Over the past two and a half years, the UK Centre for Materials Education
has funded a total of 24 teaching development and materials awareness projects
through its grants scheme. This annual workshop is an opportunity for all
grant holders to get together to share their experiences and discuss their
progress. The 2002 workshop was held in September at Sutton Courtney Abbey
in Oxfordshire.
The morning was spent reviewing the progress to date of the projects
and the afternoon was devoted to a series of discussions which are summarised
below:
How do I know that my students have learnt what I want them
to learn?
This discussion took place in small groups - once again we came up with
more questions than answers:
- 'Experience' drives the development of resources - How can we make
sure that we also draw on educational expertise to back-up our intrinsic
knowledge about teaching?
- Qualitative vs quantitative assessment - but what can you use as
a control group (the results vary year on year with different sets of
students). This also led to a discussion on the merits of various approaches
used to 'measure' that student learning has been improved
- How do we get students to give reliable feedback?
- How does the student perceive the value of the course content - is
it directly relevant to getting them a job? Or is there something more
esoteric that's important to them?
- Peer review - this could be opening a can of worms, but it could
have great potential
The Centre will be happy to further discuss or provide references on
any of these issues.
How can I evaluate improved awareness of materials?
- Evaluation needs to be planned for the long term - beyond the duration
of the project
- We can evaluate long and short term
- It helps to have someone external to the project to evaluate the
impact before and after the project
- What do we measure - the aims and objectives need to be clearly defined
from the beginning of the project, along with the criteria for success,
if we want to evaluate something concrete.
- Quantitave Evaluation is important as evidence/data to provide 'proof'
to the funders:
- Uptake or demand for the materials provided - web hits?
- Questionnaires - Who are they constructed for, teachers of students?
They should include neutral questions
- Qualitative Evaluation is important if we want to know what works
and why - to share ideas
- We must define the target audience - is it customers, manufacturers,
students?
Educational Projects - What have we learnt through the project
(secrets of our success) that we could disseminate to others?
- Student and staff resistance is always a problem - they prefer 'tried
and tested' options. We need to support each other and provide evidence
of success in other institutions.
- Weaker students tend to accept 'self-learning' approaches easier
than more highly qualified students who have already learnt how the
system works. Learning to learn approaches are needed in the first year
- Schools and Universities are moving in different directions - we
need to liaise with teachers
- The cultural change between school and university is a hurdle
- If students do take action, they almost invariably enjoy it, the
hard part is getting them to move and change their ideas in the first
place
- All of the projects have the same aim: to optimise the learning experience
- Access each others websites in the formative stages would be welcomed
- please give initial sites to the Centre for sharing
- The biggest issue for everyone is workload, so innovations that improve
student learning AND reduce time pressures are welcomed.
How do we encourage others to take an interest in the way
that they teach and the ways that they can help students to learn?
- It's easier to be innovative in setting up new courses, if we get
the chance, than in adapting old ones
- Talk to colleagues - particularly newer, younger ones, and especially
in other institutions
- Get the HE system to recognise quality in teaching and to provide
incentives to departments and individual lecturers. - We can help to
share ideas with the funding councils, etc.
