On 1st February we will be deleting Panopto recordings which are over 5 years old and have not been viewed in the last 5 years. This is in accordance with the Lecture Capture Policy. See point 8.1 of the Lecture Capture Policy.
In future we will be running the same process outlined above every 1st September.
If you have any questions, including how to save old recordings, please email elearning@aber.ac.uk
Month: December 2021
Weekly Resource Roundup – 16/12/2021
As leader of our PGCTHE programme, I keep an eye out for resources to help staff teach effectively. These include webinars, podcasts, online toolkits, publications and more. Topics include active learning, online/blended teaching, accessibility/inclusion, and effective learning design based on cognitive science. Below I’ve listed items that came to my attention in the past week. In the interest of clarity, our policy is to show the titles and descriptions in the language of delivery.
Online events and webinars
- Self-paced MOOC, Disability Awareness, Universal Design for Learning in Tertiary Education, “Universal Design for Learning (UDL) is a learning design approach that recognises there is no ‘average’ learner.”
- Multiple dates through 2/2022 AdvanceHE, Inclusive learning and teaching workshop series
- Multiple dates through 31/1/2022 Education and Training Foundation, EdTech Accessibility Training
- 11-12/1/2022 University of Nottingham, Designing Programmes for Learning: Foundations and Aspirations, “design of curricula and assessment at programme level”, includes some case studies on students-as-partners co-design
- 12/1/2022 University of Nottingham, Hybrid Teaching and Learning in HE – a futuristic model or a realistic model for the future?
- 24-28/1/2022 University of Liverpool, Liverpool Learning Summit: Equality, Diversity, Inclusion
- 8-9/3/3022 Jisc, Digifest
Resources and publications
- Boud, D. & Dawson, P. (19/4/2021) What feedback literate teachers do: an empirically-derived competency framework, Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education
- Centre for Global Higher Education (25/9/2020), Book Launch: Transforming University Education – A manifesto (1 hour video)
- Journal of Learning Development in Higher Education (31/10/2021), Special Edition, Compendium of Innovative Practice: Learning Development in a Time of Disruption
- McVitty, D. (13/12/2021), What’s the best way to staff a university?, WonkHE blog
- Mihai, A. (10/12/2021), Students as partners in learning design, The Educationalist
- Naik, N. (18/11/2021), The ‘next normal’ according to teaching and learning experts, Talis: Teaching and Learning Connected
- Nordmann E., Horlin C., Hutchison J., Murray J.-A., Robson L., Seery M. K,. et al. (1/10/2020), Ten simple rules for supporting a temporary online pivot in higher education, PLoS Computational Biology 16(10): e1008242.
- Piatt, K. (10/12/2021), PlayLearn December round-up, Playful Learning Association
- Raduescul, C. & El-den, S. (7/12/2021), Co-Designing Learning for Complexity, University of Sidney Business School Co-design Research Group
- Redmond, P., Foote, S. M., Brown, A. et al. (10/6/2021), Adopting a framework to support the process of critical reflection and understanding of online engagement, Journal of Computing in Higher Education
- Review of General Psychology (12/2021), Special Issue: Decolonial Perspectives in (and on) Psychology
- Specia, A. & Osman, A. A. (2015), Education as a Practice of Freedom: Reflections on bell hooks, Journal of Education and Practice
- Stevenson, J., Havemann, L., & Perkins, H. (6/12/2021), Higher education research: compassion, openness, and impact, WonkHE blog
- Webster, H., rattus scholasticus: My personal blog – musings on Learning Development in Higher Education
Other
- Call for papers 21/12/202: Interdisciplinary Learning and Teaching Conference, Interdisciplinary Learning & Teaching UK
- Call for papers 18/1/2022: Duke Learning Innovation Pandemic Pedagogy Research Symposium, “How do we move from pandemic innovation to real, lasting transformation?”
- Call for papers 24/1/2022: Assessment in Higher Education (AHE) Conference, Contemporary assessment practice in the new age of higher education
Please see the Staff Training booking page for training offered by the LTEU and other Aberystwyth University staff. I hope you find this weekly resource roundup useful. If you have questions or suggestions, please contact our team at lteu@aber.ac.uk. You may also wish to follow my Twitter feed, Mary Jacob L&T.
Vevox updates December 2021
One of the advantages to having an institution subscription is that we can benefit from enhancements and updates.
One of the recent enhancements was to the word cloud style question. Previously only one word was able to be submitted to the word cloud style question, but now participants can provide multi-word submissions as well as single words. Word clouds also accept non-English characters and emojis. Vevox has also been working on the accessibility of the word cloud question and the colour scheme has been enhanced to improve its display.
We’re really pleased at how colleagues are making use of Vevox. If you’re after some ideas on how you can use it in your teaching, then Kate and myself recently presented a webinar on Vevox’s behalf. As well as giving an overview of our rollout of Vevox since we procured it in March, we also outlined some exemplary practices taking place by colleagues:
- Module Evaluation (Dr Emmanual Isibor and Dr Chris Loftus, Computer Science)
- Stats generation (Dr Maire Gorman, Physics and Graduate School)
- Anonymous Q and A (Dr Megan Talbot, Law and Criminology)
- Peer assessment and word associations (Dr Michael Toomey, International Politics)
- Asynchronous Q and A (Dr Victoria Wright, Psychology)
- Pin on image and session impact (Learning and Teaching Enhancement Unit)
Thank you for the colleagues above for sharing their practices and experiences with us. A recording of the webinar is available on YouTube.
We’ve also got our Mini Conference on Thursday looking at how polling software can be used to enhance learning and teaching activities. There’s still time to book onto that. We’re grateful to be joined by Joe and Izzy from Vevox, as well as our external speaker, Dr Christina Stanley from the University of Chester.
Vevox guidance is available on our webpages. If you’ve not used Vevox before then sign up for the Zero to Hero sessions which are run every Tuesday at 3pm. We’re also re-running our training session Designing Teaching Activities using Vevox on 16 March 2022 at 10am. You can sign up via our Course Booking page.
What is a well-designed Blackboard module? Project
Written by Ania Udalowska
A well-designed Blackboard module may mean different things for different people. We asked our group of Student Learning Ambassadors to brainstorm what does it mean to them that a module is well-design. The findings of this discussion divided into categories can be found below.
Module Information
Teaching schedule – showing what is expected throughout the semester (which is carried out throughout the design of the module in folders). It is not necessary to have to release all content at the start of the module rather a roadmap showing students what they need to plan for. Download the teaching schedule example:
Module handbook – one of the students explained that the handbook is almost like a contract between a student and a module coordinator. It should include all essential information (which may be, and in some cases, should be also included in different sections, e.g., all assessment-related information in Assessment & Feedback). Take a look at this blog post on comprehensive handbooks.
FAQs on the module – FAQs could be generated throughout the module based on queries received by the module coordinator and could be then used to help future students, e.g., what textbook is best / how do you set the assignment out/ suggestions of resources to help with a tricky concept etc. You could use the discussion board functionality to ask students for questions they want to know answers to.
Short introduction video – it would be nice to include a video that welcomes students into the module, explains how to navigate it and briefly outlines what will the teaching schedule look like. It does not have to be long nor formal!
Learning Materials
Folders – content should be divided into weeks (or topics). It should correspond with the teaching schedule. Consistency within folders is just as important, try to include the same type of learning materials in each folder (you can use small icons to indicate the type of activity) and keep them in a consistent order:
- Live session preparation tasks – make it clear what needs to be done.
- Teams links to live sessions.
- Pre-recorded lectures (clear/ small chunks/ and no background noise)
- Lecture slides and lecture handouts with space for notes (how to convert PowerPoint slides into handouts)
- Activities to complete that give instant results/feedback to test knowledge. You could use Blackboard tests or Panopto quizzes.
- Examples, relating theory to real-world as much as possible.
- Reading – which items from the reading list refer to that week’s content.
Note: Where possible use review status and adaptive release – students progress at a different pace, some prefer for the content to be released all at once, others in stages. Having the review status and adaptive release can give students control over how much content they see at once and it also helps them to stay organised.
Workaround for Blackboard 404 error when accessing files using the Microsoft Edge browser.
The Microsoft Edge browser attempts to open Microsoft Office files directly in the browser. When accessing files in Blackboard this is causing an error with the message; “404 – File or directory not found.”
A suggested workaround for this is to use either the Google Chrome or Firefox browsers.
Alternatively you can change the following setting in Microsoft Edge:
Open the Edge menu by clicking the three dots and click Settings
Click Downloads
Turn off the setting Open Office files in the browser
If you require further assistance please contact elearning@aber.ac.uk
Weekly Resource Roundup – 5/12/2021
As leader of our PGCTHE programme, I keep an eye out for resources to help staff teach effectively. These include webinars, podcasts, online toolkits, publications and more. Topics include active learning, online/blended teaching, accessibility/inclusion, and effective learning design based on cognitive science. Below I’ve listed items that came to my attention in the past week. In the interest of clarity, our policy is to show the titles and descriptions in the language of delivery.
Online events and webinars
- 8/12/2021 Echo 360, Developing Inclusive Educational Practices with Video-Based Learning
- 10/12/2021 University of Calgary, Managing Academic Integrity
- 15/12/2021 The University of Winchester’s Centre for Student Engagement, Interrogating ‘belonging’ in Higher Education
- Self-paced MOOC, Disability Awareness, Universal Design for Learning in Tertiary Education, “Universal Design for Learning (UDL) is a learning design approach that recognises there is no ‘average’ learner.”
- Multiple dates through 2/2022 AdvanceHE, Inclusive learning and teaching workshop series
- 11-12/1/2022 University of Nottingham, Designing Programmes for Learning: Foundations and Aspirations, “design of curricula and assessment at programme level”, includes some case studies on students-as-partners co-design
- 12/1/2022 University of Nottingham, Hybrid Teaching and Learning in HE – a futuristic model or a realistic model for the future?
- 8-9/3/3022 Jisc, Digifest
Resources and publications
- Digitally Enhanced Education Webinars (2/12/2021), Webinar 11: Multimedia and accessibility: Making online work for everyone YouTube playlist (each talk is about 15 minutes)
- dlink, Office for Digital Learning & Inquiry, Middlebury College (n.d.), The Asynchronous Cookbook: recipes for engaged & active online learning
- Guild of Students, University of Birmingham and NUS (2020), Decolonisation in Practice conference recordings
- Hounsell, D. (12/2021), Feedback in postgraduate online learning: perspectives and practices, in Beyond Technology: Online Postgraduate Education in a Postdigital World, available through ResearchGate.
- Merry, K. (2021), Dr Kevin L. Merry, “Learners are more diverse than ever before. As such, it has never been more important to make learning inclusive and accessible, optimising value, authenticity and relevance. Implementing the principles of Universal Design for Learning (UDL) is critical when supporting diverse learners.”
- Mosley, N. (n.d.), 5 tips for approaching video in online learning, Neil Mosley blog
- Race, P. (n.d.), Archived downloads, Phil Race: Assessment, learning and teaching in higher education. “This page includes a range of bits and pieces, not least the ‘statements’ exercise (slides and handout) which I still use in workshops.”
- Thibodeau, D. & De Wilde, J. (22/11/2021), Identity and belonging at the centre of new models of learning, Advance HE News
- University of Birmingham Higher Education Futures Institute (HEFi) (22/2/2021), How to Decolonise the Curriculum: MicroCPD (2-minute video)
- University of Edinburgh (11/2021), Five things that we realised about hybrid/online teaching from the Teaching Matters’ ‘Revisiting the Hybrid Teaching Exchange’ series, Teaching Matters NewsLetter
- University of Liverpool Centre for Innovation in Education (23/11/2021), Treasure Island Pedagogies: Episode 14 – the one with the kai, “our discussion featured Māori, Confucian and Arabic traditions and contexts, the focus on the whole person and creating the right environment for learning, including the importance of rituals that facilitate flexible and informal learning, such as through ‘kai’ (food) time.”
- UNSW Sidney (n.s.), Course Design Model – RASE (5-minute video)
- Ying, Z. (24/11/2021), Developing and validating a student feedback literacy scale, Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education
- Zingaretti, M. (25/11/2021), Learning and teaching approaches in Higher Education: Promoting deep learning through constructive alignment, Teaching Matters blog
Other
- Call for papers 21/12/202: Interdisciplinary Learning and Teaching Conference, Interdisciplinary Learning & Teaching UK
- Call for papers 18/1/2022: Duke Learning Innovation Pandemic Pedagogy Research Symposium, “How do we move from pandemic innovation to real, lasting transformation?”
- Call for papers 24/1/2022: Assessment in Higher Education (AHE) Conference, Contemporary assessment practice in the new age of higher education
Please see the Staff Training booking page for training offered by the LTEU and other Aberystwyth University staff. I hope you find this weekly resource roundup useful. If you have questions or suggestions, please contact our team at lteu@aber.ac.uk. You may also wish to follow my Twitter feed, Mary Jacob L&T.
Implementing ‘Tools for Academic Writing’ across all departments – Student Learning Ambassadors
Written by Lucie Andrews, English and Creative Writing
The best Blackboard modules are organised effectively, easy to navigate and kept updated. However, I would like to focus on how Blackboard could be used as a resource for study skills and excellent academic practice. During the Student Learning Ambassadors project, we discussed what is a well-designed Blackboard module and some of the feedback included the way we felt that the referencing and citing guide was not easily accessible nor comprehensive enough to cover all student’s needs. We also talked about the idea of including assignment model answers as a template of what needs to be included and how to format assignments correctly. One way to act upon this feedback would be to include a new folder within the assessment and feedback section that focuses on study skills in order to improve Blackboard as a student resource.
When analysing the different approaches to how different departments used Blackboard during the usability testing, I realised there was a useful section in the module menu called ‘Tools for Academic Writing’ in my department of English and Creative Writing that was not in the other departmental menus. Therefore, I would recommend that we should implement ‘Tools for Academic Writing’ across all departments by creating an additional folder within the assessment and feedback section to act upon some of the student feedback. Why should you consider this? And what will this new folder include? As Blackboard is the site used for the learning and academic aspect of the student experience, I believe that all students would gain from a folder dedicated to providing students with study skills and tips that will enable them to achieve excellent academic practice. Within this folder, it would provide a unique list of study skills relating to each department’s needs. Here is a general template of what this folder could include:
- a detailed referencing and citing guide that meets each department’s stylesheet
- a guide of essential study tips and skills including essay writing pointers
- links to workshops offered by the university on study skills
- a FAQ on study skills and general module information
As a student, I have personally found that there is mostly a focus on the material covered in lectures, seminars and workshops and a focus on the marks scheme and assessment criteria. However, there is generally less focus on how you can improve your writing/study skills independently and how to write an essay/assessment / referencing to the expectations that meets the standards of university practices. Therefore, this folder on ‘Tools for Academic Writing’ should be implemented in all department’s assessment and feedback section across the University as it would offer Blackboard something new that would enhance the student academic experience, and this would aid students to achieve better grades. Thus, I feel that by implementing a folder dedicated to study skills within each module that is specific to what students on that module need would enhance student’s learning experience on Blackboard and improve its resources.
The importance of comprehensive module handbooks (Student Learning Ambassadors)
Written by Nathalia Kinsey, History and Welsh History
One of the things we discussed during the Student Learning Ambassadors project was how helpful module handbooks can be for students. Throughout my three years in the History department, module handbooks have been my go-to source of key information about each module. I often downloaded module handbooks at the start of the semester and kept them on my desktop, easy to reach for when I needed to glance at the marking criteria for an essay, double-check a due date, or find out what I needed to read for my next seminar. Having all this key information in one document meant I always knew where to look when I needed something, with no searching through Blackboard, wondering where a lecturer had put a particular piece of information. The key pieces of information included in the handbooks were:
- contact details for the lecturer;
- a brief introduction to the module;
- numbered lists of lecturer and seminar titles, with information about the preparation needed;
- assignment deadlines, word counts and the department assignment length policy;
- a list of essay titles to choose from (although this may not be relevant, or could be adapted for other departments)
- marking criteria.
They also often included other details specific to the module, such as maps or family trees, as well as notes on referencing, frequently used primary sources, or spelling names that might have multiple versions across texts. Overall, I and others participating in this project have found module handbooks to be incredibly useful documents that would be helpful to have across departments; they provide a single place where all the key information about a module can be easily accessed and kept near at hand.
Example of a comprehensive module handbook: