Workshop 5: Techniques II

Dr Thomas Hunt and Dr Jamie Wood

Introductions

• Briefly say– your name– what you study/ teach– something you can remember from an earlier

workshop

Aims• To develop understanding of different kinds of

learning• To think more about the role the following in

learning: – assessment– creativity – process and product

• To learn by doing and discussing together

Plan for today

• 30 mins: deep and surface learning (JW)• 1 hour: assessment: from the hidden

curriculum to the creative curriculum (TH)• 1 hour: lunch• 1 hour: the creative curriculum (TH)• 30 mins: Pedagogy, process and product:

inquiry-based learning and student as producer (JW)

Approaches to LearningStudents take an approach to learning:

A ‘surface approach’ means that students intend only to complete the task requirements. Characteristics of a surface approach are that the student will memorise information for assessment, will treat the task as an external imposition, will fail to relate different aspects of the course to one another and will often forget material soon after the assessment.

A ‘deep approach’ means that the student organises and structures content into a meaningful whole and sees the relations between parts, relates previous knowledge to new knowledge, relates knowledge from different courses and sees the broader significance of the course.

Approaches to Learning

In pairs:

a) Identify a time when you adopted a surface approach to learning and

b) Identify a time when you adopted a deep approach to learning.

What factors do you think influenced theapproach that you took in each instance?

Approaches to LearningStudents take an approach to learning:

A ‘surface approach’ means that students intend only to complete the task requirements. Characteristics of a surface approach are that the student will memorise information for assessment, will treat the task as an external imposition, will fail to relate different aspects of the course to one another and will often forget material soon after the assessment.A ‘deep approach’ means that the student organises and structures content into a meaningful whole and sees the relations between parts, relates previous knowledge to new knowledge, relates knowledge from different courses and sees the broader significance of the course.

A ‘strategic approach’ means that the student attempts to understand the demands of the task and adopts an appropriate approach to meet those demands.

Deep or surface learning?

Read the excerpts on the handouts and discuss with a partner.

Are the students taking a deep or a surface approach to the task? Why?

Why might students choose one approach over another?

• Habit: previous approaches to learning (successful and unsuccessful)

• Perception of workload• Motivation/interest/enthusiasm• Assessment: Is it assessed? How is it assessed?• Cues from the tutor • Perception of the purpose of (higher) education and

the discipline• Ability to see relevance of learning across and beyond

courses• Anxiety

Consequences of assessment:

from the hidden curriculum to the

creative curriculum

Dr Thomas E. HuntNewman University

t.hunt@newman.ac.uk

Assessment?Essays; examinations; presentations; etc.

Summative: after teachingFormative: ‘… indispensable to teaching …’ (Biggs and Tang, 2007)

The difference between summative and formative assessment …

What is assessment for?

What is the most important thing that comes out of the process of assessment?

For the students?For teachers?

What do our students think is the most important?

An assessment dilemma

Three days before. 2000 word limit. 2800 word essay submitted.

What do you do?A: Draw a line after 2000 words and assess those words only.B: Hand it back and tell them to rewrite it before the deadline.C: As for B, but apply a penalty. What should the penalty be?D: Hand it back unassessed. (As a non-submission? A fail?)E: Assess the essay but deduct marks. (How many?)F: Something else.

How we frame assessment shows …

… our own conceptions of what we do; ‘disciplinary unconscious’ (Decoding the Disciplines).

… our understanding of what ‘knowledge’ is (quantifiable; what is known can be declared with precision…)

… our understanding of what a university education should look like (separation of highest from lowest scorers).

The Hidden Curriculum

Snyder The Hidden Curriculum, 1971.Gibbs, Improving the Quality of Student Learning, 1992.

‘If you are under a lot of pressure then you will just concentrate on passing the course. I know that from bitter experience. One subject I wasn’t very good at I tried to understand the subject and I failed the exam. When I retook the exam I just concentrated on passing the exam. I got 96% … I still don’t understand the subject so it defeated the object, in a way.’ (Gibbs, 1992, quoted in Gibbs,2006, p.25)

What do these remarks tell us about our students?

‘Backwash’

Assessment defines how the students understand and approach our curriculum.

Learning and teaching

Intended outcomes

Outcomes 

Assessment 

Assessment 

Teacher’s perspective

Student’s perspective

From Biggs and Tang (2007, p.169).

Before lunch

Idea: the post-submission questionnaire.– What do you think it deserves?– What do you think it will get?– What will the feedback say?– What would you do differently next time?– What have you learned about the subject through doing this

assessment?– What have you learned about yourself?

Idea: the ‘real life’ problem.– Bain 2004.– Continuous project work as assessment.

Questions?

Lunchtime task:Think of a class you are teaching (or thinking of teaching).

What easy thing can you do to (a) include a ‘real world’ problem in the course design

and/or(b) revise (make better) how you assess that class?

Write your thoughts down on a post-it note. Stick it up.

• Please come back for 13.10

So, the problem – the solution

Students are not achieving deep learning …

(partly) BECAUSE

… our assessments don’t encourage it …

SO

… how can we design assessments that encourage deeper learning?

Case study 1: LIPA

Paul Kleiman (2005 and 2008)

A lack of coherence in how creativity is understood.

HE assessment now structured around ILOs and alignment which constrain.

LIPA and its peer review model.

Liverpool Institute of Performing Arts. Source: wikimedia

Potentially emancipatory.

Renewal of curriculum

Case study 2: The imaginative curriculum

Norman Jackson (2008)

Creativity is a ‘wicked problem,’ unique and complex.

But it is recognised as essential for economy and society.

Curriculum that focusses on process; on negotiation with the students; on continuing ‘lifewide’ curriculum.

A turn to ‘creativity’ in the curriculum

What do you understand by creativity?Is you job a creative job?

Is teaching creative?Is learning?

Some pedagogic justifications from different perspectives

Bloom’s taxonomy (revised Anderson and Krathwohl)

Gammon and Lawrence (2005)

University of Luton.

Csikszentmihalyi’s concept of flow.

Student engagement in designing assessments; pre-hand-in and post-hand-in.

Focus on student experience and anxiety levels.

Image source: http://steve-wheeler.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/bloom-reheated.html

Against value in the Humanities

www.heacademy.ac.uk/assets/.../

Winner_University_of_Sheffield.pdf

An interesting assessmenthttp://

honoriartist.livejournal.com/622165.html

The doing

What would you do to develop (improve?) the assessment in this

class?

A wrap upAssessment echoes and structures how students

learn.

Assessment therefore is not just important at the end of the module but all the way through.

This means innovative and new ways of approaching curricula and assessment.

But also that even small changes can make a big difference.

Summary

Next session

• Workshop 6: Developments, Reflections and Conclusions– When: 10th June, 10-12 and 2-4 (note change of

timings)– Where: 10-12 (Philosophicum, room P 108) and 2-

4 (Georg-Forster-Haus, room 02-741)– Who: Prof. Hugh Pyper (Biblical Studies, University

of Sheffield)

References (1)•Bain, K. (2004) What the Best College Teachers Do. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.•Biggs, J. and Tang, C. (2007) Teaching for Quality Learning at University. Maidenhead: Open University Press.•Decoding the Disciplines•Gammon, S. and Lawrence, L. (2006). ‘Improving Student experience through making assessments ‘flow’’, in Innovative Assessment in Higher Education, edd. Bryan, C. and Clegg, K. London: Routledge.•Gibbs, G. (1992) Improving the Quality of Student Learning. Bristol: Technical and Educational services.•Gibbs, G. (1999) ‘Using assessment strategically to change the way students learn,’ in Assessment Matters in Higher Education: Choosing and Using Diverse Approaches edd. Brown, S. and Glasner, A. Maidenhead: Open University Press.•Kleiman, P. (2005) ‘Beyond the Tingle Factor: creativity and assessment in higher education,’ paper presented to the Economic and Social Research Council seminar, Strathclyde. Source.•Kleiman, P. (2008) ‘Towards transformation: concepts of creativity in higher education,’ Innovations in Education and Teaching International 45: 3, 209-217.•Jackson, N. (2008) ‘Tackling the wicked problem of creativity in higher education,’ Source.•Snyder, B. (1971) The Hidden Curriculum. New York: Knopf.

References (2)For a general overview of issues related to teaching in HE:•Paul Ramsden (2003). Learning to Teach in Higher Education(2nd edition). London: RoutledgeFalmer.•John Biggs (1999). Teaching for Quality Learning at University. Buckingham : Society for Research into Higher Education : Open University Press. How students learn:•Jennifer Case and Delia Marshall (2004). “Between deep and surface: procedural approaches to learning in engineering education contexts”. Studies in Higher Education, 29 (5) 605-615.•Mary Lea and Brian Street (1998). “Student writing in higher education: an academic literacies approach”. Studies in Higher Education, 23 (2) 157-172.•Trevor Habeshaw, Graham Gibbs, & Sue Habeshaw (1987, 2nd edition 2012). 53 Interesting Ways of Helping Your Students Study. Plymouth: Harper and Row). •More on deep and surface approaches: http://www.learning.ox.ac.uk/media/global/wwwadminoxacuk/localsites/oxfordlearninginstitute/documents/supportresources/lecturersteachingstaff/resources/resources/Student_Approaches_to_Learning.pdf •Learning styles (which are different to approaches, and describe how a person prefers to learn): http://www2.le.ac.uk/offices/careers/pgrd/resources/teaching/theories/honey-mumford •Jan Meyer and Ray Land (2003). Threshold Concepts and Troublesome Knowledge: Linkages to Ways of Thinking and Practising within the Disciplines. ETL Project Report, no. 4. http://www.etl.tla.ed.ac.uk/docs/ETLreport4.pdf