new partnerships: a tale of two projects
TRANSCRIPT
New partnerships:A tale of two projects
Iain Baird, Academic Librarian
Ethan Lumb, Projects Assistant
Fran Porritt, Academic Librarian
Teesside University
A tale of two projects
• Student as Researcher project• Digital Literacies project
Selected findingsImpact upon our practice
Teesside University Five Schools: 20,104 students Vision: Providing Opportunities, Driving Enterprise, Delivering
Excellence Learning Teaching and Student Experience Strategy Goal: To educate our students in their chosen discipline to become
confident, critical, creative, adaptable, articulate and aspiring.
Aim of Student Researcher Project• Student insight for development of the
Learning Hub. • Funding bid
– Enhanced credibility of student researcher• Understanding of students’ perspectives• Encouraging honesty in interviews• Follow-up interviews
Key findings& the student voice
• Lecturers – the power of the academic• Peer support • Impact of digital tools
Lecturers (1)• Value“I'd take anyone's advice but the true advice is from who’s taught you
it.” [Participant 8]
• Time and availability“I knew to approach a lecturer early, and say ‘look I’m struggling….I’m
willing to give up as much time as I need to’ and he said ‘Yeah. The fact that you’ve came to me early and acknowledged that you’re willing to learn, you’re willing to progress and you understand that you’re having difficulty, then yes, I will help you’. But with this particular person I got the impression that if you were honest and up front with him he’d be the same with you.” [Participant 5]
“They like to imply that they’ve got a lot of other students to be looking after and you’re going ‘all right I will find someone else to talk to’…. a bit stressed out. Cos normally if you’ve hit a point where you’re finding this tutor, you’ve hit a stop point. And then when they’re going ‘ah I’m busy’, you’re thinking ‘I would be busy too if you would just help me’.” [Participant 7]
Lecturers (2)
“I’ve got one lecturer that’s such a grammar Nazi to put it bluntly. And like I put all the referencing in that no one has ever had a problem with, and she capped me at 30% because my references weren’t correct.” [Participant 7]
“One or two lecturers sorry did say oh make sure it’s 12 font, 1.5 spacing Arial. But no there was no sort of sheet to say this is what we want ….I know a lot of people in the first assignment got back, check the guidelines, check the guidelines, check the guidelines. But one girl got, she put it in Arial and she got feedback saying ‘wrong font, it should be in Times New Roman’” [Participant 1]
Lecturers (3)
Student support: our response• Promotion of one-to-one tutorials• Improving self-booking• Advocacy for University standard of
referencing in Harvard format• Learning Hub project
Importance of peer support“The help you can get off other students is
immense. Because everybody has their own way of learning, and when you’re sat in a room and there’s 5 or 6 of you, you’ve all got a slightly different way of understanding and explaining things.” [Participant 6]
Engineering a community“Well, the psychology interest society page has been an
absolute godsend, it really has. For both recruiting participants but also bouncing ideas off each other, or if someone finds a really good journal… I think it’s increased that feeling that we’re one big group and we’re in this together.” [Participant 2]
“It’s the most important part of the course, I think, talking to each other in class, because you get the best ideas off other people... it’s a communal effort to get to where you are.” [Participant 9]
Peer support: Our response
• Implementation of PASS• Factor in the development of learning spaces
PASSWhere PASS is running
2013-14 (Jan-May) 2014-15 2015-16English (level 5)Physiotherapy (level4)
Computing (Level 4) -Feb-MayEngineering (level 5)English (levels 4 & 5)Physiotherapy (level 4)Psychology (level 5)
Computing (Level 4) Engineering (levels 3 & 5)English (levels 4 & 5)Law (level 4)Occupational Therapy (level 4)Physiotherapy (level 4)Psychology (level 5)Radiography (level 4)
Evaluation of the PASS pilot“It has really helped me to develop what I have learnt in lectures”
“I often shied away from asking questions to lecturers in order to avoid looking stupid.”
“I found the PASS leaders from our programme very approachable, friendly and helpful”
“Given a student’s insight on how to deal with the subject”
“Talking to students who were in our position”
“Guidance from second years – didn’t judge if we were unsure”
R
Recognition at Volun-cheers
Digital Literacies“Blackboard is amazing for the lecturers that know how to use Blackboard. BB is an awful experience for the lecturers that don’t really know how to use it. That seems to be the 2 camps, there seems to be the lecturers that can use all of it… and other lecturers will have claimed something is on BB and uploaded it to some obscure place that no one has any idea of. And we’ll spend weeks trying to hunt it down.” [Participant 3]
• Leadership Foundation for Higher Education Future Leaders Programme for Professional Services Staff
• Change management project• High level support at an early stage• Project included in our current Learning Teaching and Student
Experience Strategy• Focus on developing and supporting the digital literacy skills
of academic staff through learning units.
Digital Literacies Project:Background and Context
Questions for Focus Groups with Academic Staff
• What does digital literacy mean to you?
• Which of the elements would be most useful to you in supporting your teaching?
• If there was CPD/training available in digital literacies, what format would you prefer and how would you like it delivered?
Findings from Staff Focus Groups• Lunchtime Sessions • Digital champions• ICT infrastructure and Blackboard• Time to play• Online, self paced materials• Communities of practice/sharing good practice• Digital Literacy development day
Feedback from Student Focus Groups
• Not keen on student digital champions• Want academic staff to model good digital
literacy practices
Digital Literacies: our response
• Digital literacy in the curriculum• Quick Guide to digital literacy• LibGuide• Improving digital literacy skills of Library staff
• Digital Literacy Development Day (review of level descriptors)• Webinar – academic staff sharing examples of embedding • ARLG webinar• Member of e-learning co-ordinators meeting• Consultation and development of e-learning strategy
Other Outcomes from the Project
• Further development of the LibGuide with input from a range of staff from across the university
• Webinar on managing your digital identity• Work with staff delivering the PgC LTHE to introduce new
staff to digital literacy
Future Plans
Partners in learning• Students as partners• Students as researchers• Academic staff• Learning Technologists• Careers staff• And Librarians!
Questions/Discussion
Iain Baird ([email protected]) Ethan Lumb ([email protected])Fran Porritt ([email protected])