scholarly journals Closing the loop: An evaluation of student-led module feedback at one UK higher education institution

2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 78-90
Author(s):  
Cecile Tschirhart ◽  
Simon David Pratt-Adams

This article describes how a Student-Led Module Feedback (SLMF) scheme was initiated at one UK University to enhance staff-student relationships and to improve student outcomes. The scheme was developed by academics in partnership with the Students Union (SU) and students. The SLMF aimed to enhance the student experience at a granular level in “real time” during 30 week-long teaching modules. The article defines the SLMF within the research context of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning and describes how the theme of student-staff partnership runs across the scheme, including during the project management and evaluation phases. It critically reflects on how the scheme has been instrumental in making inroads to improving the experience of students and staff across the university. It analyses the way in which the SLMF is being used by staff and students to co-create action plans to initiate pedagogical changes and thus close the loop of the feedback cycle.

2020 ◽  
Vol 2 (3) ◽  
pp. 791-811
Author(s):  
Lesley Gourlay

Abstract The term ‘quarantine’ is derived from the Italian quarantena, from quaranta, referring to the forty days of isolation traditionally imposed during the era of the Black Death in Europe. This paper examines this and related contemporary terms, in order to consider the complex and contradictory nature of enforced sites of isolation, with reference to the historical literature. The centrality of spatial practices in the current pandemic is emphasised, with a focus on the normally unobserved, micro practices of individuals under ‘lockdown’. The paper reports on an interview study conducted at a large UK Higher Education institution during the Covid-19 ‘lockdown’, and analyses the accounts of six academics, focusing particularly on their embodied and sociomaterial practices, with reference to the etymological analysis. The paper considers the extent to which their reported experiences reflect the various meanings of the term sequestrato, going on to propose that their working practices, particularly focused on screens and video calls, are characterised by a need to ‘perform the university’. I speculate on how the ontological nature of the university itself has been fundamentally altered by the closure of the campus and lockdown, proposing that the site of the university is now radically dispersed across these sequestered bodies. I conclude by calling into the question the accuracy of the term ‘online teaching and learning’, instead suggesting that in a fundamental sense, none of these practices is in fact ‘online’ or digital.


Author(s):  
Natalie Pollard ◽  
Deborah Ashfield ◽  
Jasmin Jelley

Abstract This collaborative article reflects on a set of shared practices that were inspired by a Year 3 undergraduate Literary Studies module, which took place in 2018. In co-teaching and learning on this module, the authors found their disciplinary and pedagogic norms unsettled and set adrift (unhomed). This article traces how their processes of working together – in and beyond the University classroom – stimulated a critique of the rational individualist principles which had unconsciously steered their learning and teaching practices until this point. The article includes case studies from the experiences of three students who took the module, and a narrative frame that speaks from the perspective of a collaborative ‘we’ (which includes students and ‘teacher’). The article tests out writing practices which reorient the customary Humanist terms in which educational research is conducted, and which disrupt the objective voice in which pedagogical reflection is often narrated. From this vertiginous perspective, the article also considers the authors’ particular entanglements with the cultural politics of the contemporary UK Higher Education Institution (HEI), and the role of unhomed Humanities teaching as part of the 21C University.


2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Poppy Frances Gibson ◽  
Robert Morgan ◽  
Andrew Sinclair ◽  
Rachael Hartiss ◽  
Agnieszka Kosek ◽  
...  

This reflection piece shares the innovative approach to an embedded skills model on an accelerated two-year BA programme. At the University of Greenwich annual teaching and learning conference (SHIFT), in 2020, a collaborative team from the degree course presented a case study on this model. This article explores how, through such partnerships, student success can be promoted and student outcomes can shine. Living and teaching through a pandemic has highlighted the importance of staff and student relationships to ensure success.


2021 ◽  
pp. 089202062110309
Author(s):  
María García-Feijoo ◽  
Leire Alcaniz ◽  
Almudena Eizaguirre

Business schools face social, economic, cultural, and technological changes that require constant rethinking not only of teaching and learning, but also of leadership and management. In contrast to traditional strategic planning models, this article proposes a new participatory approach for the university community, arriving at a common story and visualizing an exciting future for the school. Applying case study methodology, the paper describes a process of shared strategic reflection at a century-old European business school by following Otto Scharmer's Theory U. The process enabled achievement of shared definitions of vision, values, lines of progress, and strategic projects, and the study itself improved the participants’ perception of the process and its impact on a shared vision's generation. After process implementation, and as a general conclusion, Theory U contributed to promoting shared strategic reflection, with results that are very valuable in the highly uncertain, challenging environment in which business schools are immersed.


Author(s):  
Ana Luísa Rodrigues

The process of leadership and pedagogical supervision in preservice teacher education is a determining factor in the relationship that needs to be established between the higher education institution (HEI) and the cooperating school (CS) where the future teacher carries out his supervised pedagogical practice. This study intends to analyze this process of leadership and supervision, understanding this relationship in a perspective of effective collaboration, reflection and sharing of practices, assuming the teacher of the CS as a fundamental element of the process. Based on this assumption, it will be important to provide teaching and learning situations with individual and joint reflections, in order to promote autonomy and shared interaction, contributing to professional development and to the co-construction of knowledge. Methodologically, this is a case study with participant observation, within the scope of the Master's Degree in Teaching Economics and Accounting of the Institute of Education of the University of Lisbon, the only master's degree in Portugal that gives professional qualification for teaching in secondary education in Economics and Accounting. With this study hope to obtain a characterization of the leadership and supervision process developed and to delineate the main functions of the mentor teacher as a fundamental part of the process of collaborative supervision, in the context of the current model of teacher training.


Author(s):  
Remigijus Bubnys

The structure and content of studies at a higher education institution, educating specialists in the field of education studies, are more oriented to subject-centred rather than pedagogical preparation; insufficient attention is paid to students’ practical training, where through self-reflection and reflection students’ sensations turn into experience. The problematicity lies in the fact that often students’ practical experience is limited only to technical skills applied in concrete situations; the basis is mechanical learning, when the focus is on theoretical knowledge gained at the university, which is not integrated with the students’ experience outlived earlier or during practice. On the other hand, theoretical knowledge is often not related to the practical activity. The results of the quantitative research disclose future educators’ teaching and learning trends at the university by analyzing, assessing and linking learners’ outlived experience with a specific learning context.  


2019 ◽  
Vol 61 (7/8) ◽  
pp. 815-831 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robin Bell

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to quantify the relative importance of four key entrepreneurial characteristics identified in the literature (proactiveness, attitude to risk, innovativeness and self-efficacy) in predicting students’ entrepreneurial intention (EI) across a range of faculties offering different subjects at a UK higher education institution (HEI). This approach will help to identify whether there are variations across the faculties in the predictors of EI. This enables recommendations to be made with regard to the development of educational delivery and support to encourage and develop the specific predictors of EI within the different subject areas. Design/methodology/approach This research uses a 40-item questionnaire to obtain information on students’ demographics, entrepreneurial characteristics and EI, based on a five-point Likert-type scale. Principle component analysis, correlation analysis and multiple hierarchical regression analysis are used to analyse the data from 1,185 students to develop models which predict EI for each of the six faculties. Findings Individual models which predict EI are developed for each of the six faculties showing variations in the makeup of the predictors across faculties in the HEI. Attitude to risk was the strongest predictor in five of the six faculties and the second strongest predictor in the sixth. The differences, together with the implications, for educational approaches and pedagogy are considered. Originality/value This research breaks down the level of analysis of EI to the individual faculty level in order to investigate whether different entrepreneurial characteristics predict EI in different academic disciplines across a UK HEI. This enables entrepreneurship educational approaches to be considered at a faculty level rather than a one size fits all approach.


Author(s):  
Vuyisile Msila ◽  

The COVID-19 pandemic that shook the world in 2020 forced all educational institutions to search for new ways of teaching and learning. Furthermore, education institutions such as the University of South Africa (UNISA), like all other universities, found themselves with a huge task of promoting digitalization. As a traditional distance education institution, UNISA had to refine digitalization in a time of decolonization in the Global South. This case study examined the role of educational managers in sustaining effective digitalization. Eight UNISA managers were selected and interviewed to understand how they perceived the role of digital leaders. Furthermore, the study sought to understand why it is critical that managers should be in the forefront of digitalization. The study found that at present in Africa it is critical for digitalization to be combined with decolonization. Additionally, when digitalization and decolonization are implemented simultaneously, they become vehicles for social justice and democracy. This then means that education can be a tool for liberation and achievement where the digital divide is minimized. When implemented well, education institutions become institutions with access for success. The conclusions show that a set strategy based on a new vision for a university will harness digital leadership. The participants also mentioned strategic documents at the university; on the one hand are the Five Pillars of Change whilst on the other are the Eight Dimensions of Transformation. Furthermore, the participants claimed that their institution was on the road to success whilst building UNISA as an institution “Towards the African University that builds futures.”


Author(s):  
Jennifer S Leigh

Academic and professional development is widely regarded as important for academics. The experience of it is explored in this paper through phenomenological interviews with academic developers and participants on one programme in a UK Higher Education Institution. The importance of a credible, holistic approach to academic and professional development is evident, with participants and staff stressing the role of these programmes in not only facilitating a route into the academy for aspiring, early career and ‘practice academics’, but also as stimulus for an interest in higher education as a legitimate discipline for research. It is concluded that an approach to the development of academics that incorporates all aspects of academic practice rather than focusing in on teaching and learning could benefit both the individuals and the students who they teach.


2019 ◽  
Vol 20 (8) ◽  
pp. 1313-1328 ◽  
Author(s):  
Scott Munro Strachan ◽  
Stephen Marshall ◽  
Paul Murray ◽  
Edward J. Coyle ◽  
Julia Sonnenberg-Klein

Purpose This paper aims to share the University of Strathclyde’s experience of embedding research-based education for sustainable development (RBESD) within its undergraduate curricula through the use of an innovative pedagogy called Vertically Integrated Projects (VIP), originated at Georgia Institute of Technology. Design/methodology/approach This paper discusses how aligning VIP with the SDG framework presents a powerful means of combining both research-based education (RBE) and education for sustainable development (ESD), and in effect embedding RBESD in undergraduate curricula. Findings The paper reports on the University of Strathclyde’s practice and experience of establishing their VIP for Sustainable Development programme and presents a reflective account of the challenges faced in the programme implementation and those envisaged as the programme scales up across a higher education institution (HEI). Research limitations/implications The paper is a reflective account of the specific challenges encountered at Strathclyde to date after a successful pilot, which was limited in its scale. While it is anticipated these challenges may resonate with other HEIs, there will also be some bespoke challenges that may not be discussed here. Practical implications This paper offers a practical and scalable method of integrating SDG research and research-based education within undergraduate curricula. Social implications The paper has the potential to deliver SDG-related impact in target communities by linking research-based teaching and learning with community outreach. Originality/value The alignment of VIP with the SDG research area is novel, with no other FE institutions currently using this approach to embed SDG research-based teaching within their curricula. Furthermore, the interdisciplinary feature of the VIP programme, which is critical for SDG research, is a Strathclyde enhancement of the original model.


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