#LTHEchat

Unless someone in the Western world makes an intentional decision to go “off grid”, they are likely to encounter daily exposure to an abundance of audiovisual content. Television availability blossomed from three or four terrestrial channels in my youth, to hundreds of satellite stations. Thereafter we have streaming services such as Netflix and Amazon offering further diversity. The online world brings forth YouTube, Facebook videos, plus a plethora of subscription services and more niche learning opportunities.

It is less than a decade since publication of the influential Intelligent Television report Video Use and Higher Education: Options for the future (Kaufman and Mohan, 2009) yet already the technology describes in their report has a nostalgic air. Problems identified with educational use of AV included insufficient copies [of the VHS tape or DVD] in the library, not enough screening rooms and a shortage of foreign formal PAL players. There are hints at the potential relevance of an emerging tool known as the iPod, and a sense of wonder that thirteen hours of material were being uploaded every minute to something called YouTube (which had started in early 2005). It is currently estimated that 300 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every minute (Merchdope, 2019).

Kaufman and Mohan correctly predicted growth in the importance of online content as a resource for education, and the potential development of dedicated archives and repositories of university-relevant AV materials. Many such services now exist, including BoB (“Box of Broadcasts”), an on demand streaming platform offering broadcast media for use in UK Universities, and similar collections in some other countries. These are clearly a boon for courses whose raison d’être is media studies, but can also offer much to the study of other academic disciplines.

It is my contention, however, that Higher Education has been slow to exploit this potential (Willmott, 2014). Do you agree? Maybe you disagree, and have evidence to prove that I’m wrong. Either way, we’d love you to take part in #LTHEchat on Wednesday 3^rd April as we reflect on the use of broadcast media and other AV resources across the disciplines.

References:
Kaufman P.B. and Mohan J (2009) Video Use and Higher Education: Option for the future. NY, USA: Intelligent Television. Available at http://intelligenttelevision.com/files/42-intcccnyuvideo_and_higher_edjune_2009_2.pdf (last accessed 30th March 2019).

Merchdope (2019) 37 Mind Blowing YouTube Facts, Figures and Statistics. Available at https://merchdope.com/youtube-stats (last accessed 30th March 2019).

Willmott C (2014) Boxing clever – television as a teaching tool Times Higher Education (28th August 2014, p26). Available at https://tinyurl.com/BoxingClever14 (last accessed 30th March 2019).

Biography:

Chris Willmott is an Associate Professor (Senior Lecturer) and National Teaching Fellow (2005) in the Department of Molecular and Cell Biology at the University of Leicester. Chris’ interests include bioethics, antibiotics and representations of science in broadcast media. He is especially delighted when all three coincide.

Conflict of Interest notification: Chris is a Trustee for Learning on Screen, the British Universities and Colleges Film and Video Council. BoB is one of the services provided by Learning on Screen.

Read the Wakelet 

There are multiple definitions of staff development and names used to describe this area of work. For this discussion, let’s start with one. Staff development can be described as a continuous process involving “education, training, learning and support activities”. It aims to encourage other professionals to grow in their workplace (Marriss, 2011). In a nutshell, staff development is about planting seeds for growth.

In real life, however, things are a little bit more complex. As we know, Higher Education faces turbulent times. We may have witnessed staff development resources becoming constrained or directed elsewhere. And if resources are available, with daily stresses, such as heavy workload, unfriendly and perhaps alien structures and systems, no wonder we may even forget about developing ourselves.

Traditionally, staff development provision has been influenced by a deficit model. In other words, such provision is organised in response to what knowledge, skills and attitudes staff may need in order to do their job effectively. While the intention is positive and as professionals we may require some of that kind of support, could combining strengths and areas of development possibly offer a more balanced approach to help professionals face job demands?

Moreover, Higher Education institutions are typically huge hierarchical entities, so provision is put together to explain the institution’s processes, systems and structures. Staff development, for example, may be put in place to pass on to staff and students how to use online systems that all have to use, to be aware of compliant procedures, and others. In the big picture, this is needed for institutions to continue functioning, but does not necessarily inspire or motivate us.

When we think of the development of our own profession, we consider, for example, attending courses, participating in a workshop, using technologies or other ways. However, it is not an uncommon experience that after taking staff development opportunities (for example, a course), the good effects may be lost when we return to where we work.

On the other hand, ingredients for effective staff development include ‘observation, reflection, planning and action’ (Marriss, 2011), which staff development integrates in their provision. There are also opportunities to enhance its effectiveness by situating staff development within the workplace, so it can take account of routine influences and take advantage of peer learning (Boud, 2006). So, the question remains: ‘How can staff development support effectively the work of professionals (staff and students)’

Staff Development has been my passion and profession since the time I was a university student. This week’s LTHEchat is dedicated to the work of so many professionals whose passion is to help other professionals grow and develop in Higher Education. This discussion seeks to explore potential avenues for re-invention, collaboration and partnership, when organising staff development.

References:

Boud, D. (1999). Situating academic development in professional work: Using peer learning, The International Journal for Academic Development, 4:1, 3-10.

Marriss, D. (2011). Academic staff development. In A. McIntosh, J. Gidman, & E. Mason-Whitehead (Eds.), Key Concepts in Healthcare Education (pp. 1-5). Los Angeles: SAGE.

Dr. Rossana Espinoza (https://www.linkedin.com/in/drrossespinoza/) is a free spirit who takes every opportunity to help others succeed in what they do. She is passionate about Education and technology (please note the capital E and lower case t!). Currently, she is on a mission to reinvent Marketing and Communications for her much-loved Staff Development Forum (SDF) Network on a pro-bono basis.

Weekdays, she is in London working as an Online Content Developer at the Centre for Academic Practice Enhancement at Middlesex University, helping staff with active practice based learning, collaborative learning classrooms or social media. When she isn’t training staff or developing online courses on Moodle, she is hanging out with friends, drawing, or making a tiramisu.

The Wakelet for this week’s chat is now here

The next #LTHEchat will be hosted by the co-convenors of RAISE Special Interest Group, ‘Engaging Assessment’ (#RAISEEngAssess) discussing “Authenticity in Assessments”. (And yes, is double hashtags!)

Inspired by the successful #LTHEchat monthly chat with #AdvanceHE_chat with the recent topic on “Inclusive Assessment: Where Next”, this chat on Wednesday 13^th March 8pm – 9pm discusses best practices on engaging students (and staff) in assessments. The  aim of the chat will be to explore the meaning behind “authenticity” within assessments, share the  practices and challenges of authentic assessments and explore potential strategies and approaches to enhance authenticity.

Kiu Sum (@KiuSum) is a Co-Convenor for the ‘Engaging Assessment’ Special Interest Group at RAISE, and currently sits on the committee as the Student Officer. Kiu has been involved in a number of student engagement, which led to her first publication (Sum, 2018) and becoming a reviewer in Student Engagement in Higher Education Journal (SEHEJ). Kiu has also taken on various roles in pedagogy projects, to help champion student engagement including collaborating with Jisc as their Student Partner. She has been an active #LTHEchat participant (led a few chats and part of organising team previously) and continues to work with students and staff in Higher Education by day.

Jagjeet Jutley-Neilson (@J_JutleyNeilson) is the Director of Student Experience and Progression at University of Warwick (Psychology), a Senior Fellow of HEA and a Co-Convenor for the ‘Engaging Assessment’ Special Interest Group at RAISE. Prior to Warwick, Jagjeet oversees the departmental student experience activities, NSS and TEF metrics, and leads on widening participation activities, student engagement, promoting student voice and pedagogical research. She also works with student on a one to one basis focusing on employability and academic skills. Jagjeet also teaches academic skills, developmental psychology to undergraduate students, and project supervisor to PhD and undergraduate students.

Paula O’Brien (@OBrienUoL1) Principal Lecturer [Teaching] at Lincoln International Business School, Department of People and Organisations

I have extensive experience in the delivery of international MBA programmes delivered in UK, Hong Kong, Zambia and Oman. I possess experience in the development of staff and their pedagogic approach  and inform my own teaching through reflexive practice.  My roles include: College Student in the identity work of international students  with particular focus on diversity and inclusion . I am currently working on a number of student engagement related projects which are cross disciplinary .

RAISE Network website: http://www.raise-network.com/home/

The Wakelet for this chat is available

Honest feedback is hard. It can be hard to listen to, and difficult to give. Yet as Learning and Teaching practitioners, this is a core part of the learning process for our students; it helps them to listen and respond to challenge, and to adapt their mindset and approach. Over time, it builds resilience, and nurtures the expectation that seeking out opinions from others will ultimately end in a better outcome for everyone.

But whilst we expect our students to grow and thrive through our feedback, do we hold ourselves accountable to the same expectation?

Are we, as individuals and a community, receptive to feedback, using this as an opportunity to grow and learn?

Between colleagues, feedback can be challenging, and in hierarchical working cultures it can be daunting. Yet, if we don’t challenge each other we only ever preserve the status quo, and inaction becomes enabling.

If we were to nurture a feedback-rich culture, where we trust each other and so trust that when feedback is given it is thoughtful and thought through, we might also benefit from greater resilience and an adaptable approach, as individuals and as a community.

At a time when pressure is mounting to excel at the student experience, a feedback-rich culture that is expected, lived and valued by everyone in the university could help us adapt and thrive; consciously choosing to learn rather than battle to stay the same.

For this tweet chat, we want to know how we can tap into our skills in feeding back and use these to grow stronger communities in learning and teaching. We want to know how we can bring this narrative alive.

Over the last six years Louise has crafted a career in marketing and communications within higher education. Specialising in professional development, Louise thrives on working with people to bring alive the stories that show the wider world who they are and why what they do matters.

The Wakelet for this chat is available: http://wke.lt/w/s/pQg5T

‘Internationalisation’ often features in university policy strategies.  Yet it is a slippery term, with a range of interpretations. We discussed ‘internationalisation’ on #LTHEchat back in 2015, but it is worth revisiting to discuss what it means and how it affects our practices now.

‘Internationalisation’ frequently refers narrowly to the strategic recruitment of international students, with financial benefits to universities through increasing numbers (Warwick and Moogan, 2013, p. 105). On the other hand, there are calls to broaden the understanding of ‘internationalisation’. A more holistic conception emphasises ‘internationalisation at home’ and the benefits for home students of studying alongside international students in an internationalised curriculum.

However, benefits of internationalisation do not happen automatically. Contact between home and international students does not necessarily lead to increased intercultural competence (Lantz-Deaton, 2017). Studies identify home students’ resistance to intercultural group work (Harrison, 2015), so whereas often the institutional emphasis is on ways to help international students assimilate and integrate, there may be a greater need to encourage home students to respond to opportunities. In fact, the division between international and home/domestic students has been questioned, with a call to consider them all together as heterogeneous populations (Jones, 2017, p. 934). Internationalisation often overlaps with issues around inclusion and inclusivity. Therefore a more optimistic view is that

“the diversity of the student body on university campuses provides a rich source of lived experience in cultural boundary-crossing that could be harnessed as a resource in promoting intercultural understanding and, in turn, developing graduates as global citizens” (Caruana, 2014, p. 86).

This is a more fundamental transformation of the study programme for all students than a bolt-on approach of rectifying deficits by providing additional support to just international students. The pedagogical choices made by staff in the classroom are key (Elliott and Reynolds, 2014, p. 318).

Leask and Carroll (2011, p. 657) call for the development of new approaches to motivate and reward intercultural interaction by all students, identifying the potential for intercultural communication. This #LTHEchat is a response to that call, with an opportunity to share experiences and ideas.

This also reflects the ‘HEA Framework for internationalising higher education’, available at: https://www.heacademy.ac.uk/individuals/strategic-priorities/internationalising-higher-education. It includes these words:

“Everyone within HE can make a valuable contribution to the process of internationalisation, working in collaboration as an international academic community. Individuals bring a plurality of identities, cultures, languages and experiences that can enrich and enhance learning, teaching and research. Thus, responsibility for internationalising HE is shared among organisations, individuals and curriculum”.

Join in the discussion on Twitter, Wednesday 20th February, 8pm GMT, #LTHEchat.

Link to Wakelet of the chat: http://wke.lt/w/s/O4oor

References:

Caruana, V. (2014) ‘Re-thinking Global Citizenship in Higher Education: from Cosmopolitanism and International Mobility to Cosmopolitanisation, Resilience and Resilient Thinking’, Higher Education Quarterly, 68(1), pp. 85–104. doi: 10.1111/hequ.12030.

Elliott, C. J. and Reynolds, M. (2014) ‘Participative pedagogies, group work and the international classroom: an account of students’ and tutors’ experiences’, Studies in Higher Education. Routledge, 39(2), pp. 307–320. doi: 10.1080/03075079.2012.709492.

Harrison, N. (2015) ‘Practice, problems and power in “internationalisation at home”: critical reflections on recent research evidence’, Teaching in Higher Education. Routledge, 20(4), pp. 412–430. doi: 10.1080/13562517.2015.1022147.

Jones, E. (2017) ‘Problematising and reimagining the notion of “international student experience”’, Studies in Higher Education. Routledge, 42(5), pp. 933–943. doi: 10.1080/03075079.2017.1293880.

Lantz-Deaton, C. (2017) ‘Internationalisation and the development of students’ intercultural competence’, Teaching in Higher Education. Routledge, 22(5), pp. 532–550. doi: 10.1080/13562517.2016.1273209.

Leask, B. and Carroll, J. (2011) ‘Moving beyond “wishing and hoping”: internationalisation and student experiences of inclusion and engagement’, Higher Education Research & Development.  Routledge , 30(5), pp. 647–659. doi: 10.1080/07294360.2011.598454.

Warwick, P. and Moogan, Y. J. (2013) ‘A comparative study of perceptions of internationalisation strategies in UK universities’, Compare: A Journal of Comparative and International Education.  Routledge , 43(1), pp. 102–123. doi: 10.1080/03057925.2013.746573.

About

Jenny Lewin-Jones @JennyLewinJones is a long-standing university teacher and researcher, initially in Germany and then for 20+ years in the UK. She currently works as an Associate Lecturer on the BA English Language and Sociology courses at the University of Worcester, and is a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy. Jenny is also a part-time EdD (professional doctorate) student at the University of Birmingham, researching the discourses of internationalisation in Higher Education in the UK. She tweets on language, linguistics, and education @JennyLewinJones, and runs the Sociology course Twitter account @sociologyworc.

In the LTHEChat this week we would like to explore the role of the traditional student skills of note taking and critical reading. Software tools and mobile apps have been developed to allow rapid and easy access to multiple texts. Sophisticated search tools can compile a comprehensive set of resources. Lecture capture systems allow students to revisit difficult concepts. With these technologies so widely available, is note taking, and are critical reading skills, still key to student learning? And if so, how can we use the tools available to assist.

This week’s LTHEChat is lead by Sue Lee and Dr Lydia Arnold.

Dr Lydia Arnold @HarperEdDev is an Educational Developer and Principal lecturer at Harper Adams University. Lydia is a Principal Fellow of the HEA and a National teaching Fellow. She blogs at lydiaarnold.net

Sue Lee @suelee99 is the eLearning Manager at Staffordshire University. Sue is a Senior Fellow of the HEA and is based in Academic Development.

The Wakelet can be found here: http://wke.lt/w/s/BT7aw

New technologies come and go, energising those of us who are ‘early adopters’ of such technologies, while leaving those who are less enthusiastic about the latest gadget in its wake. These are people who are not ‘anti’ technology, or have what we used to call “barriers” to their technology use, but people who use technology for reasons other than being on top of the latest technology ‘fad’. My recent study involving two secondary schools in Australia found such people across the school community: teachers, parents, and even students. Not enamoured with technology, they used technology for efficiency and practical needs (typing up assignments for example), and were seldom using or exploring new technologies to explore new ways of teaching and learning. This chat will explore some of the ways people in higher education – lecturers and students –  get ‘stuck’ with a limited range of technologies; new pedagogies and old technologies; and ways we can entice them into further technological and pedagogical exploration.

This week’s LTHEChat is lead by Dr Jacquie Tinkler. Jacquie is a Lecturer in educational technology at Charles Sturt University in Wagga Wagga, Australia. Her recent work explores the ways in which the various members of school communities feel about, and experience, the use of digital technologies for teaching and learning in their schools. Her work in higher education and educational technology involves the exploration of new technologies for teaching and learning, particularly in the online environment.

The link to the Wakelet is here: http://wke.lt/w/s/M3hSQ

This week we welcome visualisation wizard Scott Turner from the University of Northampton (UoN), and his colleague Gary Hill. Scott and Gary are going to get us thinking about how to teach problem solving.

Problem-solving and problem-based activities are, arguably, central to both Engineering and Computing, but they have an application across many subjects. This chat will consider how problem-solving skills are developed in various subjects, giving participants the opportunity to share experiences from different subjects and explore similarities and differences.

Dr Scott Turner @scottturneruon is Principal Lecturer in Widening Participation in the subject area of Computing at the University of Northampton (UoN) and regular collaborator with Gary Hill on research into problem-solving within Computing. Scott is also responsible for leading on research for the Computing subject at UoN.

Dr Gary Hill @DrGaryHill1 is the Subject Leader for Computing, Business Computing and Games at the UoN. Over the last twelve years he has published on problem-solving and project-based learning applied to computing and his PhD is within this area.

Here is a list of research outputs and activities

The link to the Wakelet