Jane Mills, Senior Lecturer for Fashion at the University of Northampton and BA (Hons) Fashion, Textiles for Fashion, and Footwear and Accessories students, Bregha, Gemma, Louise and Upasna discuss their use of the Trello App to support their group work projects.
As part of the recent S.H.E.D. roadshow, we invited teaching staff to share their successful practice. The example below could be a useful approach for anyone looking to encourage their students to research and understand their subject, and to share that understanding with their peers.
In a third year module on Biodiversity and Conservation, Professor Jeff Ollerton asks his students to engage with a range of scientific writing published around the subject. This includes articles from peer-reviewed journals, UK Parliamentary briefings, scientific journalism, and more. In this part of the module, students are initially provided with recommended articles, and asked to read them critically, attending to the aims, message and methods, and considering whether the conclusions are justified. They then discuss their views in class, where their contributions are assessed using a rubric that is made available to all students in advance. The students are then asked to identify a paper of their choice and deliver a 5 minute verbal presentation to the class. The grade for this is combined with the contribution grade to make up 30% of the total module grade (other parts of the module are assessed using a report and a group debate).
These tasks not only help to ensure that students engage with research and develop their understanding, but they also build confidence and presentation skills. The attached Assessment Brief gives more detail about the assessment structure.
Your Health and Safety when marking online
The Safety, Health and Environment Team in Infrastructure Services have provided updated guidance for all staff using a computer, laptop or mobile device for on-line marking.
Dissertation Marking
The guidance provided for dissertation marking in 2015 assumed a single submission point which students would submit assignments to. Tutors then had to copy assignments to a second submission point in order to complete the independent / blind double marking process. Whilst this worked for very small cohorts, it has been found that a more straightforward process for tutors is to get the students to just submit the same file twice to two different submission points. The guidance and documentation has now been updated to reflect this suggested modification.
Exempting Grades
When a member of staff suspects academic misconduct then the University policy is that the student’s grade is exempted (or suspended) pending the outcome of the investigation. During this time the student should not be able to access their provisional grade. Guidance on how to exempt a grade has been updated for NILE sites in the 15/16 academic year since it is not yet possible to add the ‘ZZ’ grade for these.
NILE sites in the 16/17 academic year will be updated to allow for the ‘ZZ’ grade to be added and procedures will be updated at that point.
George Dimmock talks about the ways in which Academic Librarians can support University of Northampton staff.
In this video Anne Misselbrook (Content Developer) talks about the software Xerte and its uses for creating online e-tivities.
Kate Swinton from the Centre for Achievement and Performance gives top tips on providing really effective feedback to students.
In this video Hannah Rose explains how to set up a new Aspire reading list.
In this video Ali talks about experiences with online peer observation as part of a teaching qualification for University of Northampton staff.
Emma Rose briefly outlines her experiments with Flipped Classroom techniques and what the benefits have been.
In this video James talks through the ways that he has changed his use of NILE to make learning more interactive and to ensure students are better prepared for class.
