Geraldine Foley

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LTI Show and tell on assessment with Technology, 11 November 2014

LTI recently held a show and tell on assessment with technology with colleagues from LSE, UCL and Westminster. The event was well attended and provided an opportunity to find out the varying ways that technology is being used in to innovate assessment.

The show and tell event is part of the work that is being done by LTI to promote assessment with technology at LSE. The project aims and outcomes outlined by LTI learning technologists Athina Chatzigavriil and Kris Roger can be seen here. If you are interested in being involved in the working group on e-assessment or have examples of e-submission, e-marking or e-feedback and e-return then please get in touch by emailing lti.support@lse.ac.uk

A lecture capture recording of the event (slides and audio) is now available here (LSE login required) or you can read a brief summary of the presentations below.

Alternatives to examinations

Professor George Gaskell started off the event with a brief outline of the changes that are taking place in LSE100, the compulsory course for Undergraduates at LSE. The LSE100 Director explained that the course team are currently investigating alternatives to exams. Using the learning outcomes of the course as the basis for assessment they have been developing a portfolio of activities that will allow students to demonstrate their appreciation of apply social scientific methods, concepts and theories to real world problems. Assessments will have to allow for ‘exit velocity’ and let students to take risks in their first year and allow for the progress of learners over their two years at LSE, while also preventing strategic planning by requiring all components to be completed. The process is still in the developing stages so watch this space for updates.

Peer assessment

Dr Irini Papanicolas, from Social Policy gave the second presentation on her work with Steve Bond in LTI on peer assessment. Dr Papanicolas discussed how she changed assessment on the course SA4D4 from 100% exam, to 50% exam and 50% presentation. She used ‘WebPA’ to enable students to rate their peers’ presentations using the course mark frame. Although peer assessment was an optional part of the assessment all the groups volunteered feedback and there was a positive response to the process with it creating discussion within the groups on the assessment criteria.

Dr Papanicolas will be using ‘TeamMates’ for this year as it will allow students to not only rate their own groups’ presentation but the individuals contributions within the group.

From peer assessment to peer teaching and learning….
Kevin Tang then reported how ‘Peerwise’ has been used at UCL. Kevin has been working with Sam Green & Stefanie Anyadi in the department of Linguistics to use the platform with 50 undergraduate and 50 postgraduate students. PeerWise allows students to create, answer and discuss questions. Students can rate feedback and are scored on their own contributions, at UCL these contributions are then worth a small percentage of their summative mark for the course.

Research into using the interface indicated that it was important to provide support for students to ‘think like an examiner’ with example questions and training on giving constructive feedback. Academic staff attitudes also played a crucial role in student engagement along with setting regular activities and deadlines.

As most examiners will know it is quite hard to create good questions so UCL asked students to devise questions in groups and found that the questions improved over time with the students in mixed ability groups appearing to benefit the most. The platform provided a space for interaction as students provided detailed feedback for each other which was then used to work on future questions and students were still using the system leading up to the exam for revision purposes.

Games and assessment in Law

Dr Vassiliki Bouki, Principal Lecturer, University of Westminster talked about the use of games in assessment. Dr Bouki demonstrated the ‘law of murder game’ which was developed in ‘Articulate storyline’ and was used as an alternative to coursework for a second year criminal law module. The game was used to demonstrate a real life scenario and assess critical thinking and allowed students to experience role playing to think like a lawyer. Students are given two hours to complete several small tasks in an open book environment. The game is currently in use so data and feedback from students will be available later in the year.

Word processed timed assessments and online feedback

Dr Sunil Kumar, Lecturer in Social Policy & Dean of Graduate Studies, talked about his experiences over three years on the course ‘urbanisation and social policy’. Concerned about how much students were actually learning with the traditional model of examinations, Dr Kumar introduced a 2 hour online formative assessment into his course. Students typed up their answers to short answer and long answer questions in examination style conditions. Dr Kumar was then able to read and mark submissions on his iPad and then upload the anonymised assessments with annotated feedback for all students to see on Moodle. The formative assessments have had 100% attendance with students being able to then learn from other students submissions, encouraging them to review topics they have not yet covered in preparation for the summative examination.

More information about the project can be found on our blog post.

November 13th, 2014|Assessment, eAssessment Events, eAssessment News, Events & Workshops (LTI), LSE Innovator, LTI Grants, Teaching & Learning, Tools & Technologies|2 Comments|

Thank you to all of those who attended last night’s event, whether in person or online. A video recording will be available shortly.

LTI NetworkED Seminar series Marieke Guy ‘Open data in education’ Wednesday 26 November 5:00pm – 7pm, NAB2.06.

Marieke Guy (@mariekeguy on Twitter) is a project co-ordinator at Open Knowledge (https://okfn.org), a global not-for-profit organisation that wants to open up knowledge around the world and see it used and useful. She has been working with online information for over 16 years and was previously employed by UKOLN, a centre of expertise in digital information management at the University of Bath.

Her areas of interest include research data management, digital preservation, digital cultural heritage, open technologies and open education – she currently co-ordinates the Open Education Working Group (http://education.okfn.org).

Marieke Guy will be our third speaker for the NetworkED series this academic year, see below for more information on her talk which will take place on Wednesday 26 November at 5pm.

Data is very much the flavour of the month, from discussions around data mining and monetisation of data, to privacy issues and monitoring.

But what exactly is open data and how does it relate to education? What type of data sets are we talking about and how are they being used? How can open data be used to meet educational needs? Is it just about accountability and transparency, or is there more to it? What about learning analytics? What are the implications of tracking our students? Where does the true potential lie? It clear that open education data sets are of interest to a wide variety of people including educators, learners, institutions, government, parents and the wider public. Marieke Guy will give an overview of the situation as it now stands and prompt us to consider what the implications are for those of us working in Education.

The event is free to attend and places can be reserved via the training and development system or (for those without access to the system) by emailing imt.admin@lse.ac.uk.

All our talks are live streamed and recorded for those who can’t make it. For more information, check out our website or have a look at previous talks on our YouTube channel.

November 11th, 2014|Announcements, Events & Workshops (LTI), NetworkED, Open Education, Teaching & Learning|3 Comments|

Q&A with Helen Keegan

If you couldn’t make it to Helen Keegan’s NetworkED talk, click here to watch the recording on our YouTube channel.

Q&A with Helen Keegan – Senior Lecturer (Interactive Media and Social Technologies), University of Salford, Manchester.

Q1.You have been involved in numerous projects which challenge the usual dynamics in teaching and ask students to be producers what has been your personal favourite and what did students produce as a result?

“It’s hard to choose one as they’ve all had their strengths and weaknesses, but I’d probably go with the ‘opera project’ as it was such a challenge and there was a live output as a result of remote collaboration. In this project, we worked with 120 students from the UK, New Zealand, France and Colombia. They formed eight international teams, and each team was responsible for producing the visual backdrop for a specific act in an 8-act opera. The visuals were entirely filmed and edited on mobile devices. Each team was given a one word descriptor for their act, along with the music, which was fairly avant garde so they really needed to demonstrate abstract thought. They collaborated through google hangouts and docs for the planning, so it was quite a challenge for them to negotiate the creative process remotely and across timezones. Complete chaos at times, but worth it to see their visuals become part of the performance at the Tete-a-Tete Opera Festival in 2013.”

Q2. Have you experienced any difficulties in getting teachers and students to engage projects which use social media and how did/do you deal with this?

“Yes, there are always difficulties – the main concerns centre on working openly, lack of confidence in using various tools and different platform preferences. Confidence in using tools and working openly tends to build through time, but the platform preference issue is interesting when it comes to international collaborations. We’ve found that students in different countries tend to gravitate towards particular platforms. It’s all very well setting up an international collaboration, but when students in country X insist on using Facebook while students in country Y insist on using Twitter, that’s a problem! We try to be as platform-agnostic as possible, then aggregate content from multiple platforms through a common hashtag. Eventually groups will settle on a common platform for communicating, but at the beginning it can be a challenge to negotiate platform preferences and the resulting power relations.”

Q3. What has been the most exciting/interesting outcome of a project so far?

“This year, we moved from international collaborative projects (like the opera project) to student-led (and initiated) collaborations. 250 students from the same 4 countries started to connect through a common hashtag, and we encouraged them to make one another curious through producing interesting/odd Vine videos and adding them to a collaborative Google map. It was a really neat way to build ambient awareness, and then the students started communicating and collaborating on the production of mobile films – however they didn’t have to do this, so it was great to see how many of them did begin to work together, and the outputs were fantastic! In the past, we’d done a lot of work in terms of organising groups and defining projects, so it was interesting to see the results when we stepped back and let the students self-organise through common interests.”

Q4. Do you think these projects change the way that your students view and use social media?

“Absolutely – these kinds of projects introduce students to the collaborative potential of social media. Although they’re all avid social media users (in terms of social networking) they still tend to view collaboration as working in small, local groups. Through working on large-scale international collaborations, they become comfortable with the idea of working across cultures and timezones, and they also benefit from learning from one another’s disciplinary perspectives. They’re much more likely to instigate collaborative projects themselves after taking part in these projects, as they become confident in their ability to work in international teams with people they haven’t met face-to-face.”

Helen will be speaking more about her work at LSE as part of the LTI Networked seminar series on Wednesday 5th November at 5pm.

The event is free to attend and places can be reserved on the staff via the training and development system or by emailing imt.admin@lse.ac.uk

All our talks are live streamed and recorded for those who can’t make it. For more information, check out our website or have a look at previous talks on our YouTube channel .

October 31st, 2014|Announcements, Events & Workshops (LTI), innovation, NetworkED, Open Education, Social Media, Teaching & Learning|3 Comments|

LTI NetworkED seminar series – Helen Keegan 05/11/2014

If you couldn’t make it to Helen Keegan’s NetworkED talk, click here to watch the recording on our YouTube channel.

LTI NetworkED Seminar series Helen Keegan ‘Interactive & Social Media’ Wednesday 05 November 5:00pm – 7:00pm, CLM5.02

Helen Keegan (@heloukee on Twitter) is a UK National Teaching Fellow and Senior Lecturer and researcher at the University of Salford, UK.

Her expertise lies in curriculum innovation through social and participatory media, with a particular focus on creativity and interdisciplinarity. She is known for her work on digital cultures and identities, social technologies and the interplay between formal and informal learning. As a multi-disciplinary practitioner. Helen works across sciences and media arts, developing partnerships and creative approaches to learning and collaboration.

Alongside presenting and consulting, Helen has published in journals and edited collections including the European Journal of Open and Distance Learning, Selected Papers of Internet Research, and the Handbook of Research on Social Software and Developing Community Ontologies. For more information see www.acoustics.salford.ac.uk/profiles/keegan/

Announcing our second NetworkED for the 2014/15 academic year, we are welcoming Helen Keegan to the LSE on Wednesday 5th November at 5pm. Providing insights and examples of projects that engage students as producers, Helen will discuss a number of projects that span her practice, especially looking at examples of leading projects that link students across networks, cultures and countries. This talk will be of great relevance to those interested in innovative pedagogies, student led learning and media education in the digital age. For a taste of what to expect have a look at our short Q&A with Helen Keegan.

The event is free to attend and places can be reserved on the staff via the training and development system or by emailing imt.admin@lse.ac.uk

All our talks are live streamed and recorded for those who can’t make it. For more information, check out our website or have a look at previous talks on our YouTube channel .

October 28th, 2014|Announcements, Events & Workshops (LTI), NetworkED, Teaching & Learning|Comments Off|

LTI Funding opportunities for 2014/15

Grants are available for academics to innovate teaching and learning at LSE under the categories below:

Innovation grants – projects that rethink traditional teaching models and use technology to encourage active and collaborate learning, these can include flipping lectures, gamification, using mobile devices or social media. More details and case studies from previous applicants can be found here:
LTI Innovation grants information
LTI Innovation grant application form information

E-Assessment – projects that enable innovation in assessment through the use of technology, these can include formative and or summative e-assessment, e-marking and e-feedback. More details and case studies can be found here:
E-Assessment grant information
E-Assessment grant application information

Students as producers – projects that allow students to collaborate and create content, these can include filming and digital story telling using ipads and cameras. More details and case studies can be found here:
Students-as-producers grant information
Students as producers grant application information

Calls for proposals are now open – for more details on how to apply and how the process works go to our website and view the online grant application form.

If you wish to discuss your idea, prior to your application with a member of LTI please email: lti-support@lse.ac.uk

October 21st, 2014|Announcements, LTI Grants, Teaching & Learning, Uncategorized|Comments Off|

LTI NetworkED seminar series – Josie Fraser 22/10/14

LTI NetworkED Seminar series
Josie Fraser ‘Digital Literacy in Practice: Making Change Happen’
Wednesday 22 October 5:00pm – 7:00pm, NAB2.06

Josie Fraser will be talking about her experiences of working on the Digi Lit project.
As the 10^th largest city in the UK Leicester is one of the most ethnically diverse cities in Europe, with huge amounts of children living in relative poverty. Josie has had to deal with issues of access and what it means to provide education that is available for all and works for everyone in the community. Set up as a partnership between the council, De Montford University and 23 secondary schools the Digi Lit project is an attempt to work within existing power structures while making sure that learners are not being left out.

See our events page for more details: https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/lti/lti-events/

The event is free to attend and places can be reserved on the staff via the training and development system: https://apps.lse.ac.uk/training-system/userBooking/course/7419982

The seminar series is open to all at LSE, but will also be live streamed to enable an audience from around the world to listen to the talk and to participate using a variety of technologies. To view the live stream and for more details about the NetworkED events go to the LTI website: http://lti.lse.ac.uk/events/networkED-seminar-series-18.php

October 20th, 2014|Announcements, Events & Workshops (LTI), NetworkED, Teaching & Learning, Tools & Technologies|Comments Off|

Questions for clickers

At LSE we use the voting system called Turning Point so I went along to the 2014 Turning Point conference in Manchester to find out what other institutions are getting up to with voting technology.

Peer instruction

The keynote speaker was Dr Eric Mazur, Professor of physics at Harvard University.
Unsurprisingly as the developer of peer instruction teaching he was a very engaging lecturer and soon had everyone in the room animatedly discussing physics concepts. Dr Mazur demonstrated how PRS can be an effective way to get people engaged and excited about learning. Rather than simply being quizzed students are required to discuss and explain their answers with each other before the question is re-polled. This builds in time for learners to reflect on the concepts in the lecture and if you frame your questions right, the ability to transfer knowledge from one context to another. Data from Dr Mazur’s lectures indicates that students are better at learning from each other and even those that originally have the incorrect answer often clarify their thinking when articulating it to others.

Flipping roles – student sourcing questions and answers

One of the most important aspects of using voting in teaching is coming up with good questions.
Dr Simon Lancaster Professor at UEA argued that concept based and challenging questions are essential to get students to invest in the voting process and his talk demonstrated that questions that divide participants and invite debate get the most responses. He urged lecturers to ‘flip roles’ and source the clicker questions and possible answers from students themselves. In addition to asking your own students to suggest questions he recommended ‘PeerWise’ as a free online resource: http://www.peerwise-community.org/

Asking questions in qualitative subjects

A range of ‘PechaKucha’ style presentations by humanities lecturers at University of Manchester gave several examples of academics who are using voting technology even when there isn’t always a ‘right answer’. They found that voting activities helped them to:

See the video with examples from lecturers here: http://www.humanities.manchester.ac.uk/tandl/resources/resource.php?id=88

Team based learning using clickers & scratch-cards

The final session discussed ‘team based learning’ (TBL) that is going on in the University of Bradford. Much like flipping, they have attempted to move the subject knowledge out of the classroom so that contact time can be used to work on problem solving using the course content. They use a purpose built room and rather than lectures or seminars they have one session which is divided into three parts:

Individual preparation + team discussion + class discussion

Self testing using clickers

Students are set preparatory material to review ahead of the class. Students use the clickers to carry out individual tests at their own pace which make sure that they have done the preparation. The advantage of using the clickers is:

The results are linked up directly to the VLE so teachers can view the responses as they are submitted and work on feedback on common problems while the students are working on the next task.
Students can access their marks and the correct answers almost instantly after the class.
It is self-paced so students with learning difficulties can take as long as they want on each question and so far has eliminated the need to make individual arrangements.
It minimizes cheating as students sit different versions of the test paper.
It encourages students to complete the preparation before class. N.B. These individual scores are summative so marks are all recorded on the VLE and used to calculate the final mark.

Team discussion

Students work in groups to discuss the questions and reach a consensus on the solutions – using scratch cards to check their answers and calculate their teams score.
N.B Teams have 24 hours to submit an appeal to any question if they believe the content is wrong or the question is poor.
The teacher then goes over concepts that were not well understood using the results from the individual testing.

In class activities

Teams use the knowledge from the first two exercises to work on significant problems.
Every team works on the same activity and then reports back to the whole group with the reasoning for their choice enabling instructor facilitated discussion. ‘Often in justifying their choice , or arguing with a team that selected a different answer, teams achieve deep learning of the concepts in the initial reading and enhanced their ability to apply that knowledge to a problem’.

If you are interested in using voting technology in your classes or lectures please see our website for more details or contact lti.support@lse.ac.uk.

October 8th, 2014|Conferences, Tools & Technologies|Comments Off|

Learning to be a learning technologist

I wouldn’t describe myself as a techy person in fact I’m not techy at all so I did wonder what I had let myself in for when I started my new role as an assistant learning technologist here at LSE.

Although I am new to the LTI department I had already dipped my toe into the world of learning technology in my previous job on LSE100 (the large compulsory interdisciplinary undergraduate course).While working as a course administrator and then course manager for LSE100 I enjoyed working with lecturers and GTA’s to create interactive resources and I discovered that I was interested in using technology to enhance teaching and learning and to explore different approaches to lectures and classes.

So what are my initial impressions after the first few weeks?

Obviously I am pleased that I will be working with a group of highly intelligent, funny, and wonderful colleagues : )
I like the way my colleagues encourage people (including myself) to move out of their comfort zones and try out new things.
I’ve realised that it’s about showing not doing, LTI try to give people the skills to use the technology and solve the problem themselves.
I appreciate the fact that the team don’t always agree on what technology works best as different people work in different ways but they all use technology themselves to communicate and work collaboratively.

As I nervously publish my first ever blog post I am starting to realise that I shouldn’t fear technology, you have to engage and experiment to find out what works for you and what doesn’t. It will be a learning process but working with people to find out their needs and requirements is the most crucial step.

August 22nd, 2014|Blogging, Teaching & Learning, Tools & Technologies|1 Comment|