UCL Centre for the Advancement of Learning and Teaching (CALT)

These pages are a resource for SLMS staff and are a space for:

• Accessing teaching, learning and assessment resources
• Disseminating SLMS work on education

SLMS Education Moodle Site (opens in new window and requires Moodle login)

In this project Dr Richard Milne is planning to compare the quality of work of a group of students who peer review each others’ essays with previous groups of students who did not. The process and the outcome of the work will be written up as a case study which will be available on the Teaching and Learning Portal. One of the aims of this project is to promote the development of peer learning across UCL.

For more information please see top item on link below ‘Peer feedback on essays.’

https://moodle.ucl.ac.uk/course/view.php?id=5101

The aim of this project, in conjunction with E-Learning Environments (ELE) with Matt Jenner and cardiologist Dr Andrew Cook, is to work on the development of distance courses on paediatric cardiology, focusing on developing countries where such surgical interventions are not widely used.

This is challenging but the expertise which will be acquired through the new approaches will be useful across SLMS. The demand for UCL distance CPD courses in the medical sciences worldwide is high. Data will be gathered on the student experience of distance learning on this course to inform the design of active learning tasks and assessment.

What happens if you think through a complex process step by step before you do it? Do you do it better? Still in its early stages, this is a multidisciplinary project on mental imagery and learning including dentists, ophthalmologists and engineers with research design support from a psychologist. This project has great potential for developing new pedagogies.

This project is led by an experienced ophthalmologist, Ian Murdoch, who has asked Dr Duhs to work on course design and ‘train the trainers’. Ophthalmologists are desperately needed in the region, where thousands of people could potentially regain or retain their sight.

Aim of the sessions

These sessions will be planned in response to staff requests and designed to meet current teaching and assessment development needs. Division and Faculty learning and teaching strategies will inform this work. Additional and new sessions will be planned as/when requirements change, e.g. large group teaching and peer observation of teaching.

Session format

· Informal 1-hour sessions from 1pm to 2pm on Mondays or Thursdays

· Sandwiches and coffee/tea will be available.

· Brief presentations with space for questions

These sessions can be followed up by individual/group consultancy so the introduction of new approaches can be planned.

Topics (others can be developed as required)

Sessions run from 1.00-2.00pm

Helping PhD students complete

The process of writing a thesis and submitting on time can be a difficult one for some PhD students, unused to writing long documents. Starting early and writing frequently throughout a PhD can help. One way of encouraging students to do this is through attendance at academic writing retreats. Writing retreats help students develop and explore their own writing strategies and provide peer support. Drawing on the research into academic writing retreats, the session covers how to set up a writing retreat and looks at example programmes in the UK and worldwide. Participants will be asked to plan a writing retreat for their students.

Helping students understand feedback

This session will focus on why students find feedback difficult to understand and use effectively. Drawing on recent research in the field, the session covers reasons for students’ lack of engagement with feedback and practical ways of helping students interpret and effectively use feedback. Participants will be asked to design feedback strategies relevant to their teaching context.

Personal tutoring: UCL guidelines and planning useful sessions

This session will focus on UCL guidelines for personal tutoring. A quick overview of research into personal tutoring in HE will be provided and we will debate the pros and cons of various approaches so that tutorials can lead to positive outcomes for both tutors and tutees. Participants will consider how they would like to plan tutorials.

E-learning/distance learning: using Moodle to extend student learning

This session will focus on the way e-learning using Moodle can help students to learn and adopt active, deep approaches to learning. The aim is not to develop the technological expertise of participants which has to be done hands-on (contact LTSS). A ‘click and see’ experimental approach will however be demonstrated and encouraged. A quick overview of research into e-learning in HE will be provided. Examples of good practice will be studied in relation to a range of learning outcomes which can be achieved through online/virtual communication.

Course design and redesign

The aim of this session is to engage with approaches to course design which get the best out of students, demanding much more than the memorisation of content. We will study the design of active learning which requires students to use and apply their knowledge and practise challenging, complex skills like analysis, critique, and reasoning. Participants will work with their own courses. They will be invited to send examples of learning outcomes, learning activities, and assessment tasks to the session leader in advance so that the session will relate directly to relevant examples.

Teaching for quality learning

What is quality learning in higher education and how can we get students to approach their learning in ways which foster quality? This session focuses on some of the seminal research into learning in higher education and proposes a range of classroom and virtual learning activities and assessment tasks which engender deep approaches to learning.

Involving undergraduate students in research-based learning

What is research-based learning (RBL) and what are the benefits of involving undergraduate (first and second year) students in original research? Drawing on research and the idea of an ‘inheritance mechanism’ this workshop presents case studies of RBL, considers what students can learn from being involved in RBL and how the role of the academic changes. Participants will be asked to design an RBL activity relevant to their field of enquiry.

Peer and Collaborative Assessment: how to do it

Involving students in assessment and peer assessment is widely advocated in the current research literature as a way of developing student understanding of assessment ( assessment literacy). This session looks at the nuts and bolts of setting up peer assessment; how to run a preparation session and give students practice in writing peer feedback. Drawing on recent evidence, the session covers some of the pitfalls of peer and collaborative assessment and ways of overcoming these. Participants will be asked to plan ways of using peer and collaborative assessment in their teaching context.

Diversifying assessment – Oral Presentation of Posters

Oral presentations of Posters are a rich way of assessing students’ learning. It is worthwhile to use this type of assessment task, which requires profound engagement on the part of the student. Problem- or enquiry-based learning can be used as a basis for the creation of posters.

During the session, we will be looking at how posters can promote higher order learning on the part of students and consider diverse ways of approaching poster preparation and presentation.

Marking and expert judgement

How do markers reach judgements about the value of students’ work? This session covers a critique of assessment criteria and recent work on marker reliability in higher education. It explores the concept of ‘expert judgement’ and processes of moderation within a team of markers. Participants will be asked to design and exchange strategies for sharing marking judgements.