views brings together the results of a survey carried out in order to identify the features of laboratory classes valued by students and thus help teachers improve the student experience in laboratory classes. Please visit this future publication and all other Centre Publications at www.bioscience.heacademy.ac.uk/resources/
Please share the upcoming Professional Development opportunities:
· External Examining External Examining - a workshop for new and aspiring examiners in the sciences
Thursday 18th March 2010, Higher Education Academy York
www.engsc.ac.uk/nef/events/index.asp?ID=1650
· Enhancing Teaching and Learning in the Biosciences with Practical and Fieldwork Resources
Wednesday 31st March 2010, University College London
www.bioscience.heacademy.ac.uk/events/UCLOER310310.aspx
· Graduate Attributes for the 21st Century - date for diary
Thursday 15th April 2010, Edinburgh Napier University
Look for upcoming information at www.bioscience.heacademy.ac.uk/events/
· Teaching in the Biosciences: an Introduction for Postgraduates and Postdoctoral Fellows
Wednesday 28th April 2010, University of Manchester
www.bioscience.heacademy.ac.uk/events/manc280410.aspx
· Final Year Projects: Maximising the Learning
Thursday 13th May 2010, Newcastle University
www.bioscience.heacademy.ac.uk/events/newcas130510.aspx
· Developing Laboratory Skills for the 21st Century*
Wednesday 19th May 2010, London Metropolitan University
(*Joint event with the CEAIL CETL, Queen's University Belfast)
www.bioscience.heacademy.ac.uk/events/londonmet190510.aspx
For further information on the UK Centre's events, or to register visit www.bioscience.heacademy.ac.uk/events/
Need help with travel funds? Travel Bursaries are now available to support attendance at Centre events www.bioscience.heacademy.ac.uk/funding/travel.aspx
Thank you for your assistance.
Sheryl Meskin, Ph.D.
Academic Advisor
UK Centre for Bioscience
The Higher Education Academy
Room 9.15, Worsley Building
University of Leeds
Leeds LS2 9JT
Tel: +44 (0)113 343 3438
Fax: +44 (0)113 343 5894
E-mail: s.a.meskin@leeds.ac.uk
(0.6 FTE Office Days - Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday)
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