The 2019 Conference will include a number of posters to view, as follows (links to abstract):
- Re-loading the Archaeological Canon
- Developing a bespoke employability hub for the Department of Environment and Geography
- Evolution of supplementary skills: academic to creative
- Inspiring Young Minds: The role of experimental archaeology in delivering the Key Stage 2 Stone Age curriculum and reaching global audiences
- The student voice continuum
- Planning a role for the Pre-Masters in the campus community
- Developing communication skills for providing care to vulnerable families in third year studentCha midwives
- The use of ‘How to…’ videos to support student writing
- Supporting first year students with the transition to academic writing in higher education
- Establishing a student-run departmental magazine
- Designing an app to reduce cognitive load for biology undergraduates studying programming for data analysis: A postgraduate student-driven project to support the learning of analytical concepts simultaneously with the R language
- Study student guidance with lecture capture
- Challenges and reflections on ‘Developing Online Provision’
- Evaluation of MSc Group Research Project in the Department of Biology
- Peer Assisted Learning for Languages at York
- CATASTROPHIC: A card game supporting systems thinking in biology
- Working together on authentic projects: designing, delivering and assessing group work and collaboration
- A meta-analysis on the effectiveness of flipped classroom in mathematics education
- Padlets for collaboration community building
Poster 1: Re-loading the Archaeological Canon
Author: Colleen Morgan
Department of Archaeology
There is a growing concern regarding the paucity of literature written by women and indigenous scholars on course reading lists. I have reviewed the undergraduate reading lists assigned by the University of York Department of Archaeology to assess the relative representation within our coursework. I have employed a limited literature review regarding diversity and representation in scholarship. Then I will discuss my review of the reading lists in the department with an eye toward making recommendations for future practice within Archaeology and other disciplines.
Poster 2: Developing a bespoke employability hub for the Department of Environment and Geography
Author: Jenny Pollard
Department of Environment and Geography
The introduction of a new VLE Employability Hub in the Department of Environment and Geography captures the Department’s new Key Points Training approach and builds on the success of the Environment Skills Hub, uniting programme-level thinking with employability and careers skills.
Poster 3: Evolution of supplementary skills: academic to creative
Author: Teaching and Learning Team
Information Services
Creativity is an essential component of innovation and problem-solving; it requires imagination, and the ability to take risks to produce something original. With artificial intelligence and machine learning moving from the world of science fiction to reality, creativity is often identified as the quality that sets us apart from the robots. Providing students with the opportunity to engage in activities that enable them to be creative, can therefore enable them to develop desirable skills for the digital workplace.
In September 2017 Library & IT Services launched their supplementary digital skills programme, in the form of Digital Wednesdays and the online Skills Guides. These were developed to align to programme learning outcomes and the student journey. Once the supplementary skills programme was launched, we were free to explore digital skills beyond those required for academic study. We wanted to provide students with the opportunity to explore digital technologies in a creative way.
In June 2018, we offered a week-long event, in partnership with the Archives, to explore archival data and produce a new digital artifact. The students who participated gained hands-on experience of using creative media-orientated tools: image, video and audio editing tools, and augmented reality. The students collaboratively produced a digital output which incorporate audio, images and AR triggers inspired by the Yorkshire Historic Dictionary data.
Digital creativity has now become a strand of our Digital Wednesdays programme, with supporting content available on the Skills Guides. This poster will present the evolution from academic to creative skills, detailing some of the workshops covered by the programme.
Poster 4: Inspiring Young Minds: The Role of Experimental Archaeology in Delivering the Key Stage 2 Stone Age Curriculum and Reaching Global Audiences
Authors: Andy Needham, Andy Langley and Aimée Little
Department of Archaeology
Experimental archaeology – the replication of (pre)historic archaeological objects to facilitate understanding of their production and function – is an important tool in teaching students about material culture in higher education. It facilitates deep learning through active engagement with materials and processes. However, the benefits of experimental archaeology in teaching extend beyond higher education institutions; it is equally well suited to school children who might never have been exposed to archaeology or prehistory before. Combining experimental archaeology with video – turning research into short films – is one way to engage a non-specialist audience, in particular when working with outreach specialists in the museum sector.
We report on a collaboration with Yorkshire Archaeological Trust (YAT) to create experimental archaeology video content aimed at 7-11-year-olds. Experiments were carried out by masters students as part of the Experimental Archaeology Design & Practice skills module, conducted at the Department of Archaeology’s York Experimental Archaeology Research (YEAR) Centre, University of York. Experiments included the manufacture of beads, stone and antler tools. Students designed and carried out experiments and created accompanying videos, appropriate for school children. YAT used these videos in their Key Stage Two outreach packs to aid in the delivery of the Stone Age curriculum as well as global education programmes.
Poster 5: The Student Voice Continuum
Author: Nick Glover
York University Students’ Union
As a Union we’re committed to rethinking the ways in which students participate in their education and enhancement activities at the University. For us this means going beyond simply tweaking the Academic Representation system and creating diverse opportunities for students to participate – as partners – in educationally purposeful activities.
A review of ‘student voice’ activities and discussions with the University (Management and Faculty) led to a shift in our thinking towards a continuum of student voice oriented activity – with formal collection of student feedback at one end and co-production/co-design/students-as-partners at the other. A continuum of student voice moves us away from seeing students as purely generators of feedback towards a broader concept of student participation, where genuine dialogue between students and academics results in the co-production of knowledge and the potential for transformative change (Carey 2012).
By piloting innovative approaches we want to revitalise the purpose of student voice activities at York and inspire authentic partnerships. We recognise the need to make the distinction between consultation, where students are used as data sources, and partnership, where students are given the opportunity to engage as ‘active participants, co-researchers, joint authors (e.g. Groundwater, Smith and Mockler, 2015: 162) co-producers and co-designers’. We are running three pilot partnership projects:
- English – Students as pedagogical consultants
- Biology – Students as researchers, where students are running a Participatory Action Research in partnership with YUSU
- Management – Students as co-producers, where students are co-producing pre-arrival content with the TYMS
Poster 6: Planning a role for the Pre-Masters in the campus community
Author: Christopher Copland
International Pathway College
The International Pathway College is identified in the University Strategy as playing a key role in the institution’s growth. It is one of the University’s newest departments and welcomed its first students as recently as 2016. Its Pre-Masters programme currently hosts 180 international students and prepares them for postgraduate study through skills development and discipline-specific study. The session proposed for the Learning and Teaching Conference will outline the plan for redesigning the Pre-Masters programme and the principles upon which this process will be based. This will involve building different kinds of learning communities in the sense of:
- aligning teaching and learning with the needs of destination departments
- offering learners interaction with the wider campus community on both academic tasks and wider life experience
- integrating the teaching and learning of skills (both literacy and numeracy) with academic content
As the new programme will not be delivered until 2020, response to the proposals from conference participants at this formative stage will be welcome.
Key words: collaborative learning; virtual teams; peer-led research
Poster 7: Developing communication skills for providing care to vulnerable families in third year student midwives
Author: Steph Marriott
Health Sciences – Midwifery
Better start Bradford’s three year pilot of a personalised midwifery care team provided antenatal and postnatal continuity of carer to a cohort of families who lived in areas identified by the Born in Bradford cohort study to have the highest levels of social deprivation. This poster will consider how inter-professional working with the secondment of a midwife from this team to the undergraduate midwifery education programme team at the University of York has enabled student midwives to develop communication skills for caring for such families.
Over the 3 years of the pilot care was provided by the team for a variety of vulnerable families many of whom lived in poverty, were migrants to the UK and non-English speakers. Some of these families experienced complex safeguarding problems including: domestic violence, child sexual exploitation, stillbirths or neonatal deaths, learning difficulties, child social care involvement, survivors of FGM, refugee or asylum seeker status.
Prior to registration few midwifery students have the opportunity in practice to develop communication skills suitable for caring for such vulnerable families. The introduction of a midwifery lecturer in an undergraduate education programme who worked within the team has enabled skills and knowledge surrounding midwifery care to these families to be taught both theoretically and to facilitate complex social situation communication scenarios with simulated patients.
Learning from this inter-professional working can be cascaded throughout midwifery education to improve preparation for student midwives, many of whom after qualification will care for an increasing number of vulnerable families.
Poster 8: The use of ‘How to…’ videos to support student writing
Author: Sally Quinn
Department of Psychology
Students often find interpretation of feedback challenging. One area our own students have voiced concern over is knowing exactly how to improve in the areas highlighted in the feedback. To address this, we created a series of ‘How to…’ videos that address particular areas of writing. These videos are around 5 minutes long and explain, with examples how can improve in various aspects of essay and practical report writing. This poster will share data on the usefulness of these videos to our students.
Poster 9: Supporting first year students with the transition to academic writing in higher education
Authors: Sally Quinn, Alex Benjamin, Alex Reid and Paul Bishop
Department of Psychology
The transition to Higher Education presents students within the first year with a number of social and academic challenges. One of these is understanding and meeting the expectations for academic coursework at university. This task is not a simple one or one for which students feel prepared, and can be a significant source of anxiety (see UoY Freshers’ survey, 2015-16). We therefore developed a provision to support first year students with this transition. This provision was created in partnership with two third year students, and involved the creation of VLE content (information and self-test quizzes) and small group tutorials. The resources were constructed around the elements outlined in our marking criteria. The poster will provide information on the resources we developed and provide data on student feedback in relation to these resources.
Poster 10: Establishing a student-run departmental magazine
Authors: Alexander Reid, Darel Halgarth, Hannah Paish and Grace Rice Department of Psychology
Encouraging students to establish a departmental-sponsored magazine that is thematically related to their degree can have numerous positive outcomes. As well as enhanced employability for our students other immediate benefits include the promotion of writing skills, creativity and a culture of intellectual curiosity. In the longer term such an initiative helps foster a sense of community, shared responsibility and active collaboration across cohorts. Here we outline the various steps necessary to create and promote a student-run magazine. This includes establishing a student-led code of ethics for writers, an equitable system for student involvement and participation, tips on developing content and the process of dissemination itself. Taken together we consider this enterprise a relatively low-cost high-impact way of fostering a learning community that directly involves students both socially and intellectually.
Poster 11: Designing an app to reduce cognitive load for biology undergraduates studying programming for data analysis: A postgraduate student-driven project to support the learning of analytical concepts simultaneously with the R language.
Author: Emma Rand, Joshua Sammy and Connor Greenwood-Dean
Department of Biology
Data analysis and programming are recognised as among the more difficult and challenging subjects to teach (e.g., Du Boulay, 1986; 1989), and this is particularly the case where they are taught as skills required to do research in another field such as biology. Students must learn both data analytical concepts and programming at the same time and this creates high cognitive load. Novice coders see many aspects of programming syntax as arbitrary and need substantial practice to view code as do more experienced programmers (Sorva, 2018). This activity is well-suited to independent learning but it can be difficult to motivate students to do sufficient amounts (Carey and Papin, 2018). Here we present an app designed to promote engagement with directed independent learning as an integral part of module teaching. The approach aims to reduce cognitive load for biology undergraduates studying programming for data analysis and maximise the use of contact time for learning data analytical concepts. The project was supported by a grant from the Strategic Teaching and Learning Projects fund, The University of York.
Poster 12: Study Student Guidance with Lecture Capture
Author: James Youdale
Academic Support Office
In June 2018, University Senate ratified an institution-wide policy for the recording of lectures. As such, the Replay service has experienced significant growth in terms of the number of recordings made and the number of viewership hours consumed.
As part of our yearly impact evaluation, we have engaged students across faculties in order to better understand how the provision of lecture recordings is impacting upon note-making, self-efficacy and study habits – both during and outside of contact hours. These endeavors add to a growing corpus of data that has been captured throughout the growth of the service.
As such, we report here on the latest findings – gathered in a 2018/19 survey and a follow-up focus group – and on how this ongoing partnership with our student body is informing the direction of the service and our provision of study skill resources.
Poster 13: Challenges and reflections on ‘Developing Online Provision’
Author: Dawn Wood
Department of Computer Science
The department of Computer Science is currently engaged in developing a new online program for Masters level qualification, in partnership with external providers. This is not only intended to generate a new income stream but also to develop a portfolio of digital resources that could potential support learning on campus.
Computing as a subject relies on practical experiences to enable students to understand theory and apply abstract concepts. Translating this to an online environment is proving to be a challenging process. Many of the approaches used in face-to-face delivery do not transfer directly and require rethinking in order to provide the equivalent level of support students enjoy on campus.
While this is challenging enough the team are also facing a cohort with a very different profile to on campus students. A large percentage of the potential cohort will most likely be undertaking their degree alongside work and family commitments. Potentially making learning opportunities and contact time limited and opportunistic.
This poster presents some of the key challenges the development team are facing and their potential solutions. With the use of bitesize learning, a reliance on peer feedback through discussion groups, and scaffolded practical exercises, this is a significant move away from what students engage with on campus.
How successful this will be is yet to be seen, however this experience for the development team has given them new skills and insights into how they teach and opened new avenues to explore with on camps teaching and learning.
Poster 14: Evaluation of an MSc Group Research Project in the Department of Biology
Author: Patrick Murphy
Department of Biology
In 2017, the Department of Biology introduced a new PGT programme, MSc Molecular Medicine. There were 10 students in the first cohort (2017-8) and 20 students in the second cohort (2018-9). A key objective of the programme is to develop the research skills and competencies of the students before they pursue their individual laboratory research project in the Summer Term. The students complete a group laboratory research project as part of their ‘Research, professional and team skills’ module delivered in the Autumn and Spring Terms. In this poster presentation, we will discuss the design, planning, delivery and assessment of the group research project and we will present student engagement and feedback data and staff reflections. We will discuss the advantages of the group research project and some of the challenges that we encountered. We will evaluate the changes introduced to overcome these challenges for the 2018-9 cohort. One of the improvements made was the implementation of a digital research platform for the MSc students to collect, organise and share their data collaboratively with their peers in the group. We hope that our poster presentation will be of use to colleagues in other Departments who currently or are planning to deliver student group research projects in the future.
Poster 15: Peer Assisted Learning for Languages at York
Author: Elia Lorena Lopez
Language and Linguistic Science
The Department of Language and Linguistic Science (LLS) has strongly supported Peer Assisted Learning (PAL) initiatives. In 2018-19, two strands of PAL provision were put in place for Language students. Both, Language Degree students and those studying a language through our Institutional Wide Language Provision, Languages for All (LFA), had access to tailored PAL sessions.
This project goes in line with the evidence backing up that peer-assisted learning schemes help students to establish social networks that can have a positive influence on their learning achievements. It also supports the TEF assessment criteria of Teaching Quality referring to Student Engagement (TQ1).
‘PAL for Languages’ (for degree programmes) held weekly PAL sessions in the AuT, where Second Year language students facilitated sessions for first year students to discuss language learning, course content and academic skills. Several testimonials are consistent with the fact that sessions helped students to not only engage more with their course but also to enhance their sense of integration with a wider network of peers. The scheme had a total of 82 participants in the sessions provided in the Term.
Peer Assisted Learning for Languages for All, ‘PAL for LFA’, currently running in the SpT, has a focus on intercultural communication and sessions have been facilitated by international students who are native speakers of the languages being studied. The trial has involved 5 languages and by Week 6, 87 students have attended.
Although not all has been rosy, LLS has learnt significantly from the schemes, including promotional strategies with students, how to organise successful sessions effectively and we have also developed principles to have effective leaders (i.e., be at the classroom before the students, get interested in attendees’ experiences), etc. Our aim is to share results of the scheme, benefits for those involved and tips for running successful PAL sessions.
Poster 16: CATASTROPHIC: A card game supporting systems thinking in biology
Author: Pen Holland
Department of Biology
After the discovery of a large underwater sea on a nearby planet, an international team of scientists set out from Earth to begin preparations for colonisation. After the initial terraforming phase, relations broke down irreparably and several sects formed, each laying claim to a region of the planet. In Catastrophic: The Card Game, each player represents one of the rival sects. To win, you must support the development of the most robust community of plants and animals, weaken those of your opponents, and adapt to survive the catastrophes the plant, and your opponents, continually throw at you.
We developed a card game to help players make connections across large spatial and temporal scales. Plant and Animal Trait cards (e.g. thick waxy cuticles and evaporative heat loss) help Species to withstand environmental Conditions that they must face in an onslaught of Events such as global warming, drought and habitat fragmentation. Interaction cards help players to support their community of Species through reproduction (by using the pollination card, or perhaps cross-breeding), protection (e.g. with the Doomsday Vault), collaboration (e.g. reciprocal altruism and obligate mutualism) or stab other players in the back with cheating, brood parasitism, predator ecesis and more.
We describe the story of the game’s development in a staff-student partnership across all three faculties at the University of York. We outline the rules of the game, highlighting how the learning is reinforced through the game mechanics, rather than just information on the cards, and give preliminary results on our evaluation of uptake, engagement and learning gains for bioscience undergraduates. Finally, we ask you to play Catastrophic, to see for yourself how much fun it is, and to vote on what should be in the next expansion pack.
Poster 17: Working together on authentic projects: designing, delivering and assessing group work and collaboration
Author: Thomas Jochum-Critchley
Language and Linguistic Studies
In 2018/19, a new module “Contemporary German Speaking Film” was offered to second and final year students of German. The module aism not only to develop students’ knowledge and understanding of the subject matter and its communication to a specialist (i.e. an academic) audience, but also to provide an opportunity to enhance transferable skills such as team work / collaboration, organisation and time management, as well as effective communication with a non-specialist audience. This was facilitated through an assessed group project that consisted of the organisation of a film evening open to a wider public. Students had to prepare, promote and run the screening of a German speaking film including a film introduction and post screening Q&A.
The poster will present the rationale and key principles that have informed the design, delivery and the assessment of these collaborative projects including the support received by ASO, the chosen approach to their assessment and also student feedback and tutor reflections.
Poster 18: A meta-analysis on the effectiveness of flipped classroom in mathematics education
Author: Badriah Algarni
Department of Education
Flipped classroom has become an increasingly popular way of teaching mathematics, both in K12 and higher education settings [1].The existing evidence is promising, but highly variable: some studies show that flipped classroom produce large gain in achievement, while others show minimal or non-existent gain. In the present study, we conducted a meta-analysis to evaluate the effectiveness of flipped classroom in mathematics education and to identify the factors influencing its efficacy. We surveyed educational databases (e.g., ERIC, ProQuest) to find all the published and unpublished studies measuring the efficacy of the flipped classroom in mathematics education between 2010 and 2017. To be considered in our analysis, studies had to: compare flipped classroom to a control group, implement video lectures as an out of class activity, and require the presence of the student in the classroom. A total of 34 published and unpublished studies were included in the meta-analysis (36 distinct effect sizes, 8598 participants). 34 effect sizes were positive, 2 were negatives. The average impact of flipped classroom on achievement, weighted by the precision of the estimates, was (d = 0.27, CI: 0.22 to 0.31), slightly lower than the typical impact of educational interventions (e.g., [2]) The analysis of the factors of success is not yet completed, but a preliminary analysis shows that the effectiveness of flipped classroom is influenced by the duration of the intervention, the type of activity conducted outside of the class, the language of the participants and their grade level. Considering the growing popularity of flipped classroom in mathematics education as well as the effort required to implement it in the classroom, it is crucial to know when this approach is effective and which factors contribute to its success. Keywords: flipped classroom, teaching approach, meta-analysis, mathematics, students’ achievement.
Poster 19: Padlets for collaboration community building
Author: Lilian Soon
Academic Support Office – PDLT
A poster designed tutors who have used Padlets as a way to foster collaboration and/or community building in their teaching or in the department. The poster will reflect the Tuors’ different uses and stories about their use of Padlet with students this academic year and the impact this has had on learning, engagement or practice.
York Learning & Teaching Forum 