Teaching & Learning

LSE to go wholly online forever, I think

Big news from LSE tonight (I think, anyway). I was in a meeting with colleagues in which I’m pretty sure I learned that we will be selling the campus in its entirety because we have no further use for the buildings.

I say “pretty sure” because my kid was on Fortnite and the WiFi kept dropping out.

But the gist of it was: everyone is so completely comfortable with working, teaching, learning, researching and so forth at home that we really don’t need this massive investment in bricks and mortar, so why not sell it?

Word is, Mike Ashley is interested in turning the Old Building into a Sports Direct and Tim Martin has made a very reasonable offer for the Three Tuns.

Someone with a cat avatar in MS Teams said:

LSE has a grand tradition, stretching back at least two weeks, of making bold decisions and acting on them swiftly. We are proud to be the first of the Russell Group universities to follow the Open University into the online space. Stop hitting your sister with that. Don’t make me come upstairs. One… TWOOOOO

The advantages are legion, and even I can think of at least one, despite having been woken by my children at 04:30 because someone thought it would be fun to put the clocks forward in the middle of a pandemic.

No you shut up.

As I was saying: the “academic hour” is at an end. No longer will I have to scoot across campus from Clement House to 32 Lincoln’s Inn Fields and show up late for a meeting. I can simply drop out of my eleven o’clock and spend the following ten minutes saying: “Can you hear me? No? What about now? Ugh! I hate this computer. Wait, I have a headset somewhere…”

LSE Turnitin Guidance for dealing with requests to view student papers

LSE is using Turnitin to check similarity of students’ work against submitted work of other students and various web sources. Papers submitted by students are added onto Turnitin’s repository, that allows teachers of one institution to find matches of student work that has been submitted at other institutions that use Turnitin. Moreover, teachers can request to view papers submitted to other institutions, if they think necessary.

What is a paper view request?

Turnitin enables academics to find matches of students’ submitted work to other students’ work. When a match is found the LSE representative can only view part of the source. To view the full source, the LSE representative can make a paper view request to the institution where that source was originally submitted. These requests are made through Turnitin who pass the request on to the relevant institution.”

LSE has recently developed a Guidance for dealing with requests to view student papers. The guidance (approved by Academic Board) provides information on what is a paper view request, when and how to make a paper review request, and answers important questions, such as: on what basis you should decline or accept a paper view request from another institution, what is the procedure for declining/accepting paper view requests, how does a paper view request email looks like etc.

For further advice and questions about the paper view requests, please contact Martin Johnson, Assessment Regulations Manager.

Paper view requests to another institution should normally be made when the suspicion of plagiarism is high enough that the assessment in question needs to be investigated in accordance with the School’s Regulations on Assessment Offences: Plagiarism.

Also, don’t forget to visit our Staff and Students support page on using Turnitin, that provides useful information about interpreting similarity reports, FAQs for staff and students, etc. For general advice using Turnitin, contact LTI.

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April 2nd, 2019|eAssessment News, Ed-Tech news and issues, Teaching & Learning, Tools & Technologies|Comments Off on LSE Turnitin Guidance for dealing with requests to view student papers|

Course design – it’s as easy as ABC….

Last week as part of the TLC/LTI Atlas programme we were delighted to host Clive Young and Natasa Perovic from UCL’s Digital Education Advisory Team for a ABC learning design workshop.  ABC was created by Clive and Natasa to enable programme and course teams to develop a logical and holistic approach to the design of learning on their programmes.   Teams can use the workshop as an opportunity to review courses or programmes with any particular focus in mind, for example moving to a more blended approach or focusing on a school strategy or approach to teaching and learning.

Since its inception at UCL only three years ago,  over 75 workshops have been run at UCL with nearly 500 academics (and students) redesigning around 200 modules. The participant response has been overwhelmingly positive and ABC is now used at 20 other universities in the UK.  UCL Digital Education has also been awarded two years Erasmus+ funding to develop their ABC learning design workshop with 12 European universities.

ABC takes a hands-on team-based learning design approach in which participants co-create a visual storyboard for a module or course in just 90 minutes.  All the workshop materials are released under Creative Commons licence and can be adapted and localised.  Clive and Natasa briefly outlined the workshop structure and aims and then Steve Bond from the International Programmes office at LSE explained how they are currently using ABC to develop new online courses and review current courses.

There were several programme teams from the LSE intensive courses practice exchange forum present and they quickly got to work on the first task which was to create a tweet which described their module or programme and to map out the current shape of activities on their course or programme as well as the balance of online and face to face activities.  The aim of this activity was to make sure that everyone had a clear shared vision of the aims of the course or programme and review any areas for change or improvement.

The next step was to start mapping out the learning types (Acquisition, Collaboration, Discussion, Investigation, Practice, Production) used in the course and then once this was agreed they could be described in more detail with methods of assessment indicated using gold stars (for summative) and silver stars (for formative).  The shape of the revised course was then marked up on the original sheet and an action plan for next steps for any proposed changes were planned. Discussions during the workshop were lively as course teams talked through each activity and the course format and structure.

By the end of the session each team had a clear visual record of their course or programme and each table had a very different result.  Although there is no right or wrong format for a course or programme , the final worksheet allowed immediate patterns to be identified such as the balance of assessment and the type of learning activities students are being asked to do.  This can be particularly useful when looking at courses over a whole programme and allows convenors and other members of the programme team to see a course from a student point of view. Other institutions have also included students who have already completed the course to take part to gain more insight and feedback from alumni about how the course could be improved.

 

Feedback from participants was very positive as one participant noted:

Working together to think systematically about the module was really helpful in bringing us together as a team and ensuring that we have a common sense of what we are trying to achieve with this module.”

Going forward we are hoping to run the ABC workshop at LSE with more programme and course teams. If you are interested in taking part in an ABC workshop then do get in touch (Lti.support@lse.ac.uk) and let us know.

October 30th, 2018|Events & Workshops (LTI), Open Education, Teaching & Learning, Tools & Technologies|Comments Off on Course design – it’s as easy as ABC….|

LSE Moodle Archive

The LSE Moodle Archive is a read only digital record of each course from previous academic years for staff and students.

The 2018 copy was taken just before the annual refresh on 14th August 2018 and can be accessed at:

https://moodle.lse.ac.uk/archive/1718/ 

From now on a read only copy of Moodle will be taken every academic year just before the annual refresh and will be kept for three years.  See our website for annual refresh dates.

The purpose of the LSE Moodle Archive is to retain an accessible digital record of each course for students and staff.  This is useful for students who have to resit or retake courses and for staff and students who want to review material from previous years.  It also keeps the current Moodle clutter free and just for the current academic year’s courses.

The level of access to the LSE Moodle Archive reflects the level of access on the day the archive copy was created. For example, if a student was enrolled on a suite of courses when the 2017/18 archive was taken, they will have access to the same courses (albeit read-only) in the 2017/18 archive.

By default all courses in the Moodle archive are hidden from students.  Also quizzes and assignments within those courses are hidden.  The Moodle archive is currently editable by departments for a period of one month up until 16 November 2018.  In this time editors can hide or reveal any resources and/or activities within a course and make their courses visible.  After this date the archive will be read only for everyone.  For students to see their grades and feedback and to download submissions in assignments the activity needs to be visible.

All editors should go to the 2018 LSE Moodle archive and hide or reveal any activities and resources within their courses and then make their courses visible so that students will be able to see the read only copy.

  • To hide/reveal an activity or resource click Turn editing on > Click Edit (use the drop-down menu next to the activity you want to hide/reveal) > Select Hide (or Show depending on your choice)
  • Once you are happy with your changes, make the course visible in the archive.
    From the Administration block, click Edit settings > from the drop-down menu Visible select Show.

If you have any queries please contact LTI.support@lse.ac.uk

October 10th, 2018|Announcements, Moodle, Teaching & Learning, Tools & Technologies|Comments Off on LSE Moodle Archive|

We have moved!

Our new offices are in 20 Kingsway – fourth floor, room KSW4.01 and KSW4.02.

As well as physcially moving we have moved departments from IMT to APD and will be working closely with our colleagues in the Teaching and Learning Centre.

Our email address is staying the same so if you have any queries please contact us via lti.support@lse.ac.uk

August 8th, 2018|Announcements, Teaching & Learning, Uncategorized|Comments Off on We have moved!|

Moodle refresh for 2018/19

Each year, Moodle courses are refreshed to remove old student data and prepare for the next cohort of students.

For 2018 the refresh will take place on:

Tuesday 14 August and Wednesday 15 August 2018.  Moodle will be unavailable all day for all users.

Tuesday 11th September 2018 for courses used to collect dissertation submissions (primarily those with 499 course codes).  These courses will be unavailable on Moodle all day.

Current staff and students will need to take action to ensure they have all the information they need from Moodle before the refresh take effect.  More information about the process can be found on our website:
http://lti.lse.ac.uk/moodle-end-of-year-arrangements/

If you have any queries email lti.support@lse.ac.uk

June 20th, 2018|Announcements, Moodle, Teaching & Learning, Tools & Technologies|Comments Off on Moodle refresh for 2018/19|

Going digital

Geraldine Foley, Assistant Learning Technologist and Athina Chatzigavriil, Senior Learning Technologist share their thoughts on Learning from Digital Examinations – 26th April 2018 conference.

Learning from Digital Examinations, a one day conference organized by Brunel University brought together practitioners form different universities across the country and from abroad. It was a great opportunity to share best practices, lessons learnt and provided detailed examples of the complexities involved with digital examinations as well as some of the potential benefits.

Students are used to typing their work electronically and the majority have their own devices, yet when it comes to exams at LSE and elsewhere in the UK the standard expectation is to hand-write responses for final examinations. This is due to multiple reasons including; infrastructure, regulations, spaces and facilities. However, some universities have started to shift to electronic examinations and so we went along to find out more and to present on the pilot projects we have done here at LSE (more details below).

Brunel University commenced research of digital examinations in 2015. They used WISEflow, a platform provided by the Danish based company UNIWise. They used students’ own devices Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) and implemented 1 exam (115 students) in 2016. Following a successful proof of concept with this one exam they moved to a pilot with 1300 students in 2016/17. Since then the university moved to a staged implementation of the assessment platform in September 2017. WISEflow was the highlight platform for digital examinations but also Electronic Management of Assessment (EMA) of the conference.

There were quite a few institutions at the conference that have already moved wholesale to typed examinations while others are still starting out. Moreover there seems to be a greater interest among institutions to move towards EMA approaches to assessment and not only typed instead of handwritten examination. Line Palle Andersen described how staff at University College Copenhagen, Denmark use WISEflow to support flows of other forms of assessment (such as oral, MCQs etc.) and how their staff are involved in marking and feedback provision taking advantage of the extensive feedback features available.

The full conference programme and the presentation slides can be viewed online but some general themes and questions over the day are discussed here.

  • Bring your own device (BYOD)

    Space and facilities tend to be limited in HE so the majority of institutions appear to be adopting the BYOD approach. In Norway and Denmark where the move to typed exams was a nation-wide project it is mandatory for all students to have a device for their studies. UK universities using the BYOD approach provide support for those that do not have their own devices such as loans and grants with a small number of devices for those that experience problems on the day of exams.

  • Student training and support are essential… and students can help!

    Students need chances to test out and get used to any new system or approach. Unsurprisingly those students that didn’t go to support sessions tended to be the ones that needed more support. Brunel University employed students as assistant learning technologists to run drop in support sessions leading up to the examinations so students could install and test out the software on their devices and they also worked with invigilators to offer technical support during the exams. This model has been used successfully in Demark and Norway too. Dr Liz Masterman from the University of Oxford presented on the literature review that looked at studies from 2000 onwards on typed exams to assess the equivalence on the psychological and academic aspects of moving from handwritten to typed examinations. The various studies surveyed yielded inconsistent results; nevertheless, the findings prompt a number of questions for consideration when moving essay-based examinations to typed ones.

  • Change requires strong project management

    Assessment processes involve multiple stakeholders and facilitators; professional support staff, admin staff, estates, IT, academic staff, students, and invigilators all need to be involved, informed and on-board in order to move successfully to digital assessment. Learning technology and Educational development staff have a critical role in working with academics to ensure that they engage with the process and don’t just replicate existing practice. Moving online should present an opportunity to design assessment that is in-line with the course learning outcomes, with clear links between the formative and summative assessments and is balanced across the course.

  • Electronic assessment may lead to more inclusive assessment

    Dr Torben K Jensen on his keynote talking about the reason for which universities should digitise examinations raised the ‘generation argument’ in terms of fairness; handwritten exams are far from students’ every day activities. Making spell checkers, screen readers, remote assessment and other assistive technology available to everyone can reduce the need for individual adjustments. More work is needed to find out the impact of moving to electronic assessment, but Brunel University reported that they received no appeals with regards to moving to electronic exams. As mentioned above changing assessment can provide an opportunity to rethink assessment and even move away from examinations. Many institutions demonstrated digital assessment in various forms, including oral presentations, video submissions, multiple choice questions, simulations and group projects.

  • Feedback can be electronic too!

    Feedback on work in HE has been similarly slow to move to electronic form and yet handwritten comments are often hard to read and slow to produce and distribute compared to typed comments. Many institutions moving to electronic assessments are shifting the entire process online. Professor Denise Whitelock from the Open University presented the final keynote on the various ways that technology can be used to train and support teachers to give useful and supportive feedback. She has been involved in creating several automated feedback tools for students and highlighted the importance feedback can have on students’ learning.

Pilot e-exams at LSE

Our presentation focused on three past LSE pilots that took place in order to:

  • Explore students’ perceptions of typing versus handwriting exams.
  • Test out online examination software
  • Evaluate the requirements for online examinations including: security, regulations, facilities, training and support.

All three pilots were for formative assignments which provided feedback for final examinations. In each case various software were compared and the departments made the final selection for the platforms used in-line with their individual requirements.

Two of the pilots were in the Law department for take home mock examinations using the software Examsoft which allowed students to access examination questions and type 1 essay response from a choice of 3 within 2 hours.  Students were given 5 working days to access the questions and it was up to them to find a suitable space to type their response (see full report here).

The third pilot was with the Government department for a mock on campus invigilated examination using the software Exam4 (see full report here). Students brought their own devices to type 4 essays questions (from a choice of 16) within 3 hours. Exam questions were given in hard copy format with extra information provided to invigilators. In both cases students were given opportunities to test out the software in advance.  Both pilots were evaluated with questionnaires and focus groups with students and feedback from staff.

Overall students welcomed the typed examinations and many appreciated producing a typed script which was more legible for examiners to read some students, but some had concerns about the expectations of examiners who might assume typed answers required better quality answers even though they were produced under exam conditions. Several students found editing their examination answers was easier when typing, but others felt penalized by their slow typing skills. Some students believed the cognitive process of typing an exam answer differed to handwriting one and that grammar and spelling errors were less easy to spot when typing. The identified institutional implications for scaling up typed examinations, include substantial overhaul of the regulations, provision in case students cannot use their own device and adequate student support and training.  The full evaluation reports of the pilots can be found on LSE Research online.

Next steps

The conference gave lots of detailed examples of the complexities involved with digital assessment as well as some of the potential benefits. Going forward at LSE, the Assessment Service Change Project (ASCP), led by Cheryl Edwardes, Deputy Head of Student Services, is collaborating with staff and students to design enhanced assessment processes and systems which incorporate best practice and expert knowledge from across the School community and wider HE sector. If you wish to learn more and/or share your views you can sign up to attend any of the Validation Workshops. Moreover, the Assessment Working Group, led by Dr Claire Gordon, Head of Teaching and Learning Centre are taking forward work on the following areas: i) assessment principles, ii) good practice in assessment design, iii) inclusive practice in assessment, and iv) quality assurance and regulatory arrangements in assessment. Also, the Law department are currently trialing a small-scale proof of concept exam using DigiExam with ipads and keyboards – providing devices for students.

LTI is involved in all the above initiatives and support courses and programmes in the use of electronic assessment and are working with several departments to move their processes online.  Please contact LTI.Support@lse.ac.uk if you would like to discuss this further with us.

Co-creativity and collaboration

It’s been a playful few weeks in LTI, starting with Chrissi Nerantzi from Manchester Metropolitan University presenting a workshop on playful and creative learning in HE.

Chrissi’s workshop was full of exercises designed to get people moving, thinking and talking with others. She started off by pointing out that being creative doesn’t always mean coming up with something completely original, as remixing, adapting and taking ideas into another context is also creative.  We discussed the fact that the majority of learning theories omit the emotional and physical aspects of the learning process.  We were asked to think about what we enjoy about teaching and also to discuss our failures and what went wrong for us when teaching recently.  Talking this through with another person and getting feedback on what intervention would help was very useful and illustrated that we probably don’t spend enough time sharing and getting feedback on failure and yet this is where we can learn the most.

Chrissi recognised that sometimes it can be hard to make large scale change in institutions and gave some personal examples of the barriers and blockers that she has experienced but she also demonstrated that by taking a playful approach to your teaching and making small changes you can create a positive environment which encourages learners to experiment, be creative, try things out and get feedback.

Following on the theme of play and creativity, this week I went up to Coventry University to attend RemixPlay2, a summit to celebrate the design and application of all things gameful, playful and creative in Higher Education. This is the second year of the event hosted by the Disruptive Media Learning Lab in Coventry University (see my blog post on last years’ event).  This year’s focus was on co-creativity and collaboration.  With similar messages to Chrissi’s workshop on taking an experiential approach to learning by doing, there were a lot of examples of how playful activities and games can be embedded within courses.

Ross Flatt from the Institute of Play in New York has worked with a lot of teachers to transform their practice and was an advocate of involving students in the design process and using games as tools for assessment.  Sylvester Arnab’s in his keynote argued that the word ‘Fail’ should be defined as ‘First, Attempt In Learning’. He has worked with staff and students on several interdisciplinary projects to try and solve problems in the community.  Sylvester has found that by giving students a sense of purpose and encouraging them to think creatively about how they can use what they have learnt to change the world for the better, they are more likely to engage and be motivated to learn.  Changing assessment to problem or project based tasks provides students with an intrinsic motivation and shifts the focus away from learning just for passing exams.

Both events provided a lot of inspiration and ideas on the ways we can transform teaching and assessment to be more creative and collaborative.  If you are interested in finding out more about using games for learning, we are holding a workshop on designing games for learning on Monday 26 February book a place via the training and development system.

We are starting a community of practice for anyone at LSE who is interested in playful and game-based learning in HE. If you are interested in joining please contact LTI.Support@lse.ac.uk.

If you have an idea on how to make your teaching more playful, creative or game based and would like some funding to support the implementation and evaluation we are currently accepting proposals for Spark and Ignite grants, the deadline for applications is Friday 2nd March, contact s.ney@lse.ac.uk for more information or to discuss your idea.

February 16th, 2018|Conferences, Events & Workshops (LTI), games, Projects, Teaching & Learning, Tools & Technologies|Comments Off on Co-creativity and collaboration|

Playful and Creative Learning in HE

Next Tuesday LTI will be hosting a presentation by Chrissi Nerantzi (Principal Lecturer in Academic CPD, expert in creative, innovative learning, teaching and assessment from Manchester Metropolitan University) on Playful and Creative Learning. A good opportunity to reflect on what playfulness and creativity mean in an educational context and explore ways in which we can promote it in our practice.

Definition: What is playful learning?

 In a blog post by JISC titled Learning to play, playing to learn: the rise of playful learning in higher education, Chrissi gives an explanation of what playful leraning means to her:

“Playful learning is using play activities to immerse ourselves and learn, either on our own or with others in a space we feel safe.  In playful learning it’s ok to make mistakes when experimenting with new ideas, when challenging ourselves and others and doing things we normally wouldn’t do – which can lead us to surprising discoveries.

Playful learning can happen anywhere.”

Play and Its Connection to Creativity

The “Creativity for Learning in Higher Education” open course, based on the Manchester Metropolitan University’s PgCert and MA in Higher Education in which Chrissi is involved, offers colleagues with an interest in creative teaching and learning to explore three areas that foster more creativity in their practice and their students’ learning experience. One of which is play and games.

As Resnick (2017) puts it,

“Creativity doesn’t come from laughter and fun: It comes from experimenting, taking risks, and testing the boundaries.”

When it comes to experimenting, games are a very powerful learning tool. Games are by definition a space where the rule of the real world do not apply, thus providing a safe space to take risks and experiment with various choices, strategies and outcomes.

Moseley and Whitton (2015) define games as“a safe space in which participants have freedom to make mistakes, learn from failure, play with fantasy and identity, have control over decisions and outcomes”

Interested in finding out more?

Check out Chrissi’s various projects around playful and creative learning:

At LSE

References

Resnick, M. (2017). Lifelong Kindergarten: Cultivating Creativity through Projects, Passions, Peers, and Play. MIT Press.

Moseley, A. and Whitton, N. (2015). Using Games to Enhance the Student Experience. Higher Education Academy

January 30th, 2018|Announcements, Events & Workshops (LTI), games, innovation, LTI Grants, Teaching & Learning, TEL Trends, Tools & Technologies, Uncategorized|Comments Off on Playful and Creative Learning in HE|

Active lectures

So as per last week’s blog post, recording your lectures is beneficial to students and should not negatively impact on lecture attendance but what will help increase lecture attendance?

Between MT 2015 and LT 2017, academic developers from the Teaching and Learning Centre co-convened and reported on a series of focus groups with students in 8 departments across the School to learn more about students’ experiences. These focus groups found that LSE students value:

Lectures that are inspiring and motivating

‘…I’m listening to him and he’s showing his enthusiasm for the topic and his research, and I’m sitting there thinking this is stimulating me and I want to know more about this’.


Lectures that are well structured

‘A good lecture is structured and I see the structure from the start.’


Lectures in which students understanding is checked

‘every lecturer that I have, they just talk at you, and there is no chance to make sure that you know what you need to know, or that you understand stuff.’

‘…  Because sometimes a lecturer is in flow and you don’t want to just disrupt it … But when he just pauses and asks ‘This is good time now to ask your question’ – I think that’s very valuable.’

‘…  something he does that I really like is that when he’s concluding a bit of material he’s trying to get through, he does say ‘Do you have any questions on this?’ and nearly every time there isn’t anything, but you know it gives me an opportunity to think ‘Actually have I understood that properly?’ and ‘This would be an appropriate time.’  


Lectures that are interactive and not too long

‘You go there and you sit: it’s a very passive process. I think lectures need to be more active. Not in the sense of asking questions but in the sense of doing … I’m fed up with being talked to for hours.’

Rethinking the lecture  

As many institutions shift towards opt out lecture recording (see post from last week) there also appears to be a move away from the standard model of lecturing and a move towards an active blended learning approach.


Technology can often help facilitate this for example:

This interactive model will present some issues that institutions need to consider including:

  • Gaining consent from students to be recorded or ways to edit or stop and start recordings easily.
  • Rethinking learning spaces

LTI have been working with Estates, AV and TLC to renovate learning spaces and have been working on various projects to evaluate the type of learning spaces (furniture, technology and layout) best suited for collaborative or flexible teaching approaches.  We have also been working with estates to create signage to inform staff and students that recording is taking place and will be working with AV to investigate more agile recording systems that allow lecturers to stop and start recording in the room.

If you would like some advice and support on how to use technology in your teaching contact LTI.  Calls are currently open for LTI grant projects including those that have themes of innovative use of space and transforming your teaching with technology.  See the LTI website for more information.

References

Armellini, A (2018, Jan 11) ‘The large lecture theatre is dead’

retrieved from https://www.jisc.ac.uk/news/the-large-lecture-theatre-is-dead-11-jan-2018

Bates, S.P., Howie, K. & Murphy, A. St J. (2006) The use of electronic voting systems in large group lectures: challenges and opportunities. New Directions 2 (Dec) 1-8.

Cornish, A (2017, August 3) ‘Vermont Medical School Says Goodbye To Lectures’ 

retrieved from https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2017/08/03/541411275/vermont-medical-school-says-goodbye-to-lectures

Huxham, M. (2005) Learning in lectures: do ‘interactive windows’ help? Active Learning in Higher Education 6 (1) 17-31.

Revell, A. & Wainwright, E (2009) What makes lectures ‘unmissable’? Insights into teaching excellence and active learning.
Journal of Geography in Higher Education 33 (2) 209-223.

Roger, K., Ney, S & Liote, L. (2016) Teaching spaces design and development at LSE: an evaluation of impact on teaching and learning. London: The London School of Economics and Political Science.