Group items tagged

The Development Programme has a focus on support for those with curriculum and teaching development and professional support roles in a range of professional and academic contexts. This programme has been developed by SEDA in association with CLL partners.

"The damage that Coursera, EdX, Udacity and others have done to a decade of open education progress becomes more apparent by the day. In today's installment, the kettle at SJSU comes to a full boil, with the faculty association there joining the Philosophy department in expressing opposition, not to open education, but to the badly deformed version of it that CourdacityX has produced"

A new investor-backed company, Quad Learning, is teaming up with community colleges to build a national network of honors programs with a collaborative curriculum that they envision giving students an affordable, high-quality associate degree and helping them transfer to topnotch colleges and universities.

Facilitating the provision of detailed, deep and useful feedback is an important design feature of any educational programme. Here we evaluate feedback provided to medical students completing short transferable skills projects. Feedback quantity and depth were evaluated before and after a simple intervention to change the structure of the feedback-provision form from a blank free-text feedback form to a structured proforma that asked a pair of short questions for each of the six domains being assessed. Each pair of questions consisted of asking the marker 'what was done well?' and 'what changes would improve the assignment?' Changing the form was associated with a significant increase in the quantity of the feedback and in the amount and quality of feedback provided to students. We also observed that, for these double-marked projects, the marker designated as 'marker 1' consistently wrote more feedback than the marker designated 'marker 2'.

The purpose of this study was to explore group forming strategies by examining participation behaviours during whole class discussions associated with active participation in a following small group activity. Written communication data, posted in class discussion forums (843 messages/70,432 words) and small group forums (732 messages/59,394 words), were analyzed quantitatively. The result indicated that individuals' participation quantity in small groups was significantly correlated with their own participation behaviour in whole class discussions. Also, a significant portion of small group participation was explained by their group members' participation (i.e., group member effect). Based on the results, we suggest instructors use the information of participation behaviours during the initial period of whole class activities for allocating students into small groups heterogeneously.

Lots of useful stuff from the Association for Learning Technology research

n the learning technology field there is no shortage of research questions- but there is a shortage of research funding. Learning technology researchers are increasingly being required to address issues of impact in order to attract funding. At the beginning of the project, they must anticipate the potential impact of their research on end users, beyond the realms of scholarly citations, and put in place measures to demonstrate that impact. This is a particular challenge, especially in a field that in its infancy was prone to adopt a non-critical 'evangelical' stance to learning technology. The field is maturing however, both in its methodological and theoretical approaches, and it would seem pertinent (if not imperative!) that learning technology researchers be proactive rather than reactive with regards to mapping out what impact means in the context of learning technology research.

Abstract - Staff and students in the UK often dismiss MCQs (Multiple Choice Questions) as being associated with rote learning, but not understanding. However one of the biggest results ever published in education shows how mistaken this attitude is. The most important aspect of deep learning is probably being concerned with reasons rather than only with conclusions. If you want to test for knowledge of reasons then you can easily design MCQs to give the facts and ask about reasons. More interestingly, you can use MCQs that ask about facts to provoke learners to search for reasons. One method is to have students design MCQs (together with automatic feedback explaining why each response is right or wrong): the PeerWise software can organise this as an assignment in large classes. Another method is to use questions delivered by EVS (electronic voting systems) to catalyse peer discussion, even in huge classes. This talk will discuss some of the big educational results, and also psychological research that partially illuminates the mechanism. Supporting website for a SALT seminar presented by Steve Draper of Glasgow University at Swansea on 23rd November 2011.

"If you're interested in education, at some point someone will have sent you a link to a video by Sir Ken Robinson, knighted for services to education in England in 2003. He has over 250,000 followers on Twitter, his videos have had over 40,000,000 views online, and his 2006 lecture is the most viewed TED talk of all time. The RSA Opening Minds curriculum his ideas are associated with is taught in over 200 schools in the UK. He clearly has some influence."

Learning Development is a field of practice concerned with how students learn and how they make sense of academic conventions. JLDHE is published by the Association for Learning Development in Higher Education (ALDinHE). For further details follow the lin

This study investigated the impact of Open Educational Resources (OER) use on teaching and learning. To achieve this, the project team reviewed current research in the area; surveyed, interviewed and ran workshops with suitable participants to collect dat

"This study investigated the impact of Open Educational Resources (OER) use on teaching and learning. To achieve this, the project team reviewed current research in the area; surveyed, interviewed and ran workshops with suitable participants to collect data; and produced an accessible report on the study findings. The report considered the use of OER from both an individual and institutional perspective looking at the benefits OER can offer each and identifying the pedagogic, attitudinal, logistical and strategic factors conducive to uptake and sustained use of OER, as well as the associated issues and challenges." Video, "accessible" report and full report available. Cited on Paul's e-Learning Resources https://sites.google.com/site/technologyenhancedlearning/home/the-resources/open-educational-resources-oer

The Association for Learning Technology (ALT) today published its response to the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE)'s proposals for the new Research Excellence Framework (REF), urging HEFCE to adopt clear guidelines to ensure that inter

A look at institutional risk management in general terms and there is a section specifically on the risks associated with e-learning.

"The e-Assessment Toolkit exists to provide clear, current, practical information to e-assessment practitioners, or those thinking of adopting e-assessment. The toolkit offers useful tools and resources, helping users to develop and share their knowledge of e-assessment for effective implementation."