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Tag: EDPM08

PG Cert Changes

Published 13th November 2020

The Fun Stuff Slide
Oh yes, I absolutely use animated GIFs and memes in my teaching

I’ve lost a module! And I don’t mean down the back of the sofa. A few years ago the University decided to reorganise how it delivers post-graduate courses, making all modules either 60 or 30 credits. As a result, the PG Cert in Academic Development had to undergo revalidation last year and my 20 credit Introduction to Digital Learning and Assessment module (EDPM08) has been discontinued, with much of it’s content and my teaching responsibilities being integrated into the new 60 credit module, EDPM10. I completed teaching with my fourth and final cohort of students on 08 back in July, and they have all now submitted and passed, though I still have three students from other cohorts with deferred or resubmissions to help through to completion over the next couple of months.

I’m going to miss my Module Leader role, but it’s been an invaluable experience that will serve me in good stead: two years, four cohorts, 41 students. And of course I do still have teaching on the new version, I just don’t get to do any of the fun admin stuff. I’ve actually just finished teaching my bit of EDPM10, which is what has prompted me to write this. I have three sessions on EDPM10, a theory-heavy contextual session about the role of digital technology in teaching, learning and assessment, and two practical workshops giving students guided hands-on experience with a range of what we hope are fun, easy to use, and useful tools.

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PG Cert AP: Day 10

Published 2nd March 2017

Another split day, wearing my student hat in the morning for the core module, and in the afternoon teaching part of the digital technology module, this time with the added pressure of being formally assessed as part of one of the assessments for the core module. It does get rather circular.

The morning session was excellent, far and away the most useful couple of hours I’ve ever spent on assessment. A guest lecturer facilitated an extended and iterative exercise using the seemingly simple task of defining a biscuit as a metaphor for the problems of assessment marking. First we each had to write a definition of a biscuit in 180 characters or less, the length of a Tweet, then the room was split into two groups and each group had to agree a common definition. Then the fun part, a plate of ‘biscuits’ was given to each group and we were tasked with marking them against our definition, placing each within a four point rubric of ‘biscuity’, replicating the undergraduate degree classification system. I was expecting trouble with the Jaffa Cakes, but the viciousness and racism which came about as a result of the shortbread finger took my by surprise. Alas, we were forbidden from removing the more contentious ‘biscuits’ from the equation by eating them.

The afternoon session for EDPM08 covered digital communication and virtual reality technologies and tools. It was this part that was delivered by myself and I was given an hour. I spent the first 30 minutes going through a short presentation I created about the use of virtual, augmented and mixed reality systems in higher education which I based on the microsite I wrote, followed by another 30 minutes or so in which people were able to have a go with some hardware and software which the module leader and I supplied – phone based VR headsets using some VR and AR apps I had found which showcased educational uses such as Anatomyou VR.

There was a bit of pressure on me this time, as my teaching was being formally observed in accordance with university practices and as a requirement for part of one of the assessments in the core module. I felt nervous, feeling that I stumbled over my words a bit more often than I would have liked, and I completely forgot to talk about Google Glass during the AR section, but my observer thought I did fine. I was commended on subject knowledge and use of cultural references to make the presentation interesting, and given good advice which I will be able to use in the future. At one point I did go ‘off script’ and tried to open an external link which took some time to load – I should have been ready with that or else not tried it. I was also advised to end the session with an optional task that people could do afterwards to help embed their learning – a good point, and something I have done in the past.

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PG Cert AP: Day 7

Published 2nd February 2017

First session of the new semester was the odd one that has me teaching on it. The first part was delivered by the module leader and covered cognitive load theory and what implications this has on the use and design of digital learning materials. Cognitive load theory states that as learning involves effort, there are therefore limits on how much information can be processed at any one time. Sweller identified three types of effort – intrinsic, extraneous and germane. Intrinsic load is that which has to be learned, extraneous load is additional information that distracts somehow (e.g. the overuse of footnotes which requires people to flick between the body and the footnotes), and germane load which front loads some additional effort with the intention of making learning easier and more efficient in the long term. Well-designed learning materials should aim to reduce extraneous load to increase intrinsic or germane load.

My session followed this by demonstrating some content creation tools and giving examples on how they can be used to create good materials. My time was very limited so it had to be a demonstration rather than a guided hands-on session, and I included Storyline, Prezi, ThingLink, Pictochart and PowToon. Each one of these could easily have warranted a half-day session to really get into detail and this is something that we’re thinking about for next year, as the programme leader for the PG Cert and my team will both be part of a new CELT which the university is in the process of forming now. The programme leader was also in this session, primarily with their student hat on, but they were also informally observing me to give me some feedback. That was all pretty positive, saying that I was able to answer all the questions that came up calmly and confidently, which is reassuring, as I personally felt like I fluffed the PowToon part. The application has changed a lot since I last used it in earnest and I hadn’t given myself sufficient time to get used to the new version in my session preparation. I followed up the session by publishing a comprehensive range of further information and self-help resources on the module’s SunSpace site which I pointed people towards.

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PG Cert AP: Day 5

Published 1st December 2016

A very interesting morning session for the technology module, EDPM08, covering uses of technology to support self and peer assessment. The great thing about the tutor on this module is that they don’t just know their stuff, they back everything up with research proving that what they’re talking about works. That’s definitely something to keep in mind and aspire to in my own teaching.

First there was a discussion about peer marking, and research that shows that it only takes a surprisingly small number of peer grades to be averaged for it to approximate the grade of a tutor. That’s something that could prove very useful in the assessment for the ArtWorks MOOC that I’ve been assisting to develop. Then we covered the value of real-time formative feedback assisted by quiz tools such as Socrative and Poll Everywhere. And finally, not strictly supported by technology, there was a discussion about comparative marking, giving tutors two papers and deciding which of the two should get a higher mark, but without actually grading them. An interesting idea that I would like to look into further to find out more about how it works.

There was also a nice, almost throwaway remark about the concept of ‘desirable difficulties’, and anecdotal evidence that students learn more from bad lecturers as it makes them have to work harder to make sense of what is being taught. A kind of unintended experiential learning!

The afternoon session was back to the core module, EDPM05, and the use of reflection on teaching and learning. This was facilitated through an iterative exercise where we discussed where and how reflection takes place, wrote down ideas on sticky card and then worked the cards round on a board to reach some conclusions as a group.

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PG Cert AP: Day 2

Published 20th October 2016

The morning session picked up EDPM05 where it left off the week before, discussing curriculum design and setting learning outcomes. There was a discussion on the distinction between learning outcomes which are for students, and learning objectives which are more of a tool for staff when designing the curriculum. Advice given for writing good learning outcomes was to phrase them in the future tense, and make them achievable, assessable and easy for students to understand. It was recommended to build each outcome around a measurable verb, e.g. reflect, hypothesis and solve for high level outcomes, and describe, identify and measure for low level. Bloom’s taxonomy was cited as a source of inspiration in looking for these. In terms of practical considerations and UK HE culture, we were advised not to set too many learning outcomes as they need to be assessed, and too many learning outcomes can quickly lead to assessment overload.

To put this into practice we were given an example from a real-world module which, when inherited by the current programme leader, had 24 learning outcomes, and we were asked to find ways to reduce these. The programme leader actually got these down to 9 by clustering a number of them. Removing any of the outcomes wasn’t a possibility because that would have constituted a major change and triggered a re-validation.

The afternoon session was for EDPM08, the optional module on Digital Learning which I am teaching on, so I was there not as a participant but as a teaching assistant to support the discussions that were taking place. Today’s session utilised an audience response system so there was a discussion about the merits of using dedicated handsets over newer app and text based systems such as Socrative and PollEverywhere. Research was cited showing that such systems increased student enjoyment and engagement.

There followed a live application to get learner’s feedback on a discussion of Marc Prensky’s argument that today’s learners can be classified into digital natives or digital immigrants, depending on whether or not they have grown up with the internet. Critiques of this argument that we discussed included evidence that the multitasking Prensky claims digital natives are capable of is actually detrimental to performance, that he creates an artificial barrier between generations, and that the ability to manage the types of non-linear and non-hierarchical leaning spaces generated by the use of hyperlinking is more a matter of a person’s working memory capacity and pre-existing knowledge than any skills they may have gained by growing up with modern digital technologies.

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