transparent
Pronunciation /trænˈspær.ənt/
1 see through
2 obvious; clear and easy to understand or recognize
3 open and honest, without secrets
Cambridge dictionary 2019
Transparent pedagogy is partly about making your intentions (your learning design) clear to the students. It’s partly about helping them to understand what to expect from you, and what is expected of them. It can be a great way of establishing responsibilities and partnership in the learning environment, and circumventing passive ‘consumer-style’ approaches to learning. But it’s also about developing metacognition, helping students think about how learning works, and how knowledge is constructed. Below are some examples that I think illustrate this approach really well.
This publicly-available Digital Sociology Syllabus by Prof Tressie McMillan Cottom is a great example, as it outlines the rationale behind her pedagogic choices, and openly prepares her students for the challenges of the chosen approach. I love how frankly she describes the requirements to her students – my favourite bit is this:
“Throughout the course, I expect you to engage each other’s work and the assigned reading substantively. We do not do that “leave a comment on a thread every week by five where you just write two sentences for a grade” nonsense in this course. This is not an independent study class with me or a MOOC. You should learn from each other as much, if not more than you learn from me.”
The syllabus is for an online course, which arguably makes clarity all the more important, but the idea can be applied across the board – in face to face and blended teaching.
Transparent pedagogy is also about exposing the process of learning, focusing on the journey rather than the ‘end goal’ and making it clear when and how learning is happening as the course progresses. The idea of palimpsests is used by Amy Collier to illustrate this process; I particularly like this part:
“Palimpsest can frame how we think about student learning–that it accrues and traces on individual students’ histories and humanities–what they already bring to the educational environment. We can recognize that students will build and connect learning across the time they engage with us and with our institutions. That’s why portfolios projects that focus solely on creating final products (something that can be shown to an employer) miss the point. Palimpsest in student portfolios would allow students’ previous work and thinking to color the “final product.””
This metaphor emphasises two key ideas for me. First, transparent pedagogy is about dialogue, not just a set of instructions or a brief. You can’t make a student learn in a particular way just by explaining your intention, but you can help them see how it’s intended to work, and give them the language to analyse it. They will bring their own understanding to what you are offering and combine these to create something new.
The second point is that it’s honest. Learning is messy, uncomfortable, and rarely linear. This article by Jake Wright makes a case for transparent pedagogy as an effective response to “naive skepticism” from new students, which he claims can derive from a number of sources including distress at the disturbance of a previously held world view. He describes his approach as “metadisciplinary discussion” which should be meaningful, accessible and reinforced throughout the course. Wright argues that this approach can help students in introductory courses move past simplistic views about right and wrong answers and handle multiple interpretations – not by confrontation, but by encouraging them to practice “thinking like a disciplinarian”.
Finally, transparent pedagogy is also really beneficial when it comes to sharing teaching experience. Whether for peer observation, team teaching or handing over a course to a new member of staff or partner, having an explicit and detailed explanation of the thinking behind the construction can make all the difference in terms of delivery and student experience.
If you’d like to get some ideas on how to try this, get in touch with the Learning Design team. Or alternatively, if you’re already doing this, let us know how it’s going! We’d love to know if it’s making a difference for you and your students.
FBL Marketing Lecturer Samantha Read shares her top ‘Teaching and learning resources – Ideas for an ABL approach to teaching and learning’.
This list features links to; OERs(Open education resources), tools for creating interactive images and video, collaboration tools, quizzes and polls, gamification ideas, storyboarding templates, articles of interest and links to further training.
Samantha recently spoke about her experiences of ABL at the FBL Faculty ABL away day, and recommends that staff consider the following points when implementing a new tool:
- Don’t try to introduce too many new tools into your online and face-to-face sessions. Practice using a few and start to integrate the ones that you feel confident using and can support students in adopting.
- If you want students to use an online tool for the face-to-face or online element of your session, provide them with really clear instructions (including a short video where possible) and begin using that tool during the face-to-face session so that everyone will feel comfortable using it.
- Where possible, embed your resources into NILE so that they are easily accessible. You can usually find an ‘embed code’ to copy and paste into the html section of a NILE content area rather than directing students towards a link.
- Don’t feel disheartened if one idea works for one group but does not work for another. For me, it’s all about trial and error and adapting the resources and tools to each individual group of students based on their skills, learning preferences and the feedback they provide.
Samantha’s ABL resources can be viewed on the Padlet below. Please feel free to add any other resources that you would recommend to others.
In this 5 minute video, Lecturer in Accounting and Finance Honor Pacey reflects on her five-year journey at the University, and how she is developing new ways of engaging students with Active Blended Learning at the Waterside campus.
Honor demonstrates a number of new developments designed for this year including; how she supports collaborative ABL activities in class, how NILE quizzes are used to support and focus her students’ attention on the module assessments, and how moving forward she will be working with the students to develop their digital footprints.
Case study Video Link with Honor Pacey recorded on our Virtual Classroom platform Collaborate Ultra.
When choosing a tool it is important to consider ‘What is the problem to which our NILE tools can be the answer?’
Ale Armellini and Dr Ming
In this video professors Ale Armellini and Dr Ming Nie discuss the relationship between learning outcomes, aligned activities and NILE tool selection by considering the University’s pedagogic approach of Active Blended Learning (ABL).
For more info on how NILE tools can help your students learn using the University’s pedagogic approach of Active Blended Learning please enrol on the NILE training Enhancement Course here.
The NILE enhancement course covers:
- Discussion Boards
- Blogs and Journals
- Virtual Classrooms – Collaborate
- Videos – Kaltura
- Tests
- Self & Peer Assessments
Please note: you will need to login to the course with your standard NILE login details and self-enrol on the enhancement course.
Nick Petford (VC, Northampton) was asked to keynote at a recent Northamptonshire Health and Wellbeing Board but due to his hectic schedule, was unable to attend in person. Rather than sending his apologies, Nick made use of Kaltura to record his presentation and ensure that he was able to contribute to the event.
Following a short test to ensure that everything was working as expected, Nick tucked himself into one of the bookable small rooms in the Learning Hub at Waterside and was able to complete the recording without any assistance. This was then uploaded and available to send to the conference Chair a few moments later. Nick was then able to rush off to the next appointment on his schedule.
Nick Petford keynote
Commenting on his experience, Nick said,
“I really valued the easy and flexibility which Kaltura provided to record the presentation. I used my own laptop and booked a room which was available to any member of staff – there was very little technical preparation and no special equipment needed.”
If you have not yet had the chance to have a go with Kaltura to create any type of video recording such as a presentation or feedback to students, then please contact your local Learning Technologist.
Emma Dillon and Anna O’Neill
Emma and Anna
Emma Dillon RMN,BSc,PGCE,MSc,FHEA.
MHFA Adult Instructor.
Senior Lecturer in Mental Health Nursing.
MHFA Adult Instructor.
Senior Lecturer in Mental Health Nursing.
“As module leader for NPR3028P I really enjoyed working with Anne to develop a Xerte for the year 3 skills week for BSc Nursing. Anne helped me to transform my ideas into an interactive e-learning package looking at well-being of the student/graduate nurse. It was fun to create and has really positive feedback from the students: “the well-being Xerte really motivated me to look after myself, it was fun and interactive – it really made me think” – “the Xerte reminded me of the core values of nursing and resilience”-” the well-being Xerte really bought the skills week together“.
Xerte E-Learning Package for Skills Week
Anna O’Neill
Lecturer in Practice Development
Faculty of Health and Society
Lecturer in Practice Development
Faculty of Health and Society
“I thoroughly enjoyed learning about Xerte and the experience of using this package with our third-year student nurses.
Anne’s teaching style was such that I felt comfortable to develop the Xerte with support, so as to truly experience setting up the Xerte, learning to incorporate pictures, links and the ability for students to download their work to upload onto PebblePad.
Xerte is a fantastic way of supporting blended learning and/or distance learning.
We used Xerte for our year 3 skills development package in line with our move to Waterside and our students feedback was extremely positive”.
Xerte E-Learning Package – Skills Week
Xerte E-Learning Package – Skills Week
Blackboard Learn (NILE) is being upgraded on Saturday 18th August 2018 and will be unavailable from 22:30 BST until 10:30 on Sunday 19th.
The upgrade is necessary to maintain performance, stability, and security. This upgrade will also bring a new look to NILE, designed to work better on small screens and mobile devices. Some of the colours and layout will be slightly different and there will be standardised colours across all sites. If you have previously used fontawesome icons in your NILE sites, these will no longer be displayed after the upgrade, but the surrounding content will be preserved.
Guest post written by Jim Lusted.
“Our classrooms are changing – and I don’t mean the posh new room designs and furniture at Waterside campus. Since I started teaching at Northampton in 2009 the students I have taught have become increasingly diverse in their ethnic background. I’ve gone from having only a small handful of Black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) students to now regularly teaching classes with an even split of people from white and BAME backgrounds. It’s not just in my own department, Northampton has seen a significant increase in the intake of BAME students. This isn’t, however, reflective of the sector as a whole, which has seen very little increase in ethnic diversity across the whole student intake.”
“…our research recommended that staff make a more concerted effort to create groups that offer students the chance to work with a wide range of students, not only their peer or friendship group.”
Written by Dr. Jim Lusted, Learning Designer/Senior Lecturer in Sport Studies
In November 2017 I took up an 8 month secondment as a Learning Designer (LD) with the Learning Technology team. I had been a Senior Lecturer in Sport Studies at Northampton since 2009 and saw this as a great opportunity to try something new for a while. This blog gives you a flavour of my experience of the LD secondment, what I learned about working in professional services.
Why a Learning Designer secondment?
I was attracted to the secondment for three main reasons. First, I had really enjoyed working with the Learning Technology team as a lecturer and had valued their support – through things like CAIeRO course design workshops, ABL development sessions and helping me solve NILE problems. I felt I could fit quite nicely into their team and would enjoy working with them. Second, I had become more interested in teaching and learning practice – particularly as a result of the University’s shift towards ABL, and felt the secondment would be a great way to develop my own skills and knowledge in this area. Third, in my role as programme leader I had enjoyed mentoring new and less experienced colleagues, so I wanted to see what it would be like supporting staff in a more formal role. I must also admit that after 9 years of working in the same role I also fancied a change of scenery – I was eager to try something new.
“…I learned more about T&L practice in my LD role than I had probably done in my whole teaching career up to that point – I had the head space to think about my practice rather than just be chasing my tail teaching sessions every week.”
Written by Jim Lusted, Learning Designer/Senior Lecturer in Sport Studies
Since the University moved to online assignment submission some years ago it has been much easier to judge the originality of student work. If an assignment is set up using a Turnitin submission point, a similarity report is automatically generated for each assignment. This provides the marker with a % score of how much of the student work matches material contained in Turnitin’s vast database – some 62 billion webpages, 734 million student papers and 165 million academic sources.
While this automated process has really helped staff judge the credibility of student assignments, your own judgement is still needed to interpret the similarity report. This blog offers some tips about how to ‘read’ Turnitin reports – and to consider a range of factors beyond just the overall similarity % score to help you make a judgement about whether you should refer an assignment to the academic integrity and misconduct process.
Get the set up right to get the most accurate report
Start by making sure the similarity report generated is as accurate and useful as possible. When you first set up a Turnitin submission point in NILE, you are offered a daunting list of options to select from. Follow this help guide from the LearnTech team to ensure your similarity reports check exactly what you want them to.
Before you begin marking, a useful tip is to overlay the similarity view with the marking view of the Turnitin site (see right). 
This allows you to continually keep a check on originality as you go through the process of marking the work – and helps you contextualise the areas of similarity. You’ll be able to easily spot where exactly the larger pockets of similarity are being used across the assignment.
Look beyond the percentage score..
The overall % score gives us a quick, rough indicator of how original a student submission might be. It’s certainly a good starting point, but it shouldn’t solely determine your verdict of the assignment and it’s really best not to set a benchmark score to guide your overall judgement – the process ultimately requires a qualitative judgement to be made. Let’s look at a couple of scenarios where the percentage originality score (high or low) might not necessarily tell the full story of who has written the assignment.
a) A small score but a big problem?
Anything below 20% is fine, right? A score like this does indicate that the vast majority of the assignment is original. But…
- A small percentage score could ‘hide’ one or two (or more) long paragraphs of ‘copied’ text that is acknowledged as such. While only taking up a small proportion of the assignment, such large chunks of unsourced text may lead you to concerns about possible plagiarism.
- A similarity score of zero may also raise some concerns. If an assignment contains absolutely no material derived from other sources, particularly if you are sure that the work contains the use of quotes and paraphrasing, you may want to question why the report is so ‘squeaky-clean’. There are all kinds of tips on the internet for students to try to ‘trick’ Turnitin that might possibly be at play. You might also be entering the world of contract cheating, which is much harder to identify (and prove).
b) A big score but with good reason?
Anything over 30% must be a problem, right? Not necessarily – ask whether there might be any plausible reasons for the large score, particularly if it is repeated across several students in your cohort. Potentially valid reasons for high similarity scores might include:
- The use of a generic template or pro-forma that students have used to structure their assignment – is this the primary cause of the high score?
- The inclusion of appendices in a student’s work are these being highlighted?
- Several students referring directly to the same source or quote or content (e.g. a prescription protocol) that has been used regularly in the module
- Several small passages of quotes being used appropriately and suitably referenced
Look beyond the similarity score – there may be a perfectly good reason for the relatively high % score.
The grey areas where your judgement is needed
This may all sound straightforward, but there are always going to be difficult judgements to be made when cases are not as clear cut as those above. The ‘grey areas’ tend to relate to two main areas:
1. Paraphrasing another source – is the student trying to re-phrase another person’s work? Some students are better at this than others, and there are online tools like Grammarly that students may be tempted to use to help paraphrase (often with poor results). You need to decide whether this paraphrasing is a deliberate attempt by the student to claim the work as their own, or more a case of poor academic practice.
2. Referencing – are the sections under scrutiny indicative of a student presenting the work of others as their original efforts, or perhaps the result of poor referencing practice? Consider the quality and style of referencing through the work (good or bad) to help decide how ‘deliberate’ the student is being in failing to acknowledge other sources of work. Again, the judgement here is between willful academic misconduct or poor academic practice.
In these types of ‘grey’ cases, its best to seek a second opinion – from a trusted colleague, an experienced member of your team or even a quick chat with an Academic Integrity Officer (AIO) before you decide whether to formally refer the student to the academic integrity and misconduct process. Getting a second opinion usually helps you come to the right verdict in the end.
