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Christopher Douce

Warwick AL Development Conference 2018

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Warwick university campus (which I discovered was, actually, in Coventry). It was a busy weekend: I helped to co-facilitate two sessions (the STEM faculty session and a session that had been organised by the school of computing); I also ran a session that was entitled: delivering excellent correspondence tuition quickly – is it possible and how do we do it?

I’m very aware that I don’t have all the answers to how to do excellent correspondence quickly; modules, tutors and students are all different.  In true workshop fashion, there was a flip chart and each table was given a set of post it notes. What follows is a summary of notes that were generated by tutors who attended the event.

Tips from the whole group

The comments below have been gathered from group discussions. They are a mix of tips from tutors about how to do things quickly, and how to offer excellent feedback.

  • Make sure that feedback is personalised
  • Focus on 2 or 3 areas that need improvement (as otherwise our students might be overwhelmed)
  • Link the ETMA (PT3) comments to the on script comments
  • Use comments to build a relationship: be positive and be clear
  • Be positive, formal, factual, clear, unambiguous and approachable.
  • Provide comments that are appropriate to the level; consider comments that stretch students
  • When marking, know when it is a good idea to stop and take a break
  • Consider using speech recognition software as a way to provide feedback
  • If you have a mentor (as a new tutor), do make good use of that mentor
  • As a tutor, know and understand the course calendar
  • Consider editing or adding to the tutor notes as a way to collect your own practice
  • Consider marking TMAs in batches
  • Use the tutor forums that the module team has provided

Comments gathered from individual tables

The following comments were from post it notes that were gathered from workshop tables. I’ve tried to group them into clusters and have excluded post it notes that are really similar to each other to avoid repetition:

  • Important: building a relationship (through feedback), timeliness (be prompt with everything)
  • What should be included: what done well, what needs improvement, student’s name, continuity from previous feedback
  • Rapport with students; take an interest and encourage
  • Tone: personal, supportive, warm, friendly by clear, supportive but firm
  • Include: opportunities to improve, access to support, suggestions about what to extend and improve.
  • Comments: forward looking on the ETMA summary, backward looking on the script
  • What matters in your subject? Science: more prescriptive, arts: more flexible
  • Provide: accuracy and precision, application of [module] concepts, approach to study
  • Feedback and comments varies according to students, but includes: accuracy, relevance and learning skills.

Reflections

I’ve run this session a few times now, and I always really enjoy them. A discovery is that every session is slightly different; this could be down to the mix of tutors from different faculties, the type of the room that we used, or the number of tutors coming along to the event. This session was the biggest and most popular yet. 

Correspondence tuition remains to be an important topic within AL development sessions because it is such an important part of the tutor’s work. I received one bit of feedback that was interesting, and this reflected an earlier comment that I received after delivering the first version of this session (which, I think, took place in Leeds): that there should be more focus on ‘speed’ rather than ‘excellence’. It is a fair criticism, and I’m thinking (on one level) that I might be trying to do too much, but I’m aware that, as tutors, we should never cut corners; there is no question that our feedback should be as good as it could be.

From memory, we did share some really useful speed up tips, such as: use more than one screen, don’t agonise over individual marks, edit your version of your own tutor notes. I feel it very much depends on figuring out what works for each individual tutor. As I mentioned above: modules, tutors and students are all different.

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Christopher Douce

AL development conference: 21 September 2017

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Ever since I joined the university as a part time tutor back in 2006, I have found AL development events useful: they have, essentially, taught me how to teach, and how to be an open university tutor and a distance teacher.

When I started as a tutor, I never thought that I would become someone who would be helping to organise professional development events for tutors, but this has exactly what has happened. As the university has changed and technology has developed, some colleagues have realised that there is a space and an opportunity to run 'online' professional development events, and I thought that it might be a good idea to try to run one.

The following message has been circulated to all associate lecturers who are tutors for modules have have been developed by staff in the School of Computing and Communications:

"You are invited to the first ever school of Computing and Communications online AL development conference which will be held on 21 September 2017, between 10.30 and 14.30. The event will be hosted in Adobe Connect and will be open to all members of staff in the school. The conference will be divided into a number of interactive and informative sessions; a morning session and a shorter afternoon session.

The conference will be an opportunity to meet Mark Woodroffe, head of school, David Morse, Director of Studies, and John Woodthorpe, Computing and IT student support team lead. There will be a session about teaching and learning pedagogy, and a session about our OU student support team that is based in Manchester.

If you have recently been to any AL face-to-face conferences do try to come along to this one too; it will hopefully be interesting and fun, and give you an opportunity to meet more colleagues from the school. If you can’t make it, please don’t worry: the sessions will be recorded and made available after the event (but the interactivity that we have planned will hopefully be really useful!)

Although Adobe Connect is both used and featured within this first online conference, it isn’t intended to replace any other Adobe Connect training that has been organised by the university. Also, attendance at this event will added onto your AL activity record and so will appear on your ALAR summary. After the event, we plan to continue discussions and sharing using a conference forum. We will also share copies of all resources that were prepared and used as a part of the event.

If you have any questions for either Mark, David or John about any aspect of work that takes place within the school (or other parts of the university) please email them to me in advance. The deadline for the submission of questions will be 14 September 2017. Also, if you have any additional requirements that you feel the conference organisers need to be made aware of, please do contact Chris."

Here's a planned agenda for the event:

10.00 – 10.30     Virtual tea and cake

10.30 – 10.40     Introduction and welcome: Chris Douce

10.40 – 10.55     Meet your head of school: Mark Woodroffe

10.55 – 11.10     Programme and curriculum updates: David Morse

11.10 – 11.25     Q&A with Mark and David

11.25 – 12.10     Online pedagogy: what do you do? Chris Douce

12.10 – 12.20     Online pedagogy session: Q&A

12.20 – 13.00     Break

13.00 – 13.10     Welcome back! Chris Douce

13.10 – 13.50     Working with the student support team. John Woodthorpe and Steven Wilson

13.50 – 14.20     Meet and share: meet fellow ALs. Facilitator TBC

14.20 – 14.30     Close, summary and next steps. Chris Douce

Over the last few months, the university has been running training sessions to help tutors become familiar with a teaching and collaboration tool called Adobe Connect. I thought this online conference would be a great opportunity to discuss the pedagogy of Adobe Connect, i.e. how it can be used to practically facilitate teaching and learning (as opposed to the detail of what buttons can be pushed, and in what order).

A really interesting part of this conference will be the session that is about the student support teams. A few years ago, student support was offered from colleagues who worked in regional centres. Due to restructuring, support was spread around country and concentrated in different locations (for a period of time, advice for Computing and IT students was provided from a centre in Birmingham). Student support is now provided from a team in Manchester. The afternoon session will be dedicate to learning more about the SST, and also meeting other associate lecturers who work on different modules.


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Christopher Douce

Windsor AL staff development conference

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Edited by Christopher Douce, Wednesday, 25 Oct 2017, 11:51

In June 2017 I attended the Heathrow and Windsor staff development event. Like other events that are run by the AL support and professional development (ALSPD) team, this was a residential event, which meant an overnight stay. The evening comprised of a meal and an opportunity to network with fellow associate lecturers and to participate in a number of activities that allowed us to share practice.

Overview

The main conference day comprised of a faculty specific sessions followed by two cross-faculty AL development sessions that everyone could choose from. There appeared to be a good mix of presentations, which included a talk about professional recognition (which relate to fellowship of the Higher Education Academy), updates about a new teaching tool called Adobe Connect, and how to apply for new associate lecturer vacancies.

The faculty session began with a short talk about a professional development initiative called By ALs For ALs (which I hope to blog about later at some point). This was followed by a breakout into different rooms depending upon the ‘schools’ that tutors were affiliated to.

I led the School of Computing and Communications session, where I shared a number of updates (thanks to slides that were prepared by the head of school). Key points included plans for the updates to the Group Tuition Policy, and the recruitment for new modules. In my school, two new modules are: TM111 and TM112, which are new introduction to computing modules, replacing a larger 60 point module.

Workshop: delivering excellent correspondence tuition quickly

In the afternoon, I facilitated two cross faculty workshop sessions which had the title: Delivering excellent correspondence tuition quickly: is it possible and how do we do it? This session had a big and deliberately provocative title, and relates to a subject that is really important to me: I’m very mindful of the importance of delivering effective correspondence tuition.

Here is the abstract of the session: Correspondence tuition takes a lot of time. Delivering excellent correspondence tuition is both an art and a challenge, but how we can try to deliver excellent correspondence quickly? This session is open to anyone in any faculty and is all about sharing experiences and uncovering correspondence tuition techniques to make things easier for ourselves. If you are a new tutor and would like to learn some useful tips and techniques, then do come along! If you are an experienced tutor and would like to share your experience with others, you will be especially welcome too! You will hopefully come away with an armoury of techniques that you can apply with your next TMA. An outcome of the session will be a useful resource that will be shared to everyone after the AL conference.

To prepare for the session, I wrote a PowerPoint presentation. I also designed the session to be as interactive as possible since I felt that I wouldn’t have all of the answers, and that it was important to listen to the views of tutors. To give a feel for the session, here is a quick summary of all the slides that I had prepared.

Summary of session presentation

After a quick introduction, I asked a series of questions to elicit thoughts about how to define excellent correspondence:  What do you think is important? What should be included? What tone should you adopt? What really matters in your subject or module? Where does feedforward go?, and Where does feedback go?

Next up was a slide that described some research by a former colleague called Mirabelle Walker, who wrote a paper entitled ‘An investigation into written comments on assignments: do students find them usable?’ This paper was an OU study which conducted an analysis of over 3000 comments on 106 assignments in 3 modules. Different comment types were identified: content, skills development, motivating (and demotivating!), mention of future study, references to resources.

Some research

A key factor was depth of comments: indication of a problem, correction of a problem, correction along with an explanation. .Motivating comments offered identification, amplification relating to the praise, explanation as to why something is good. In terms of the analysis, these came out as indication (33.3%), amplication (56.1%), explanation (10.6%). Another type of comment was skills development comments, where were analysed as follows: indication (7.7%), correction (78.8%), explanation (13.5%)

A key point that I had on the slide was the comments aimed to bridge gaps of understanding, i.e. they are intended to move things along. I also posed a question to everyone: is there anything that your module team can help with? The implication of this is: if there is something that a tutor think that a module team can help with, then it is really important to get in touch and to let them know.

Questions

For the next bit of the slide, I presented a set of questions across two slides. The first slide had the title: How do you do your correspondence teaching? The questions were: Where do you do your marking? What do you do before you start? Do you have a routine? If so, what is it? Do you have a strategy or an approach?, and What do you tell your students?

The second slide had the title: Doing things quickly… or using time efficiently. It had three key questions: (1) What would be your biggest tip for a new tutor? (2) What would be your biggest tip for a fellow tutor? (3) What would you put in a resource for a tutor?

Tips

Towards the end of the session, I shared set of eleven personal marking tips and opinions. The idea of sharing these personal views was to consolidate all the discussions; the tips and any differences in opinions about them could facilitate further discussions. 

My marking tips were: (1) check on the tutor forum to see what other tutors are saying, and whether other tutors have any issues with the scripts that students have submitted, (2) create a TMA summary template using comments that have been given to a student as a part of an earlier TMA, similarly (3) take time to look at the previous TMA (PT3) summaries. (4) to ensure consistency, mark a question at a time (unless your module assessment structure suggests it might be easier doing something different) (5) use a computer that has multiple screens; this way you can see different views of the work more easily. (6) don’t agonise over individual marks; use your marking instincts and commit to something; you’ll invariably be right.(7) when giving feedback, explain why things are assessed (what is it assessing) (8) offer pointers beyond boundaries of the module; this may help students to understand the assessment structure. (9) Proactively tell students how marking are going either by email, or by a forum, or both! (10) Always praise effort, not the score. And finally, (11) if it is apparent that a student is having real problems, you can always recommend running a special session.

Discussion summary

During each of the two workshops, I captured some of the key discussion points by making notes on a flipchart. What follows is a brief summary of some of the main points captured from each of the two groups.

Group one: excellent correspondence tuition can mean timeliness, i.e. returning things quickly so the students can benefit from the feedback. Sign posting is considered to be important, as is being specific. It is important to acknowledge effort, and to stretch students. It is also important to manage their expectations. 

An interesting approach is to ask them leading questions, or to present a series of questions. It is useful for tutor to do some monitoring (to help with module quality control). Feedback should be personalised, and should be concise and precise. Use positive language. Other thoughts included defining what is meant by learning success, or setting a learning goal for the future. Finally, use the KISS principle, which means: keep it simple. Also use a ‘feedback sandwich approach’ that emphasises the positive.

Group two: the feedback should be personalised for the needs of students, so it can help them to progress. Feedback should be detailed, but not too detailed. It is also (of course) important that tutors follow the marking notes (and refer to the learning outcomes) that have been provided by the module team. Offer students some priorities in terms of things to work on. As well as be encouraging, give students three (positive) points of advice, and offer signposts to the things that they can do to improve.

Also, do contact the students if we need to. Offer pointers to encourage them to look forward to different parts of a module and explain how the different parts are connected together. In terms of tone, emphasise what needs to be done to move forward. Be professional, and also do comment on study skills, such as referencing. Explain module ideas and correct terminology. Offer feedforward comments with reference to the final assessment and accompanying learning outcomes.

The second group also had some very practical suggestions: tutors should encourage students to become familiar with the assignment submission process by submitting a dummy eTMA. Another point was about the use of discussion forums to share information (and, perhaps, even notes that relate to the module). 

Reflections

There was a lot of discussion that took place during both of the two workshop sessions that I facilitated. These notes are drawn from the plenary sessions that I ran. Another thought is that the points that I have presented here are, of course, influenced by my own experiences as a tutor. Different tutors at the same sessions may have come away with a very different view about what was discussed, and that is something that is okay: every time we go to one of these professional development sessions, invariably we pick up something new.

The biggest thing that I have, personally, taken away from the session is the thought of: ‘offer the students three key points when you give them feedback; offering more than three points has the risk of overloading them’. This comment relates to the assessment summaries which are used to offer feed-forward guidance, rather than feedback which is directly left on a student’s script. This is a thought that I have thoroughly taken on board within my own practice as a tutor on a Computing and IT project module.

I came away with another thought: I felt that the use of Mirabelle’s research really helped to contextualise and explain our academic practice. This got me thinking: perhaps I could do a literature review of research that relates to correspondence tuition. Whilst I certainly could do that (I’ve made a note!), there are other things that I need to get on with. One of those things is a summary of another professional development event that was held in Leeds.

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Christopher Douce

AL Development conference: Leeds, 6 May 2017

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Edited by Christopher Douce, Saturday, 29 July 2017, 15:26

I’ve been busy this year; I’ve been to a fair number of AL development events up and down the country. The Leeds conference, which was run in May 2017, was a ‘residential’ which meant that the associate lecturers are given the opportunity to travel to the conference venue the night before. During the evening, everyone was given a simple activity about ice breakers, tutorials and running online sessions. I understand that our ALSPD colleagues will collate the results and share them with everyone when they get around to it. I look forward to reporting something via this blog!

Keynote: Josie Fraser, Executive Dean

The keynote presentation of the conference, which focused on the university redesign project and accompanying strategy, was given Josie Fraser who is the executive dean of STEM. Josie began with some personal reflections; she used to be an OU associate lecturer many year ago (which is something that is very heartening to hear), and she talked about how university study had touched members of her family.

When she started to speak about university strategy, she mentioned the funding challenges the Higher Education sector is faced with; an issue that isn’t unique to the OU. It was sobering to hear that there will be a curriculum review, and there will be emphasis on internal university processes. A message that I heard was that it is important to make things easier for ourselves (and I assume this means everyone in the university), with a view to simplifying and investing, where appropriate.

Another point was the reflection that curriculum production and development is costly, and this varies significantly across the institution. Underpinning this point is the acknowledgement that costs need to be reduced. A thought is that it might be a good idea to develop smaller chunks of curriculum (which is something that is already happening in the level 1 computing and IT programme). There will also be an emphasis on taking the cost out of non-student facing elements. The message was pretty clear: there will be change, and people and jobs are likely to be affected. 

Faculty session

After Josie’s keynote, everyone went out into our respective faculty groups. These being the faculty of Wellbeing, Education and Language Studies (WELS), The faculty of Art and Social Sciences (FASS), The Faculty of Science Technology Engineering and Mathematics (STEM), and the OU Business School.

I went to the STEM session, where a colleague from the former Faculty of Science, Janet Haresnape, introduced an online associate lecturer programme she has helped to establish, called ByALsForALs. One of the greatest advantages of attending AL development sessions is that you have an opportunity to share practice and experience with fellow tutors. Janet’s programme has the same objective: to share experiences. Any STEM tutor can attend one of the ByALsForALs sessions, and any tutor can create a proposal to run session. I have to personally admit that I haven’t (yet) been to any of them, but all the sessions are recording, so there is a good set of resources that tutors can now draw upon – so, I shall be listing to one or more of them.

After the STEM session, we split into school groupings. During the Computing and IT school update, I talked through some slides that had been delivered at a school meeting. Some key points were recruitment for new modules was continuing, that the university is making progress in terms of its engagement with degree apprenticeships, and there will be some changes to the level 2 (and level 3) computer networking curriculum. During this session, I also remember some debate about the challenges that accompanied the introduction of the group tuition policy. 

Workshop sessions

I seem to make things difficult for myself. I seem to remember that the Leeds event may well have been the third AL development session I have given since the programme was announced, and every single session I seem to be doing something totally different!

During this session I ran two focus groups about the topic of tuition observations: I wanted to listen to tutors, and to ask them what they thought about them, and how they felt they could help their continuing professional development. The second of the two sessions was very well attended, and there were two very noisy discussion groups (and I write this meaning ‘noisy’ in a good way!) Opinions have been collected, and this will inform some university scholarship which will hopefully go some way to offering an updated set of institutional guidance about how to carry out effective observations.

My next step is to organise a focus group for staff tutors!

Final thoughts

The new ALSPD team are getting very good at running these events! From the presenter’s perspective, everything seemed to run very smoothly (but, of course, I didn’t do any of the rushing about behind the scenes). STEM session went very well; I do think it’s useful to have someone guiding the ‘all the schools from the faculty’ session, which is something that staff tutor colleagues have to work on. Also, from here I was sitting, I personally felt that the keynote speech went down very well, and the forthcoming challenges were made clear.

A final point returns to the thought that I should make things easier for myself: the next AL development session that I’m going to be running, which takes place in Windsor (or Slough, depending on your persuasion) is going to be all about delivering excellent correspondence tuition quickly. I haven’t run this session before, but I’m hoping it’s going to be both useful and fun.

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AL Development Conference, Leicester, April 2017

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Over the last few years I have been becoming more involved in AL development activities for the simple reason that it’s something that I really enjoy. Since regional centres have been disbanded, I have been contributing to the centrally organised AL development events that have been run by our ALSDWG (AL staff development working group) colleagues. This is a quick blog post about the residential AL development conference that took place in Leicester, April 2017.

Keynote: Peter Horrocks

Peter began by presenting a set of PowerPoint slides that had been shared to Senate, an academic university wide steering group that comprises of staff from across the university. During Peter’s talk I noted down a reference to the students first strategy, the importance of academic excellence, and the importance of student employability, career progression and digital innovation. Peter presented a slide entitled ‘a strategic narrative on a page’ alongside a mission statement: ‘to create educational opportunities and social mobility for all who seek to realise their ambition and fulfil their potential’.

A very important point was that university is starting a new programme called OU Redesign. A set of thirteen ‘big shifts’ (or directions) have been devised which will focus attention in the ways that the university might change (or develop) some of its way of working. Some of these points have a pragmatic feel to them: ‘we will have a single design authority to ensure a high quality and consistent user experience’. Others points are, however, a little harder for me to grasp on a first reading, since they require an in depth understanding of university processes.

Towards the end of this first session Peter ran a question and answer session. The questions from associate lecturers were about the potential of staff reductions, how to address worries that students have, how finances are taken account of across the university, and some of the challenges that have accompanied the introduction of the group tuition policy. I noted down some of the responses, but there was an underlying point that the university needs to make changes to ensure the institution is on a firmer financial setting.

Although this summary sounds negative, Peter opened his presentation in a very positive way: he began by acknowledging the hard work of the associate lecturer community; it was a comment that both myself and others appreciated. 

AL development sessions

I didn’t have the opportunity of attending an events during this conference since I was too busy running my own. Just to make things difficult for myself, I have developed this unfortunate habit of doing something entirely different for every conference. For this event, I ran a session I wrote in 2014, which was looking at the inner workings of a really important university tool: the AL file handler. I called the session: ‘eTMAs and the eTMA file handler: under the hood’.

Just so I remember, here is a summary of the abstract: ‘Are you someone who knows how to use the eTMA file handler, but would like to know a little more about how it works?  Would you like to know (and to share) some tips and techniques about how to use it better?  Would you like to know how to take backups and your marking between different computers?  If you’ve answer yes to any of these questions, then this session could be for you.  During this session we will be looking at the detail of how the OU eTMA file handler works.  Knowing how it does its job will help you to use it with a greater level of confidence.’

When I first ran this I was surprised with how interested and useful some tutors found it. The idea was simple: understanding how something works allows you to create, or correct, a user’s mental model. In doing so, you can build confidence, and uncover new ways of working.

What was really interesting, from my perspective, was how everyone differed in terms of their own experiences and understanding of the ETMA tool. I was also interested to learn that different tutors have slightly different practices when it comes to marking.

Closing points

AL development conferences are always interesting and fun; there is also always something to learn. It was also good to hear from senior representatives of the university. From my side, I can see that the AL development group are doing a great job at running these events. I look forward to the next one!


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Associate Lecturer Development Conference – LSE, April 2015

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This is a quick blog about an AL development conference I attended on 25 April at the London School of Economics.  I was looking forward to this event because I helped to put together parts of the programme.  Plus, I foolishly volunteered to run a session and facilitate the Mathematics Computing and Technology session.  It was destined to be a busy day.

The keynote talk was by my colleague Pat Atkins who presented a summary of some of the changes that were happening across the university.  These included a gradual alignment of associate lecturer contracts to various student support teams, and the introduction of a new group tuition policy, which is likely to substantially affect both tutors and module teams.

Other sessions

I helped to ‘pull together’ three AL development sessions during this conference.  After being inspired by ‘acting’ sessions that had been organised by colleagues from the South East region, I discovered that I knew someone who offered training to deal with difficult telephone calls.

Another session was about working with different pieces of technology (which was facilitated by two experienced technology associate lecturers). 

The third session was about working with students who have visual impairments.  I remember that the tutor, Richard Walker (who ran a similar session last year) saying that there is likely to be a high probability that every associate lecturer will have to work with a student who has a visual impairment at some point. 

Other sessions at the conference were about working with students who have English as a second language and a session about the role of the advisors in the London region.

The main purpose of this blog is, however, to present a quick summary of the session on OU Live Pedagogy that I ran.

The pedagogy of OU Live

For the uninitiated, OU Live can be thought of a bit like a version of Skype that has a whole load of other features, such as a shared whiteboard, and tools that enables a tutor to ask students different questions.  It also enables tutors to share portions of their screen, so students can see exactly what a tutor sees.

I think I was inspired to run this session by going to a number of other similar sounding sessions over the last few years.  A thought was, ‘what could I add to the debates about OU Live that I haven’t already heard’.  I had two objectives for my session.  The first objective was to share some of my own views about what it means to teach (or to facilitate learning) through OU Live.  The second objective was to share experience and practice.   Or, put another way, to learn about how different tutors use it to teach different modules.

A big part of the session was drawn from an earlier blog post where I wrote about the different ways to use OU Live.  For this session, I renamed a couple of the approaches.  The approaches that I talked about were:

  • Traditional tutorial: which is similar to a face to face session
  • Demonstration tutorial: where a tutor demonstrates something, such as a set of pages or some software.
  • Practical workshop: a session where a tutor puts a lot of focus into a product, tool, system, or activity.
  • Debate: an interactive debate between two tutors.
  • Recording a lecture: a short lecture which potentially augments materials provided by the module team, or to offer further explanations.
  • Drop-in session: an informal scheduled time where students can interact with a tutor and ask questions.
  • Student session: a scheduled but unfacilitated session that allow students on the same module to chat to each other.
  • Special (or additional support) session: a one to one session between a student and a tutor.

These ‘types’ are very informal.  I’ve created these types by trying to summarise all the different ways I’ve heard people talking about how they use OU Live.  It isn’t systematic, and it isn’t informed by theory; this rough taxonomy (of you could call it that) is more informed by the sharing of practice.

An important point that I made during the session is that, in some ways, technology moves a lot faster than pedagogy.  Tools such as OU Live offer us tutors a lot of different features.  The challenge is trying to figure out how to use them in the best possible way to make sure that students can learn efficiently.  It’s tempting to use these tools to just deliver dry lectures, where there are sets of PowerPoint slides.  The real challenge (from where we can create really engaging learning experiences) is to understand how to apply these tools to enable active learning.

Final thoughts

I always enjoy coming along to AL development events, and this one was also fun too: I enjoy running sessions!  The next conference is likely to take place in November 2015 in the Camden Town centre.

There’s going to be a couple of months off, before the conference planning group starts thinking about the next event.  (And, in the meantime, I’m going to take the liberty to visit the Oxford region to see what they’re doing).

 

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South East region: Associate Lecturer Development Conference, March 2015

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On 2 March I went to the South East region associate lecturer development conference.  Although the regional office has been closed, it still exists as an important administrative unit within the university.  This time, the conference was held at The River Centre, in Tonbridge, which was a conference venue I had never been to before. 

This blog post aims to summarise the different sessions that I attended during the day, and has been written using notes that I made during the day.  I hope it is useful for those who came along to the event, and other colleagues within the university who might be seeking ideas for their own sessions.

A collaborative approach to teaching a level 1 module

The conference had two workshops; a morning workshop and an afternoon workshop.  The first workshop I went to was by Bill Adler, who tutors on L161 Exploring Languages and Cultures.  The aim of the workshop was just to share some experience of teaching as collaboration. 

L161is a compulsory level 1 (first year equivalent) language studies module that addresses intercultural skills and awareness.  It consists of four different books (one for each block) and a module web site.  Approximately one thousand students at any one time might be studying the module.  Interestingly, the module makes extensive use of on-line forums.  To make this work, tutors are allocated to a number of clusters (which is an idea which immediately made me think of the group tuition policy).  The reason for this is that one thousand students contributing to a single group of discussion forums is clearly too many; some students could be overwhelmed with posts.  A cluster that comprises of around 250 students is likely to be a lot more manageable, and there’s always something that is going on to make it sufficiently interesting.

Bill talked us through two different activities that can take place through his module.  The first was an autobiography of intercultural encounters (Council of Europe website).  We gave this a go, and this led to a reflection about our own cultural identity and what it meant.

The second was how to develop reading skills in a foreign language.  A challenge with this module is that everyone might be learning a different language (you might have students studying French, Spanish, or German, for instance).  A way around this was to choose and activity and a language that isn’t likely to be too familiar to students who are taking the module.  Our challenge (which we accepted) was to try our best to decipher a menu that was written in Welsh, without knowing anything about the language.  After having a go, we swapped strategies, and we discovered that, actually, we could figure out quite a lot!  Different participants used different strategies.

During the session, I made a couple of other notes.  One note was that: different students mean different backgrounds, which mean different skills and perspectives.  Diversity creates richness, and this is a point that is reflected in the module. 

Another note that I made was about the concept of peer monitoring.  Since tutors are working in clusters, there was an opportunity to allow tutors to work more closely together with each other.

The closing activity was to reflect on our own collaborative practice.  I remember the point that working together isn’t too difficult, but true in-depth collaboration takes time to facilitate and develop, since you have to know and trust the other people who you’re working with.

Also, collaboration can mean the sharing of materials.  If one tutor is particularly busy, another one can help to share the load. The broad point of the session was: there are quite a few opportunities for tutor collaboration.  It is, however, important that the staff tutor (or line manager) and module team work together to facilitate that collaboration.

Yet again on correspondence tuition: how do we teach through marking?

Correspondence is a perennial subject in AL development conferences, but I haven’t been to a session about it for quite a while.  In fact, the last one I went to could have been at an event for design ALs over two years ago.

This session was facilitated by Vicky Roupa, who spoke about the research that she carried out as a part of her OpenPAD project.  OpenPAD is a university ‘professional academic development’ programme, and leads to fellowship of the Higher Education Academy. 

Vicky mentioned the Supporting Open Learners reader, a book that I remember reading when I first joined the university.  Vicky made the point that correspondence tuition is, of course, the main form of teaching.  Other points that I noted was that it was important to engage in a dialogue with the student, and that correspondence tuition is an action that is student led.

We were asked a number of questions: what do we teach?  How do we encourage students to engage?  How do we develop writing so it becomes a major key to learning?

An important point was that students don’t always read (or, indeed, know about) the correspondence teaching that they have been given.  Also, students might not understand the feedback that they have been given, or be able to use the guidance.

To try to engage students, one approach is to choose the most important points to focus on.  Our challenge is to choose which comments are best placed to move a student along.  One other tip was to add links to useful resources within the script comments, such as a link to certain sections in the Skills for Study website.

Another point was that receiving feedback from a tutor can be sometimes tough and involves lots of different emotions.  Vicky’s research was all about trying to gather ‘feedback on feedback’.  Her point is that tutors often mark assignments, return them to students, and then never hear back from them.  Closing the feedback loop can have the potential of helping a tutor to learn more about how to improve their teaching practice.  This was connected to an earlier project (which was mentioned at an earlier South East conference), where students are encouraged to talk through their views about feedback.  Information about this project is available from the Languages Open Resource Online repository.

Towards the end of the session, I made a few final notes (and questions) which might resonate with fellow tutors.  These were: ‘are we assessing or are we teaching?’ (it does depend on the design of the module) and ‘avoid judging too much and too powerfully’ (so we can engage in a meaningful dialog with students).

Reflections

This AL development conference seemed to be smaller than other that I’ve been to.   For some reason, the autumn events seem to be a whole lot busier than the spring events.  I would have (personally) liked to have gone to one more session, to see what else was going on, but I do appreciate that timing is always going to be a challenge (tutors, of course, give up a lot of their Saturdays already!)

The biggest take away points of the day came from interactions with the other tutors in the sessions.  I found the activity in the morning session interesting (and fun!), and found the sharing of views about correspondence tuition useful and reassuring.

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Christopher Douce

AL Development Conference: University of Sussex

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Edited by Christopher Douce, Monday, 12 Apr 2021, 18:33

On 8 November 2014 I attended the South East region (region 13) associate lecturer development conference held at the University of Sussex.  I felt that this was a really important event to attend, since it was to be the ‘final’ conference that was organised from the regional centre in East Grinstead.  All future conference would be run from the London region that has been re-christened as ‘London and the South East’.

One of the main reasons I wanted to go was to meet some of my colleagues who were leaving the university.  In some ways, it was a really sad day, but in another way, it presented an opportunity for the AL community to offer loud and vociferous thanks for all the great work colleagues from the region had carried out over very many years.

MCT session

The first session of the day was spent in our faculty groups.  The MCT session addressed three topics.  Other than details about the impending closure, the first topic was about changes to AL line management.  The second was about the development of a Group Tuition Policy.  The third and final section was a talk from an AL colleague about a research project about the use of language.

Changes in line management

A really important item was that the line management for some associate lecturers is changing.  What this means is that a line manager for a tutor might be located in a different part of the country.  The reason for this change (which is taking place in the Engineering and Innovation and the Computing and Communications department) is that a line manager will become increasingly specialised in terms of the subjects and topics that they look after.  I view this as a really positive thing: it has the potential to allow line managers (staff tutors) to respond to both student and tutor queries more quickly and efficiently, and enable them to develop more expertise in a smaller number of courses.

Group tuition policy

The university has been working on something called a ‘group tuition policy’.  From my reading of the policy, it seems to have two main objectives.  The first is to offer students flexibility and choice, i.e. they can choose to attend either on-line or face to face tutorials.  The second is that by grouping different sets of students together, it is hoped that tutors end up with more busy tutorials, and this can have a positive effect for everyone: more students means more opinions, which then can mean more learning.  One of the ideas is that students are given information about learning events before a module begins.  To make the policy a reality the university has to make some changes to its tutorial finder system.

During the session we looked at the policy and had a discussion about what we thought about it and how it might potentially impact on our tutoring.

Language use and retention in TU100

The final part of the morning session was presented by Associate Lecturer Heath Morris who tutors on TU100 My Digital Life (OU website).  Heather has been working on a university funded project that has been looking at the use of language in correspondence tuition, in particular, the summary comments that are provided by tutors.  TU100 is a particularly important module since it places quite a bit of emphasis on the development of skills, such as numeracy and academic writing.  OU students can come from very different background, which makes this aspect of teaching and learning all the more important.  The main question is: how do tutors use language and in what way might this language affect students?

Heather mentioned something called an ‘appraisal framework’, which I think is a framework used to assess the types of language used in assignment feedback.  I’ve made a note that it comprises of three different aspects: affect (which conveys emotion), judgement (which is an evaluation of behaviour or work performed) and appreciation (evaluation).  Other key words that I’ve noted from Heather’s presentation include student tenacity (which relate to the evaluation of effort?), and student capacity (which relates to the evaluation of capability). 

A set of questions for the research project are: does the use of language affect performance and retention?  Do those who score low leave?  To what extent would more positive feedback be useful?  Would it helped if we had just decided to give students a ring on the phone to have a chat with them?  What tools or checklists might be useful?

My own view on the language question is that surely good language and detailed explanations can have a positive effect on student retention, but there’s a big difference between having a gut feeling about something and actually showing something empirically.

I thought Heather’s presentation was great.  I would really like her to run a similar session in the London region.  Another thought was: perhaps we could run an AL development event that is specific to TU100 that covers the use of language and also lets us discuss the group tuition policy.  The underlined a simple outcome from attending these AL development conferences: they expose us to new things and help us to come up with new ideas that will help both tutors and students like.

Workshop: Scientix: the community for science education in Europe

The first workshop I went to was ran by Richard Walden.  Richard’s session was split into two parts.  The first was about an EU funded project called Scientix (project website) that he was involved with.  The project is described as an initiative to create a ‘community for science education in Europe, promotes and supports Europe-wide collaboration among STEM (science, technology, engineering and maths) teachers, education researchers, policymakers and other STEM education professionals.’  Scientix offers training resources, access to research, information about applications and opportunities for networking.  There’s also a link to something called the European School Net (EUN website) which I had vaguely heard of before.  If you’re interested in STEM teaching, both sites might be worth having a quick look at.

The second part of Richard’s session was all about how to improve student’s scores in tests without doing a lot of extra work.  To prepare us for this section, he split us into two groups: one group was asked to write about what we did on holiday, and the second group was asked to write about the anxieties that we might feel if we had to go ahead and complete a time limited quiz.  We were then all given a quiz to complete.

The idea was simple, and draws on research by a researcher called Gerardo Ramirez (UCLA website) : by writing about our exam anxieties, we explicitly articulate them, and this can help them to be reduced.  High levels of exam anxiety, can, of course, drastically affect exam performance.  There is an equally simple theory:  if we’re anxious, we occupy our short term memory with our anxieties. Since our short term memory is strictly limited, this will impact on our ability to understand and work through exam questions.  Short term memory, we were also told, is really important when it comes to retrieving essential information from long term memory.  (Having studied aspects of cognitive psychology many moons ago, I found all this especially interesting).

If you’re interested in this subject, I’ve also dug out the following YouTube lecture (YouTube) by Sian Beilock (who Ramirez’s co-author) who talks about some of the science behind this research.  (It’s quite a long video; there may well be some shorter videos out there).

Richard’s reason for sharing this research was simple: perhaps it’s worthwhile telling our students about this research, and the potential benefits that writing about fears and anxieties may provide.  I think it’s a great idea.

Modelling reflexivity in the teaching-learning relationship through distance learning tools

This final workshop of the day, facilitated by fellow tutor, Emily Skye, was rather different to all of the others.  I was attracted to it due to the word ‘reflexivity’ in the title; it was a term that I first came across when I was studying some social science modules, but my memory of it and how it could be used was a bit rusty: I was looking for a refresher.  Straight away, I discovered that the workshop had a very different structure: it was more of an open facilitated discussion rather than a formal ‘talk’.  All participants sat in a rough circle and shared something about ourselves, why we found this particular session of interest, and also something about our understanding of the term reflexivity.

I soon learnt that it might well be one of those terms that has different definitions based on the context it is used.  In essence, I understand that it is about understanding and thinking about yourself and how it relates to a particular context; it is about being self-aware.  It also relates to your own identity.  You can, for example, very easily hide behind a label that is attributed to a role or profession.

Being self-aware, and thinking about our effect on others (and how we are thinking about others) has the potential to help to inform our teaching and learning.  Through selectively sharing, we have the potential to build up trust, which can help us to encourage learners to look at new subjects, issues and areas.  Also, being reflexive also allows us to acknowledge the difficulties of learning, to be empathetic towards the challenges students face and connect with the emotional perspective of learning.

One of the big challenges in the distance education context is the extent to which we are able to relate and understand our students, especially when our interactions may be limited to only key points during a module presentation.  I introduced a term from computer (or, perhaps human-computer interaction) which was: emotional bandwidth.  When we interact with each other through on-line tools such as discussion forums we can easily misunderstand situations and expressions of emotion.

I found this session especially interesting because it was so different to the other sessions I had been to before.  Although I was initially rather worried by the layout of all the chairs, I quickly became relaxed.  It was also great to learn a little bit more about some of my associate lecturer colleagues.

Final thoughts

Like many AL development conferences that have been run by Region 13, this one went very smoothly.  Delegate packs were organised, there were clear signs on rooms, and it was exceptionally well attended.  One part of the day stood out for me, and this was when the Associate Lecturers gave the staff at East Grinstead a standing ovation to both thank them for all their hard work, and to recognise the work that they have given to the university.  There were tears.  I’m glad I was able to be there.

Not only did I learn new things, I took with me some idea that I then transferred to the London AL development conference that was running the following week.  This just went to emphasise my view that regional difference and diversity was (and is) a good thing.

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Christopher Douce

Associate Lecturer Professional Development Conference: Kent College, Tonbridge

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Edited by Christopher Douce, Monday, 24 Mar 2014, 14:14

The Open University in the South East ran one of their associate lecturer professional development conferences on the 1 March 2014.   This year, the conference was held at Kent College, Tonbridge.  I don’t know whether I wrote about this before, but this was the same where I attended my first ever OU tutorial (as a rookie tutor).  Today, the site is very different. Then it was gloomy and dark.  Now, the buildings are bright and airy, and boasted a spectacular view of the Kent countryside.

This post is a very brief summary of the event.  The summary has drawn directly from the notes that I made during the day (and these, by definition, will probably contain a couple of mistakes!)  It also contains a bunch of rough reflections.  I should add that this blog is primarily intended for other associate lecturer colleagues but it might accidentally be of wider interest to others too.

During this conference, I signed up for two sessions.  The first was entitled, ‘supporting academic writing’.  The second session was all about, ‘aligning TMA feedback to students’ needs and expectations’. 

Supporting academic writing

This first session was facilitated by Anna Calvi, who projected a set of phrases about academic writing onto a digital whiteboard.  A couple of examples were, ‘what is a semi-colon?’ and ‘I think of ideas and information as I write’. ‘Do any of you recognise these?  Which are the most important for you?’ Anna asked, challenging us to respond.  She didn’t have to wait long for an answer.

A couple of responses that I noted down were: explaining why structure is important, the importance of paraphrasing and differences between written English and spoken English.  There’s also the necessity to help students to understand what is meant by ‘written academic English’.  Some suggestions were immediately forthcoming: the choice of vocabulary, style and appropriate referencing.

One of the participants asked a question that I have heard asked before.  This was, ‘can all faculties have a module that helps students to write descriptively?’  The truth of the matter is that different faculties do different things.  In the Mathematics Computing and Technology module, writing skills are embedded (and emphasised) within the introductory level 1 modules.  Other faculties have dedicated modules.  Two key modules are LB160 Professional Communication Skills for Business Studies, and L185 English for Academic purposes, which I understand can contribute credit to some degree programmes.

During this session, all the tutors were directed towards other useful resources.  These include a useful student booklet entitled reading and taking notes (PDF) which is connected to an accompanying Skills for Study website (OU website).  Another booklet is entitled Thinking Critically (PDF).  This one is particularly useful, since terms, ‘analyse critically’ and ‘critically evaluate’ can (confusingly) appear within module texts, assignments and exams.

One of the points shared during this first session was really important: it’s important to emphasise what academic writing is right at the start of a programme of study.

What needs to be done?

So, how can tutors help?  Anna introduced us to a tool known as the MASUS framework.  MASUS is an abbreviation for Measuring Skills of Academic Students and has originally come from the University of Sydney.  We were directed to a video (OU website) which describes what the framework is and how it works.  A big part of the framework (from what I remember), is a checklist for academic writing (OU website).  In essence, this tool helps us (tutors) to understand (or think about) what kind of academic writing support students might need.  Key areas can include the use of source materials (choosing the right ones), organising a response in an appropriate way, using language that is appropriate to both the audience and the task, and so on.  In some respects, the checklist is an awareness raising tool.  The tutor’s challenge lies in how to talk to students about aspects of writing.

If you’re interested, there’s a more comprehensive summary of the MASUS framework (PDF) is available directly from the University of Sydney.  Another useful resource is the OU’s own Developing academic English which tutors can refer students to.  We were also directed to an interesting external resource, a Grammar tutorial, from the University of Bristol.

Offering feedback

After looking at the checklist and these resources we moved onto a wider discussion about how best tutors can help students to develop their academic writing.  I’ve made a note of two broad approaches; one is reactive, the other is proactive. A reactive strategy might include offering general backward looking feedback and perhaps running a one to one session with a student.  A proactive approach, on the other hand, could include discussions through a tutor group forum, activities within tutorials, sharing of hand outs that contain exercises and practical feed-forward advice within assignments that have been returned.

TMA feedback can, for example, give examples (or samples) of what is considered to be effective writing.  An important point that emerged from the discussions was that it is very important to be selective, since commenting on everything can be very overwhelming.  One approach is to offer a summary and provide useful links (and pointers) to helpful resources.

On-line tutorials

Anna moved onto the question of what tutors might (potentially) do within either face to face or on-line tutorials to help students with their academic writing; this was the part of the sessions where tutors had an opportunity to share practice with each other.  Anna also had a number of sample activities that we could either use, modify, or draw teaching inspiration from.

The first example was an activity where students had to choose key paragraphs from a piece of writing.  Students could then complete a ‘diagram’ to identify (and categorise) different parts (or aspects of an argument).  Another activity might be to ask students to identify question words, key concepts and the relationships between them. 

Further ideas include an activity to spot (or identify) parts of essay, such as an introductory sentences, background information, central claims and perhaps a conclusion.  A follow on activity might be to ask questions about purpose of each section, then connecting with a discussion to the tasks that are required for an assignment.

There was also a suggestion of using some cards.  Students could be asked to match important terms written on cards to paragraphs. Terms could include: appropriate tone, formality, alternative views, vocabulary, linking words, and so on.  There would also be an opportunity to give examples, to allow tutors to emphasise the importance of writing principles.

A further tip was to search the OpenLearn website for phrases such as ‘paraphrasing’ (or module codes, such as L185) for instance.  The OpenLearn site contains some very useful fragments of larger courses which might be useful to direct students to.

Aligning TMA feedback to students’ needs and expectations

This second session was facilitated by Concha Furnborough.  Her session had subheading of, ‘how well does our feedback work?’ which is a very important question to ask.  It soon struck me that this session was about the sharing of research findings with the intention of informing (and developing) tutor practice.

I’ve made a note of another question: how do we bridge the gap between actual and desired performance.  Connecting back to the previous session, a really important principle is to offer ‘feed-forward’ comments, which aims to guide future altering behaviour. 

An early discussion point that I noted was that some students don’t take the time to download their feedback (after they have discovered what their assignment marks were).  We were all reminded that we (as tutors) really need to take the time to make sure students download the feedback that they are entitled to receive.

This session describes some of the outcomes from a project called eFeP, which is an abbreviation for e-Feedback evaluation project, funded by Jisc (which support the use of digital technologies in education and research).  If you’re interested, more information about the project is available from the eFePp project website (Jisc).

The aim of the project was to understand the preferences and perceptions that students have about the auditory and written feedback that are offered by language tutors.  The project used a combination of different techniques.  Firstly, it used a survey.  The survey was followed by a set of interviews.  Finally, ten students were asked to make a screen-cast recording; students were asked to talk through their responses to the feedback and guidance offered by their tutors.

One of the most interesting parts of the presentation (for me) was a description of a tool known as ‘feedback scaffolding’.  The ‘scaffolding’ corresponds to the different levels or layers of feedback that are offered to students.  The first level relates to a problem or issue that exists in an assignment.  Level two relates to an identification of the type of error.  If we’re thinking in terms of language teaching, this might be the wrong word case (or gender) being applied.  The third level is where an error is corrected.  The fourth is where an explanation is given, and the fifth is clear advice on how performance might be potentially improved.

Feeling slightly disruptive, I had to ask a couple of questions.  Firstly, I asked whether there was a category where tutors might work to contextualise a particular assignment or question, i.e. to explain how it relates to the subject as a whole, or to explain why a question is asked by a module team.  In some respects, this can fall under the final category, but perhaps not entirely.

My second question was about when in their learning cycle students were asked to comment on their feedback.  The answer was that they gave their feedback once they had taken the time to read through and assimilate the comments and guidance that the tutors had offered.   Another thought would be to capture how feedback is understood the instant that it is received by a learner.  (I understand that the researchers have plans to carry out further research).

If anyone is interested, there is a project blog (OU website), and it’s also possible to download a copy of a conference paper about the research from the OU’s research repository.

Reflections

Even though I attended only two sessions, there was a lot to take in.  One really interesting point was to hear different views about the challenges of academic writing from different people who work in different parts of the university.  I’ve heard it said that academic writing (of the type of writing needed to complete TMAs) is very tough if you’re doing it for the first time.  In terms of raising awareness of different resources that tutors could use to help students, the first session was especially useful.

These conferences are not often used to disseminate research findings, but the material that was covered in the second session was especially useful.  It exposed us to a new feedback framework (that I wasn’t aware of), and secondly, it directly encouraged us to consider how our feedback is perceived and used.

One of the biggest benefits of these conferences is that they represent an opportunity to share practices.  A phrase that I’ve often heard is, ‘you always pick up something new’.

Copies of the presentations used during the conference can be found by visiting the South East Region conference resources page (OU website, staff only).

Footnote

A week after drafting this summary, I heard that the university plans to close the South East regional centre in East Grinstead.  I started with the South East region back in 2006, and it was through this region that I began my career as an associate lecturer.

All associate lecturers are offered two days of professional development as their contract, and the events that the region have offered have helped to shape, inform and inspire my teaching practice.  Their professional development events have helped me to understand how to run engaging tutorials, my comfort zone has also been thoroughly stretched through inspiring ‘role play’ exercises, and I’ve also been offered exceptional guidance about how to provide effective correspondence tuition.

Without a doubt, the region has had a fundamental and transformative effect on how I teach and has clearly influenced the positive way that I view my role as an associate lecturer.  The professional development has always been supportive, respectful and motivating.

The implications on the closure of the South East region on continuing professional development for both new and existing tutors is currently unclear.  My own view is probably one this obvious: if these rare opportunities for sharing and learning were to disappear, the support that the university offer its tutors would be impoverished.

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