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"Case Studies"
At the recent Sharing Higher Education Design (S.H.E.D.) roadshow week in Science and Technology, the Learning Design team were introduced to a number of examples of good practice, including the hugely successful open educational resources (OERs) that have been published by staff in the School. These resources – some of which have had hits in the thousands – are publicly available, benefiting not just our students but learners around the world who are looking to further their understanding.
To find about more about these resources, visit the Learning and Teaching blog from the School.
Watch this space for more case studies from the S.H.E.D!
The Geography+ project aims to support the development of employability skills in students studying in levels 4 and 5 of the Geography programme. It is currently running as an extra-curricular ‘module’ led by Faith Tucker, with support from staff in the discipline and staff from the Changemaker hub.
For more detail about Geography+, have a look at the overview:
[Posted on behalf of Anne Misselbrook – Content Developer]
Dr Michael Curran PhD, MBA, MPhil is an Associate Professor (Podiatry) and module leader for research methods in Podiatry at the University of Northampton.
One of the research methods modules taught over three years of the BSc Hons Podiatry course is inferential statistics. Mike was keen to increase the blend of this material between face to face delivery and online activity, and this resulted in the Statistics Knowledge Check. He has completed the cycle of transferring content online and students provided feedback using a survey included in the Statistics Knowledge Check.
Podiatry Statistics Knowledge Check
One of the Podiatry students noted:
“I found tackling the Knowledge Check in 4 separate stages hugely useful and much more manageable than being exposed to a larger test. I found the separate stages less intimidating”.
Dr Curran reflected on the experience:
“It is interesting to me how to blend the concept of e packages with actual face to face teaching. I guess it is the future.
On reflection I think we have hit the middle ground of evaluation with no very favourable student comment, but equally no very unfavourable comment. Considering this is teaching statistics that is probably pretty good!!
My reason for doing this is to try and look at alternative ways of delivering a potentially dry subject, with ability for the students to reflect on the statistics at a future date.
I would consider repeating this approach for other areas of my teaching”.
To read the full blog article please click here. Using an online Gamification approach to teaching inferential statistics
To find out how to use the Adaptive Release feature in NILE please click on the link here
Learn more from Blackboard Help click here
Dr. Stuart Allen recently redesigned his level seven epidemiology module in order to add some pre-class blended/distance learning elements into it.
You can find out what worked well (and what didn’t work so well) in this audio interview with Dr. Rachel Maxwell: http://www.kaltura.com/tiny/nrimm
Leading Public Health Practice (NURM009) includes learning and teaching activities that are predominantly facilitated via online learning. It was felt that a clear strategy was needed whereby students would be able to identify clearly how the activities and associated feedback can contribute to their summative assignment.
Students work sequentially through five learning units, each of which contains a brief overview of theoretical concepts and supported with structured on-line activities. Each learning unit concludes with a summary identifying how learning from each on-line activity can be utilised within their summative assignment.
For more information about this assessment, please contact Sue Everett, Senior Lecturer—Advanced Practitioner (Sue.Everett@northampton.ac.uk)
This case study is taken from the Institute of Learning and Teaching’s 2015 publication ‘Outside the Box Assessment and Feedback Practices’, available from the University’s Assessment and Feedback portal.
Within the School of Health we have a fundamental role in preparing and supporting people to work with the public, patients, carers and service users. We feel it is only right that these people should be involved in as many aspects of this as possible. We believe patients/service users and carers should be part of providing feedback on health and social care undergraduate students’ values and behaviours.
This is reinforced by the UK Government, who promote the idea that patients should contribute to the assessment of pre-registration student nurses. The Nursing and Midwifery Council promotes the idea that patients should contribute to the assessment of preregistration student nurses. With a strong emphasis currently on nursing becoming a more compassionate profession, the Francis report (2013) has highlighted a need to recruit, educate and assess nursing students with regard to their attitude, values, and beliefs in relation to providing care.
Who better to ask than the patients/service users and carers?
The following process was piloted and then implemented within all undergraduate nursing, midwifery and podiatry students from March 2014.
- Undergraduate students are introduced to service user and carer involvement and the role of the service user/carer in student assessment in first module of their education programme.
- Service user and carer feedback tools are available and are given to the Mentor by the student on placement.
- The Mentor/Assessor follows a four step process.
- Students’ practice learning documents have specific area for discussion with Mentor and recording Service user/carer feedback.
An e-learning activity was developed to support Mentors in this process. This is now an Open Education Resource available from http://find.jorum.ac.uk/resources/18963. Patient information posters were made available in practice areas and on digital display within patient areas in hospitals.
For more information about this assessment, please contact Linda Lilley, Senior Lecturer in Practice Development (Linda.Lilley@northampton.ac.uk)
This case study is taken from the Institute of Learning and Teaching’s 2015 publication ‘Outside the Box Assessment and Feedback Practices’, available from the University’s Assessment and Feedback portal.
We use ‘concept maps’ as an assessment tool within the Volunteering module (SWK1003). Students visualise the sub-concepts that make up a main concept. They can draw this out using whatever form or tool they want. It requires minimal grammatical competence but needs to show good conceptual understanding. The results were outstanding.
For more information about this assessment, please contact Mark Allenby, Senior Lecturer in Social Work (Mark.Allenby@northampton.ac.uk) or Victoria Boulton, Teaching Research Assistant (Victoria.Boulton@northampton.ac.uk).
This case study is taken from the Institute of Learning and Teaching’s 2015 publication ‘Outside the Box Assessment and Feedback Practices’, available from the University’s Assessment and Feedback portal.
Having redesigned her Leading Public Health Practice module from being fully face-to-face, to blended, Sue Everett in the School of Health, reflects on the skills she developed in the process and how she has moved from being a ‘technophobe’ to the ‘go to’ girl for technology in her office!
If you have any questions about CAIeRO, or would like to book one for your module team, please email LD@northampton.ac.uk. If you would like to talk further to Sue about her experiences, she is happy for you to contact her.
In March/April 2014, Sue Everett, Kirsty Mason and Stuart Allen in the School of Helath underwent a CAIeRO on their three modules for the PGC in Public Health. Initially redesigned for fully online learning, the Programme was slightly altered to reintroduce some face-to-face sessions, resulting in a ‘Waterside-ready’, set of blended learning modules.
Having run her module in the new design, Sue shares some of her reflections on the process and her learning experiences in this video.
If you have any questions about CAIeRO, or would like to book one for your module team, please email LD@northampton.ac.uk. If you would like to talk further to Sue about her experiences, she is happy for you to contact her.
Facilitation, Assessment and Quality Assurance in Work Based Learning (MIDM006) has two items of assessment, one of which is an action learning group presentation which is self, peer and tutor assessed. This is followed by a moderation discussion that supports students using and understanding the use of grade criteria and giving verbal and written constructive feedback which is an essential part of their role in practice. This is an innovative approach to assessment that has previously been presented at an HEA workshop.
This approach is also used in Quality Enhancement in Interprofessional Work Based Learning (MIDM007). Both these modules make up the MSc Practice Education. We can have big discrepancy between self, peer and tutor grades and discussion can be quite lively. It is stipulated that the tutor has overall responsibility for the final agreed grade from a quality assurance perspective. We have been persuaded to move but have never moved out of the grade band and we do have discussion about this when we are grading ourselves. We have a normal distribution of grades and we have referred students however we have never had students refer themselves or their peers.
As this is a group project we allocate all group members with the same grade however every group has opportunity to speak to the tutors if they feel strongly that someone has not properly contributed to the activity, there must be unanimous agreement from all other group members about this. On one occasion a group felt strongly that one member had not contributed and her grade was altered to reflect this.As well as the action learning students submit a 4,000 word critical reflective account and students are required to pass both items of assessment for both modules.
For more information about this assessment, please contact Ali Ewing, Principal Lecturer Learning and Teaching (Ali.Ewing@northampton.ac.uk) or Sue Everett, Senior Lecturer—Advanced Practitioner (Sue.Everett@northampton.ac.uk).
This case study is taken from the Institute of Learning and Teaching’s 2015 publication ‘Outside the Box Assessment and Feedback Practices’, available from the University’s Assessment and Feedback portal.
