Tutors in Higher Education

[Rob McKerlie]

Hi Roger,

It is a small world right enough, I to was/am a dental technician!

I went back to college to complete an HNC in computing and was then able to combine this with my dental technology when I took up a post at the Dental School here in Glasgow teaching students on the bachelor of dental surgery (BDS) course aspects of dental technology in 1995. As part of my role I was to begin the process of investigating computer-asisted learning. I embarked on a Certificate in Education programme at Strathclyde University which I completed in 1998, followed by a masters by research, investigating the utility of computer-assisted learning in 2004.  I also completed PG certificate in academic practice in 2007.

As a University Teacher my main area of responsibility remains that of teaching aspects of dental technology to BDS students where I coordinate the partial denture design programme.

Over the years I have carried out some investigations in teaching and learning methods as well as evaluated CAL.  Student engagement is a big thing for me, this comes from delivering a component of the BDS programme that the students sometimes see as peripheral, after all they are going to practice dentistry not dental technology.

I am also the deputy coordinator of year 2 of the BDS programme. I also have school-wide responsibility for information services: IT, AV, Learning Spaces, VLE, elearning, etc. and staff.

I will certainly look up Curtis Bonk, thanks.

Regards

Rob

http://robmckerlie.wordpress.com

[Anonymous]

Hello,

Having been away from ocTEL for a few days its great to come back and see what everyone’s interests and focuses are. I definitely agree with Jim that we’ll learn as much from each other as we will  from the course itself. All the best

 

Kate

[Roger Harrison]

Hi Shuna, I like the pun in your final sentence to ‘come on board’! Of course come and join the flight. Like you I’m not sure what happens to the small groups, and ‘m assuming they then get transferred to each of the weeks Forum. I don’t think we’ll get broken up so soon.

I’d like to find out more about your experience of serious gaming. I’ve read a bit about them, but have never been able to get an example to look at. I think there are a number of areas where they could be of potential value for students studying public health which I teach.

And as you say, a few common interests here in the group more about the student experience (and lecturer experience) than the technical aspect, though of course they can go hand in hand

regards

 

[Roger Harrison]

Hi Jo – another participant from Huddersfield? has there been a recruitment drive in your town! I was chatting to two other people on here from Huddersfield univ too.

Glad you want to join this group and sounds like you’re full of ambition to learn what’s up to date. Is there anything in particular you’re feeling bombarded and lost with? or is it just the general navigation etc? remember you’re not expected to read and respond to everything and that’s why I like the small groups as they are a place of safety for us to come to.

regards

Roger

 

[Roger Harrison]

Yep certainly is a small world – to be reminded of the joys of special trays and bite blocks! that’s if they still use those nowadays.

What area did you specialise in for your MRes?

 

[Roger Harrison]

Hi Kate, yes lots of activity having taken place and I’ve already learnt some important things from people in this small group – this includes a great resource and collection of OERs which Jim Pettiward has helped developed, and included a link to in his posting above.

I’ve been reading a bit more about OERs, and I have an idea of thinking about trying to collate those relevant for public health and then set up a website with links to them, along with an area for other public health information key providers, and key public health journals. But then I though that people can just go to the OER.com database and do their own searching, but would they do it? I find unless it’s within three clicks away then people tend not to look very far. So I’m going to play with the idea for a bit longer and would appreciate feedback about this too.

regards

Roger

 

[Anonymous]

Hello everyone,

What you have suggested above Roger sonds really interesting. I am thinking along the same lines for my field (nineteenth century focused digital humanities). I have a question for the group…

-Are all these concepts, OERs, patron driven learning etc., ‘pie in the sky’ until we have open access to peer reviewed journals in our field?

All the best

 

Kate

 

 

[LucyTallents]

Thanks for posting about the eLearning Matrix, Jim – a useful resource!  I’ve just used Moodle so far in my work with the Continuing Education dept, but almost every other dept in Oxford seems to use WebLearn, which I didn’t realise was Blackboard.  I find the Moodle interface much easier to read threaded discussions than this one, but haven’t checked out WebLearn yet.

In the future, we may offer my online course as a self-study ‘textbook’ (printed or digital) with interactive exercises for formative feedback in the absence of peer-to-peer interaction.  I’d like to investigate tools such as eXe and HotPotatoes to create engaging and useful activities (which could also be used on a standard-format distance learning course) – does anyone have experience with these, or recommendations?  Thanks.

[LucyTallents]

Roger, Jim et al,

I like the idea of OER in theory, but I’ve yet to use any resources in my own teaching.  I have a reluctance to use OER materials just as they are, and am still figuring out why – the desire to use and improve my expertise through practice, wanting a coherent voice throughout a course, a need to justify my existence, knowing that my students aren’t the usual graduates from western unis so wanting to customise teaching for them, or …?

Somehow it seems just as time-consuming to repurpose someone’s framework for my own teaching, so I tend to browse OER for ideas to implement in learning materials that I develop myself.  This in itself makes sharing OER very worthwhile, but I’m wondering how others use them, and if I’m alone in my hesitation?

[LucyTallents]

Roger, re your RCT comment, I started my teaching career by designing and teaching a F2F PGDip on the same topics as my online course.  I’d love to do some pedagogical research comparing learning outcomes and student experience of the F2F versus online versions!  That’s a plan for the future – need to finish writing the online course first…  😉

Trish, re engaging students, I think it’s even more critical in online learning to continually relate skills/concepts back to why the students need to understand them, because they don’t get the reinforcement from casual classroom chat/questions.  Embedding learning activities in case studies or real-life problem-solving exercises will keep them interested and motivated.

TEL gives us the chance to simulate situations from their future/current professional life, but it’s easy to be led by exciting new technology, and forget that it’s the servant, not the master (in my opinion).  This is equally true for technological and analytical developments in the world of wildlife monitoring – people get caught up by new tools and forget to ask whether they’re useful and appropriate to solve a given problem.

[LucyTallents]

Trish, thank you for the Articulate pointer, but I’m working with pretty much a zero budget – anyone know any Open Source alternatives?

My students are conservation professionals from remote areas in the developing world, so course costs need to be minimal to keep fees affordable for them.  (I also like to support the development and use of open-source software where possible 🙂

[ShunaMarr]

Oh boy – someone actually wants to hear about the online game….:) I have been boring the pants off anyone who will listen for the past two years about my new module haha. Ok, well you did ask…

The BA (Hons) Tourism and Airline Management degree is a joint honours and one that I have developed from scratch in the past 5 years since I started at Napier. I teach the specialist airline modules in the course. In the 4 years of the degree they take several modules (Transport for Tourism, Airport Management, Global Airline Industry and Airline Marketing).  The new module (Airline Management) is in the final trimester of 4th year (ie running now), so draws on the stuff they’ve covered in the previous modules and where they are now putting theory into practice.

It took me two years from conceiving this module to developing it because it took a long time to source a game and develop the idea of how it would run (as well as all the administrative hoops we have to jump through). I now have contacts for several airline and other management related games if you were interested?

I understand about being confused about what happens in a game – however, a colleague I came across in another university allowed me to sit in on a game they were running for their students last year, which was very helpful. It is that same game I am now using.

Once you actually see what goes on it’s fairly straightforward. It is basically a simulated world – obviously backed up by sophisticated databases that do number crunching based on the parameters you set.

The students formed themselves into small groups (they decided that 3 was best in this class, as it distributed them evenly) and they set up their airline – I gave them some funds to start off with and they decided what type (business model eg low cost carrier or whatever) their airline was going to be, what routes they’d fly, in which part of the world, what types of aircraft they would run, onboard configuration of seats, what prices they’d charge, whether they charged for luggage, how they’d market it etc.

Obviously to be able to set this airline up with some degree of understanding, I had to front-load the lectures – so I did 12 lecture/discussion sessions up front in the first 6 weeks. I told them about how to write a business plan, pros and cons of different types of strategy, aircraft etc – all the stuff they’d need to know. There were also video instructions on how to set up the airline put into Moodle (provided by the game company).

I was very aware that I didn’t want to disadvantage anyone by making the game part of the assessment – so what they do in the game and whether the airline is a success or not is not relevant to their grade. The first assessment they do is a Business plan – where they set out their Business Strategy, Operational Plan, Marketing Plan and Financial Plan – up front before they play the game. (One per airline, so a group assessment worth 40% of the overall grade)

They then play the game. What happens is that once they have set up their airline (which they did over the last month in tutorials with me helping them) they then run it for 3 years (a speeded up 3 years obviously). They make decisions – I do a ‘batch run’ – this is where the game is closed, there is a bit of background number crunching going on (doesn’t take long – depends on how much number crunching needs to go on but in under 20 minutes, usually less). When the game reopens, three months have passed. The students look at their results and see whether they’ve made or lost money, whether aircraft need taken out of service for maintenance etc – they then decide how to react and adjust prices, change routes or whatever.

Once they have made their adjustments there is another batch run. These can be set for whenever you like – I’m doing this one once a day for 12 days – Over this period of 12 days I shall have 12 batch runs which will give them 3 years worth of data. I can put a spanner in the works by adjusting things as the administrator eg I can adjust demand up and down in an area or even to a particular airport, I can hike fuel prices, I can even do things like crash a plane (haven’t decided if I’ll do that yet lol).

After the end of the simulation, the students then have to write the second assessment, which is an individual reflective account (worth 60% of their grade) of how well their airline performed compared to their business plan and what they have learned about airline management as a result of having played the game.

As has been mentioned elsewhere – I feel it is always important not to use technology or a gadget for the sake of using the gadget. What I wanted the students to learn was about airline management -the game is only the means to an end.  But it will give them much more hands on and practical experience and a much deeper understanding than if I just did  the usual lecture/tutorial scenario – in having to run their own airline they see direct cause and effect as a result of decisions they make.

I know this for a fact because although I’ve been teaching this subject for 15 years, it was only through playing the game that I really understood WHY things had happened in the way that I intellectually knew they had. So if it can enrich my understanding, then it must surely do the same for students who on the whole start from a lower base of knowledge and have more to learn.

I’m extremely excited about it as the students have been absolutely loving playing the game and running their own airline – I have had practically perfect attendance for the whole module – I think 2 students have each missed one class for the whole 10 weeks so far. Amazing!

Hope this is of interest to you Roger and the rest of the group. If you wanted to have a looksee Roger, I am currently running a simulation now – the students ‘go live’ on Tuesday. You could sit in on it if you like?

I would love to get ideas from other people about how they have enriched their teaching using other techie stuff.

Cheers

Shuna

[jimpettiward]

Hi Jane,

Great to have you with us. What are you using to redesign your study skills module? Will it be part of a VLE or an OER? Would be good to compare notes. This is my second Mooc, although I’m only half way through the first one so a relative novice also! Finding it very interesting so far, especially in terms of the connections we can all make with others in the same area.

Jim

[jimpettiward]

Hi Roger. Thanks – I’m really hoping to be able to continue developing the matrix and see where it can go. The little OERs on there are mostly things I’ve collected over time rather than the result of a specific search. I’ve found the OER repositories like Jorum/Merlot etc. to be quite frustrating to use – erratic and badly labelled results, strange formats for resources etc. Have you had good results with them?

Jim

[jimpettiward]

Hi Lucy, I know what you mean about OERs and I think it’s quite common to feel that way about them. In fact, I’ve often felt a little reluctant to use other materials, whether online or on paper for some of the same reasons you suggest..

I do think now though that with so many people out there creating so many different things that remixing and reusing others content (with attribution) obviously is becoming a vital part of our practice… I think there’s probably a happy medium somewhere between using OERs for inspiration, minor repurposing and using one or two ‘gems’ here and there.

Thanks for your comments on the elearning matrix. In terms of the forums, I find most threaded discussion forums pretty difficult and uninspiring to use but that’s probably just me. I’ve used hot potatoes ‘back in the day’ to create fairly bog standard language learning exercises – never thought of HP as particularly engaging though. Haven’t used it for a long time so may be better now..

Jim

[Author]

Posts