UCL Teaching and Learning Conference 2016 abstracts

Personal Tutoring at UCL: Good Practice and fit with UCL Education Strategy (Workshop)

Anne Vanhoestenberghe (Aspire lecturer, Medical Sciences), Pilar Garcia Souto (Senior Teaching Fellow, Engineering)

As UCL moves towards a research-based education model, the role and impact of Personal Tutors (PT) should evolve (http://www.ucl.ac.uk/ucl-2034/principal-themes/integrating-research-education). We have collected evidence, across faculties, of excellent practice as well as poor performance, most likely due to a lack of clarity about the purposes of PT. The institution’s efforts, offering guidance to tutors and promoting the benefits to students (http://www.ucl.ac.uk/personaltutors), do not translate in a uniform student experience. Yet, the interconnections in the curriculum bring flexibility to the programmes (http://www.ucl.ac.uk/connectedcurriculum), hence individualisation of the learning experience, which many recognise as creating a need for some form of personalised guidance. 

In this session, we will explore what form this guidance takes, or should take, at UCL, with accounts of innovation and good practice (tutoring across the phases, with PG tutoring UG; using IT to support PT, in conventional and remote learning; a study on student-lead PT; PT strategy for large student cohorts), first hand experiences from students, and a reflection on less successful implementation of PT. 

The panel discussion will be chaired by the co-chairs of the UCL Working Group on Personal Tutoring, with contributions from Dr Souto-Garcia, PT and Senior Teaching Fellow, Medical Physics and Biomedical Engineering (MPBE); Ms Seyedarabi, PhD student in MPBE; Dr Taylor, PT to BSc students, Institute of Orthopaedics and Musculoskeletal Science; Dr Loureiro, PT and Head of the Aspire Centre for Rehabilitation Engineering and Assistive Technology. 

Back to schedule for session 1-728

Towards a research-based education: the R = T project (Workshop)

Frances Brill (PhD student in Geography, PGTA, Social & Historical Sciences), Agathe Ribéreau-Gayon (PhD Student in Forensic Anthropology, Department of Security and Crime Science; PGTA in Forensic Archaeology and in Forensic Anthropology (Masters level))

In November 2015, UCL’s Provost launched R=T (Research = Teaching), an initiative aimed at creating connections for research-based education (see http://blogs.ucl.ac.uk/events/2015/11/23/rt-creating-a-dialogue-between-research-and-teaching/). Following the launch event, the first masterclasses will be held in Spring Term 2016, linking UCL Changemakers to both the Connected Curriculum and UCL Arena with PGTAs and UCL students working in partnership with academics on integrating research and teaching. Our proposed session is closely aligned with the conference’s themes’, with PGTAs, students and academics who have attended the launch event and the first masterclasses presenting and discussing how student-staff partnership is crucial to research-based education at UCL:

1. Presentations (30 minutes) of PGTA experiences of teaching and learning at UCL and their involvement in R=T. We will present how the experiences of the invited academics in research-based education may transcend disciplinary boundaries. These presentations will bring together student and staff perspectives through the PGTAs’ unique roles in both.
2. An interactive discussion panel/roundtable session (30 minutes) with academics participating in the first masterclasses. We will explore how academics and students can shape how teaching links to research by looking into successful initiatives (e.g. Institute of Making). We will explore specific issues, including: 

a. Assessment methods for research-based education 

b. how to prepare first-year students for research

c. how different disciplines can adopt best practices

d. how students and academics can collaborate effectively in research-based education. 

Back to schedule for session 2–728

Considering new media in scholarly assessment (Workshop)

Mira Vogel (E-Learning Facilitator, Professional Support/Central Services), Thomas Kador (Connected Curriculum Fellow for Joint Faculties), Frances Smith (Convenor, UCL Writing Lab), John Potter (Senior Lecturer, Education and New Media, IoE)

If students are to participate in producing their own knowledge, as is the case in research-based education, they also need to be assessed in ways that reflect more appropriately their more active part in mapping out their own learning journey. This panel discussion will be relevant to anyone interested in students producing audio, graphical, hypertext and social media for what were hitherto essay assessments. It will begin by anticipating some of the reservations about the transition, with reference to myths about prohibitive regulations which persist in some quarters of UCL, and the potential benefits of including media beyond the essay. 

With reference to the literature and UCL’s forays into theorising multimodal assessment (Assessment Born Digital event and the video assessment rubric generated by UCL colleagues [MS Word file]) it will proceed to grapple with questions of genre. Don’t images and music fall within a cultural domain apart from academia, an emotional realm of implicit meaning and taste? Isn’t it more art than scholarly communication and, as such, inherently imprecise? If so, should we ask students to produce a commentary as a way of articulating process as insurance against poor execution of a promising concept? In the absence of word count, how can effort be gauged, and how can marking be managed equitably and sustainably? Can generic assessment criteria recognise what is distinctive about multimodal work? These questions will be considered in a panel that argues for diversity of scholarly assessment. We welcome your experiences, views and questions.

Back to schedule for session 3–728

Innovative ways to teach communication skills to science students (Talk)

Elinor Bailey (Teaching Fellow, Mathematical & Physical Sciences)

Teaching communication skills to science students is not always an easy task, however it is one of the skill sets employers are increasingly looking for in graduates. When re-writing the Physics communications course this year I wanted to use fun and innovative teaching methods to create a stand-out example course in keeping with the connected curriculum vision.

New coursework components included the ‘Physics concept video’ in which students were asked to make a video in small teams to explain a topic they themselves found difficult in one of their Physics modules. The best videos were forwarded to the relevant lecturer to be included in their Moodle teaching material, to benefit future cohorts. As well as helping students to learn material from other modules through teaching, they got the opportunity to meet new people, practice teamwork, and unusually, to showcase their creativity (highlights to be shown!).

Another new coursework item was the researcher ‘press conference’. Students got the opportunity to meet researchers from UCL in small groups to find out about their current research, with the opportunity to ask questions ‘press conference’ style. What they learnt was then written up into articles describing the research, the best of which are to be submitted to the UCL Scientist magazine.

Other innovations include a ‘PhD buddy’ scheme in which undergrad students were paired with PhD students to chat about their research and life as a PhD student, and an optional public speaking workshop to help students overcome their fear of presenting.

Back to schedule for session 1–731

Effective online resources to support student research dissertations and theses (PechaKucha)

Denise Hawkes (EdD Programme Leader, IOE)

The Doctor in Education (EdD) programme team was awarded a grant from the Connected Curriculum call to develop digitised resources to support our students in the thesis stage of their programme of study. During the thesis stage of the programme students have a termly meeting with an experience thesis workshop facilitator, this project aimed to convert the face to face library of resources for a successful thesis into online resources that could be used in the sessions as well as by students working independently at a distance. The main resources found useful by students were those which focused more on demystifying the processes of: how to actually do write a thesis and the assessment process for the work when submitted. As part of this project we aimed to develop resources which were transferable and amendable to other research project modules within UCL, likely within social science and related areas in the first instance. This presentation will present the top 20 resources developed, measured by student use on Moodle and by student feedback, with the hope that they could be used to develop similar resources for other research based assignments within the wider UCL.

Back to schedule for session 1–731

Embedding meta-research skills into a clinical curriculum (Talk)

Leigh Kilpert (Education Administrator, Brain Sciences), Rose Gilbert (PhD student, Brain Sciences), Matthew Tata (PhD student)

Last year, we rolled out a new set of seminars on our clinical MSc programmes at the Institute of Ophthalmology. Professor Sue Lightman was inspired by the Connected Curriculum initiative and charged the student representatives to create a series of exciting and interactive workshops which addressed the themes. She identified a need to embed meta-research skills into the content-driven and clinically-intensive Masters programmes. This task was taken up enthusiastically by our PGR StARs and the Education Office staff, who developed five sessions with the following topics:

1. Presentation skills
2. Teamwork and team roles
3. Professionalism, whistle-blowing and managing conflict
4. Public engagement in research
5. Bridging the gap between scientists and medics

The sessions were fun and energetic, with everyone taking turns to develop content and lead the sessions. Feedback from students was complimentary (“very interactive”; “delivered by excellent speakers”; “very enjoyable”; “learnt new skills”).

The participants learned new skills; the student presenters were given autonomy in running a short, educational programme. For the PGR StARs, these sessions provided an opportunity to share their research experience and reduce the gap between researchers and clinicians.

The team supplied original educational experiences, intended to facilitate student learning and benefit future careers, and provided a platform for peer-to-peer support and mentoring. We are excited about continuing these sessions, with further input from the MSc students themselves.

Back to schedule for session 1–731

Evaluation of Objective Structured Professional Assessments (OSPAs) within Professional Training (Talk)

Sandra Dunsmuir (Director, Educational Psychology Group, Brain Sciences), Jemma Levy (Trainee Educational Psychologist, Brain Sciences)

There is evidence that supervisor assessments of student practice on professional training programmes can be subjective and potentially unreliable. This presentation reports a project funded by the Higher Education Academy (HEA) on the evaluation of Objective Structured Professional Assessments (OSPAs) to augment other practice-based assessments. OSPAs provide opportunities for students to demonstrate professional skills and underpinning knowledge through participation in a series of timed, simulated scenarios, assessed by two supervisors using calibrated criteria. Educational psychology doctoral students experienced four standardised OSPA stations where scenarios were developed in relation to core aspects of practice: initial consultation; assessment and explanation; action planning; communication and ethics.

This presentation will report how two stands of evaluative data used to develop and refine the OSPAs. Firstly, statistical modelling enabled us to separate out and examine the different sources of variation in the data. To improve reliability of the assessments, more transparent assessment criteria were defined within more focused scenarios, linked to core course competencies. As a result, correlations between two assessors’ scores in 2014 and 2015 significantly improved.

Secondly, evaluations of the student experience of OSPAs were gathered using focus groups and online surveys. Students reported a range of cognitions and emotions, both positive and negative. Students also identified underpinning learning processes (reflection, discovery, reception) and practical issues (authenticity of scenarios and time constraints). Overall, the findings suggest that many TEPs valued OSPAs as worthwhile formative assessment. Strengths and points for development are explored along with the potential future place of OSPAs in professional training. 

Back to schedule for session 2–731

Earn or Learn Taskforce, an educator’s perspective, Change Maker project. (Talk)

Francisco J Cordoba Otalora (Lead Researcher Changemaker, IOE), Anna Gevorgyan (Researcher, IOE), Lorena Sanchez (Researcher, IOE)

In August 2015, the UK government unveiled an unprecedented new scheme to reduce long-term youth unemployment and welfare dependency through the implementation of the "Earn or Learn Taskforce”. The concern over the increasing youth unemployment rates, which have amounted to 14.5 percent in 2014, has driven the government to put forward a concept paper that has already invited concerns and debates over its implementation in the media. 

The government’s proposal includes the development of a so-called “boot camp”, which incorporates a particular training methodology known as Intensive Activity Programme (IAP) that is said to equip young people under the age of 25 with the skills necessary to find sustainable employment or training in less than six months. Through the intensive curriculum participants will be trained in job applications and interview techniques as well as extensive job search, with failure to do this resulting in the losing of welfare benefits. The goals of the programme are substantial, with a proposed 3 million more apprenticeships created by the year 2020. 

Through a collaborative work of professors, students and career centre members of UCL and Pearson College, we aim to identify the underpinning policies and the elements required to make it a reality. The research objective is to provide a critical review of the proposed policies regarding the IAP curriculum feasibility, relevance and efficiency, based upon the principles of Activity and Situated Learning theories, and to cast policy alternatives for the IAP curriculum as a proposal for the task force. 

Back to schedule for session 2–731

Mechanical Engineering and UCL Careers: Building employability into the heart of the curriculum (Talk)

Hannah Posner (Careers Consultant, Professional Support/Central Services), Tim Baker (Senior Teaching Fellow, Engineering), Carla King (Careers Consulant, Professional Support/Central Services)

A new programme has been piloted this year between UCL Careers and Mechanical Engineering, with the aim of exposing the 300 Mechanical Engineering first and second year students to key employability skills. Included as part of the curriculum, students were taught basic CV and Cover Letter skills in a workshop format, then invited to select and “apply” to a role of their choice. The CVs and Cover Letters were submitted to UCL Careers where they were assessed against a marking framework. Students requiring extra guidance were invited to see an Applications Adviser. They then resubmitted their applications to a team of industry experts as the basis for a subsequent practice interview with those experts. The intention of this programme is that these core lessons form the basis of student career thinking going forward, and has invited the students to begin their career planning journey in a more timely fashion. We will present information about lessons learned from such an ambitious programme and initial feedback from the students. 

Authors: Hannah Posner, Tim Baker, Kathy Barrett, Kathryn Goodfellow, Valerie Govia, Carla King, and Mala Mohindru

Back to schedule for session 3–731

Helping And Rebranding UCL Natural Sciences Students In The Job Market (Talk)

Emily Nash (Student, Natural Sciences BSc, Mathematical & Physical Sciences), Jack Woodnott (Student, Natural Sciences, Mathematical & Physical Sciences)

UCL Natural Sciences students are unique and valuable in having degrees that span many scientific disciplines.

We will discuss how our UCL ChangeMakers project, ‘UCL NatSci Futures’, will aim to help and advise these students when they come to research and apply for graduate schemes and research placements. This could be achieved through creating an online database, inviting experienced alumni lecturers or holding more informal discussions about internship and placement preparation with more senior students. Importantly, we will present research results from questionnaires and focus groups completed by students in order to represent our department’s views on the direction of our project and careers support currently provided by the university. 

An additional benefit of our project will be increasing contact with potential graduate employees and highlighting the diverse skillsets and value of UCL Natural Sciences students.

Internally within the university, our project will highlight the importance of discipline-specific careers advice and test a student-led scheme that could eventually be replicated across other departments.

Back to schedule for session 3–731

Improving summative OSCE feedback forms for medical students (Talk)

Ravi Mistry (Medical Student, Medical Sciences), Alison Sturrock (UCL Medical School Academic Lead for Assessment), Sarah Bennett (UCL Medical School Clinical Teaching Fellow)

Background: Senior medical students sit practical assessments called objective structured clinical exams (OSCEs) to assess their clinical competencies. These are high-stakes exams which account for 50% of their overall mark and affect future jobs. Furthermore, they assess skills which students will use day-to-day once qualified. For the last two years, students have received personalised feedback on their OSCE performance. However, satisfaction associated with summative feedback lags behind other areas of the course. Given the literature is scant on summative OSCE feedback, we have devised this ChangeMakers project to improve OSCE feedback at UCL. 

Aims: To establish: (1) how medical students perceive the usefulness of their OSCE feedback (2) how students plan to use their OSCE feedback (3) what improvements students would like made to their OSCE feedback 

Methods: A student-led faculty-collaborative project. An electronic questionnaire will be circulated to Y5 and 6 students asking about their perceptions of the OSCE feedback and how they plan to use it. Subsequently 4 focus groups, each with 4–6 students, will explore the OSCE feedback forms in more depth and discussing how to improve it. Transcripts of the focus groups will then be thematically analysed. Results from the questionnaire and focus groups will lead to changes being made to the OSCE feedback form for the 2016 summative exams. 

Results: We will present the results of our project highlighting what feedback students want in particular from their OSCEs as well as demonstrate refinements made to the feedback forms to assist examiners to provide better feedback.

Back to schedule for session 2–736

Collaboratively developing new marking criteria for research reports in the behavioural sciences (Talk)

Alastair McClelland (BSc Psychology Programme Director and Connected Curriculum Fellow, Brain Sciences), Julie Evans (Faculty Tutor, Brain Sciences)

Undergraduate students (N=420)on both the BSc Psychology and the BSc Psychology and Language Sciencesdegree spend a substantial amount of their time developing skills in experimental research methodology and statistics, and writing research reports. 

The writing and evaluation skills required for these research reports, and indeed the format, are quite different from essay based assignments and currently no consistent marking criteria exist for this type of assessment. It would clearly be of great benefit to students if clear and transparent marking criteria were to be created.

Using a focus group methodology, the project aim is to develop marking criteria in collaboration with undergraduate students and PGTAs (who mark these assessments) that are student centred in terms of assessment literacy, link to the grading scheme and clearly outline the relevant information required for each section of the report.

In this presentation we will discuss the preliminary findings from this project and outline the draft marking rubric, which may have applicability to students on other programmes where this type of assessment is required.

This work was funded by a CALT ChangeMakers grant.

Back to schedule for session 2–736

Real-time teaching of Medical Students in a compulsory multi-station assessment to assess the “does” at the top of Miller’s pyramid (Talk)

Caroline Fertleman (Site Sub-Dean, UCLMS, Medical Sciences), Ashley Reece (Undergraduate Lead, Watford Hospital, Chair START examinations RCPCH)

Aims

The Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health’s START assessment (Specialist Trainee Assessment of Readiness for Tenure) is a multi-station, scenario-based, formative assessment of consultant readiness. It is undertaken in the penultimate year of paediatric training and consists of 12 stations mapping to the General Medical Council’s Good Medical Practice domains. One of the areas assessed is teaching. We report an innovative scenario used in this assessment.

Methods

To assess trainees at the top of Miller’s pyramid we developed a novel teaching station for this assessment. The trainees were asked to prepare a micro-teach in the 4 minutes before the station to be delivered to two UCL clinical medical students during the 8 minute station. Topics related to general paediatrics. An assessor observes the teaching delivered. Feedback for the whole assessment, benchmarked against described standards is to the trainees’ e-portfolio.

Results

78 medical students were taught in pairs in five assessment sittings and 63 responded about their experience. The majority found it useful and enjoyable. Only one would not repeat it. Many wanted to become paediatricians and only half had decided this before this assessment. Most felt they should provide additional feedback to those being assessed and this will be introduced in 2016.

Conclusion

Using medical students for a live teaching within a high-stakes, multi-station assessment is novel. It reaches the top of Miller’s pyramid and maps to real life. The medical students who were taught found it worthwhile and for many confirmed their desire to be a paediatrician.

Back to schedule for session 3–736

An inclusive approach to developing an undergraduate syllabus (PechaKucha)

Hannah Jacob (ST3 Paediatrics, Academic Clinical Fellow, Medical Sciences), Caroline Fertleman (Consultant Paediatrician, Medical Sciences)

Aims

This project aimed to develop a national child health syllabus for medical students. We wanted a syllabus that was relevant and useable for students and educators.

Methods

We undertook focus groups with medical students, exploring their expectations of their child health placement and what they wanted from its syllabus. We also undertook a focus group with parents to gain their perspective on optimising the undergraduate child health experience in a way which worked for families.

We then undertook a modified Delphi process to establish the core knowledge, skills and attitudes in for medical students in child health.

Results

Eighteen medical students and seven parents participated in focus groups. They identified that clear, concise learning objectives with an emphasis on clinical exposure would improve their undergraduate experience.

Eighty people participated in the Delphi process, including medical students, clinicians and academics. Every UK medical school was represented. There were 141 core competencies identified which were compiled to form the final syllabus.

The syllabus has now been adopted by three medical schools with others expected to adopt it during upcoming curriculum reviews.

Discussion

This study demonstrates that an undergraduate syllabus can be developed using an inclusive approach. By involving a wide range of stakeholders, including students and parents, the syllabus is more useful and relevant with a sense of ownership for its intended users.

Back to schedule for session 3–736

Designing educational content with a secondary purpose: to improve student career self-efficacy (Talk)

Jamie Harle (Senior Teaching Fellow, FHEA, Engineering)

Career self-efficacy is defined as a student’s ability to correctly judge their performance across a spectrum of career behaviors relevant to their subsequent employment options. Enhancing career self-efficacy in a student cohort is linked to improving levels of student satisfaction and motivation. 

The presenter will discuss a proposed approach of designing postgraduate or final year undergraduate taught modules which incorporate some careers-focused content into the learning experience. Such educational design would simultaneously enable students to construct their understanding of topics in their field while gaining an insight into the likely workplace requirements (skillset, work conditions and personal development goals) of successfully practicing in that specific field. This strategy dual-equips UCL graduates with both an excellent learning experience of their subject and a clear vision of future career options and strategies, tailored to the individual strengths and interests and UCL research exposure of the student, to become a future leader in their field. 

The presentation will outline two educational developments being rolled out in 2016 to improve career self-efficacy within the content of a dual online/campus masters programme. One development uses a UCL Changemakers project that exploits student feedback in the production of a new online group design module, that will enable campus and online students to work collaboratively with defined group roles and responsibilities on a team task. Another development is a Connected Curriculum-themed enrichment resource that links lunchtime research seminar content and online alumni contributions to relevant UCL Careers resources, funded by a UCL Engineering Teaching and Learning Summer Studentship. 

Back to schedule for session 3–736

How can UCL help postgraduate professional students to make connections? (Talk)

Lucy Ireland (MSc student (Health & Medical Sciences) & Clinical Specialist Speech & Language Therapist, Population Health Sciences), Dexter Penn (MSc student (Health & Medical Sciences) & Clinician (acute geriatrics), Population Health Sciences)

The innovative Health and Medical Sciences (HMS) Programme enables healthcare professionals from diverse working backgrounds to tailor a study pathway appropriate to their individual interests and career ambitions by linking modules in a novel and personalised combination which would not otherwise be available. Now in its third intake, what has HMS achieved so far and what does the future hold?

With the backing of a ChangeMakers grant some of the challenges and opportunities of this new approach are being explored. The importance of an engagement event taking place later this year will be outlined.

• How can the uniqueness of individual personalised journeys be supported whilst nurturing their shared contributions?
• Can HMS help to find an identity for ‘hard to reach’ postgraduate professionals who want to extend their boundaries but may not recognise where to start?
• How can the HMS initiative help students to gain maximum added value from their personalised experience?

Back to schedule for session 1–736

Using an online pre-entry course to encourage early PGT engagement with career preparation (Talk)

Stephen Gurman (Careers Consultant, Professional Support/Central Services), Sophia Donaldson (Professional Support/Central Services)

PGT students in UK institutions face the challenge of commencing their course around the time when many graduate employers have already launched their recruitment schemes for the following year. Even where this is not the case, the one year duration of the course means that students might need to begin planning for their departure shortly after commencing their studies. This challenge can be particularly apparent at an institution like UCL, where many students are having their first taste of the market, culture and conventions in the UK.

To help to address this challenge, funding was obtained to develop a pilot pre-entry scheme to help improve career-readiness for PGT students before their arrival at UCL. This resulted in the creation of a Small Private Online Course (“SPOC”), hosted on the UCL eXtend platform, which was made available at the end of last Summer to around 8,000 UCL offer holders. The SPOC consisted of a mixture of video, activities, help sheets , and several opportunities to interact with staff at UCL Careers. The course was structured so that students could participate in particular areas of interest, rather than have to follow the whole course through.

Over 1,500 offer holders from 50 countries enrolled on the course. 100% of participants who gave feedback said they would recommend the course and 97% found it useful or very useful. 

Back to schedule for session 1–736

UCL’s Scandinavian Collections: Joint Danish and Norwegian Language Classes in the UCL Art Museum (Talk)

Elettra Carbone (Senior Teaching Fellow in Norwegian, Arts & Humanities), Jesper Hansen (Senior Teaching Fellow in Danish, Arts & Humanities)

A number of scholars have pointed out the important role that University Museums and Collections play in supporting research education (Duhs 2010; Verschelde 2013) but less attention has been given to their applications to the curriculum design of language courses at all levels, from ab initio to advanced. In the autumn of 2015 we began a collaborative project with UCL Art Museum, combining aspects that we had already worked with over the past four years. The main aims were to:

• develop a platform for introducing joint Danish and Norwegian classes: despite the similarities between the two languages and the career advantages of navigating both languages, students have often struggled to communicate with each other using each their language of study;
• introduce research-based learning and object-based learning in the Danish and Norwegian classroom using materials already at UCL.

Having compiled a list of Scandinavian items from UCL’s Collections – ranging from the engravings of illustrations used in a nineteenth-century travel book on Norway to documents relating to Scandinavian journeys by former UCL staff members J. B. S. Haldane (1892–1964) and Hugh Gaitskell (1906–1963) – we designed three joint Danish and Norwegian classes for each language year-group (basic, intermediate and advanced) based on these objects, assessment and a pop-up exhibition. In this presentation we will report the results of this project and propose a model for the use of objects from university museums and archives in language teaching. 

Back to schedule for session 1–739

Teaching translation technology at UCL: Learning by getting your hands dirty (Talk)

Mark Shuttleworth (Senior Lecturer, Arts & Humanities), Pablo Fernandez Candina (MA student)

Translation technology is a subject that UCL has only recently started teaching. However, the two Masters-level modules ‘Understanding and using Translation Technology’ I and II are the result of nearly twenty years’ experience teaching translation memory and machine translation. These modules are based on the following principles: focusing on both theory and practice; encouraging the use of the software covered for practical translation work elsewhere on the Masters; fostering a sense of teamwork; developing a task-based approach to learning; collaborating within UCL where possible. Overall, the aim is to produce versatile problem-solvers rather than making participants dependent on a particular software system.

Last year we worked with the Petrie Museum to produce translations of their ‘Top Ten Objects’ document and this year we have run a similar project. For these, in order to recreate real working conditions each student assumes a specific role (translator, project manager, etc.) within teams that work against a strict deadline.

This year the modules are being enhanced and extended by the inclusion of the TermSeeker E-Learning Development Grant project, which aims to design and develop a mobile terminology app in collaboration with students from the Department of Computer Science. This allows student participants to apply knowledge from the modules in a very practical manner. It is intended that the finalised app will not only help users with their terminology queries but also generate research data for the developers.

The presentation will be given from the point of view of both module teacher and current student.

Back to schedule for session 1–739

Stories and Anchors: Historical Thinking and Object-based learning (Talk)

Andrew Smith (Teaching Fellow, Social & Historical Sciences)

Recognising the classroom as a space which is limited only by convention, teaching has developed to comprise a broader range of activities that place the learner at the centre of the process. This paper will look at the teaching of history and the use of object-based learning, drawing on personal experience to look at successful models or developing practice. By unpacking how this engages the learner, this paper will look at two different approaches to object-based learning that can be combined to foster agency and historical thinking.

In particular, I aim to discuss how collaboration with the UCL Art Museum on object-based learning has influenced my teaching more broadly. Firstly, I will look at the use of objects as a basis for reciprocal story-telling in the classroom and beyond; and, secondly, as an illustrative and tangible anchor for abstract historical analysis. Both of these strategies recognise the value of the “textual object”, and seek to enable a deeper sense of historical thinking which grants agency to the learner and invites creative responses and engagement. The former focusses particularly on fostering enquiry-based learning, and the latter on the importance of embodied learning. Both processes are interactive and mutually compatible, offering distinct opportunities for dynamic teaching and learning.

Back to schedule for session 2–739

London as part of our Campus: an example from Dutch Studies (Talk)

Ulrich Tiedau (Senior Lecturer, Arts & Humanities)

Did you know that the oldest Dutch Protestant church in the world (1550) is located in the City of London, and a Belgian Catholic Church, founded for refugees in WWI, in Camden Town? That famous Dutch architect H.P. Berlage in 1916 built a modern office building right next to the contemporary ‘Guerkin’, and its interior was designed by Belgian art-deco-master Henry van de Velde? That a historic Dutch pub from 1890 is located right in the middle of Chinatown? These and many other hidden Dutch and Flemish histories of London have been researched by staff and students of UCL Dutch and turned into an open learning resource for everybody interested in Anglo-Dutch encounters over the centuries.

Starting from the suggestion to regard “London as part of our campus” (Provost’s Green Paper 2011–2021), this combined Learning and Public Engagement project started in 2013 with the dual intention to engage students as co-producers of knowledge, and to raise awareness of the manifold connections and exchanges between London and the Low Countries in the wider public. The results have been released in form of a GIS-driven website and a smartphone-app, developed in collaboration with UCL Computer Science students.

The talk will not only introduce the newly available resource, which also demonstrates the intensity and density of Dutch and Belgian influences in the British capital, but also reflect on its development process and use in the classroom, as well as reflect on how teaching and learning and public engagement can be combined with other.

Back to schedule for session 2–739

Using historical source material in teaching - the past and contemporary issues (Workshop)

Tom Woodin (Reader in the social history of education, IOE), Nazlin Bhimani (Research Support & Special Collections Librarian, IOE)

This workshop will enable participants to consider how historical sources can be used in teaching and learning in order to foster a long view of social, political, economic and cultural issues. It has developed from discussions with learners on a variety of modules relating to the humanities, social science and education. Despite recent policy trends, historians, librarians and archivists who preserve historical collections for research, have shown the relevance of the past both in its own terms and for understanding the modern world. As a result, the workshop will offer a strategy for linking research and teaching at UCL. We will engage participants through a presentation, a group exercise and discussion. A brief introduction will outline the potential for historical material in teaching and learning across a range of subjects. Participants will have the opportunity to think critically about specific sources linked to contemporary issues. The sources will help us to examine ‘changes and continuities’: the ways in which the past is both a ‘foreign country’ as well as how it continues to be felt in the present. As a result, we aim to make familiar contemporary issues appear strange and specific in time and place. The origins of contemporary issues; the strangeness of the contemporary and the need to apply a critical lens to modern assumptions will all be assessed. Participants will consider how historical approaches could support their specific areas of teaching and learning.

Back to schedule for session 3–739

Using UCL’s Core Behaviours Framework to enhance student partnerships and the teaching experience (Discussion Group)

Richard Laughlin (Organisational Development Consultant, Professional Support/Central Services)

Can UCL’s Core Behaviours Framework help you develop yourpartnership working with students and help you enhance the way in which your students engage with your teaching? Developed in 2012, UCL’s Core Behaviours Framework identifies nine areas of behavioural (including ‘effective communication’ and ‘working collaboratively’) where skill ormastery should help promote better and more effectivestaff and student interactions, irrespective of where in the university they work or study. 

The discussion will focus on how using the Frameworkmay help you todevelop the behavioural skills to form effective working partnerships with studentsand to enhance the ease with which you engage with students when teaching.Possible areas for discussionincludeusing the Frameworktoincrease your self-awareness and inter-personal skills when teaching and to identify those behaviours associated with successful staff-student partnerships.The discussion mayalso focus on using the Frameworkas a lens through which to view student behaviours and responses to your teaching and partnership activity and as a tool to help you develop an appropriate response.

Back to schedule for session 1–744

Maximising StARs’ Ability to Make Change (Discussion Group)

Simon To (Representation & Campaigns Manager, UCLU, Professional Support/Central Services), Tom Flynn (Representation & Campaigns Co-ordinator (Education), UCLU, Professional Support/Central Services)

Over 1,000 StARs at UCL work in partnership with staff in their departments to make change on behalf of their peers. Many are able to make a significant impact and take real pride in their work, but some StARs face barriers when trying to achieve change and can get frustrated with their inability to influence. 

In this session, UCLU staff will briefly introduce the work we undertake to support StARs in their role as representatives and change agents, and some of the successes that StARs have had in making change. We will then lead a discussion on what steps can be taken to maximise the ability of StARs, and the students they represent, to influence and improve their educational experience.

Back to schedule for session 1–744

What does authoritative knowledge look like? Race and student-teacher relations at UCL (Discussion Group)

Kamna Patel (Lecturer, Bartlett, Built Environment), Fiona McClement (Acting Head of Equalities & Diversity)

UCL’s steps to increase BME representation in the student body and across staff at all levels through widening participation initiatives and staff mentoring schemes, are commendable. Yet, such efforts are in danger of a segmented approach to race in higher education, where ‘student-related’ issues are engaged with in one strategic target and ‘staff-related’ issues in another. Whereas, ideas of race and racism are forged and structurally embedded in society, and reproduced in the academy, which is a social institution that reflects racialised structures of power.

The topic of this discussion group aims to relocate discussions of race in teaching and learning at UCL within societal constructions of race and racism. We have chosen to focus on how authoritative knowledge - the central tenant of any university in both teaching and research - is represented at UCL, specifically, the role race plays in mediating student and teacher relations with the understanding that ideas of race and racism enter a classroom as students and teachers enter it and is ever-present in the assumptions and expectations of teaching and learning that are held by students particularly.

For this discussion group, we would like to invite teaching staff at UCL (who may or may not identify as a racial minority) to discuss the central themes emerging from a literature review on race, teaching and learning, and universities. The content of the discussion will inform a research project based at UCL and is supported by the Education and Student Affairs Office on race and student-teacher relations at UCL.

Back to schedule for session 2–744

Should educational assessments be automated? (Discussion Group)

Jay Derrick (Director of Post-Compulsory Teacher Education, IOE)

Automated systems are now used routinely in many medical diagnostic procedures (for example in interpreting X ray photographs), and in legal contexts where they can scan millions of legal texts and accurately and quickly determine which are relevant to a particular case (see for example Ford 2015). These systems are already highly accurate, but they can also be said to learn – the more they do, the better they get at the task. They are also, of course, relatively cheap.

Automatedsystems are beginning to be usedfor educational assessment too. They can scan written assignments, let’s say in philosophy, compare what they ‘read’ with millions of similar texts (in the way, for example that Google Translate works), and provide qualitative feedback with a high statistical likelihood of apparent accuracy. The more texts that are made available to them, the better they become at doing this. 

This discussion will explore the pros and cons of automated educational assessment:

• Would using automated systems be morally justified?
• Would it be accurate and reliable enough?
• Are there possible unintended consequences we should worry about?
• Should we worry about putting examiners out of work?
• Are there areas of educational assessment which should never be automated?
• If we identify problems with automated educational assessment, can it be prevented?

Ford M (2015). The Rise of the Robots: Technology and the threat of mass unemployment. London: OneWorld Publications

Back to schedule for session 2–744

A Novel Way of Communicating Science: Developing an Online Teaching Resource to Bring 3D Prints to the Classroom (Talk)

Thore Mainart Bücking (PhD Student in Medical Physics and Biomedical Engineering, Engineering), Efthymios Maneas (PhD Student in Medical Physics and Biomedical Engineering), Daniil Nikitichev (Research Associate in Medical Physics and Biomedical Engineering)

We report the development of a pragmatic teaching programme with the objective of teaching the skills and concepts necessary to create successful 3D prints. The programme is based on a set of lectures and a standalone online platform providing a centralised source of information.

3D printers are becoming more and more readily available, but to exploit this emerging technology, specialist knowledge in computer aided design (CAD) is required. Our programme offers a taught overview of the existing printing technologies, detailing design considerations for CAD drawings for 3D prints. The focus is to teach design basics using OnShape, a freely available cloud-based CAD program. For this, we have created a database of videos, curated to teach everything needed to create your own print: from the first CAD drawing to the realised object.

Students, research and teaching staff can benefit from the acquired expertise to create custom parts and teaching models without any previous CAD knowledge or the need for a mechanical workshop. Custom parts like holders are often necessary in engineering research, while the models can be used as educational objects, explaining complex scientific concepts. This can be used to demonstrate 3D geometry directly, or even to visualise more abstract data. For example, atomic force microscopy images can be brought into the real world to demonstrate the operating principle of the imaging system. Such models can also clarify the research projects and concepts at Public Engagement and Outreach Activities.

The opportunity for this work was provided by UCL ChangeMakers.

Back to schedule for session 3–744

Development of Functional Models: 3D printed models for ultrasound-guided surgical training and an image to model conversion pipeline (Talk)

Emma Hill (PhD Student in Medical Physics and Biomedical Engineering, Engineering), James Louis Robertson (PhD Student in Medical Physics and Biomedical Engineering), Daniil Nikitichev (Research Associate in Medical Physics and Biomedical Engineering)

3D printing techniques are increasingly used in engineering science, allowing the use of computer aided design (CAD) to rapidly and inexpensively create prototypes and components. There is also growing interest in the application of these techniques in a clinical context for the creation of anatomically accurate 3D printed models from medical images for therapeutic, research and teaching applications. The aim of the present work was to develop a pipeline for the conversion of medical imaging data to 3D printed models and produce functional prints as teaching examples. 

Clinical partners identified a requirement for practical kidney and rib models for use in surgical teaching and planning of complex cases. Medical images were segmented to extract volumes of interest, which were refined and exported to 3D printing software. UCL 3D printing resources were used to build high quality, functional models for use as teaching and planning aids for ultrasound-guided surgical procedures.

The image processing techniques, software, and practical 3D printing training were then outlined in a set of online teaching materials designed to allow students to create 3D printed models from medical image data. The development of the rib and kidney models were included as worked examples.

These resources will be of use to anyone with little or no previous experience in medical image processing who have identified a potential application for 3D printing in a medical context, or those with a more general interest in the techniques discussed.

This work was funded by a UCL ChangeMakers grant.

Back to schedule for session 3–744

Workshop: 3D printing – a novel way of communicating science and developing functional models for training medical and non-medical students (Workshop)

Daniil Nikitichev (Research Associate in Medical Physics and Biomedical Engineering, Engineering), James Louis Robertson (PhD Student in Medical Physics and Biomedical Engineering), George Dwyer (PhD Student in Medical Physics and Biomedical Engineering)

This workshop will follow two talks related to 3D printing technology: “A Novel Way of Communicating Science” and “Development of Functional Models”. 

Three-dimensional printing or rapid prototyping (RP) technology has been widely used in a variety of scientific areas: biotechnology, medical science, chemistry, dentistry and others. RP is the process of fabricating arbitrarily shaped 3D objects, layer by layer from a stream of raw materials (plastics, metals and ceramics). This technology dramatically reduces production time and cost.

In this workshop, attendees will become familiar with an overview of the existing printing technologies, practical considerations of computer aided design (CAD) and a 3D printer via live demonstration. We will present a standalone online platform providing a centralised source of information including a database of videos, designed to teach everything needed to create your own print. This is achieved with OnShape, a freely available cloud-based CAD program.

Clinicians or those interested in the medical field will be able to see a number of anatomically accurate 3D models, including kidney, ribs, and brain. These models were developed from medical imaging data and will be used for research and teaching purposes. They can also clarify research projects and concepts at Public Engagement and Outreach Activities.

The workshop will be of great benefit to anyone interested in communicating science using the latest technologies, or those with a more general interest in 3D printing.

This work was funded by a UCL ChangeMakers grant.

Back to schedule for session 3–744

FERMAT-vle: challenging maths problems, powered by Mathematica (Discussion Group)

Andrew Wills (Reader, Mathematical & Physical Sciences)

Despite much effort, maths still sits uncomfortably within E-learning. Common institutional VLEs, such as Moodle and Blackboard, are unable to work at the level required by Higher Education in the STEM subjects. 

The approach taken here focusses on students facing the challenge of working out an answer and developing their own understanding of where they went wrong. The project title, FERMAT-vle, is inspired by the quest to prove Fermat’s last theorem - where the question and the answer were known and finding the proof was a challenge that became a formidable adventure across the fields of maths. 

FERMAT-vle is able to calculate complex mathematical questions, answers, and to assess the correctness of student responses using extended Mathematica calculations. As well as full questions, short component questions can be used as a feed-forward tool whereby the students are able to validate the correctness of their understanding while being guided to points of possible error. The goal of FERMAT-vle is not to replace key learning resources, such as books and lectures, or to give worked answers that could reduce motivation to engage with them. It is instead to create an E-platform that helps students appraise how they are progressing and to reflect upon it. In terms of software, FERMAT-vle is a web system that is integrated with Mathematica. The questions, answers, and correctness can be calculated using extended Mathematica code and the maths typeset using the traditional form. Topics from foundation maths to research-grade modules in the STEM disciplines can be supported. 

Back to schedule for session 1–746

Creating and using Turnitin Rubrics for effective assessment and feedback (Discussion Group)

Simon Jackson (MSc Programme Director, Mathematical & Physical Sciences), Matt Whyndham (Department Graduate Tutor, Mathematical & Physical Sciences), Benoit Pigneur (MSc Tutor, Mathematical & Physical Sciences), Jane Britton (Principal Teaching Fellow, Engineering)

Have you tried to use Turnitin rubrics for marking assignments and providing feedback to students? If you have, then you have probably experienced how difficult it is to properly construct appropriate phrases (feedback text) in the cells.

Please come and join our discussion where we will explore the practicalities of using rubrics. We want to offer our experience and hear from colleagues:

1. The art of writing a descriptor that provides meaningful information to students, enabling them to see the level where they are at and what they need to do to achieve a higher mark.
2. Making sure that the criteria and descriptors match learning outcomes for modules and programmes.
3. Knowing when to use additional comments to enhance feedback.
4. Coping with a variety of student approaches on assignments or research modules.

We aim to capture good practices for sharing across the institution.

Our background: With growing student numbers on our Postgraduate programmes, we wanted to find a way of managing the increased marking workload, using a number of different markers who were not co-located and had different levels of marking experience. We were motivated to enhance marker-to-marker consistency and to develop assessment skills in the department.

Concurrently, students have been demanding more detailed and helpful feedback to help them progress.

To address these issues, we invested time in implementing Turnitin Rubrics for a variety of assessments, with careful consideration of the criteria and attributes in the scales. Students have been involved in this development.

Back to schedule for session 1–746

Using object-based learning in teaching and learning about evolution (Discussion Group)

Paul Davies (Senior Lecturer in Science Education, IOE), Joanne Nicholl (Lecturer in Science Education, IOE), Dean Veall (Learning and Access Officer, Grant Museum of Zoology)

This Discussion reports on a research project which brings together UCL IOE student teachers, their lecturers and experts at the UCL Grant Museum of Zoology. The ongoing project is focused on using objects from the museum to help student teachers (both primary and secondary) develop both their subject and pedagogical knowledge about biological evolution.

Through promoting memory building, the sensory exploration of objects has an important role in learning. Object-based learning (OBL) has also been shown to encourage curiosity and questioning skills, deepen subject knowledge and encourage teamwork and reflection.

In the project, student teachers took part in a number of workshops that explored a range of OBL approaches the museum currently runs for school children. The student teachers critically analysed their design through hands-on activities and personal reflection away from the workshops. As well as develop personal subject knowledge about evolution, the culmination of this work has been the teachers designing their own activity which the museum has then delivered with school children the teacher has brought to the museum. This has allowed the teacher to reflect on their own learning and better understand how they can make use of museums in their practice.

This Discussion Group will introduce the audience to the theory of OBL and the project and then explore a series of OBL interactive activities, led by our student teachers, which encourage them to reflect on the role of objects in learning and their own perceptions of how OBL might relate to their own practice. 

Back to schedule for session 2–746

Facilitating student self-reflection and professional judgment through real-life projects (Discussion Group)

Theano Moussouri (Senior Lecturer in Museum Studies, Social & Historical Sciences),Sahava Baranow (MA Museum Studies student),Kitty Hadaway (MA Museum Studies student), Tayla Camp (MA Museum Studies student), Qing Qin (MA Museum Studies student)

This presentation will focus on a current ChangeMaker project co-developed with a group of Museum Studies students and co-run with the Jewish Museum. The project aims: 1) to provide an insight into what the process of working in a group project involves from the students’ point of view, and 2) to share this insight with other students in later cohorts as well as beyond this particular project/module. Using Facebook and face-to-face meetings to coordinate their activities and reflect on their experiences and choices, students document the teamwork process in such a way that insights from their practices can be available for future cohorts to learn from across different MA programmes. Specifically, this project will follow the learning journey of a group of five MA Museum Studies students who will develop a Late Opening event associated with theBloodexhibition [http://www.jewishmuseum.org.uk/blood] of the Jewish Museum.

This presentation will share staff and student insights into group work and its assessment. It will refer to key teaching, learning and assessment principles that can be applied across a number of subjects and disciplines. Specifically, participants will come away with an understanding of the following: What are the most fruitful practices, and the pitfalls, of dividing up work on a whole into parts which individuals carry out, and must knit together? Which technologies/practices help and which hinder? How can team work be assessed at both a formative and summative stage, and how students’ self-assessment and reflection inform formal assessment criteria?

Back to schedule for session 2–746

Promoting research behaviours in first year physics undergraduate students (Discussion Group)

Kirsty Dunnett (PGTA, Mathematical & Physical Sciences), Paul Bartlett (Principal Teaching Fellow)

An assessment aspect that considered student behaviour while conducting experiments was introduced to large size first year physics undergraduate laboratories to promote inquiry into experiments, in keeping with the philosophy of training undergraduate students as independent researchers. This was extending an existing concept [1] to experiments covering multiple sessions and, in conjunction with the introduction of less prescriptive scripts, aimed to reward students who dared to explore beyond the limits of the guidance provided.

The quality of laboratory notebooks had previously been assessed in (sometimes lengthy) individual discussions between students and demonstrators and the content assessed via a data retrieval test at the end of the module. With an almost 30% increase in class size, the individual discussions, which were already preventing demonstrators supporting students while conducting the experiments, were dominating demonstrators’ time in the laboratory. The aspects discussed in these interviews were transferred to moodle quizzes that asked students to critically examine examples of key laboratory notebook aspects.

The new assessment programme greatly increased the amount of time that demonstrators were available to all students (bringing the reality much closer to their expectations) and rewards students who investigated or extended the experiments beyond the scope of the scripts.

[1] G. L. Lippi, “Improving Students’ Lab Practices: the Performance Grade”, ArXiv:1503.07182

Back to schedule for session 3–746

Student/Teacher co-development of a Smart Clothing scenario (Discussion Group)

Jennifer Griffiths (Principal Teaching Fellow, Engineering), Stecia Fletcher (Final year MPhys Medical Physics undergraduate)

The BEng/MEng in Engineering (Biomedical) started in 2014, and introduced innovative engineering scenarios – week-long intensive group research-based learning tasks – to reinforce students’ core subject knowledge and develop their transferable skills. 

The concept for the third scenario for the students was ambitious: students would be given an open-ended brief to create a piece of smart clothing to aid a marathon runner. It was essential that we prepared well for the week so that we understood the project from a student’s perspective.

Stecia Fletcher, a third year Medical Physics MSci student, was employed on a Teaching and Learning Studentship over Summer 2015 to aid in the preparation of the scenario that first ran in October 2015. She carried out the scenario twice using different techniques to solve the problem, simulating a range of processes that the Biomedical Engineering students might undertake. She logged all aspects of her work and then identified the skills and laboratory equipment that would be needed to ensure smooth running during the scenario week.

Stecia’s involvement was essential in creating a successful student experience*, mitigating unknowns associated with an open-ended scenario brief, and highlighting and then providing solutions for areas where the Biomedical Engineering students might require additional support. 

We will present the work Stecia undertook during her Summer Studentship and discuss the advantages gained by staff and students working together to co-create the scenario, in the spirit of UCL Changemakers. We’ll also show some highlights of the inaugural smart clothing scenario week.

• see https://www.ucl.ac.uk/teaching-learning/case-studies-news/peer-assisted-learning/second-year-problem-solving-scenarios for more information

Back to schedule for session 3–746

The Challenges of Changemakers - Engaging with a difficult audience (Talk)

Jane Burns (Principal Teaching Fellow, Engineering), Jack Reynolds (Student)

During the autumn term a group of 35 3rd year students taking an module in marketing communications, wrestled with the challenges of engaging students with UCL ChangeMakers. They undertook original research, synthesised responses to theory taught, developed plans and produced sample physical and audio visual materials. In essence they became ‘meta ChangeMakers’, some of their ideas and innovations will be implemented in the coming months, either directly by the ChangeMaker programme or through a range of other ChangeMaker projects.

This short presentation gives a taste of their work and reflects on its impact on the students own learning and engagement. 

Watch out…. there are ChangeMakers about! 

Back to schedule for session 1–777

What does research based learning look like? A case study (Talk)

Tony McNeill (SELCS Undergraduate and Examinations Tutor, Arts & Humanities)

This paper presents my ongoing reflections on research-based learning in the context of teaching an undergraduate module on book history (_ELCS6091: From Codex to Kindle: Introduction of the History of the Book_). The concept of research-based learning as articulated in the Connected Curriculum focuses on the development of undergraduate research skills at a programme level. My case study, however, considers ways in which students might develop research capacities at a stand-alone module level through a variety of portfolio-based activities culminating in a small student-initiated research project. 

Although this presentation seeks to challenge some of the assumptions of one aspect of the Connected Curriculum, it has a practical orientation insofar as it will focus specifically on questions that I feel are key to the implmentation of research-based learning: 

• How do we teach basic research skills?
• How do we share our own research and history as researchers?
• What activities might we design to prepare students for the various process of research?
• How do we manage ethical approval at undergraduate level?
• How might we integrate digital environments and resources to support the development of research-based learning?
• To what extent might we encourage more multimodal research outputs?
• Can we ensure consistency in assessing a diverse range of research outputs? 

Back to schedule for session 1–777

Learning in the 21st Century - Looking back at #LearnHack 2015 (Talk)

Janina Dewitz (Innovations Officer, Professional Support/Central Services)

#LearnHack was a 2 ½ day hackathon event in November 2015. It was organised as a collaboration between UCL E-Learning Environments and UCL Advances, specifically AppLab.

Under the broad banner “Let’s hack for learning”, the aim of the event was to generate ideas and prototypes on how existing UCL learning and teaching resources and services might be improved, augmented or rebuilt. In order to attract the most diverse audience possible, the event was open to anyone with a UCL email address: students, teaching staff, researchers, professional services, etc.

Fueled by chocolate, pizza and great coffee, attendees spent all of Saturday and most of Sunday working on their projects. A number of ISD staff had volunteered a few hours of their weekend to provide advice on specific technologies and offer a helping hand with projects. There were also a small number of short workshops on selected tools and topics on offer. 

This presentation will tell the story of how #LearnHack came about and explore how the hackathon format might offer the perfect 21st century learning environment. 

Back to schedule for session 2–777

Trialling the My Feedback report at UCL (Talk)

Jessica Gramp (E-Learning Facilitator, Professional Support/Central Services)

Currently, electronic feedback can only be accessed by looking at individual assessments within Moodle courses. There is no single view where a student can see their feedback across modules.

UCL has recently been trialing a system in UCL Moodle to enable students and their Personal Tutors to view their feedback and grades in one place.

This plugin is currently under development as part of a UCL project and is being trialled by a selection of students and staff in Engineering.

In this session we will take a look at the My Feedback report and discuss how it can be used by students and staff to understand the feedback students receive and to help identifying any common areas that require improvement.

Back to schedule for session 2–777

Phys FilmMakers (Talk)

Laura McKemmish (Research Associate, Mathematical & Physical Sciences), Bex Coates (Scientific Communicator)

Short videos are a powerful medium to communicate scientific ideas in an engaging and informative manner, as illustrated by the success of the YouTube format. As part of the UCL ChangeMakers program, we organised for 3–6 second-year undergraduate Physics students to get formal training, then produce short videos on research within the department and on a self-selected advanced topic in atomic and molecular physics. Guidance and support on the process of effective film-making was provided by a professional scientific communicator throughout the course. We discuss student and staff feedback on this experience and compare against results from similar feedback in the education literature. We explore both the successes and difficulties of our approach, in terms of the following key objectives: 

(1) to connect students to research within the Physics department, 

(2) to improve student’s communication skills, 

(3) increase and diversify student’s scientific understanding, 

(4) increase student motivation by connecting learning to real-world relevant activities, and 

(5) practicality in terms of student and staff time and financial resources. 

The course concluded with a popcorn screening for the Physics department, as well as family and friends of the students. We will also present formal and informal feedback from uninvolved staff members regarding the resulting videos. We summarise the effectiveness of this approach to training scientists in new technology communication techniques. We conclude by discussing possible avenues for future courses of this type, include larger scale implementation within courses and as a potential assessment activity. 

Back to schedule for session 3–777

Inter-year Student Change-Making for a Practical Physics Experiment (Talk)

Paul Bartlett (Principal Teaching Fellow, Mathematical & Physical Sciences), Samer Al-Kilani (Electronic Engineer, , Mathematical & Physical Sciences), Richard Tweed (MSci Student 3rd Year, Mathematical & Physical Sciences), James Claxton (MSci Student 2nd Year, Mathematical & Physical Sciences)

In the past, students have had very little direct influence over the work that is done by others. Traditionally at UCL, their opinions have shaped future courses via end of course questionnaires but this is a rather indirect method to support change. This has also applied to the practical physics courses run within UCL. 

Consequently, a team of two undergraduate physics students have been formed (under the supervision of an electronic engineer) to create a new experiment supplement for future 1st year students.

In the first year practical physics course, there is one experiment where students have to measure the oscillation frequency of a bouncing ball (within a complex thermodynamic system) using their eyes and a stopwatch. It was decided that a 2nd year student (who has had recent exposure to this system) and a more experienced 3rd year student would design and build an automated measurement system which uses an ‘electronic eye’ or their own design with a Raspberry Pi computer undertaking the measurements and calculating the values for the oscillating frequency. In addition, this system would use a programming language, Python, that both students are learning in other courses. It also shows students how computer programming can be used to interface with experimental systems rather than just being a tool for ‘number crunching’. 

The students are responsible with coming up with the technical solution, proposing how this can be used in the 1st year physics laboratories and helping to develop laboratory scripts for their more junior colleagues.

This means that students from different years are working together to improve the learning and research experience for those that are coming through the system after them. In addition, they work with electronics and education experts so that they can achieve their objectives. 

It is proposed that this is a model for other departments to follow if they wish to directly involve students in the development of course materials that draws on their strengths and gives them experience of delivering work packages.

Back to schedule for session 3–777

Changing ways of connecting online: A future learning environment for UCL (Talk)

Eileen Kennedy (Projects Officer, Digital Education, Professional Support/Central Services), Steve Rowett (Digital Education)

The development of digital technologies have brought many changes to the ways we understand teaching and learning at Universities. These changes can be seen in both pedagogy as well as the spaces that we use for teaching and learning. According to Nordquist and Laing (2015, p. 339) active learning experiences are increasingly “facilitated and enriched by networked connective information technologies” and the new learning landscape combines physical, virtual, informal and formal spaces for education. This suggests that a learning environment that supports the Connected Curriculum would be flexible and adaptable: “highly connective, permeable, and networked (physically and digitally)” (Nordquist and Laing 2015, p. 341). Such an environment would support students’ “freedom to access, create, and recreate their learning content; and … opportunities to interact outside of a learning system” (Tu, Sujo-montes, and Arizona 2012, p. 13).

This paper presents the progress of our exploration into digital support for this kind of connected learning environment, focused on two concepts: Networks and Challenges. The concept of “Networks” has led us to tools and platforms that could support connections between teachers, researchers, students and the outside world. Digital tools could offer the possibilities of personalised recommendations of people and content to connect with, an absence of hierarchy, ease of use and multimedia communication. The concept of “Challenges” addresses new event-based ways of learning (Sharples et al. 2014), providing dynamic, collaborative education. We will present examples of these two approaches and invite feedback about their viability at UCL. 

References

Nordquist, Jonas, and Andrew Laing. 2015. “Designing Spaces for the Networked Learning Landscape.” Medical Teacher 37 (4) (April 10): 337–43. 

Sharples, Mike, Anne Adams, Rebecca Ferguson, Mark Gaved, Patrick Mcandrew, Bart Rienties, Martin Weller, and Denise Whitelock. 2014. “Innovating Pedagogy: Open University Innovation Report 3.” Milton Keynes.

Tu, By Chih-hsiung, Laura Sujo-montes, and Northern Arizona. 2012. “Personal Learning Environments & Open Network Learning Environments.” TechTrends 56 (3): 13–19.

Back to schedule for session 1–780

Flipped Classrooms: An evaluation of their use for teaching post-graduate statistics (Talk)

Richard Freeman (Senior Lecturer in Research Methods, IOE)

Communicating complex statistical concepts in 50-minute lecture slots to students, some of whom find the material challenging, can be difficult. Therefore, in 2014–15, I trialled the use of ‘flipped classrooms’ in my post-graduate statistics module. In flipped classrooms, the traditional model of teaching is ‘flipped’. Pre-recorded lectures are watched at home or elsewhere and the class time is used for activities and discussion. All the lectures in the 14-week module were pre-recorded and uploaded to Moodle along with extra optional lecture material. Student feedback suggested that the trial was a great success, with the overall mean evaluation improving from 2.72 to 3.35 (p < 0.001) with 93% of overall ratings being in the top two categories. Students were able to control their study with this control especially valuable to students with dyslexia or for whom English was a foreign language. There were benefits too for absentees and for revision purposes. In addition, there was no constraint of lectures being precisely 50 minutes in length and could add additional mini-lectures where appropriate; the face-to-face time could then be more student-led. Flipped classrooms are not a panacea. However, for a topic like statistics, they do appear to be an invaluable pedagogic form that enables the student to be in control of their learning, enabling them to develop confidence in an area that many find challenging. 

Back to schedule for session 1–780

The ABCs of rapid blended course design (Talk)

Natasa Perovic (Digital Education Advisor, Professional Support/Central Services), Clive Young (Digital Education Senior Advisor, Professional Support/Central Services)

How do we best help our time-pressured academics design rich blended and online courses? To address this timeless conundrum, UCL has developed ABC, an effective and engaging hands-on workshop that has now been trialled with great success over a range of programmes. In just 90 minutes using a game format teams are able to work together to create a visual ‘storyboard’ outlining the type and sequence of learning activities (both online and offline) required to meet the module’s learning outcomes. ABC is particularly useful for new programmes or those changing to an online or more blended format. We are currently expanding the initiative and developing a set of online support resources.

Back to schedule for session 2–780

Strategies for improving student engagement in distance-learning MSc programs (Talk)

William Dennis (MSc Student Tutor for Distance Learning, Engineering), Jamie Harle (MSc programme director), Anna Nikopoulou (MSc Student Tutor for Campus Learning, Engineering)

Graduation rates for distance-learning programmes are low, historically, compared with conventional face-to-face education. The Open University found graduation rates for distance-learning courses were a quarter that of UK higher education graduation rates1. Similar figures have been found for the MSc in Physics and Engineering in Medicine by distance learning, now in its 5th year. The number of UCL distance-learning MSc courses continues to rise to meet increased demand. This talk looks to share successful practices in retaining students on our distance-learning MSc.

100% of distance-learning students currently on the programme are flexible-learners, taking between 2–5 years to complete the course. All students are in full-time employment, aged 25–48, studying in their evenings, weekends and free time. Many students struggle to find regular time to study, sometimes going missing, out of contact with the course team as the demands of work and family change. The MSc course team have designed multiple methods to track student progress, give feedback and plan practical routes through a flexible MSc programme. These strategies aim to promote student engagement and improve graduation rates. 

This talk takes a detailed look at the strategies used to help distance-learning students succeed and discourage despair while studying. Its findings should have applications for other distance-learning programmes and provide encouragement for UCL MSc courses thinking of providing a distance-learning route. It will also be useful for campus-based degree courses basing their teaching around online learning environments such as Moodle.

Back to schedule for session 2–780

Active Flipped Learning (Talk)

Matt Smith (Learning Technologist, Engineering)

The Flipped Classroom has become synonymous with the use of video. We argue that effective ‘flipping’ requires much more than providing pre-recorded lectures and in this session will share our experiences of using flipped classroom pedagogies with a cohort of 80 students, from diverse disciplines and different academic levels.

We will demonstrate how, through our use of exclusively institution supported technologies, we have created a series of interactive learning events which encourage students to actively engage with flipped content, and in doing so shape the learning that takes place during contact time.

Back to schedule for session 3–780

A template for flipped teaching - build a module in 4 months (Talk)

Steven David Buckingham (Senior Teaching Fellow, Medical Sciences)

I will demonstrate a template that allows the rapid development of flipped courses at University level. I will do this by taking the audience on a rapid tour of the Applied Medical Sciences program, demonstrating how it pulls online learning and face-to-face learning together. AMS is probably the most advanced degree in UCL in its novel approach to teaching and the way online learning is integrated. 

The first module was built from scratch in 4 months, and the template I describe is the result of this achievement. Audience will benefit from the talk in 2 ways:

1. They will gain an insight into a new way of combining online and face-to-face teaching
2. They will see how to apply the structure to new modules

Back to schedule for session 3–780

Teaching local and remote students simultaneously: Does live streaming work? (PechaKucha)

Tim Neumann (Learning Technologies Unit Lead, IOE)

The idea is simple: 

Take a microphone, a computer and perhaps a camera, then broadcast teaching sessions including the projector screen over the web, along with a back channel to allow for responses from the remote participants.

It is one possible answer to the increase in student numbers and the associated lack of teaching space, and the potential benefits tick many boxes:

We can continue doing what we are doing using our real estate, and then include more students by extending into the virtual estate. Some students cannot or might not want to be in Central London, while others such as those on Tier 4 visas have to. By using new technology, we can innovate our teaching methods, improve ways and quality of teaching, and increase flexibility for students. We can open up our teaching to external participants in the spirit of the Connected Curriculum and draw in professionals, outside experts, or give the general public an authentic taste of learning at UCL, no matter where they are. ChangeMakers would certainly be able to identify further enhancements or help streamline workflows.

But does it work in practice, and what are the real challenges?

In this session, we will look at the experience of a Masters programme at the UCL London Knowledge Lab and their strategy to teach local and remote students together. The issues will be introduced in a Pecha-Kucha-style presentation, followed by a facilitated discussion on what can be done to resolve them.

Back to schedule for session 3–780

Student Generated Induction: Giving it a go (Talk)

Charlie Inskip (Programme Director, Library and Information Studies, Arts & Humanities), Jenny Bunn (Programme Director, Archives and Records Management)

Student Generated Induction is an innovative approach to welcoming new students into university life. Developed by Nicholas Bowskill, the idea is to enhance student autonomy and independence from the very beginning of their studies. Induction no longer becomes death by power point but rather encourages students to explore and form social identity through the process of shared thinking. Students establish common ground by discussing their concerns and anxieties about starting university and then they share them with those responsible for their support using a variety of analogue and digital technologies. Through this process they not only get their questions answered and their concerns addressed, but they also start to create a sense of group membership.

This talk explains why and how this approach was adopted and how students and staff reacted. The inspiration for adopting the approach came from within a wider strategic context of a long felt desire to enhance a departmental identity within what has been a fragmented series of programme silos. We will reflect on how it went, incorporating student feedback, and outline how we feel it might need to be developed or supplemented in the future. 

Back to schedule for session 3–784

ChangeMaking BSc Open Days (Talk)

Elisabete Cidre (Principal Teaching Fellow, Bartlett, Built Environment), Duncan Bertram (BSc Urban Studies, Open Day Ambassador, Bartlett, Built Environment), Nina Johnson-Marshall (BSc Planning and Real Estate, Open Day Ambassador,Bartlett, Built Environment)

This talk aims to disseminate interim outputs of the ChangeMaker project Showcasing Undergraduates at BSP to Prospective Students currently being undertaken by the Bartlett School of Planning Open Day Ambassadors. Students are preparing supporting materials for our Open Days (at UL, UCL, BSP) and Summer Schools to address the lack of visual and graphic materials to market our programmes. The e-resources being prepared (i.e. an e-book - to pull together examples of undergraduate coursework to create an open day experience for our prospective studentsthat showcases the very best of BSP academics achievements; a short film – collecting testimonies from our current cohort on the student learning experience and how their skills and abilities have been developing and excelling), will display the breath of the work undergraduate students undertake, demystifying applicants assumptions that Planning students only really study planning policy and are unaware of the design and social dimensions. 

More than simply disseminating the outputs of the project the talk will reflect how the project has furthered dimension 6 of the Connected Curriculum (i.e promoting a sense of community and belonging at UCL through the interactions that students have with each other and with staff; and promoting an inclusive learning and research community), by discussing how students becoming partners in their education can reveal heightened feelings of belonging to the academic community.

Back to schedule for session 3–784

Widening Participation: Bringing UCL’s research-based education to secondary school students (Talk)

Alison Forbes (Access Manager - Widening Participation and UK Undergraduate Recruitment Office), Lucie March (Access Manager - Widening Participation and UK Undergraduate Recruitment Office)

Teaching and learning present a challenge in widening participation. Highly able students from disadvantaged backgrounds don’t get to practise skills in critical thinking and exploring interdisciplinary connections –core features of UCL education– compared to more advantaged peers. This skills gap can mean that they don’t get into UCL, or that when they do, they struggle with academic transition.

To address this, UCL’s Widening Participation Office (http://www.ucl.ac.uk/prospective-students/widening-participation/wp-home) provides structured opportunities for our students and staff to deliver research-based teaching for school students.

Two examples: on our ‘Mission to Mars?’ day, Year 8 students explored scientific and social implications of the Mars One proposal. They were taught by PhD students from three different departments, and debated the merits of sending a manned mission to Mars. On our Summer Challenge programme, Year 12 students attend research-based short courses taught by PhD students or academics, and produce a piece of independently researched academic writing.

UCL researchers who have taught for us will reflect on how the experience developed their teaching. “I feel completely different about teaching now - I feel like I’m developing my own style and am much more aware of what works and what doesn’t. It has given me the confidence to apply for teaching jobs at university level”, from a Physics PhD who taught a Year 12 short course.

We encourage all staff and students to get involved in UCL’s widening participation programmes, both to develop their own teaching and to enhance the learning of our prospective applicants.

Back to schedule for session 2–784

Language Education for Global Citizenship: New Horizons (Talk)

Eszter Tarsoly (Senior Teaching Fellow, Arts & Humanities)

In our paper we propose to discuss the ways in which the teaching and learning model developed for minority language subjects by the Global Citizenship Language Teaching Team (GCLT Team) may serve as a starting point to re-thinking the curriculum for minority language subjects at UCL in conjunction with other initiatives such as global citizenship and the Connected Curriculum.

The GCLT Team developed the model for short courses in eight languages spoken along the Danube for UCL’s ‘The Danube: Intercultural Interaction’ summer school. Borrowing pedagogical insights from the Global Citizenship programme and the Connected Curriculum initiative, the team designed a half-unit course on ‘Languages in Contact along the Danube’, which served as a model for another half-unit course on the ‘Minority Languages of Russia’. Both in terms of teaching methods and content, these courses address questions relevant to global citizenship from a sociolinguistic angle.

Members of the GCLT Team teach and research languages which are ‘minority language subjects’, apart from German, in the UK HE context. The sustainability of course provision in these languages is a notoriously challenging task. With our new courses and public engagement activities we hope to address this challenge, too. Alongside encouraging co-operative learning and using a dialogic method of feedback, we are keen to explore ‘London as our campus’ in teaching and learning languages.

In our paper, we shall address problematic terminology, such as ‘minority language subject’, too.

Feedback and joint thinking with colleagues across UCL is welcome.

Back to schedule for session 2–784

Interacting and Connecting in a Pluralistic World (PechaKucha)

Nicole Brown (STEP Programme Leader, IOE)

Recent UCL initiatives encourage stronger participation within the Grand Challenges areas and a Connected Curriculum so that students engage more readily in research activities. Over the last nine years UCL IOE and the Institute of Ismaili Studies have jointly delivered a Secondary Teacher Education Programme (STEP) where the Grand Challenge of Intercultural Interaction and the Connected Curriculum are implemented on a daily basis.

The STEP course prepares Ismaili Muslim RE teachers, recruited from around the world, within a secular environment. Theoretical religious studies are systematically integrated with practice-based teaching approaches. The programme’s success is based on consistent sharing of teaching philosophy and approaches, on incorporating references to each other’s modules, on actively engaging with the pluralistic dimensions of Ismaili Muslim identity and on providing opportunities for cross-modular and cross-curricular reflections.

Our PechaKucha presentation draws on several modules to illustrate integration at work. For example, in the Muslim History and Secondary Education module students are provided with opportunities to discuss the practical implementation of the subject content in a school environment. In Leading Learning we implement cross-modular and cross-curricular reflection activities.

The presentation will also show how we foster the students‘ engagement with research by teaching skills to read critically and by developing students’ research literacy in theory and practice. This culminates in a three-month field research and teaching practice module where, using action research and case study frameworks, students collect data in Religious Education Centres in their home countries. 

Back to schedule for session 2–784

Disability in Academia: Voices from students and researchers. (Talk)

Francesca Peruzzo (PhD candidate/ChangeMaker, IOE), Kyle Jordan (Disability Students Officer/ChangeMaker, Social & Historical Sciences)

The purpose of this project is to voice UCL disabled students from all levels of academic study, providing a space of confrontation and discussion about disability in academia, and raising disability awareness both at UCL and in academia at large.

The Equality Act (2010) has stated the parameters for a person to be considered as disabled. 

However policies and legislations are to be applied and enacted, and that generates hierarchical bodies to serve this pursue. Yet students are the main recipients of these policies, benefitting from the services provided and experiencing the reasonable adjustments being implemented.

An UCL – ChangeMakers funded event was held at the end of March 2016, giving the chance to disabled undergraduate, Master’s and PhD students to share their experiences to study at UCL. By voicing their universities life experiences, the event delved into the experiences of disabled students at UCL, shedding light on enactment and reception of the apposite legislation, alongside being a window on how they feel the experience can be improved for future disabled students. 

Through taking into account disabled students reception and perspectives, this project will allow for spreading disability awareness and the findings may be useful in setting good practices in the management of disability in academia.

Back to schedule for session 1–784

Object-based learning and specific learning difficulties (Talk)

Thomas Kador (Teaching Fellow in Public and Cultural Engagement, Professional Support/Central Services)

Recent research (much of it spearheaded at UCL) has demonstrated the benefits of creative engagements with objects for both health and wellbeing and student learning. However, despite much anecdotal evidence in support of this, to date there has been little work documenting the benefits of learning through material culture for people experiencing specific learning difficulties; and especially adult learners. This presentation will draw attention to the interim results of an ongoing UCL ChangeMakers project which involves students registered with Student Disability Support Services investigating the value of object-based learning for people experiencing dyslexia, dyspraxia and other learning difficulties. The students are responsible for designing the research and leading the investigation with a view to developing learning resources that might be of use to both themselves and other students also experiencing specific learning difficulties.

Back to schedule for session 1–784

‘Guided Self-Assessment’ - an online tool for providing detailed feedback (Talk)

Charmian Dawson (Teaching Fellow, PhD Student, Life Sciences)

‘Guided Self-Assessment’ is an online tool that allows academic staff to easily create banks of open-text questions for students, that provide detailed, automated feedback.

Student demand for example questions is currently met largely by banks of multiple choice questions, numerical choice questions, or essay questions from previous exams. The first two options can be automatically marked, but tend to test factual recall rather than genuine understanding. The last requires great amounts of staff-time if any feedback is to be given.

The Guided Self-Assessment tool allows the creation of questions which test both depth of understanding, and breadth of subject knowledge, with feedback that emphasizes the importance of a succinct, relevant answer.

This tool has been tested within the Life Sciences Faculty, receiving very positive student feedback, but could easily be applied to a large number of disciplines. The purpose of this talk is to introduce the tool, and invite other academic staff to make use of it in their own courses.

Back to schedule for session 1–790

Enabling students to utilise case studies to create peer to peer educational tools (Talk)

Arya-Nousheh Moore (Medical Student, Medical Sciences), Caroline Fertleman (Sub-Dean & Consultant Paediatrician, Medical Sciences), Gayle Hann (Consultant Paediatrician & Child Protection Lead, Population Health Sciences)

The aim of this workshop is to encourage and demonstrate to students how to create peer to peer educational tools as part of their own learning. We will discuss the creation of two interactive online teaching cases, created by a student, for students. What were the benefits of this: for the student-teacher, the staff involved and the student-learners? What were the challenges? And how can this be developed and replicated within and across faculties?

As stated by UCL ChangeMakers, students are able to: ‘think about their education critically, propose new ideas and ways of doing things.’ This makes them ideal teaching collaborators.

In their final year, medical students are able to pursue a special interest in a four week ‘Student Selected Component’ (SSC). The focus of one SSC is child protection. Based on the learning outcomes of a hospital placement for this module, a student created a child protection case study from the perspective of a junior doctor. They transformed this and another case provided by doctors into interactive moodle resource, for students to navigate using ‘single best answer’ questions. By asking consultants to confirm best practice in these scenarios, they were able to further their own understanding, whilst providing an educational tool for other students to do the same. 

This experience highlighted the possibilities of utilising case studies, regardless of the subject area, to enhance learning and contribute to the curriculum.

Back to schedule for session 1–790

Peer review for skills teaching: Resistance, Rules and Rubrics (Talk)

Sunny Bains (Senior Teaching Fellow, Integrated Engineering Programme, Engineering)

Students, especially those who are new to university, tend to resist peer-marking because they mistrust both themselves and their colleagues. If the topic at hand is seen as in any way subjective (e.g. evaluation of writing rather than marking of facts), then this resistance can become problematic. We use peer-review in a course on Design and Professional Skills that is part of all first-year engineering programmes at UCL. By definition, our students are chosen for their ability in maths and science: not communication, teamwork, ethics, or any of the other topics we teach. The fact that they know they’re in a mixed-ability class in this respect should make peer-review even less appealing to them. Nevertheless, through careful use of rules and rubrics, we have designed and implemented our peer-review process in such a way that our students have been able to appreciate the benefits of both doing the marking and receiving the feedback. In this presentation, we will discuss the kinds of rules that we believe have aided student acceptance, share our experience of what works in the design and use of rubrics in Moodle Workshop, and present the results of a survey we conducted on our class of 725 (with 405 respondents) to gauge perceived benefits.

Back to schedule for session 2–790

Teaching (Creative Writing) Creatively (PechaKucha)

Sara Wingate Gray (Teaching Fellow, Arts & Humanities)

This pechakucha presentation will focus onthe new BASc Creative Writing module (BASC2004),first run in the academic year 2015–16. Incorporatingweekly group writing exercises; weekly peer critiquing and appraisal; and a group newspaper publishing project (alongside more traditional forms of teaching and assessment), the module implicitly requires a creative approach to research and teaching, with student learning enhanced by peer appraisal, peer support and team-produced published outputs directed at their peers. 

As per class seminars, where the tutor provided a portable record player and a special curated record selected each week - to play to students during the writing exercises - this pechakucha will be accompanied by the same process.

Back to schedule for session 2–790

Moderated peer assessment of individual contribution to group work (Talk)

Pilar Garcia-Souto (Senior Teaching Fellow, Engineering), Gwyneth Hughes (Reader in Higher Education, IOE), Adam Gibson (Professor of Medical Physics, Engineering)

UCL Engineering trains students to use engineering knowledge within extended group practical activities to prepare them for their careers after graduation. However, despite the substantial educational benefits of getting students to work in teams, providing individual assessment can be challenging. Students frequently express dissatisfaction if all members of a team are given the same mark regardless of the individual effort. 

Here, we aim to promote student engagement and improve student experience during group work by giving each student an individual mark. The individual mark results from multiplying the overall “group mark” by a personal contribution factor. This personal contribution is assessed directly by peers, who are aware of each team member’s contribution, encouraging self-reflection, and moderated by tutors when necessary. This practice has been well received by students in other universities. We are working with a student committee to identify and evaluate various methods and e-learning systems that would aid us to run this practice efficiently even for large numbers of students. This includes rules to flag cases requiring moderation.

This project, partially funded by ELDG 2015, fits with our aim of increasing students’ satisfaction and engagement with assessment. We have combined it with our ‘360 degrees peer assessment method’, which we presented at last year’s conference, to provide a reliable and individual peer assessment of group work.

We provide a novel approach to group assessment which encourages self-reflection and is intended to improve the learning experience and student satisfaction during group work, in line with UCL 2034.

Back to schedule for session 2–790

Peer Evaluation: A Student-Centred Assessment (Talk)

Jane Britton (Principal Teaching Fellow, Engineering), Matt Whyndham (Department Graduate Tutor, Mathematical & Physical Sciences)

Effective team-working is an essential component in the management and delivery of successful projects. The assessed coursework on our Project Management module requires students to experience the project team working environment through the production of an industry-standard group project plan. The accompanying peer evaluation process was initially developed as a mechanism to address the “passenger problem” in group work, but has subsequently been developed into a broader student-centred assessment.

We present our experiences of Peer evaluation in groups, and compare this to similar processes in use by others across theinstitutionas well as more broadly, offering guidance for colleagues considering introducing peer assessment in the context of group work.

Back to schedule for session 3–790

Critical Reflectivity in Education for Healthcare Professionals (Talk)

Sumanjit Gill (Clinical Teaching Fellow, Brain Sciences), David Werring (Professor of Neurology and Stroke Medicine), Caroline Selai (Head of Education Unit, NHNN, Brain Sciences), Robert Simister (Brain Sciences)

We believe that critical reflectivity as described by Mezirow(1) as a method of producing transformational learning is essential for healthcare professionals to make meaning of clinical encounters and review and shape their practice. We have incorporated this into a masters level training programme to encourage reflective questioning and review of action learning events such as clinical observation. In addition to helping improve lines of scientific enquiry based on clinical experience and observation we also believe that this is one aspect of the core of artistry that Schon[2] proposed as necessary for ‘unusual competence’ in practicing professionals of all disciplines. Incorporating the arts or creative ways of thinking into traditionally science based courses can help develop understanding and empathy. We discuss methods and barriers to incorporating this into learning activities in an environment that values science and knowledge, and discuss methods of assessing this.

1. J Mezirow. A Critical Theory of Adult Education and Learning. Adult Education Quarterly. 1981; 32(1): 3–24
2. D Schon. The Reflective Practitioner. The Perseus Books Group. 1984

Back to schedule for session 3–790

Preventing Plagiarism and the Role of Honour Codes (Workshop)

Rosalind Janssen (Lecturer, IOE), Nicole Brown (Lecturer, IOE)

Students often find it difficult to decide where legitimate collaboration ends and plagiarism commences. Therefore, as Programme Leaders for the Secondary Teacher Education Programme (STEP), run as a joint partnership with the Institute of Ismaili Studies, we have developed an interactive teaching session to address this issue.We believe that plagiarism can only be avoided if students are fully aware of the different types it takes, the necessity for and rules of good referencing, and if students are given opportunities to practice synthesising their ideas. A direct link to UCL’s connected curriculum is at the crux of our sessionwhere wetask our students with the formulation of honour codes. By taking full ownership of their conduct we are engaging them as partners in their education. This in turn improves the experiences of both students and staff. In our practical workshop we demonstrate the various activities we use in our teaching session, including tangible examples of our students’ honour codes, and we provide links for the download of the resources. The aim is that our preventing plagiarism session be used as a model of best practice, both across UCL and beyond.

Back to schedule for session 1-Drama

Show and Tell: Involving Public Voices in Education (Workshop)

Tadhg Caffrey (Public Engagement Coordinator, Professional Support/Central Services), Anita Berlin (MBBS Lead for Social Determinants of Health Module and Patient & Public Involvement, Population Health Sciences)

In this session we will demonstrate the efforts of the Medical School to include innovative engagement methods with their teaching and use this as a starting point for a wider discussion on engagement and education. 

This year, the Medical School embarked on an ambitious project to evoke conversations between patients, the public, staff and students, with the aim of improving their training. For “Show and Tell”, these groups worked together to create comic strips, articulating their contrasting experiences of healthcare together. Medical students and patients contributed equally to the project and this fed into lessons on empathy and enhanced the quality of teaching provided in the Medical School.

In this session we will demonstrate some of these techniques and, dependent on time and space will encourage participants to take part in some drawing exercises, previously used by the Medical School. This will be followed by an open discussion on strategies for embedding engagement and involvement with our teaching at UCL and how we can creatively evoke conversations with external voices to enhance education.Public and Cultural Engagement (PACE) who supported the Medical School in this project are eager to find other avenues for engagement and to enhance UCL’s teaching and the student experience.

One of the student participants of the initial “Show and Tell” workshop stated “I learned how much we can learn from each other” and in this session we will further query how UCL can better create learning opportunities through engagement and learn from external voices.

Back to schedule for session 3-Drama

Pick up the PACE of your Teaching and Learning (Workshop)

Laura Cream (Public Engagement Coordinator (SLASH), PACE, Professional Support/Central Services), Jack Ashby (Manager, Grant Museum of Zoology), Peter Cadley (Director, UCL Bloomsbury Theatre)

Public and Cultural Engagement (PACE) is home to UCL Museums and Collections, the Bloomsbury Theatre and the Public Engagement Unit. Come along to our 50 min speed-dating session to explore how we can help you to:

• connect the curriculum to cultural resources, communities, and global challenges 
• enable research-based education through cultural assets and community/cultural partnerships 

You will be able to:

• meet the people (and their objects) behind some of UCL’s most innovative teaching and learning 
• consider how PACE resources and staff could work with you in the future. 

Take your pick of the PACE speed-dating partners:

Laura from the Public Engagement Unit – come and play the games developed by UCL researchers as a way to make their research more accessible to both students and the world outside UCL

Jack from the Grant Museum – Supporting culturally engaged learning

Alice from the Petrie Museum – Thinking laterally with collections: find out how a collection of archaeology can be used to teach topics from a wide variety of disciplinary perspectives 

George from the Art Museum - Fostering experimental teaching by matching prints and drawings with courses far beyond the arts and humanities

Nick from Teaching and Research Collections - Making little known collections available for staff and students

Peter from the Bloomsbury Theatre – Helping to involve the student community in all aspects of performance (on stage and off)

Thomas from Object Based Learning – The benefits of tactile engagements with objects

Felicity from Student Engagers in Museums – Conversation as a tool for learning from research

Back to schedule for session 2-Drama

University Coding Tutoring Project (UCTP) (Poster)

Alexandros Xafopoulos (MA Education & Technology Student, Computer Science Graduate, IOE)

This paper suggests a supportive Computer Programming tutoring scheme at the UCL Computer Science Department for undergraduates facing serious programming challenges. The kinds of the latter challenges are investigated and a tutoring scheme based on these is designed and implemented. The scheme is supported and funded by the UCL ChangeMakers initiative.

This effort is undertaken in collaboration with the UCL Computer Science Department Advanced Teaching Group, which is advising regarding the computer programming tutoring design, implementation, and evaluation, in terms of content and schedule as well as the selection and recruitment of tutors, who are advanced in programming mostly higher year undergraduate and postgraduate students, and tutees, who are mostly lower year undergraduates.

Back to schedule for session 4-LoganFoyer

Crib Sheets: Quick ideas, changemaking results. (Poster)

Kit Logan (Learning Technologies Fellow, IOE), Tim Neumann (Learning Technologies Fellow), Eileen Kennedy (Research Officer)

Do you want to improve your use of digital tools to enhance your teaching, but need a quick introduction with examples for inspiration? Something that focuses on the purpose rather than which buttons to press? Then look at our Blended Learning Crib Sheets for Higher Education, adapted from the Blended Learning Essentials FutureLearn MOOC, co-led by UCL Institute of Education and University of Leeds.

Our Crib Sheets are a constantly expanding resource, that we are developing as a quick, easily accessible way to introduce tutors to new teaching concepts, and/or tools that can rapidly change and improve on the current way they are teaching. 

Covering topics such as Flipped Learning, Prezi, Tricider, Moodle Quizzes, etc. Each crib sheet offers a short outline of a single technology or teaching concept, giving an overview of what the technology/concept is, where to go to find out more about it and short examples of how it can be used in University teaching. The crib sheets are supported by a Moodle course with a worked example for each sheet available for tutors to work through and/or borrow and adapt to their own use.

Celebrating the launch of the Crib Sheets and the Moodle course, example Crib Sheets will be available on the day at the conference.

Back to schedule for session 4-LoganFoyer

What is Human Geography? International students’ pre- and re- conceptualisations of an academic discipline (Poster)

Daniel Kilburn (Geography Teaching Fellow, Undergraduate Preparatory Certificate in the Humanities, Professional Support/Central Services)

Learners’ prior conceptions of the aims, approaches, and ideas associated with academic disciplines can have a profound influence on their intellectual formation, especially in the transition to higher education (HE). 

Yet, while student-centred perspectives encourage consideration of the positionality of learners in terms of background or identity – little attention is paid to how they conceive of academic disciplines themselves. The challenge of maintaining an up-to-date knowledge of school curricula, for instance, may hinder our awareness of learners’ expectations or assumptions upon entering HE. 

This may be especially pronounced for international students, whose diverse educational backgrounds can encompass wider-ranging substantive differences. For disciplines such as Human Geography, which lacks prominence in some education systems – for instance, where it is overshadowed by Physical Geography (for instance in Russia and East Asia) or subsumed into other subjects (such as Social Studies in North America) – understanding these pre-conceptions is especially important for supporting learners’ transition to HE. 

This poster presents accounts from Geography students on the Undergraduate Preparatory Certificate – a year-long intensive pre-undergraduate programme for international students run by UCL’s Centre for Languages and International Education. Students were asked to share their pre-conceptions of Human Geography, consider how these differed from their experiences at UCL, and reflect upon their subsequent re-conceptualisations of the discipline. 

These insights into where students are ‘coming from’ provide can inform student-centred teaching and learning and encourage critical awareness of Eurocentrism in our own disciplinary conceptions.

Back to schedule for session 4-LoganFoyer

Devising principles of spatial networks in design teaching and education (Poster)

Kinda Al_Sayed (Teaching Fellow, Bartlett, Built Environment)

Architectural design is necessarily a situated learning process that continues to be a subject of interest in architectural education. Whether designers should give preference to a functional design product or whether the focus should be centered on creative output are issues that need to be questioned. Given the typically vague descriptions of creativity it is even harder to determine whether design functionality and design creativity should be treated as separate entities. 

The implications of any preferences made on the methods of assessment are crucial. While teaching is necessarily aligned to design as an experiential learning process, it also requires careful understanding of how knowledge can inform rather than constrain creativity. 

In evaluating the creativity or even the functionality of a design there are challenges present in accounting for a comprehensive and yet practical framework for assessment. In teaching practices the challenge is to ensure that the assessment process is sufficiently specified without limiting creative explorations. 

It is argued that through exposing design propositions to internal and external criticism, assessing progress becomes less of a challenge. In this course of development ‘creativity’ is revealed not as value-neutral but as a product of a social process that is practiced through experiential learning. 

Back to schedule for session 4-LoganFoyer

Falling in Love with Roman Love Poetry (Poster)

Antony Makrinos (Teaching Fellow in Classics, Dept. of Greek & Latin, Arts & Humanities)

This paper will discuss the use of creative writing as an experiential learning tool for students to engage with the syllabus and with consideration to the greater aims of the course.

We will present the application of this method to the Roman Love Poetry module for second and third year students. They were invited to produce and submit anonymously a love poem, which was inspired by their study of topics in Roman Love Poetry. The convenor, his teaching assistant and a Professor of Latin from the Department were the judges of the competition. The top three submissions were read by the convenor in class and they received three prizes together with comments.

All students who participated were then invited to visit the National Gallery with the convenor and a curator in order to get a tailored tour of paintings related to the topics they had studied. 

This session received positive feedback from students, who felt invited to engage with the material covered more critically, through exploring the procedure of producing poetry.

This paper will evaluate the impact of this method as an immersive and experiential means of exploring connections between the greater themes of the course (such as the idea of falling in love, eros as victor, love and death, the voice of the individual poet, etc.) in combination to an interactive engagement with paintings. We will supply students’ impressions of this session in order to evaluate the benefits of providing similar opportunities for undergraduates to interpret the greater aims of a course in a new way.

Back to schedule for session 4-LoganFoyer

Undergraduate group poster presentations (Poster)

Richard Pettinger (Principal Teaching Fellow, Engineering)

The purpose here is to assess and evaluate progress to date on using poster presentations for first year undergraduate group work. Poster presentations are required as a skill and expertise in delivering and displaying inventions, ideas, proposals, research, self development and overall progress.This work is of great value especially when introduced early in undergraduate studies, as the approach is critical in terms of: structuring professional standard work; presenting to external audiences; working as a group; working to a brief; producing and delivering work of the highest quality right from the start. This presentation crucially addresses two UCL priorities: assessment and feedback; and employability. This presentation will also refer to managing and using external assessors in formal and informal marking, assessment and feedback processes.

Back to schedule for session 4-LoganFoyer

Do Parents and Peer markers add value to reflective learning? (Poster)

Roisin Begley (Education Fellow, Doctor, ST5 in paediatrics, Medical Sciences), Caroline Fertleman (Consultant Paediatrian and Course Director of iBSc in Paediatrics and Child Health, Medical Sciences)

The General Medical Council have highlighted that the roles of patients in medical education are changing. There is greater consideration to what patients/relatives themselves can contribute to the educational process and what the benefits or harms are to them in doing so. It is common practice for real and simulated patients to be used in assessment and examinations and to provide feedback. Little research exists looking at patient/relative contribution to written assessments. 

Our study aims to evaluate the possible benefits of using ‘expert’ parents to mark and provide text feedback on students‘ written assessments. The students on BSc paediatrics and child health were ask to write reflective essay on patient journey sessions. The purpose of this assignment is to improve the students’ skills in reflective practice: using their own and others’ experiences along with relevant literature to improve their future practice. Our study compares parent markers to medical (academic) markers and peer markers, analysing the efficacy of parent marking and how it can contribute to student education outcomes.

Following on from a pilot study, We aim to compare and analyse the quality and usefulness of feedback given to students. Students will be given feedback and grade from peer marker, medical marker and parent marker. We will also explore feedback from students, parents and medical markers on the possible benefits or harms to using parents in written assessment of medical students

Back to schedule for session 4-LoganFoyer

Towards a University of Generation Z (Poster)

Sadaqat Faqih Mulla (MA Education Student, IOE)

Time changes, so do human generations. However, time is not the only factor which decides the generational change; rather time is only a helpful measurable entity in drawing the lines of differentiation. A human generation will be marked by a show if similarity and coherence by its members in everyday attitudes, ways of thinking, approaches and broadly generalisable features of life. Therefore remarkable differences can be observed between human generations. 

After notions of Generation X(the old) and Generation Y(the young), we are now having a Generation Z - a cohort of those born after the year 1995. They are the youth and children of today, who have been born at the crux of a connected, networked and inter-netedworld hence also referred to as iGeneration. They are Digital natives; yet socially collaborative and technologically connected beings. For them, information is an entitlement and freedom is indubitable. 

‘How then would our universities - the islands of human endeavours, engines of knowledge and repertoires of civilisational heritage - best envisage themselves to harbour such a generation?’ is a question worth pursuing. 

In this presentation, I seek to proffer a view of the future university to cater to the needs and requirements of the Gen Z and alternative teaching and learning approaches from a philosophical and sociological standpoint.

Back to schedule for session 4-LoganFoyer

Perceptions of recorded audio against written feedback- a pilot study (Poster)

Peter Fine (Senior Clinical Teaching Fellow, Honorary Research Fellow, Medical Sciences), Albert Leung (Deputy Head, UCL Eastman Department of CPD, Medical Sciences), Chris Louca (Director of UCL Eastman Department of CPD, Medical Sciences)

Perceptions of Feedback received as part of the programme of study can have a crucial influence on an individual student’s learning experiences, motivation, confidence and sense of satisfaction. The method which feedback is delivered by the teachers may also impact on how this process is perceived to contribute to the learning experience and process. Following an essay assignment, 32 part-time, postgraduate students, working towards a Restorative Dentistry Master’s degree, were given either verbal feedback via an audio recording of written feedback online.

Hard copy questionnaires were distributed to the students. Each questionnaire asked: i) the type of feedback they had received following the essay assignment, ii) how helpful they thought the feedback had been, iii) whether the particular method of feedback they received was appropriate and iv) the type of feedback they would prefer in future. 

26 questionnaires (81.3%) were returned. 12 students received audio recording feedback via emailed and they scored a mean 7.0 out of 10 for usefulness of this modality of feedback. When asked if the feedback was sufficiently detailed, the audio feedback recipients rated a mean score of 8.6 out of 10; whilst other forms of feedback were rated 3.5 out of 10. A majority of the students (68.8%) preferred to receive future feedback either face to face or by an audio recording. 

Despite the small sample size of this pilot study, it was clear that students favoured a more personal bespoke approach to feedback. With a relatively small cohort of students this tactic is feasible. 

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UCL Chemistry Condensed (Poster)

Belle Taylor (Chemistry PhD student, Mathematical & Physical Sciences), Abigail Mountain (Chemistry PhD student), Aaron Jones & Sam Wigfield (Chemistry MSci students (3rd year)

So often, academics can seem intimidating and unapproachable to their students.Our video series “UCL Chemistry Condensed” breaks down the barrier to academia (and academics) that some people imagine are in place -lecturers ARE more than their lecture slides!Each video focusses on the hobbies and interests of a member of teaching staff, allowing them to come across as more “human” and relatable: be that through a love of 90’s hip-hop or competitive board gaming. We also touch upon their views regarding the barriers to educating and learning today.

Our aim is to engage current students with their lecturers, promote the departmental staff to prospective students, and to keep up the links with alumni that may otherwise be lost. A YouTube channel is an effective and engaging way of fostering these links, with social media allowing us to promote it far and wide.At present, we have published 3 videos with very positive responses from both staff and students (1700 views and counting…).

We are a team of both PhD and undergraduate students on a mission to connect staff with students as well as facilitating student-student and staff-staff relationships.

Find our channel here:bit.ly/chemistrycondensed

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Lecture-to-Lecture Feedback System (Poster)

Duncan Kavanagh (Student - Psychology BSc Second Year, Life Sciences)

I propose a lecture-to-lecture feedback system that can be integrated into the UCL Go! app across all subjects and modules. The potential applications and benefitsof this system are widespread and diverse:

1. Students
2. ​Primarily focused on improving student satisfaction with their modules and course subject, this system can improve student-lecture communication and lecture quality 
3. As opposed to feedback surveys administered and distributed via surveys, this integrated system will be accessible via students’ phones and will be as user-friendly and time-efficient as possible
4. Lecturers and Faculties
5. Lecturers can obtain consistent and timely student feedback on each lecture rather than generic termly or annual module feedback 
6. Can use this insight to adapt lecture presentations asnecessary, as thissystem allows for systematic analyses of how students respond to different types of lectures and presentations
7. Can collect historical data to inform annual course reviews
8. Green Impact 
9. ​This system can eradicateexisting paper-based surveys, thereby lowering UCL’s Carbon Footprint and making it a more sustainable university 
10. It creates reports without administration, production and consumable overheads 
11. Itallows for greater value to be obtained from theexisting UCL infrastructure (Moodle, UCL Go App)
12. UCL 
13. The system provides a standard service across modules and faculties 
14. It supports the continuous improvement of lecture effectiveness, and reducesthe cost and impact of data collection and analysis

Overall, this idea promotestangible improvement of lectures on a small and large time-frame, and lets students offer opinions and suggestions that shapes their university experience.

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Developing Open-Source Equipment to Facilitate the Connected Curriculum (Poster)

James Lawrence (Teaching Fellow, Engineering), Brenda Parker (Lecturer. Engineering)

Development of a connected curriculum in STEM subjects generally means giving students more opportunities to explore their subject matter in practicals that are partly or wholly self-led. This imposes some challenges for departments, chief among them ensuring that students have sufficient access to equipment for their experiments.

In Biochemical Engineering, understanding the methods and equipment used to culture microbial cells is a key part of the intended learning outcomes for our students. While a lot of time is dedicated to providing a theoretical understanding of the processes used to culture cells, there is little opportunity to provide supporting practical experience. This is primarily because the equipment required for such practicals is prohibitively expensive and is therefore limited primarily to research.

Advances in manufacturing and electronics over the last decade, along with the advent of the ‘maker’ movement, have given rise to a wide variety of open-source hardware, the designs for which are freely accessible and can be manufactured by anyone with the right parts and equipment. Some of this hardware has been designed for the express purpose of scientific experimentation, including microscopes, centrifuges and other bench top equipment, even tools for DNA sequencing. The hardware is also characteristically cheap to build.

Our aim is to develop a set of open-source equipment that can be used for microbial culture practicals. The equipment will be cheap, easy to use and accessible, such that students can get first-hand experience and, in time, begin to lead their own experiments as their understanding develops.

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Optimizing The Student Evaluation Process – An Experiment (Poster)

Parama Chaudhury (Senior Teaching Fellow, Social & Historical Sciences), Cloda Jenkins (Senior Teaching Fellow, Social & Historical Sciences)

There has been much recent controversy about the role of course evaluations, but most academics and administrators would agree that these surveys have a role in judging teaching quality. While inputs such as staff reflective exercises and measures of value-added are crucial ways to judge the effectiveness of teaching, the student evaluation is by far the most common metric. Here we discuss our attempt to identify factors leading to a higher response rate and richer information content. We carried out an experiment in the fall semester of 2015 to see whether specific features of the evaluations such as length, mode of delivery (online versus paper, different online platforms) and in-class versus post-class completion of surveys, affected the completion rate and the quality of responses. 

This experiment included almost all the courses on offer during the semester in one large department, and involved students in all years of the undergraduate programme. The main aspects of the evaluation process being tested were length (15 questions versus 9), the online platform (Moodle, the VLE of choice, versus Opinio, a more targeted survey platform), and the way in which the survey response was requested (in-class prompt/in- class start versus an email). 

Since we had access to more than 1000 students across 11 courses, we were able to allocate different groups of students within each course to e.g. a different length of survey. This meant that we were able to control for some of the standard issues arising in such a study, including type of course, student’s year of study, instructor and class size. 

We find that overall, variations that involved a personal request from the instructor or in-class completion (or at least, in-class start) of the survey raised both the response rate and the quality of information that could be extracted from them. 

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Real-time feedback and personalized training for complex technical problems (Poster)

Pilar Garcia-Souto (Senior Teaching Fellow, Engineering), Adam Gibson (Professor of Medical Physics, Engineering), Janina Dewitz (Innovations Officer, Digital Education)

We aim to provide high quality, personalized support to students, but with increasing numbers this can require prohibitive amounts of staff time. UCL Medical Physics and Biomedical Engineering (MPBE) is tackling this problem with an enhanced e-learning environment within Moodle, where students can test their understanding of a subject at any time by completing complex numerical questions and obtain real-time feedback and personalized training addressing their particular needs. The system can be used for learning, formative self-assessment and/or summative coursework. 

The system’s impact was evaluated in terms of (a) student’s confidence, (b) student’s perception via anonymous questionnaires and interviews, and (c) interviews with staff. The students’ confidence and learning experience was greatly improved in those topics covered by the system (the system scored 4.8/5 as ‘aids learning’ and 4.4/5 as ‘overall opinion’). The staff’s experience was very positive, reducing the number of student questions and administrative work. Also, UCL staff from various Faculties have responded positively and intend to adapt it to their fields. 

In summary, despite the up-front workload for development (partially funded by UCL ELE, Engineering Faculty, CALT, and MPBE), the system has wide benefits: available each academic year for any number of students; further development has a low cost-benefit rate; meets the staff requirements; and meets student needs as it was developed in partnership with students. Finally, by improving the student satisfaction and learning experience at UCL, it contributes to UCL 20134 and supports UCL in becoming a world leader in the use of technology. 

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Open Data as Open Educational Resources: Developing transversal skills and global citizenship (Poster)

Javiera Atenas (Learning Technologist, Engineering), Leo Havemann (Learning Technologist - Birkbeck - University of London)

Students construct knowledge by critically analysing information from various sources and formats, including data. The capacity of analysing and interpreting raw data is increasingly important and can be seen as key to the development of transversal skills, which are defined by UNESCO as “critical and innovative thinking, inter-personal skills; intra-personal skills, and global citizenship” and also, towards enabling them to function as citizens, to actively participate in the discourse and debates of society, then we propose that Open Data can play a key role. 

Open Data is produced and used at various levels in research, governance, policy making and civil society. In educational and academic contexts, Open Data can be used as an Open Educational Resource (OER) to help support the engagement of students and researchers in analysing and collaborating towards finding solutions for real-world problems, by embedding Open Data and Open Science principles in research-based, scenario-led activities. In this way, students can experience working with the same raw materials scientists and policy-makers use, 

Supporting educators embracing Open Data in the classroom must consider the following elements: 

• Focus: define the research problem and its relation to the environment.
• Practicality: match technical applications to expected solutions.
• Expectations: set realistic expectations for data analysis.
• Directions: support in finding data with appropriate information.
• Training: provide training materials for the software to analyse the data.
• Location: use global, local and scientific data which is as granular as possible. 
• Modelling: develop model solutions to guide students on the challenges.
• Collaboration: support students to work collaboratively and at multidisciplinary level.
• Communication: support students in communicating their findings to local or wider communities.

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Use of individual and cohort learning gain data to monitor professional skills development (Poster)

Simon Carrington (Student, MBA in Higher Education Management, IOE), Gwyneth Hughes (Reader in Higher Education, IOE)

In this project we are using the concept of learning gain in a cohort of part-time MBA students to encourage developmental reflection by both students and staff. 

Learning gain is a measure of value added offered by a course of study. In a programme such as an MBA this could include the development of professional analytic and evaluation skills. Whist most learning is assessed by demonstrating the meeting of one or more broad learning outcomes, what is not shown is details of how far students have come in reaching this point.

MBA entrants have a diverse spread of experience and skills and hence need development in different areas. It is not necessarily the case that these students will identify their strengths and weaknesses without the opportunity for self-reflection. 

A questionnaire is completed three times per year in which students are asked to rate their confidence in 11 professional and academic skills using a numerical scale. Through this activity students identify areas requiring attention and it allows them to ask for additional feedback in these areas requiring development. Subsequent completions of the questionnaire give a self-evaluation of progress throughout the academic year and give a revised view of the areas most requiring work. 

The data for the whole cohort is aggregated so that the teaching team can also identify which skills need more emphasis in the teaching and assessment so that the curriculum can be adjusted if necessary.

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How does a rise in tuition fees affect the motivation, behaviour and performance of university students? (Poster)

Sefi Roth (PGTA, SHS)

How does a rise in tuition fees affect the motivation, behaviour and performance of university students? We use detailed student data on demographic characteristics, previous academic records and the entire university career from a major university in England to answer this question. In 2012, annual tuition fees paid by domestic students in England rose from £3000 to £9000, while those paid by overseas students remained at the same level (about £16000).

We exploit this difference in the fee regime to carry out a difference-in-difference analysis comparing domestic and overseas students before and after the fee rise. We find that overall, students affected by the fee rise performed worse in their courses than those did not see their fees rise. However, first year students performed slightly better after the fee rise, second year performance remained much the same, and third (final) year students performed worse. 

One way to explain these results is that the price shock is biggest for those who have just started university, while at the end of the programme, the need to look for a job and pay back the loan distracts from academics. We further investigate the mechanism through which the fees affect behaviour by studying the effects on students’ choice of degree (major) and their choice of courses within a degree. There are only small effects on the choice of degree and the choice of courses, which indicates that the effects of fees are on the intensive margin (students behaving differently within a given course) rather than at the extensive margin (different course choices). Students receive subsidized loans covering their full tuition fee,which don’t need to be repaid till the student has a minimum level of income. Given this, it is all the more surprising that students respond so strongly to the higher fees. 

A rise in the price of higher education can potentially affect the motivation, behaviour and performance of university students. In 2012, annual tuition fees paid by domestic students in England have tripled, while those paid by overseas students remained at the same level. We exploit this policy intervention to carry out a difference - in -difference analysis comparing domestic and overseas students before and after the fee rise. We find that overall, students affected by the fee rise performed worse in their courses than those did not see their fees rise. 

We also find evidence of heterogeneity across years as first year students performed better after the fee rise, second year performance remained much the same, and third (final) year students performed worse. One potential explanation for these results is that the price shock is biggest for those who have just started university, while at the end of the programme, the need to look for a job and pay back the loan distracts from academics. We further investigate the mechanism through which the fees affect behaviour by studying the effects on students’ choice of degree (major) and their choice of courses within a degree. There are only small effects on the choice of degree and the choice of courses, which indicates that the effects of fees are on the intensive rather than at the extensive margin. 

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Autonomous learners and experiential courses; lessons from supporting research students (Poster)

Daniela Bultoc (Organisational Development Consultant , Professional Support/Central Services)

During the course of their PhD, Postgraduate Research Degree Students are required to undertake a minimum of two weeks of transferable skills training per year of study. The purpose of the training courses is to give students the opportunity to expand their generic research skills and personal transferable skills which not only help progress their research but more specifically enhances their employability and life skills. 

The process by which researchers select the courses is self-selected, self-driven, needs based and in the context of the student’s future plans and goals. This process gives the researcher ownership over the learning experience and responsibility into making it applicable to the wider context of their learning and career plans. What lessons can students at various levels draw from researcher’s way of autonomous and independent learning? 

Skills training courses focus on an experiential model of learning; they are interactive and discussion based so that participants not only improve their learning in terms of their knowledge and understanding of the subject but there is a change in behaviour that occurs as a result of attending a programme. The courses are open to students across all disciplines which enables a good mix of ideas and cross-collaboration. What lessons can teaching staff take from this experiential model of learning that would enhance their teaching methods? 

This presentation will give students and staff insight into how the skills training programme has made a difference in researcher’s learning and shown impact as a result of it.

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Challenges to ‘Changemaking’ and the apologetics of recaliberation. (Poster)

Preeti Vivek Mishra (MA Education, Gender and International Development, IOE)

The present talk aims to present a reflexivecataloguing of challenges encountered while engaging in a UCL Change Makers project. The talk draws upon theUCL-KNOW [Knowledge Network over the Web] project; as an illustrative case in point toarticulate the vulnerability of research projects to individual optimisms and institutional pragmatics, alike.

The talk is particularly aimed at sharing the experiential journey of the team in their changing perception of and coping with the often changing geography of the project. The narrative seeks to foreground the teams’ movement from a ‘hapless recipient’ to the position of a ‘pragmatic negotiator’.

The presentation embeds the macro discussion in the journey of the project team thereby putting into perspective the inevitabilities of recalibration of vision, methodologies, support groups and expectations from self as well as others. The examples include such key phases as the initial envisioning of the need and effectiveness of an attempt to establish an institutionalised and academically robust alumni network informing the KNOW project and the subsequent modifications made to the vision along with the reasons thereof.

In the final analysis, the talk attempts to recognise the visceral along with the cerebral and roots for an unapologetic analysis and acceptance of naiveties, exaggerated optimisms as well as realistic constraints characterising projects aimed at ‘change-making’.

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Developing Collaborative Research Skills at the Start of a Programme (Poster)

Kate Shobbrook (Teaching Fellow, Brain Sciences), Suzanne Beeke (Senior Lecturer), Rachel Rees (Programme Director MSc Speech and Language Sciences, Senior Teaching Fellow, Brain Sciences)

This project evaluated a new formative assignment set at the start of the MSc Speech and Language Sciences programme. The majority of graduates from this programme work as speech and language therapists for the NHS, where they are expected to have a research role, usually executed in collaboration with other members of an investigative team. The assignment was evaluated in terms of whether it helped the students to develop:

• skills in library searching and using citation managers;

• academic writing and reading skills;

• collaboration skills with fellow students and researchers and 

• knowledge and skills relevant to a range of modules on the programme.

Students worked in small groups to research a topic relevant to speech and language therapy practice and produce a report written in the APA style with references generated by a citation manager. Immediately following the allocation of the topics, the students received training in library searching, use of citation managers and academic writing skills. Staff conducting the training used the assignment as a context for their teaching. Students were also encouraged to contact relevant researchers in UCL and at other universities. Students received feedback on draft and final versions of their reports, which were placed on an internet site that all students and staff can access.

The final reports were written in the APA style and references had been generated by a citation manager. 

Other outcomes of the project were measured by a focus group, immediately following completion, and a questionnaire given to students four months later. 

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UCL ChangeMakers: Student Ideas (Poster)

Abbie King (UCL ChangeMakers Manager, Professional Services)

The UCL ChangeMakers: student ideas project offered students the chance to identify short projectsthat would enhance their educational experience at UCL. Students were then asked to vote on the ideasthat they liked best. The idea was to offer a quick, low-stakes way for students to contribute to educational enhancement at UCL. This poster presentsthe most voted for projects. You are welcome to pick up the ones you like and apply for a UCL ChangeMakers grant to enact them!

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Who are the ‘hard to reach’ students at UCL? (Poster)

Tejas Joshi (MA Science Education student, IOE)

With UCL home to a diverse student body studying a range of disciplines, identifying ‘hard to reach’ students and fostering engagement is of the utmost importance. This poster presents the initial findings of our on-going study into identifying and engaging such students, as part of a multi-university project (<www.studentengagement.ac.uk>). So far, we have undertaken both quantitative and qualitative analysis to start the process of identifying the demographic of these students and the barriers to their engagement.

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Bringing Communication 2.0 to Higher Education:Improving communication methods in the Computer Science department at UCL (Poster)

Tobias Büschel (MSc Computer Science Candidate at UCL, Engineering Sciences)

Communication in higher education has long relied on channels such as emails and Moodle/Blackboard groups to deliver information to stakeholders. While these are justified ways of delivering official announcements, students have sought after better possibilities to organise themselves since a long time.

Social platforms such as Facebook and WhatsApp are omnipresent in a student’s life and have thus also gained popularity to act as communication tools for students in universities. Unfortunately, such social networks are not ideal as they face a handful of disadvantages such as privacy and bad structure. Luckily, the tech industry has produced a great messaging app called Slack that aims to change exactly that by making communication fun, structured, and most importantly moreintuitive. We have piloted Slack with 67 students of the MSc Computer Science degree program at UCL and had great success with the study. It not only helped students to reduce emails, we also saw other advantages such as shy students being more involved and an emergence of a community in which students actively help each other. In the last five months these students have exchanged over 90,000 messages within the team.

As the outcome of this initial study was very positive, we would now like to implement the technology for the entire CS department at UCL and thereby start a discussion that will challenge and disrupt the way communication is regarded in higher education.

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The Multilingual University: Using linguistic diversity as a resource (Poster)

Siân Preece (Senior Lecturer Applied Linguistics and TESOL, IOE), Arnaldo Bernabe Griffin (MA TESOL student; lead student UCL ChangeMakers project, IOE), Yu Hao (MA Applied Linguistics student, supporting student, UCL ChangeMakers project), Gozzal Utemuratova (MA TESOL student; supporting student, UCL ChangeMakers project, IOE)

Higher education institutions welcome the cultural diversification of the student population. However, they seem less certain about how to approach the linguistic diversity that accompanies a culturally-diverse body of students. In this paper, we report on a collaborative staff-student ChangeMakers/ Connected Curriculum project at the Institute of Education that seeks to illuminate this issue. It is our contention that UCL is a‘multilingual university’ in which diverse linguistic resources are embodied in the student (and staff) population thatcanbe used for teaching and learning. 

In this paper, we present ongoing research being undertaken by staff and MA students in the Applied Linguistics and TESOL (ALT) team at the IOE. We report on the data collection tools that the project team designed for investigating the linguistic landscape of UCL, the linguistic repertoires of the students in the ALT cohort and ways in which bi and multilingual students at UCL make use of their linguistic diversity. We give an overview of the data sets to date and discuss the next steps for the project team.

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Learning How to Change the World (Talk)

Kate Roach (Senior Teaching Fellow, Engineering), Georgina Hunter (Student Year 3: Alumna HtCtW, Engineering)

How to Change the World is a two-week programme that brings all 700 second-year engineering students together in a design studio to tackle some of the toughest of global problems. 

There are many challenges to running such a large programme. In particular:

• making certain that teaching academics are comfortable with a role as facilitator, as opposed to the ‘sage on the stage’ 
• creating a structured journey that works for students and facilitators
• finding and managing external partners who are able to join us for the day and take part in the facilitation process with individual teams

We would like to prepare our students to:

• demonstrate leadership with an awareness of social, ethical and political responsibility
• work in interdisciplinary teams and build on each others skills and expertise across disciplines
• solve problems through innovative and entrepreneurial thinking
• build networks that boost employment prospects

Did we meet any of these objectives? What are the barriers to doing so?

Senior teaching fellow, Dr Kate Roach will lead the presentation and discuss the challenges from the point of view of teaching and curriculum design. HtCtW alumni, Georgina Hunter (along with one other) will feedback their good and bad learning experiences from last year’s programme, Pecha Kucha style. We will end by making pooled recommendations for improving such programmes in the future.

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Scenario-based learning in Chemical Engineering (Talk)

Eva Sorensen (Deputy Head of Department (Education), Engineering), Folashade Akinmolayan (Teaching Fellow: IEP), Noor Al-Rifai (Teaching Fellow: IEP)

The Department of Chemical Engineering has, as part of the Integrated Engineering Programme, introduced 6 week-long scenarios in the first and second year of study. The scenarios run twice per term, involving 130–150 undergraduate students and a number of teaching staff. 

The topics for each scenario is chosen to reflect the material taught in the regular modules running that term, thus supporting the students’ learning and providing an opportunity for them to test out their new knowledge. The problems are also chosen to reflect different aspects of the chemical industries, for instance oil and gas transportation, air separation, and equipment design, to give the students an awareness of the types of problems they may encounter as practicing engineers.

The assessment of each scenario varies depending on the problem statement, and involves either oral presentations, poster sessions or videos, as well as written reports of different formats, e.g. newsletter, a technical bid etc, again aiming to reflect the aspects of technical presentation and writing the students may encounter later in professional life.

The main responsibility for the development and the delivery of the scenarios rests with two full-time teaching fellows, who in addition to the scenarios also support the other aspects of the Integrated Engineering Programme. For each scenario, they work with module leads to develop the technical brief, the assessment and the programme for the week.

This presentation will give an overview of our work and will summarise our main experiences so far including extensive student feedback.

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The use of scenarios to contextualise, practice, and assess ‘soft’ skills (PechaKucha)

Rebecca Yerworth (Senior Teaching Fellow, Engineering), Jenny Griffiths (Principal Teaching Fellow, Engineering), Adam Gibson (Professor of Medical Physics, Engineering)

Students expect to learn and practice discipline specific skills. However, employers are also looking for skills such as team working, time management, and writing for different audiences. The perennial challenge is to teach and assess these in an engaging way.

As part of an Engineering Faculty initiative, we have developed and piloted a module to do just this. Whilst specifically tailored to Biomedical Engineering, the principles and practice could be applied widely. We teach ‘soft’ skills in lectures, seminars and workshops, then develop and assess them in discipline specific group projects (‘scenarios’). This emphasises the relevance of the soft skills while minimising student load and assessment.

We will describe how the scenarios cover the breadth required, with specific skills practised and assessed in each scenario. Examples will show the range of assessment methods used, and how soft skills can form a valuable component of scenarios, without detracting from the technical content. Experiences of staff and students, will illustrate the success of this approach and the lessons we learnt during this, its pilot year.

Acknowledgments: Pilar Garcia Souto, Anne Vanhoestenberghe, Terence Leung and others who contributed to scenarios.

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How UCL ChangeMakers could change your world (Talk)

Jenny Marie (Senior Teaching Fellow, Professional Support/Central Services), Abbie King (UCL ChangeMakers Manager, Professional Support/Central Services)

UCL ChangeMakers was launched at the Teaching and Learning conference last year, as UCL’s flagship student engagement initiative. But how will it affect you? In this presentation, we’ll restate how we aim to help develop an inclusive learning community; and discuss the impact we’ve already had on students’ learning experiences. With a project in every faculty since it’s launch it may have already enhanced your work: if not, there’s now over 60 examples of how it could.

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Ten key innovations over ten fabulous years (Talk)

Caroline Selai (Senior Lecturer and Head of ION Education Unit, Brain Sciences), David Blundred (Head of Teaching and Learning Support, Brain Sciences)

UCL Institute of Neurology Education Unit was established ten years ago (on 1st May 2006). Since then we have been engaged in a fascinating and energising decade-long ‘Action Research’ project. During these 10 years we have been constantly reviewing our practice, self-reflecting, gathering feedback, making changes, introducing pioneering teaching and learning innovations, gathering more feedback, testing hypotheses, experimenting with students as teachers and teachers as students, introducing new masters and MRes programmes. Oh, and did I mention gathering feedback..?

We present our top 10 key innovations from the decade, explain why we have selected these, what the outcomes were and why we think these will be of interest to the UCL community. We invite you to try them too and to come back next year and tell us how you got on. 

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The Integrated Engineering Programme (PechaKucha)

John Mitchell (Vice-Dean Education, Engineering)

This presentation aims to describe the development of the Integrated Engineering Programme within the UCL Faculty of Engineering Sciences. This programme aims to revise the existing curricula of seven departments to produce research-based and connected degrees which include through-lines of research-based projects, problem based learning and professional skills development integrated with knowledge acquisition and technical skills training.

We will consider the challenges of such a transition from both the staff and the students’ perspectives and highlight some of the key successes. 

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UCLU Education Conference 2016: student priorities for making change (Talk)

Wahida Samie (Education & Campaigns Officer, UCLU, Professional Support/Central Services), Simon To (Representation & Campaigns Manager, UCLU, Professional Support/Central Services), Faculty StARs

UCLU’s annual Education Conference sets UCLU’s priorities, and provides a space for students, representatives, UCL staff and others to collaboratively examine and explore the future of education at UCL.

This year’s conference focused on the new UCL Education Strategy 2016–2021. With the final strategy agreed, we asked students to help define the work which will make it a reality. What work would most improve their educational experience? 

In this session, we report on what priorities students identified.

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Improving pedagogy within a ‘loosely coupled’ system: Organisational theory and its potential to advance practice (Talk)

Rebecca Schendel (Lecturer in Education and International Development, IOE), Claire Maxwell (Reader in Sociology of Education, IOE)

Although most of the literature on teaching and learning in higher education focuses on specific techniques and approaches for improving student engagement and learning outcomes (Tight, 2012), there is a small sub-literature which acknowledges the crucial role that institutional culture plays in helping and/or hindering change and innovation in teaching (i.e. Kustra et al, 2015; Ginsberg & Bernstein, 2011). However, such references to institutional culture are generally not accompanied by any engagement with the extensive theoretical scholarship on universities as organisations (Umbach, 2007). Since the 1960s, higher education scholars have sought to articulate the distinct institutional characteristics of universities. Although there is some variety in the theoretical models that have been proposed, there is broad consensus around two organisational characteristics: 

1) the university’s ‘loosely coupled’ organisational structure, which gives priority to the individual autonomy of faculty members (Weick, 1976; Clark, 1983) and allows for multiple, sometimes parallel, authority structures (Kezar, 2002); and 

2) the knowledge-driven nature of universities, which often results in individual faculty members feeling stronger loyalty to their discipline/field than to their institution (ibid.). In this presentation, we will outline some of the ways in which ongoing efforts to improve teaching and learning within one UCL faculty could give further consideration to these institutional characteristics, and propose some strategies for future work. Discussion will focus on how best to support faculty development around undergraduate pedagogy, considering possibilities for both formal and informal processes, particularly within individual programme teams.

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