Friday 30 September 2016

Building Students' Research Skills - Reflections

An unintended consequence of the Undergraduate Research Conference we ran in April is that it is being held up as an example (within my University at least) of how we can prepare and support BTEC students in their transition to University AND of widening participation.

I say unintended because the original plan was simply to try and get our existing students engaged in research. Inviting local colleges to participate - especially those in disadvantaged areas - and focusing on current BTEC students ticked the boxes around widening participation for our Schools Colleges and Community Outreach team, but the focus on research skills also provided extra study skills support for those current undergraduates with a BTEC background.

I was invited (along with my colleague Sarah Barkley from SCCO) to talk about the event at a recent BTEC Symposium - here is the Prezi:

Saturday 3 September 2016

#altc Tell it like it is!

oh dear! I have been quiet recently....

well, the new academic year looms and even before I get to experience that particular joy, I have a session to deliver at ALTC in Warwick next week - on the theme of Digital Storytelling (of course).

You can get a preview of my presentation via the Prezi below. It includes a short video with highlights from this year's crop of stories. For more posts on my journey, click on the digital storytelling label below.



What's next?

I am going to be using the same assessment with my final year students this year - I think both they and I have found it to be a very creative and engaging task, and as a way of reflecting on learning it is proving to be very effective: far more so than the traditional assessments I have used in the past.

This year's batch are going to be especially interesting as this is the only cohort that will have completed a digital story in both years 1 and 3. I hesitated for a while about whether to ask them to repeat the assignment but I think doing so will allow both them and me to compare the two artefacts and measure the distance travelled....