Principal's Teaching Award Scheme
Successful proposals from the December 2008 deadline
Student writing: innovative online strategies for assessment and feedback
Principal Applicant - Ms Jen Ross, Higher & Community Education
Additional Team Members
Dr Sian Bayne, School of Education
Dr Hamish Macleod, School of Education
Ms Clara O'Shea, School of Education
Provisional start and end dates: May 09 - April 2011
Abstract
Students on the MSc in E-learning programme report high levels of satisfaction with the feedback they receive, and many create assignments and coursework of exceptionally high quality. They are also extremely engaged with and committed to the programme, with unusually high retention rates (especially for a distance programme). This two year research project will explore our existing feedback and assessment practices in partnership with students on the programme, identifying principles for successful feedback on and assessment of digital writing, and disseminating these widely within the school, University, and HE community. The project will draw on the rich source of data we have in our archived online course interactions with and
between students, as well as generating assessment and feedback stories from students and lecturers, and conducting a series of student-led ethnographies of particular courses, where students will act as participant observers and record field notes to be analysed and used as part of the project data. We will host roundtables and seminars, create web resources, write articles for publication, and develop and widely disseminate a set of principles for assessing and providing feedback on digital writing, all with the aim of offering a
set of tried-and-tested and thoroughly researched strategies for the benefit of our own and other distances programmes, and the increasing numbers of campus-based courses and programmes in the University which are moving towards blended delivery.
MISMATCHED EXPECTATIONS: BRIDGING THE FEEDBACK GAP
Principal Applicant - Susan Rhind
Additional Team Members
Dr Claire Phillips, Royal (Dick) School of Vetinary Studies
Kirsty Smith, Royal (Dick) School of Vetinary Studies
Catriona Bell, Royal (Dick) School of Vetinary Studies
Graham Pettigrew, Danielle Gunn-Moore, Neil Hudson, Lindsey Dalziel, Gill McConnell, Darren Shaw, John Mosley
Provisional start and end dates: March 2009 - September 2010
Abstract
Current work within the Veterinary Teaching Organisation educational research group is highlighting a key mismatch between the attitudes and expectations of both staff and students regarding academic feedback. The focus of this proposal is therefore to focus on ‘building bridges’ between the two constituencies to facilitate both mutual understanding and a holistic and integrated view of feedback from both staff and student perspective beginning on day one of becoming a student on the BVM&S programme. There will be two major themes within the project. The first is focussed on staff development activities and further qualitative research into the beliefs and understanding of current academic staff in the area of feedback. This theme will also include student training and development of evaluative skills. The second overlapping theme focusses on e-tool development to facilitate the provision of timely and specific feedback in pressurised clinical rotations and also to generate e-learning materials as part of the core curriculum to support student transition to the 'feedback culture' in higher education.
Following the LEaDers: From student to graduate
Principal Applicant - Dr Judy Hardy, School of Physics
Additional Team Members
Dr Simon Bates, School of Physics
Professor Susan Rhind, Royal (Dick) School of Veterinary Studies
Dr Jessie Paterson, School of Divinity
Provisional start and end dates:
Abstract
The overall objective of this project is to investigate the student perspective on learning, teaching and assessment during the later years of study within three Schools from across the academic Colleges: Physics & Astronomy (CSE), Divinity (HSS) and Veterinary Medicine (MVM). In particular, we will address the following research questions:
- How do students’ attitudes to learning and teaching change as they progress through their degree programme?
- What are students’ expectations regarding assessment and feedback?
- To what extent are these expectations being met?
- What is the impact of changes introduced to teaching, assessment or feedback within the target disciplines?
To capture the breadth and complexity of students’ experiences a mixed-mode approach will be used, including a series of reflective diaries recorded by students themselves (in video, audio or text format) together with surveys and focus groups where appropriate.
The findings will provide academic teaching staff with feedback on specific changes to teaching methods, assessment or feedback that have recently been introduced or are planned within their disciplines. This will be directly relevant to assessment and feedback practices, will help inform course development and design and will also be relevant to central support services such as the library, elearning and computing support
Peer Feedback on Individual Submissions by Reciprocal Groups
Principal Applicant - Paul McLaughlin
Additional Team Members
Dr Jim Allan, School of Biological Sciences
Professor Graeme Reid, School of Biological Sciences
Mr Welsey Kerr, IS Library User Services
Provisional start and end dates:
Abstract
In modern courses frequent peer feedback should be common, frequent and involving. We propose a group method that takes place on-line with a front-of-class tutor. Students have a stake and interest in the outcome as they make individual submissions; but they mark another group's work as a group (and vice versa). This creates an environment for peer instruction and learning. It is less stressful as responsibility for the feedback is shared. Yet it is no less engaging because each student will want to know that their own work has been treated by the other group by the same principles as their own group has established. We predict that uncomfortable feedback will be less easily dismissed when it is delivered by a consensus of peers. We have already established a form based system of submission and feedback using Microsoft Word by which a small number of academic markers can give extensive preassembled feedback to each student by selecting from a drag and drop menu. It would be very educational for the students themselves to use this. However the logistics are not in place to do this in an agile manner. We propose a database infrastructure that would solve the logistic problems of the work flow and build in our marking methods. Such an infrastructure could easily be adapted to more conventional e-marking and would be inherently open, flexible and general enough to solve problems with handling the work-flow that stymie many attempts to innovate with the forms of submission and feedback.