Issue nineteen October 2012
What’s new in learning and teaching for 2012–13?• Developments for the year ahead• Academic departments respond to 2012 priorities• An interview with Richard Alderman, SU Education Officer
LEARNINGAND TEACHING NEWS
EditorialWelcome to the new academic year
Welcome to a new academic year and to a special edition of Learning and Teaching News, which focuses on learning and teaching priorities and objectives for 2012–13.
Elsewhere in this edition you’ll find information on new publications and resources from Student Services, including the 2012–13 editions of our booklets covering support and guidance for anyone involved in recruiting, teaching and supporting students, web-based resources, and information about the new Turnitin support site.
And finally, this issue also includes our regular update on progress with 301, the University’s new student skills and development centre, opening later this year at 301 Glossop Road. Next January’s edition of the newsletter will be dedicated to 301, bringing you the full story behind this exciting development, along with profiles of the 301 team, photos of the new interior and news of some of the events and activities that will be taking place in the centre.
There are some really interesting examples in this issue of work taking place in academic departments that you might not be aware of. If you have a story or news you’d like to share with colleagues through the newsletter, let me know by getting in touch at [email protected]
Dee MacCormack, Editor
With special thanks to Deanna Meth and Louise Woodcock for providing much of the content for this edition.
News highlightsOur new National Teaching FellowsThe University is delighted that Brendan Stone (School of English Language, Literature and Linguistics) and Tony Cowling (Computer Science) were successful in the latest round of the Higher Education Academy’s NTFS awards. This is a highly competitive national award scheme and as staff and students who have worked with Brendan or Tony will attest to, the awards are richly deserved. Full story available from: www.shef.ac.uk/news/nr/national-teaching-fellowships-1.197998
Learning and Teaching Conference A date for your diaries: the annual L&T conference is scheduled for Wednesday 9th January and has the theme ‘Embracing Diversity’. For further details please see: www.shef.ac.uk/lets/cpd/conf/2013
Students’ Union Academic Awards, 2012These student-nominated awards serve to ‘celebrate the efforts staff and students make to create an excellent educational experience for all Sheffield students’. The 2012 winners were:
Best Non Academic Staff Member – Gareth Braid (Law)
Best Staff Student Committee Co-ordinator – Madeleine Callaghan (English)
Employability – Dr Amanda Crawley Jackson (French)
Quality Feedback – Gary Wood (English)
Excellence in Teaching – Dr Andrew Heath (History)
Best Personal Tutor – Dorothy Ker (Music)
Enterprise – Freelaw Students (Law)
Student Experience – Audrey Small (French)
Internationalisation – Global Engineering Challenge
Mentoring – Dr Richard Collins (Civil & Structural Engineering)
Student Campaigner – Luke Gibson (People and Planet Society)
Postgraduate Teacher – Gary Wood (English)
Departmental Society – Economics Society
Course Rep – Aysha Musa (Biblical Studies)
Students’ Union Councillor – Claire Roper (English)
Congratulations to all nominees and winners. A full list of 2012 nominees can be found at: www.shef.ac.uk/union/awards/
Tony CowlingBrendan Stone
Learning and teaching priorities for 2012–13: an overview from Louise Woodcock, Academic and Learning ServicesOur first cohort of students under the new fees regime has arrived, a reminder, should it be needed, that we are in the midst of the most significant change in UK Higher Education since the 1990s. Yet, whilst the environment has altered, our purpose in learning and teaching hasn’t changed: we continue to be committed to providing a high quality student experience which requires inspirational teaching, timely and effective student guidance and support, and the provision of suitable learning resources and accommodation. With this in mind, and coupled with the 90% overall satisfaction score in the latest NSS, it could be tempting to opt to take shelter and sit out the storm.
However, Project 2012 and the last recruitment cycle have underlined that in a less stable HE landscape, maintaining our position is, arguably, going to require a greater emphasis on enhancing our learning and teaching provision. In addition, that we need to focus on student engagement, that is working collaboratively with students in learning and teaching review and development. Through such partnership approaches we should be better placed to maintain our learning communities and avoid falling prey to the ‘us and them’ culture that could arise as students are encouraged to view themselves more as consumers than as participants in Higher Education.
With these concerns in mind, this issue is dedicated to providing you with an update on activities designed to enhance learning and teaching, including projects that will embed and build the outcomes from project 2012 (note to all staff who teach, you should have received a ‘Key Messages’ mailing signed by the VC), the implementation of the Higher Education Achievement Report, the 301 student skills and development centre, a strategic plan for e-learning and the implementation of our Employability Strategy. Through these actions we aim to ensure that our students continue to have access to opportunities that enable them to achieve their full academic and future career potential, in order that they will make a difference wherever their learning and work takes them.
Louise Woodcock, Head of Academic & Learning Services
Richard Alderman, SU Education Officer, talks about his objectives for 2012–131. Under your objectives for the coming year you talk about “education as an event”.
Can you tell me a bit more about what you mean by this?
Education as an event refers to capitalising on what I think the Students’ Union does best – informal engagement, be it with society events, sports practice sessions or one-off events. I’m excited to be delivering a guest lecture series voted for by students as part of the Discover and Understand project, and I’m looking at working particularly with departmental societies to develop a wider range of events that support learning and skills development outside of the lecture theatre, as well as encouraging the notion of interdisciplinary study by encouraging attendance at lectures and research seminars outside your department.
2. Academic support for students is one of your interests – do you think the University does enough in this area?
Academic support is a personal interest of mine having experienced inconsistent support during my time at university. In many cases, I feel the university does do enough in such areas – work with previous Officers has produced good guidance such as the Principles of Feedback, but the main issue which has been reflected in reports undertaken by the Students’ Union and in delivering the 2012 proposition is consistency. From dual-honours students who only receive support in one department, to seeing Personal Tutoring as purely pastoral and not related to skills development, there remains much to be done for all students to feel supported.
3. Having student representation at faculty level is a good way of getting the student voice heard. Tell me a bit about the work you’re doing with LeTS on training faculty reps.
Faculty representation is a difficult issue, because faculties are a relatively new concept to the university, and it can be very difficult for students to identity with a structure beyond their department, especially with faculties as diverse as Social Sciences. Nevertheless, the great work of the Student Ambassadors for Learning and Teaching proves that faculty engagement with students for student engagement can produce excellent results. We’re working with LeTS to provide specialised training for Faculty Reps, and from 2013/14 this will be a role for second year Course Reps who understand the structures and the issues that go beyond departmental level.
Thanks Richard, and good luck with the year ahead! DM
Richard Alderman
Developments to look out for in 2012Discover and Understand: this exciting new project will encourage our students to engage with world leading research undertaken outside their own subject, promoting opportunities for interdisciplinary thinking within the University community. The website will go live during November and provide further information about the three major elements of the project: the Sheffield Lecture series; the Students’ Union lecture series; and a themed research week – sustainable communities – scheduled to start 18 March, 2013.
What does ‘student engagement’ mean to US? Student engagement has been a feature of our work in learning and teaching development and quality assurance for some time, although we haven’t always used this terminology. It came through strongly as strength and a priority during the preparatory work for 2012, and is now a hot topic with the Quality Assurance Agency. It seems timely to take stock of where we are and to more clearly define what student engagement means at TUoS. To this end, Penny Simons, Faculty Director of Learning and Teaching for Arts & Humanities, will be facilitating further discussion and thinking on this topic during 2012–13.
The HEAR – Higher Education Achievement Report – is here: a new kind of degree transcript will be issued to all undergraduates who commence their studies with us this year. HEAR will provide a comprehensive record of a student’s curricular and extra-curricular university achievements, thereby better demonstrating the breadth of their experience and achievements. HEAR will be available to students on a continuous basis through MUSE, enabling each student to keep track of their growing achievements as they progress through their course, and providing a more concrete and holistic basis for reviewing and reflecting on their personal development with tutors and Professional Services staff such as Careers Advisors. Students will be provided with official ‘snapshots’ of their HEAR prior to graduation, which they will be able to use to support applications for jobs or further study.
The new Toolkit for Learning and Teaching offers support to you in your academic role and provides the information you need to give your students the best possible learning experience. This resource gives good practice hints and tips and shares a wide range of examples for delivering teaching from across the University, combined with guidance on relevant University and national policies. www.shef.ac.uk/lets/toolkit.
What will our use of learning technologies look like in 2016? The e-learning strategy aims to address this question and set out a blue print for development. It is intended that the overall direction and an associated plan will be ready for early 2013. It will cover all aspects, from facilities and IT kit through to staff development and support and approaches to student skills development.
Enhancing student and graduate employability: in-house student placements and graduate internships, of course paid, are a key stream of our strategy to enhance student employability (Employability Strategy). You can read more about these opportunities and the potential benefits at: www.shef.ac.uk/careers/ students/jobs/campus and www.shef.ac.uk/careers/students/jobs/ internships. The Careers Service will also be developing new approaches to working with academic departments to deliver employability related development and advice to students. Further information will be available later this academic year.
New Turnitin support site for staff and students
What is Turnitin?Turnitin is a web based text matching and e-assessment tool licensed for use across the University. Turnitin is configured to work best within the University’s virtual learning environment, MOLE 2. For this reason, we strongly recommend that where possible staff and students access Turnitin through MOLE 2.
The new siteFollowing extensive consultation and collaboration, a new Turnitin support site for staff and students in the University has been developed, ready for the 2012–13 academic year. You can find the site here: shef.ac.uk/cics/turnitin. The site was created by the Learning Technologies Team (LTT) in CiCS and provides staff and student users of Turnitin with a suite of accessible resources covering everything from marking and providing feedback to students online, to more technical and administrative “how to” help.
In addition to the resources available on the site, we are also offering staff a range of face to face and webinar delivered training courses on Turnitin. Details of this training are available on the site.
Using TurnitinIf you would like to see how people are using Turnitin in the University then we have a new case studies site which can be accessed here: http://turnitincasestudiessheffield.blogspot.co.uk/
If you would like more information on the Turnitin support site itself, using Turnitin for e-assessment, would like to enquire about Turnitin training, or have more general Turnitin queries then please contact [email protected]
Academic departments respond to 2012 faculty prioritiesThe following examples of practice are drawn from the new Toolkit for Learning and Teaching, and show how colleagues in academic departments are responding to the challenges posed by 2012 in key areas, such as:
• Feedback• Personalandacademicsupport• Researchexperienceandlearningcommunities
Giving and Receiving FeedbackThe University’s Principles of Feedback outline the expectations that students should receive timely feedback appropriate to the type of learning activity being assessed. The “Feedback and Assessment” pages of the Toolkit for Learning and Teaching (www.shef.ac.uk/lets/toolkit) offer many examples of good practice in this area from several departments, as well as links to many resources on this topic. Here are some highlights:
Feedback in Clinical settings Acknowledging the need to adapt feedback practices for different teaching settings, the ‘Feedback Resources’ section of the toolkit includes a link to a Masterclass presented by Helen Griffiths and Margaret Freeman from the Faculty of Medicine, Dentistry and Health.
The Masterclass focuses on innovative feedback approaches in clinical settings, with a focus on reflective practice and becoming a reflective clinician as well as developing an online reflective portfolio.
HelpingstudentsknowwhattoexpectIn a series of student-facing web pages, the Department of Philosophy outlines the types of feedback available at various levels for students throughout the academic programme, including using their student peers as a resource. It also provides suggestions on how to use the feedback.
Engaging students in the feedback process can be helped by providing students with consistent and clear information on what feedback is, when they will receive it, what type they can expect and how they can use feedback to reflect on their learning and improve performance.
By clarifying expectations, this may help address general concerns raised in the National Student Survey regarding dissatisfaction with the speed and quality of feedback at universities. ExtractfromToolkitforLearning and Teaching. www.shef.ac.uk/lets/toolkit/f-a/feedback
Giving and getting feedback: a handbookThe School of Architecture Feedback Handbook has been developed by Ian Hicklin, Leo Care and Sarah Foxwell. It was developed as a web-based resource and hardcopy handbook for staff and students. It contexualises and clarifies
feedback protocols and criteria and shows examples of both good and poor assessment and feedback, as well as improving students’ use and understanding of peer feedback.
It covers all areas associated with giving and getting feedback, and can be adapted to suit your department’s needs. Download or view online here: feedbackhandbook.wordpress.com/
For anyone wishing to develop a similar resource, Ian Hicklin, Director of Teaching and Learning, strongly suggests using students as a resource for identifying issues and building content, as well as representing the student voice.
The
FEEDBACKHandbookor Will my feedback tell me how to get an ‘A’?
SSoA
Building & sustaining communities of learning & researchA ‘learning community’ within a department needs to include everyone. The department is the student’s ‘home’ and the more comfortable they feel, the better they are likely to do. Encourage students to feel part of the community by giving them:
• a welcoming and friendly ‘home’;
• an opportunity to participate in advancing knowledge via research;
• opportunities to develop their own learning by working with others;
• the chance to contribute to their community.
Storying Sheffield is a ground-breaking project led by Brendan Stone from the School of English Language, Literature and Linguistics. Brendan is both a Senate Award Fellow and National Teaching Fellow.
The project allows undergraduate students and Sheffield local residents with no background in higher education (and many with long-term mental health or physical challenges) to work and study together.
Their collaborations result in unique stories of the lives of Sheffield residents, presented in a range of media, films, exhibitions. Visit their dynamic website for stories, blogs and information on current projects: www.storyingsheffield.com/
Introducing a Level 1 Module to encourage cross-disciplinary project groups in the Faculty of Science
Alistair Warren, the Faculty of Science Director of Learning and Teaching (FDLT) outlines one of the faculty’s initiatives in developing research-led learning opportunities – a 10 credit module at Level 1 which provides students with the opportunity to work in cross-disciplinary project groups.
“The aim of the module is to encourage team work, to help students with question formulation in a research context, to develop presentation methods and other skills related to research and employability.
This will be done in the context of independent learning and project work. The module has run just once and so the impact is likely only to show up in later years. However, student evaluation has been very positive. Students recognised they had acquired employability and research skills, such as teamwork, literature searching and appropriate citation, and presentation methods.”
“.. I feel that the knowledge and skills I acquired in this process such as writing in a concise manner, enhanced research skills and improved teamwork (learning to listen to others and their input in particular) has helped to make me a more viable candidate for an employer.”(student feedback)
Community engagement in the Faculty of Social Sciences
The departments of the Faculty of Social Sciences are involved in a range of community engagement projects that include supporting local businesses, providing school pupils with an experience of the legal system and improving the community environment.
Visit their web pages to learn about the full scope of activities. www.community-engagement-sheffield.co.uk/index
‘Teaching bulletins’ – Improving communication and a sense of community
As Director of Teaching (DoT) in the School of Mathematics and Statistics, Frazer Jarvis instituted a regular ‘Teaching Bulletin’ to students with the aim of making students more aware of what is going on. The bulletin was developed by Frazer when he realised after being appointed as DoT that there was scope for improvement in communication from staff to students, rather than flooding students’ mailboxes with many small items.
Bulletins are generally issued approximately fortnightly, with information listed under several headings. Additional specific bulletins are also sent at various important times, e.g. exams, online module choice, etc.
Global Engineering Challenge
Adapting the ‘Challenge’ model of Engineers Without Borders, the Faculty of Engineering reworked its timetable across all seven departments to create the hugely successful ‘Global Engineering Challenge’ week, first held in January 2012. In this week-long project, all first year students in the Engineering Faculty tackle real-world problems from a global perspective. This year, 900 Level 1 students worked in multidisciplinary and multicultural teams on design problems around themes of global importance such as water, waste management and energy, with this year’s scenario based in rural India.
From this experience, students developed a strong understanding of the social, cultural, global and environmental responsibilities of the professional engineer, as well as the principles of sustainable development. No surprise that the organising team were the recipients of the Internationalisation Award at the 2012 Students’ Union Academic Awards, or that a similar week is being developed for Level 2 students from this academic year.
A Storying Sheffield seminar
301: progress updateBuilding WorkThe building work on our new student skills and development centre at 301 Glossop Road continues to make progress and should be completed by the end of the year. Plans are now in hand to choose the soft furnishings for the centre, and Student Union Officers will be involved in this process.
Launch eventsA series of launch events for both staff and students is being planned for the start of 2013. These events will run over the course of a week to allow for maximum attendance and will offer opportunities to meet the 301 team, take a tour of the centre and try out the facilities, and talk to different service providers about the support that will be available for students, and for staff. During the student events, there will also be the chance to win an i-Pad and sample some of the new 301 promotional items. The launch events will be open to all staff and students and we’ll be putting more details, including dates and times, on the website later this semester. E-mail invitations will also be issued so keep an eye out for yours.
Staff engagement and consultationConsultation meetings with staff from across the University continue to take place, with the aim of exploring the scope for collaboration, and to ensure that Faculty expectations for the delivery of support from 301 are met. If you’d like to discuss any aspect of delivery and support from 301, please contact Rachel Jones, centre manager, at [email protected].
Recruitment of centre staff Recruitment to the role of Student Skills Centre Assistant has now begun, with interviews for these two posts taking place in late-October.
WebsiteThe new and improved version of the website will go live at the end of this month – visit the site to see what we’ve done at: www.sheffield.ac.uk/studentskills
1
Supporting Students’ Personal & Academic DevelopmentThroughout the 2011-12 session, a large amount of work in departments and faculties focused on the role of the personal tutor, and the ‘Student Support and Development’ section of the toolkit provides a wide range of information on being a personal and academic support tutor, and common issues arising within this area.
One example highlights the work by Danielle Matthews and Thomas Webb from the Department ofPsychology who have developed A Roadmap for Personal Tutorials by linking course-related activities, Personal Development Planning (via the Sheffield Graduate Development Programme), and careers activity. It provides tutors with guidance and online resources to aid students’ personal development along with suggestions as to when in the academic year they might best be given to students.
‘Group personal tutorials are a useful adjunct to individual meetings. They offer multiple perspectives and solutions to issues raised by students themselves in a supportive safe environment .’ Jolian McHardy of the Department of Economics outlines his approach and experiences working with tutorial groups ranging from 4 to 20 students:
“To work well, these sessions have to be interactive as should be a good 1–1 personal tutor meeting. I find it much easier to make the sessions interactive and get the engagement of all the students in the group format, rather than 1–1”.
In terms of the impact of this approach, Jolian says:
“Without doubt this approach helped me make more productive use of the personal tutor meetings. Student interaction and engagement improved dramatically. As a group meeting, I can also devote more time to the group than anyone individual allowing us to spend time going deeper into arguments and issues.
Jolian notes that group tutorials do not replace the opportunity for all students to have access to individual meetings:
“It is essential to inform students from the outset that they should make an individual appointment if they wish to raise “personal” issues such as medical or personal circumstances.”
AndrewTaylor,aSenateAwardFellowintheDepartmentofPoliticsdescribeshowtheir‘ResearchSkillsSpine’inductsstudentsinto the nature of research: All students of Politics undertake a series of core modules that train and induct them into the nature of research, starting in Level one. Three modules: POL113 Political Analysis; POL229 Political Analysis: Research Design and Data Analysis and POL3018 Advanced Political Analysis, represent the spine of core modules in the Department that seek to incorporate not only key concepts in the study of politics but also the development of disciplinary and transferable skills.
By the time students reach the Level 3 module, they are asked to bring together a more sophisticated understanding of key concepts with a wider range of research and data collection skills than used in earlier levels. Furthermore, their skills development is promoted and evaluated through a more diverse and more innovative mix of assessment methods than in previous modules, with the addition of a group poster project and individual learning log.
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Resources and support for academic departments
Essential information for academic departmentsThe Student Services Bulletin to Academic departments contains news and information on need-to-know issues such as registration, exams, student support, finance, visa and immigration rules, and much more.
If you’d like to sign up for the bulletin, contact me at [email protected]. You can also download past editions at www.sheffield.ac.uk/ssd/publications/bulletins
Don’t miss out...To join the Learning and Teaching News mailing list or download copies of current and past editions, go to www.sheffield.ac.uk/lets/landtnews
New publications for 2012/13Student Services offer a comprehensive range of support to academic departments, covering all aspects of recruiting, teaching and supporting students. We produce a booklet series covering these services which is revised and updated each year.
You can download copies of the 2012/13 editions from the website at: www.sheffield.ac.uk/ssd/publications, where you can also order hard copies.
StudentServicesDepartment.
Support For Teaching.
A Guide for University Staff 2012–13
NEW web resources
LeTS News pageFor up to date news on L&T events, projects, reviews and developments, visit the news LeTS news page:
www.shef.ac.uk/ lets/about/news
New student news channel from SSiDSSiD has established a news channel for current students which is linked directly to the iSheffield app. Find out more here:
http://shef.ac.uk/students/about-news
StudentServicesDepartment.
Recruiting Our Students.
A Guide for University Staff 2012–13
StudentServicesDepartment.
Supporting Our Students.
A Guide for University Staff 2012–13
