Education & Student

Yesterday Natalie, Sabine and I went to Leeds to a conference on involving students in curriculum design and development. We ran a workshop on the SAN and talked about all the ways in which we and other students get involved in curriculums in our departments. We had really great feedback from this session, with several people saying they were inspired to set up a network like we have in their own institutions.

Natalie and I then sat on a student panel at the end of the day with three other students from Leeds Met university. We explained our roles in curriculum design and development and then each worked with a group to look at issues surrounding such student involvement.

I got a few things in particular from this conference. Firstly our presence seemed to stress how important it may be to actually pay students involved in curriculum development as we are a lot more devoted to our role than many course reps may be. I again realised how lucky we are to be involved in CILASS and the SAN, for undergraduates do not usually get such an opportunity to get so involved in conferences. I also reaffirmed my belief that it is important to get students and staff in a two-way dialogue over curriculum issues so that students can appreciate how some of our ideas may not be realistic and our feedback will therefore be improved and more useful, as we can adapt our ideas to the real situation. Lastly, as Janine was saying in the last SAN meeting, again and again is brought up how to reach students beyond just those who are really keen to engage in curriculum debate. This appears to be an ongoing question..

I think the most interesting point however, is that Nat and I were pretty much the only non-sabbatical ’students’ attending until the panel at the end. The current debate seems to be that students should be involved in curriculum design and development.. But shouldn’t they then also be involved in the debate around how to involve students in curriculum design and development?

Source: Su Arnall

So, we all know that the future of CILASS is less than certain. And we all know that the achievements for the university have been amazing. Can I also say that the SAN has been a big influence on this achievement?

I don’t know if that would be blowing our trumpet a bit, but people do seem to speak well of us. Which is nice.

I was at an IBL café yesterday, and amongst other things we ended up talking about how the SAN might continue without CILASS being a base for operations.

The things that we need to keep in the coming years are:

- Good inter-departmental connections
- Good student links
- Continued interactions with members of departments
- A place to make ideas heard
- Training for the students to lead the way

It seems to me that we already have an amazing place for all of this to happen.

Every department has students on the staff student committee - all it takes is to expand one of their jobs a bit (and maybe throw in a bit of money) and we have a perfect SAN. One that could potentially be better than what we have now because there would be official links to bringing change to departments?

Just a thought.

Source: jamesgould

I’m currently writing an essay which will make up 40% of my grade on Japan in the World. We were given a predefined list of titles to choose from, and I was pleased to find that one of them set me up perfectly for writing a 2000-word critique of the main analytical approach taken by the module.

It’s occurred to me that this is actually a form of module feedback. More importantly, it’s one that demands input from the student which is constructive, if they’re to argue their point well and receive a good mark! I’m sure that the essay component was not intended to perform this function, but it’s an interesting way to deal with the problem of eliciting constructive feedback. I’m sure with the intention in mind the idea could be transferred to many other social science modules.

That is, of course, if module leaders can suffer the insult of having their analysis and interpretations meticulously disagreed with by those students that do so. Personally, I’m only chancing my arm because the lecturer who designed the module last year won’t be marking this year’s essays

Have you had experience with modules which manage to obtain feedback through their assessment? Share your thoughts!

Source: Ryan

This is my first real ‘engagement’ as a CILASS Ambassador, and I facilitated the ‘Unlocking Technology for IBL: Sandpit Session’. Chris Clow, Ryan Jendoubi, Eve Stirling and Alex Ingleson unveiled their work-in-progress Video Clips of ‘How to’ and ‘Why to’ use technology for various aspects of study and IBL. 

I had always figured myself at least moderately savvy when it came to technology, but being in this session made me realise how much I could change the scope and meaning of my research by branching out and using some pretty snazzy gadgets. It also made me realise how much work CILASS is doing r.e. making technology an accessible and approachable concept for students and staff alike. The trust the presenters placed in the group to give feedback on a mid-production project was rewarded with really interesting and considered comments.

What I found particularly impressive about this session (aside from the stellar ‘How To’/’Why To’ videos which I think will be of tremendous benefit to the University at large) was the interaction between the presenting group of CILASS Ambassadors and those who attended the session. It felt like an especially productive environment in which everybody there got something out of the session. Great work!

Source: janine bradbury

The IBL & Employability session held by Natalie, Ali and Claire was a very interesting session. I had heard about this numerous times at SAN meetings due to it having been conducted at different Universities. The aim of the session was to get students to think about the kinds of skills and experiences that employers are looking for. Unfortunately, the people attending the session (while also being few in number), were mostly staff members - not exactly the target audience. This really was a shame, because it was a useful session not only for final year students but all students of any year. Regardless, the girls did a good job running the session anyway and the staff members really engaged with it. The example used was the Co-op Graduate Scheme. Natalie, Ali and Claire handed out questions that were actually asked on the application form for the graduate scheme, to get us thinking about the kinds of questions that are asked for graduate jobs. I confess I’ve seen very similar questions in a lot of application forms so this was very relevant.

We took some time to think about the questions and formulate the answers. The thing that struck me was that we only really start thinking about a time when we influenced a group…or other such experiences when we have to write it down on an application form. This of course means that over time, we forget specific instances of when we executed a particular skill. What this session made me think about is how we need to document what we do as we go along - we need to always be thinking about how what we do helps us to develop in ways that increase our employability.

The other thing that struck me was that this session was an excellent way to ‘raise awareness’ of what students need to be thinking about as they enter their final year at University. It is almost useless to be drilling in the idea of gaining skills for employment, to students who are a couple of months away from graduating, have dissertations to do and no spare time to now take on extra-curricular activities. The message inherent in this session would be incredibly useful for students who are in their first or second years, with plenty of time and opportunity to still engage in activities before it is ‘too late’.

A final point. The delivery of the session was interesting, enjoyable and encouraging. The staff members also appeared to enjoy it although it was not relevant to them. The discussions that arose were interesting. Well done girls!

Source: Kamal Bhana

The ideas I presented from my “Small Changes Big Difference” project in the Sociology department were received with interest at this session. The attendees were keen to offer their own experiences and opinions about my ideas.

We spoke a lot about blogs in particular. An interesting idea that I hadn’t considered before was suggested: maybe blogs have gone out of fashion in favour of applications such as Facebook and Twitter. There were a number of people who saw blogs as too complicated and time-consuming. Also it was mentioned that students might see blogs as too official to write their thoughts on, they might believe they are being assessed.

There was some disagreement as to what a blog actually is, with some seeing it as more of a personal diary and others as a collaborative tool. It was also expressed that staff find it frustrating when they give students detailed resource packs and students ask obvious questions anyway. We thought it would be good if MOLE had some kind of search tool on it for easier access to relevant information.

In terms of reading groups we spoke about how students can often find it easier to talk to other students about things they don’t understand as they speak the same “jargon”. There was a lady from the library who was particularly interested in this session as she is looking at connecting university students and sixth form students and some of the ideas covered this area.

After the session I spoke to a gentleman from Manchester University and he said he was really enjoying the whole day and he couldn’t believe that CILASS didn’t have full funding for next year as it obviously does such good work!!

Source: Su Arnall

Students choosing how they get assessed?

This idea was mentioned in the key note yesterday. After thinking about it, and having conversations with a few people about the idea - I am not convinces.

There are a few points I want to mention. In the conversations I had ideas got confused – so I am going to try and keep it simple here. Here are a few reasons why I don’t think it should happen – please leave comments and let me know your thoughts.

1 – Surely the lecturers know better than I do how to assess something – they have done it longer, seen more students, and they have designed the modules.

2 – One of the ideas mentioned was that students would pick one assessment method they were good at and one that was going to challenge them. That will not happen – I will just choose what is going to get me a good grade. Sure, I am here to grow and learn new things – but if I get a bad degree how am I going to show an employer I have these skills. They won’t even look at my C.V.

3 – I think this is a big point. Is it not a cop out on the part of the institution for them to expect me to design my course? Students pay a lot of money to get a degree from Sheffield University. The university is meant to know how to make a good graduate, so why should I do their job?
I know a huge part of why I am here is to learn – but I am also here to be taught. If it was just learning I was interested in I would save the £12,000 and just get the books from a library.

I want my tutors to choose how to assess me – I want to it be varied so I learn lots of skills – but I don’t want to choose for myself. The idea seems wrong.

I am happy with the way it has worked in Biblical Studies, I have been assessed in different ways – but I have chosen modules based on the assessment. I have automatically not considered a module because it has more exams than another one which is more coursework.

I hope that makes sense, sorry if it is confused – at least you get my main idea.

James Gould
Student Ambassador
Biblical Studies

Source: jamesgould

So, history – I don’t do it. I never liked it at school and doing it as soon as I could in year 9. But I learnt today that there may be a reason why I didn’t like it – because the teachers killed it.
It seems that it is hard to teach history when people don’t know much of the background or language of the country. This creates a lot of problems for the people who teach it – it creates more work - the teaching requires creativity, and time!
Without waffling on about history, and random snippets from the talk today there is one thing that interested me. Towards the end of the session it was mentioned that for an IBL module – specifically this Polish history one – there needs lots of engagement from students.
Can first year can students really be bothered to try that hard? Or do they think that as they only have to pass they won’t bother?
This linked with something interesting that Sabine said to me – 1st year students should not just learn, they should learn how they are expected to learn. If the university uses IBL in 1st year then it won’t be a shock when it is used at other levels, and students will be confident in the assessment methods used. So it is not about the amount of work the 1st years need to do – but what it will show them what to expect.

James Gould
Student Ambassador
Biblical Studies

Source: jamesgould

1. Technology is not just about convience- sometimes it makes things more challenging-and a good thing too.
2. Helping students to information literacy needs to be in little chunks and often (and explaining the how-to’s and basics as well)
3. Technology and IBL- ways of making friends (staff and students) - means to enhancing learning prehaps
4. Physical spaces are as importnat as virtual spaces
5. Create time, Space and rewards within the cirriculum for staff-student collaboration
6. All reading from same page- equal expectation to move forward
7. Technology needs to be used appropriately
8. let students find out for themselves before giving them theory
9. Students are conservatives= useful to address problems
10. Learning from mistakes and moving forward
11. Involve students in genuine research to advance discipline knowledge
12. Staff and students must love using technology
13. Not all students feel comfortable using technology
14. Staff-Student interaction via technology (Forums and bogs)
15. Staff engaging students to consider/reflect how they learn
16. Not just an elite CILASS bubble
17. Let the Stduents shape their own learning experience
18. Mid-semester evaluations for feedback
19. Feedback (detailed) from exams and essays.

Source: SSC2009

Today we really enjoyed staging our workshop in Collab 2 (”Engage”) about inquiry based learning as it applies to language and idioms. As one of our participants said, “What this activity shows is that learning idioms and learning language is an IBL activity par excellance”.

We started with a brief introduction about our experiences in learning Japanese idioms, and our thought processes that led us to want to run the session.  Drawing from Japanese idioms to do with body parts as examples, we staged an engaging activity asking everyone to match literal translations with their actual meaning - harder than it sounds! Next, we distributed English idioms such as “shoot yourself in the foot”, and asked everyone to explain the situation you’d use them in without actually saying the idiom for others to guess. It highlighted how complex they can be to explain if you don’t know the foreign equivalent, as well as the involvement with culture and context when learning them yourself - some idioms can appear “Football manager-speak” and so on so you need to be careful how you use them, and there are often similarities with similes. Therefore, we have learned that there is a great need for natural language to be learned through an IBL process of sharing anecdotes, asking questions and being creative.

We received really interesting feedback on how idioms should be classified for a reference system online, but ran out of time at the end, so thanks for your participation everyone and if anyone has any ideas to contribute, please let us know!

ryan and claire

Source: Ryan