The use of blogs and on-line discussions as tools for assessing student progress and achievement.

Cathy Howard, Department of Languages and Translation Studies, FAHS

The project is based on implementing and evaluating the impact of two online forms of assessment for a Level 1 module, ‘Contemporary British Society’, as part of a new degree course ‘Business Management and English for International Communication’. 

The aims of the project are to:

• encourage students to engage in greater constructive reflection on both the content and the process of their learning
• foster the development of crucial skills such as digital literacy and collaboration
• develop transparent and objective assessment criteria appropriate for assessing work within blogs and on-line discussions
• develop effective guiding/reflective questions for the assessments
• determine appropriate time-spans for both forms of on-line assessment and also consider if any additional support is required by learners
• evaluate blogging and on-line discussions as modes of assessment and identify the advantages and disadvantages of these tools

Cathy Howard report

444Kb

Seminars in an anonymous chat room environment: an exploration of participation styles, equality and ease of access

Christine Hine, Department of Sociology, FAHS

This project aims to analyse material drawn from student engagement with the Level 2 module “Understanding Internet Culture” and draw out some generalisable messages about the potential of anonymous synchronous chat as a complement to the face-to-face student experience.

Also online revision seminars will be run prior to the examination at the end of semester 2, 2009/10 to supplement the face-to-face revision sessions. This approach is based on the apparent feeling of comfort that students feel in anonymous online interactions, and in particular their willingness to ask questions and continue an interaction until satisfied that they understand. This will provide the opportunity to explore further the extent to which students could use the online setting to ask questions without experiencing stigma about asking “too basic” a question or not understanding the answer first time around.

This project therefore will explore the general issues of anonymity, disinhibition and e-learning as discussed in the existing e-learning literature, but focus on a particular pedagogic setting, the revision seminar, and particular cohort of University of Surrey students. It aims to capture the specificity of their experience and any barriers that they encounter, whilst at the same time looking for generalisable inputs to development of pedagogy and e-learning at the institution. Specifically the project will explore the potential of anonymous synchronous chat environments for supplementing the student experience.

Christine Hine report

 125Kb

Promoting Student Reflection on Values and Ethics

Dr Doug Foster, School of Management, FML, in collaboration with Professor Caroline Baillie (SCEPTrE)

This project aims to encourage students to reflect on their own values and ethics as a basis for engaging in a variety of ethical theory and values philosophy, and to explore the use of the ‘Values Exchange’ platform to enable this. This will be piloted in a special ‘Values and Ethics Academy’ for students across the university, before adapting the findings from the experience and evaluation to launch it in a final year undergraduate ethics module.

The aims of the project are to:

• explore an approach to developing students’ independent and collaborative learning
• facilitate students in reflecting upon their values and ethics
• use the ‘values exchange’ technology to explore and expose these
• get students to expand and challenge their ideas in developing a group community intervention
• identify elements in the pilot project that could be adapted for the final year ‘Ethics, Responsibility and Citizenship’ module

Doug Foster report

449Kb

Evaluation of voice recognition software to produce support access to lectures

Kai Hoettges, Medical Engineering, FEPS

This project will explore the use of voice recognition software to support learning in lectures by generating transcripts and / or close to real time subtitles of lecture content that can be projected alongside Power Point.

This could potentially have significant benefits for a range of students and may well have positive impact on the learning environment. The most obvious advantages might be offered to students with hearing impairments who currently tend to rely on the content of slides and note-takers. Other groups who may benefit could include non native speakers and also students who, because of a specific learning difficulty or other reason, find following verbal presentations taxing especially at the same time as engaging in other activities.

Aims:

• evaluate the use of voice recognition software in lecture situations, particularly for offering in parallel to the current power point slides
• evaluate how it can be best integrated into class room practice and how it may interact with other systems such as recorded classes and other e-learning technologies.
• evaluate the potential value of providing transcripts of lectures or alternatively using subtitles with recorded lectures where editing after recording is possible.
• evaluate the physical setup most suited to benefiting from this approach

Kai Hoettges report

56Kb

Splash Interactive - Using a social networking platform to develop a learning development community.

Mary Dickinson, SPLASH (Student Personal Learning and Study Hub)

Although SPLASH is open to all students, the majority who access the service are either undergraduates or PhD students. Few PGTs make use of the learning development opportunities that are offered. To give greater equity of opportunity for this group, this project aims to develop a virtual learning development community (a Web 2.0 version of SPLASH) specifically for PGTs, using the social networking platform Ning.

This project will explore the potential of a social networking platform, specifically Ning, to support new ways of delivering learning development and support for all students, including particularly the "hard to reach". This project will also help to drive the development of bespoke PGT learning development materials.

SPLASH Interactive will have the following aims: 

• To be a student-centric, reflexive resource (we will actively invite students to suggest themes/content for workshops/materials)
• To deliver bespoke PGT learning development opportunities (interactive workshops/quizzes)
• To offer pedagogic facilitation (broadcasts/blog/forums/comments/emails)
• To foster a sense of belonging to a wider PGT community and to sub-groups within the site (by course or by dissertation topic for example)
• To enable online peer support and to facilitate reflective, independent learning

Mary Dickinson report

150Kb

Developing the effectiveness of feedback using GradeMark

Adrian Seccombe, Associate Lecturer in Information Asset Management, Department of Computing, FEPS

This project focuses on improving the student learning experience by developing more effective feedback delivered using the GradeMark tool available through using Turnitin assignments in ULearn. This will be developed for Computing students, mainly engaged in group work submissions.

Aims:

• improve the quality of feedback to students on group and individual assignments
• improve the effectiveness of how feedback, and especially formative forms, contribute to the learning process
• increase the efficiency of assessment and feedback development and distribution
• encourage students to engage with assessment criteria and descriptors
• explore possibilities to engage students more fully in the assessment process

In doing this, the project will also explore:

• the potential uses of GradeMark and features such as peer review

Adrian Seccombe report

687Kb

The collaborative development of a web resource, for and by Psychology students, using PebblePad.

Dr Miranda Horvath, Department of Psychology, FAHS

This project sets out to support and encourage Level 2 Psychology students to collaboratively develop a set of web pages using PebblePad WebFolios.  This is partly in response to the fact that at this level, students tend to be working mainly individually, which has raised issues in previous student feedback.

The aims of this project are to:

• facilitate students in creating a valuable shared resource that develops their understanding of key figures within their discipline
• use this resource for future students and as a form of marketing for the course
• encourage students to develop crucial skills such as independent research, collaboration and group-working
• identify the feasibility of embedding projects such as this into the curriculum more fully in the future, particularly through considering issues such as the assessment of collaborative and online work
• explore the potential of Pebblepad to support areas such as collaborative writing and research

Miranda Horvath report

137Kb

Seeing is Believing: Using Video Podcasts to Strengthen the Politics Placement Program

Dr. Virginie Grzelczyk, Politics, FAHS

This project seeks to enhance the Politics placement scheme and to build on and further the opportunities that it offers students to learn lifelong skills. It will explore new ways to provide clear and timely information to students in order to engage them more effectively in the application process and to better prepare them for what they will be doing during their placement year.

The core project is to develop short video-clips about placement, featuring issues that are particularly relevant to students during the process of considering, applying and preparing for placements. These video podcasts will be captured at key stages and mainly feature students’ perspectives about their experiences.

Aims

•  provide access to ‘hands-on’ information about placements in a video format, accessible on the internet and targeted to students needs
•  use simple, efficient technology to enhance the placement ULearn site and create content that can easily be updated and enriched in the future
• through this also create a closer social bond between potential and existing placement students.

Surgery Hours for All: An Adoption of Live Classroom Technology for Enhanced Accessibility

Osama S M Khan, School of Management, FML

Currently all of the academics at the School of Management hold regular surgery hours to support learning and teaching in their module. Although valuable this process has several limitations in terms of efficiency and effectiveness. This project will explore an alternative approach.

All of the weekly surgery hours for the module Real Estate Finance and Investment, an optional level 3 module, will be organised virtually using Adobe Connect Pro aiming to deliver greater accessibility and enhanced interaction. Using this technology the academic can organise various topics and queries systematically and respond to them using relevant resources, demonstrations and activities including rich multimedia and printed material.

Aims

• facilitate easier access to specific surgery sessions attracting and engaging even those students who are normally less enthused
• explore how the application of virtual classroom technology can support engagement with material and different forms of learning
• encourage healthy peer interaction and peer to peer learning
• produce internet efficient flash clips that can be replayed repeatedly for future learning thus capturing valuable resources and increasing access