dec 2004 - feb 2005 teaching fellows journal

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Dec 2004–Feb 2005

Journal

This edition of the Teaching Fellows Journal has been restored from an archived online edition, hence the simplified form.

Edinburgh Napier University is a registered Scottish charity. Reg. No. SC018373

ISSN 2050-9995 (Online)

Please note - Some links and content within this document may now be out of date.

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EditorialCongratulations to 11 new Teaching Fellows and 3 new Senior Teaching Fellows

In this editorial space we welcome 11 new Teaching Fellows. We further congratulate 3 of the community on their promotion to Senior Teaching Fellow. Additionally we’re pleased to see Morag Gray awarded a personal chair and Linda Dryden becoming a Reader.

All this augurs well for the health of our teaching and learning community. Significantly it also indicates the way in which Napier University continues to break down the teaching/research divide. It is possible and we encourage pursuit of a twin-track career.

New Teaching Fellows

Jane Brown School of Community Health Faculty of Health and Life SciencesJane is particularly interested in the development of learning, teaching and assessment strategies in the large core/generic first-year modules and in raising their profiles in the university as a retention challenge. Her other area of interest is working collaboratively with employers to develop work-based learning programmes that are flexible and relevant to practitioner and service development within healthcare. She is leader on the short course Extended Independent and Supplementary Nurse Prescribing and is module leader on a pre-registration nursing foundation module in Health and Social Care. Jane is also an external examiner at Robert Gordon University.

Alan Edgar School of Engineering Engineering and ComputingAlan is involved in collaborative, wider access projects with partner FE Colleges. He has been involved with industrial placement for many years. Alan has experience of producing distance learning materials and is leading a team that is developing a blended e-learning degree, targeted at the UK, India and China. His wider interests include preparing students for the lifelong learning environment of the workplace. Alan is also involved in Teaching Companies and consultancy work.

Monika Foster School of Marketing and Tourism Napier University Business SchoolMonika is Module Leader for the English as a Foreign Language 9 module and Programme Leader for the

Contents2 Editorial

4 Eureka!

6 Reports

8 Review corner

11 Web spotlight

Edition Editors

Angela BenziesSenior Teaching Fellow and Senior Lecturer in Academic Practice

Coordinator of the Teaching Fellowship Scheme

Margaret Nairntfj Web Editor and Publications Officer

Educational Development, Bevan Villa,Craighouse Campus, Edinburgh

Current enquiries to:Office of the Vice Principal (Academic)Sighthill Campus, Sighthill Court,Edinburgh EH11 4BN

Email: tfj@napier.ac.uk

http://www.url.napier.ac.uk/tf

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is Academic Conduct Officer for her School. Her research interests in health promotion include the place of health promotion in undergraduate nursing programmes and research interests in teaching and learning include Widening Access and assignment guidelines and feedback. She is a published author and contributor to external and Napier conferences. Janis is particularly interested in curriculum planning and module design and focuses much of her attention on student support.

Jeni Harden School of Psychology and Sociology Faculty of Arts and Social ScienceJeni joined Napier in 2000 and teaches on undergraduate programmes in the areas of sociology and research methods. She is module leader on Introduction to Sociology and on Sociology of Health and Illness. Her active research interests are in the areas of childhood and child health. She is a published author and has contributed to conferences here and abroad. Jeni is a co-founder of the European Qualitative Child Health Research Network.

Niki Hynes School of Marketing and Tourism Napier University Business SchoolNiki joined Napier in 2000 after teaching experience in New Zealand, where she was awarded her PhD. Niki has also had considerable experience of working for large multinational companies. She strongly believes that a good lecturer can be both an academic researcher and a good teacher. Niki’s teaching and tutoring responsibilities are varied including being module leader on Practice of Marketing Strategy, New Product Development and Market Research modules. She is an external examiner at Liverpool John Moores University.

Robert Mason School of the Built Environment Engineering and ComputingRobert spent 20 years in private practice before joining Napier in 1999, bringing with him considerable practical experience in design, design management and building construction. He is past president of the British Institute of Architectural Technologists. Robert is programme leader for the BSc (Hons) in Architectural Technology and the new joint Honours programmes with the School of Computing. He is also a member of the Engineering and Computing Faculty Board and is an external examiner at Sheffield Hallam University and University of Ulster.

English Foundation Programme for overseas students wishing to study at Napier. She has substantial experience in Academic English teaching and Teacher Education in the UK and overseas. Her research interests include the cultural challenges faced by Chinese students and research into the differences in language teaching methods in China and the UK. She is a member of several of her school’s committees and working parties and has contributed to setting up Peer Support of Learning, Teaching and Assessment (PSLTA). She contributes to Napier and external conferences, and staff development workshops.

Helen Francis School of Management Napier University Business SchoolHelen is a senior lecturer and programme leader on the MSc in Human Resource Management and is leader on several modules at MSc and undergraduate levels. She is a member of Napier’s Equal Opportunities Committee, and is a member of her School’s Research Committee and Quality Committee. Externally, as a Fellow of the CIPD, Helen is a CIPD moderator at Central College of Commerce, Glasgow and leads the CIPD East of Scotland ‘Knowledge into Practice’ group which facilitates dialogue between academics and HR practitioners. Her current research interests are concerned with innovations in management learning and critical reflection amongst student and senior HR practitioners. She is a published author and has presented at conferences here and abroad.

Lesley Gourlay School of Marketing and Tourism Napier University Business SchoolLesley is module leader on four English as a Foreign Language modules and also on the module Introduction to Teaching English as a Foreign Language. She is programme leader of the Pre-Masters Programme. Lesley is currently writing several papers for publication in the area of Educational Linguistics from her PhD (awarded in 2003). She is further involved in a research project focusing on challenges faced by international students on NUBS masters programmes. Lesley believes in cross-fertilisation of ideas and contributes extensively to Napier conferences and educational development activities. She continues to be a key contributor to university discussions and exploration of plagiarism.

Janis Greig School of Community Health Faculty of Health and Life SciencesJanis is MSc Pathway Leader for Practical Public Health, Route Leader in Health Promotion and

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Andrew Moffat School of Accounting and Economics Napier University Business SchoolAfter qualifying as a chartered accountant, Andy spent seven years working for Surgikos Ltd, a subsidiary of the Johnson & Johnson Group. His interest in teaching came through the foresight of the Surgikos MD, who believed that if the shop-floor employees understood the impact that their work had on the company’s financial results, then everyone would gain from the experience. Who best to teach them? … Lets try Moffat! Andy came to Napier in 1991. He works particularly hard to create a bond with his students, believing that the student’s enthusiasm for learning can come from the lecturer’s enthusiasm for teaching ... plus a bit of system. Andy has experience of teaching abroad (Mauritius, Prague, Warsaw and South Africa) and currently teaches on a range of undergraduate, postgraduate and professional courses. He is the module leader for Accounting for Business 1, which is taught to all the non-accounting Business School students in the first year of their programme. With his strong student focus, Andy is also a guidance tutor for years 1 and 2 of the BA Accounting degrees and is responsible for admissions/recruitment to all the accounting undergraduate programmes.

Barbara Timms School of Accounting and Economics Napier University Business SchoolBarbara is module leader for several undergraduate modules and has been closely involved in student support activities and admissions over many years. She is also active on several committees and working groups in her school and faculty. Barbara has recently become involved with book reviews, for example on the Economics of the European Union. She is also currently exploring the possibility of participating in teaching exchanges overseas, adding to her previous experience of teaching abroad. Barbara has been heavily involved in writing many flexible and distance learning materials, the most recent comprising a Level 3 module in 2004 for the BA Financial Services degree for the Hong Kong market.

New Senior Teaching Fellows

Mark Huxham School of Life Sciences Health and Life SciencesMark is interested in pursuing several teaching-related

objectives including first-year student support and retention; expanding support for new, part-time and postgraduate colleagues; expanding collaborative research on teaching; and peer observation and ‘academic exchange’. He is module leader for the Teaching at University module, designed to introduce postgraduates to teaching and available to Napier postgraduate students. He’s currently conducting research into how effective interactive sessions are in stimulating learning, the strengths and weaknesses of alternative methods of evaluation and ways of providing rapid feedback to students. Mark’s main research focus outside of teaching is in inter-tidal ecology, and he currently heads a research project on mangrove restoration in Kenya. He still believes it is possible and desirable to combine teaching and research for the benefit of both.

Linda Juleff School of Accounting and Economics Napier University Business SchoolLinda plays a national role within the academic economics community as Regional Convenor for the LTSN (Economics), and is an active Council member of the Scottish Economic Society. She is an appointed Academic Assessor for the Government Economic Service, a role that provides a link between the academic community and the GES. Linda is a contributor to conferences, an external examiner and a Chinese translation of her co-authored book Managerial Economics for Decision Making is due to be published next year. Among her many teaching activities Linda is programme leader for the BA (Hons) Business Economics and BA (Hons) Financial Services. She additionally tutors on the Postgraduate Certificate in Teaching and Learning in Higher Education.

Grant MacKerron School of Management Napier University Business SchoolGrant enjoys encouraging participation in higher education through partnerships with colleges and other organisations, here and abroad. He has developed a programme with a partner institution in India and has been invited to provide induction for an MBA (India). Grant chairs a new LTA committee in his School, leads Teaching Companies and has recently collaborated with the Health Faculty to develop a joint Masters programme. He enjoys encouraging and helping colleagues and believes in a positive ‘can do’ attitude to work. •

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Eureka!Shirley Earl, Jan McArthur and Nancy Falchikov, all of EdDev, offer you a simple algorithm to help you choose a teaching and learning method.

Teaching and learning methods are changing more rapidly then ever before. Globally and at Napier, staff currently involved in each programme and module are being asked to align:

• mass, group and/or individualised sessions

• on campus and/at collaborative locations

• in classroom, field, distance or blended mode

• with mixed abilities

• and across varied nationalities

• using print, practical, audio-visual and/or online media. •

ReportsEnhancement Themes 2003-04 Conference report by Judy Goldfinch, Senior Lecturer and Senior Teaching Fellow, Centre for Mathematics and Statistics, Napier Business School

Enhancement Themes 2003-04 Conference report by Judy Goldfinch

The Enhancement Themes 2004 Conference, held at the West Park Centre, Dundee, on Friday 15 October 2004, was the second of the annual conferences set up to report on progress with the Enhancement Themes 2003-4 implemented jointly by SHEFC, the QAA, NUS, and Universities Scotland. It was attended by over 300 participants from Scottish HE, representing a wide range of interests and status including practising academics, support services, vice principals and deans, student reps, and interested visitors from other countries. Napier was well represented with 14 staff present.

The aims of the conference were to:

• report on the outcomes of the two Enhancement Themes from 2003-4 (assessment and responding to student needs)

• outline future plans for enhancement theme activities

• explain the Higher Education Academy’s role in taking the enhancement themes’ work forward at subject level

• launch the 2004-5 Enhancement Themes (employability and flexible delivery).

1. AssessmentThe sub-themes considered by the steering group for

this theme were:

• certification

• how to use assessment to motivate

• over-assessment

• feedback

• variety of methods

• fairness

• students with diverse needs

• assessment at programme and module level.

Over 450 people, from every HEI in Scotland, attended the workshops held during 2003-4.

The steering committee also commissioned some research on Honours classification schemes globally, and a discussion paper on this was made available at the conference. It is also available on the Enhancement Themes website. A wide variation in practice was found across the world, with no obviously better models than the UK one (ie Honours classifications supported by a well-used external examiner scheme).

Other conclusions from the theme’s activities were that we should:

• get away from over-assessment, especially summative assessment, which results in everyone being ‘very busy’ in an unhelpful way. It was recommended to increase the amount of formative assessment with feedback, but not to feel the need to award marks for this

• find a way to increase the amount of feedback to students, but without putting a greater burden on staff

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• match assessments to learning outcomes

• involve students in their own assessment, while explaining the problems and difficulties to them. The need to overcome perceived institutional barriers to such change (eg quality assurance procedures, validation schemes, and conservative external examiners) was highlighted.

In general, the refreshing advice was to enhance quality by involving everyone, being constructive, and avoiding box-ticking exercises such as audits.

2. Responding to student needsThe sub-themes considered by the steering group for this theme were:

• receiving and responding to student feedback

• a holistic approach to student support.

For the former sub-theme, the steering committee set up a project group to look at models, innovative approaches and examples of good practice in collecting and using student feedback. Major strands identified were questionnaires, alternatives to questionnaires, student representation, student engagement, and closing the loop in the feedback cycle.

For the latter sub-theme, the steering committee decided to focus on the needs of first-year students, and worked on the following strands:

• developing the first-year curriculum

• approaches to integrating student support

• personal tutor systems and their alternatives

• induction.

Toolkits of good practice are being assembled and will be available from the website above.

In general, this group saw a need to redress the ‘compliance culture’ which auditing had led to. They recommended a change to an ‘outcome-based culture’ (which ELIR is moving towards and which it is hoped that professional bodies will start to move towards, too). They also felt it vital to empower and motivate students as that is what leads to retention, and to avoid tokenism such as providing a student handbook/pack which is just put in a drawer. The group identified a large group of staff who are currently doing things that they don’t really see the need for, something which demotivates both staff and students and leads to disaster.

3. The future of the Enhancement ThemesThe plans are to consider more global, five-year rolling issues instead of the rigid two themes a year. These issues would be identified by the academic community rather than the QAA; a working group made up of the teaching quality forum and some students will shortly draw up an agenda/action timetable. The first rolling plan should be agreed by the end of 2004, starting work January to September 2005, with delivery in 2005-6.

4. The role of the HE Academy Paul Ramsden (Chief Executive HEA) emphasised that real improvements came from working together, not from imposition or compliance, a recurring them of the day. However, he warned that it takes three to five years for measurable improvements to appear from good LTA/QE initiatives.

Evidence showed that the LTSN Subject Centres had been real success stories, and have produced an improvement in learning, teaching and assessment across the UK. Their success is partly due to their approach of working ‘with the grain’, and an avoidance of ‘jargon’. They will run events in the years following the Enhancement Themes to take them forward on a subject basis.

5. EmployabilityPeter Knight (Director, Institute of Educational Technology, Open University) who was instrumental in the development of the excellent ESECT materials on employability developed in England, spoke on this new theme. He explained that ‘employability’ is the capacity to be employed, and includes the quality of the whole student experience; it is not about actually getting employment, nor about vocationalism. It is not just ‘skills’ but includes the development of personal attributes. ‘Employability’ is highly consistent with good learning and academic values, and is more about making students and staff aware of the skills and attributes they are developing. It lies less in curriculum content than in curriculum processes, and we need to think in ‘programme’ terms. Peter Knight recommends tuning up programmes gradually, over 5 years, looking for gaps, for redundancies, and for opportunities.

Apparently, the number of graduate-level jobs is rising, but employers are unhappy with the transition between university and employment and the time it takes students to adjust. We need to help students learn how to free up the knowledge/learning/skills/attributes they develop at HE and to apply them to the different, and more specific, context of their new job/business. Peter Knight recommends getting students

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to think fairly early on about building up a personal development portfolio, developing self-awareness of their attributes and skills, and what development they need.

6. Flexible deliveryThis was defined as a way of helping academics deliver good education to a large body of students with a high diversity of needs. It is not necessarily distance

learning or online, but whatever is appropriate for that student.

The first would be implemented via workshops and study tours where international ‘experts’ would disseminate advice and ideas. The second would gather and develop tools to help academics, together with exemplars of good practice. •

Review cornerTwo book reviews for this quarter’s tfj from Angela Benzies and Sandra Cairncross

Angela Benzies, Lecturer and Teaching Fellow, School of Engineering, reviews Killing Thinking: Death of the University by Mary Evans (2004)

London: Continuum ISBN 082647313X

‘We are told that this world represents our best hope for intellectual vitality and creativity. We are also told that we should pay more to enter it and experience its rich resources. Yet those rich resources are increasingly marginalized by cultures of assessment and regulation, the heavy costs of which (both financial and intellectual) are to be carried by students. Increasingly students are being asked to pay for the costs of regulation of higher education rather than education itself. Access to Higher Education has become more widely available: the implications of that change are the concern of this book.’

Professor Evans starts by saying that ‘this book was written in troubled times, both personal and professional’. I think I can identify with her to some extent, as agreeing to do a review early in the semester feels different from writing it in week 8 when marking is piling up, WebCT innovations are consuming vast amounts of time, and programme and module development tasks are now urgent or already overdue!

I was keen to read this book because I think the issues raised in the synopsis above are increasingly affecting the ordinary lecturer on a daily basis. We feel the impact of internal and external regulation of our teaching methods and the assessment of our results, and witness changes in cohort profiles and individual student attitudes, and all this greatly affects how we do our jobs.

On looking through the list of contents I was a bit dismayed at the title of the first chapter, ‘Through the Looking Glass: or what Pierre Bourdieu and Kingsley Amis have in common’, as I am not a great reader of novels and certainly don’t spend time analysing them these days (my English Literature O-level was a long time ago), at least not in order to help me understand the current state of higher education in the UK. I didn’t feel much more encouraged on seeing a chapter entitled ‘Gendered Spaces’ and my fears on that one were borne out, but more of that later. However I couldn’t wait to read ‘The Heart of Darkness: Audit and Compliance’ and almost cheated by skipping to this bit first! As a member of my School’s Quality Enhancement Team I can sometimes feel that there is a lack of enlightenment in our discussions but the thought that we were engaging in something satanic would put an entirely different slant on our activities!

There are some important issues referred to in the book, such as the confusion over the purpose of universities. Are they the government’s tool for creating productive individuals and an economically viable society, or is there something much more fundamental about higher education which should not be corrupted by commercial considerations? Class, privilege and social status are also discussed, drawing from books such as Kingsley Amis’ Lucky Jim1, published in 1954 and which, according to Professor Evans, ‘set[s] out an account of class relations in higher education which is still relevant’.

The author is very much against the ethos and practices of the QAA and the RAE and feels that very few academics endorse the ‘value and assumptions of the new audit culture’. I can see her side of the argument, but, from my experience of quality systems and audits in industry and academia, I also believe that defined standards are important and properly conducted audits can release potential, rather than just being a drain on the system being evaluated. The question is ‘are we just ticking boxes or making

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a genuine attempt to add value?’ It seems to me that there is a real need to improve management practices in Higher Education, learning appropriate lessons from industry and commerce, to answer this appropriately. And there is also the very important issue of how to successfully manage a professional organisation, where a hierarchy exists but is not really the primary driver for ensuring quality at the point of delivery. Perhaps management writers such as Charles Handy2 can offer some insight here. At times the author’s hatred of the QAA and all it stands for seems to spill over into a more general rejection of the ordering of society and its institutions, but should being a professional grant us a right to do exactly as we please? ‘Trust me, I’m a lecturer’ might have a hollow ring to it. Living in a post-Shipman society, highly respected professionals such as our family doctors are not exempt from evaluation and most would feel that this is, however regrettable, necessary and right.

Mary Evans is a professor of Women’s Studies so the reader perhaps shouldn’t be surprised at the anti-male rhetoric in the book but I found it a bit tedious and often irrelevant to the discussion of HE. On the other hand, surveys demonstrating disparity between men and women in academia in terms of pay and promotion have been widely reported in the academic and general press, and this suggests to me that there probably is something wrong in the proper valuing of the contribution of women in our environment. In my own field (engineering), I believe that advancement is often less problematic for women in industry than in academia, which is not what I would have expected. But whatever our circumstances, I think a chip on the shoulder is a hindrance to persons of either gender.

To me the discussion in the latter part of the book is the most relevant and there are some good points on conformity and evaluation as opposed to the freedom to educate for its own sake. There are some thoughts also on alternative methods of quality improvement in academic communities through co-operation and mutual support though, as the author recognises, academic work is not really a team sport.

So, if you have a literary bent, your politics are a bit left-leaning and you are a feminist I think you will enjoy this book. For others I think it may be a bit of a chore to read in places although it does raise issues that we all must increasingly engage with and develop an approach to on a professional and personal level.

1 Amis, Kingsley Lucky Jim Harmondsworth, Penguin, 1954

2 Handy, C Understanding Organizations London, Penguin, 1993 4th ed.

Sandra Cairncross, Senior Lecturer and Senior Teaching Fellow, School of Computing, reviews Relearning to E-learn: Strategies for electronic learning and knowledge by M S Bowles (2004)

Melbourne: Melbourne University Press ISBN 0522851266

Relearning to E-learn grew out of a long-term research project undertaken by the Unitas Knowledge Centre, based at the University of Tasmania. The project sought to come to a better understanding of how e-learning can be used to best effect within an organisational context and, as such, the focus is perhaps more on corporate training rather than academic learning. However, many useful lessons can still be drawn for practioners in higher education.

The first chapter explores ‘What is Electronic Learning?’ 1, which is always useful to establish, as different authors use the term in different ways. Bowles looks at various e-learning systems and processes, distinguishing between delivery of content, communications tools in their various forms, and classroom management systems. Online learning benefits are compared with other learning technologies, such as CD-ROMs and video. The sources for these characterise CD-ROMs as having low interactivity, something that I would not agree with. Certainly stand-alone CD-ROMs do not offer communication with others but links to web pages and email can easily be embedded. More fundamentally, well designed multimedia, whether run on a CD or DVD or over the web can offer high interactivity to individual learners through games, simulations, or quizzes. The chapter ends with an exploration of the growth of emerging technologies, such as mobile and wireless devices, that can be used to support learning.

Bowles argues that much that has been wrong with e-learning to date is due to a focus on the technologies rather than learning and, like many others before him, including Diana Laurillard, argues that learning should come first. To this end, in later chapters, he explores different facets of this, including how to move ‘from competence to capabilities’, which has a strong workplace focus, to ‘dimensions of knowledge’, approaches to learning and individual factors. All interesting topics and worthy of exploration but I felt at times the book came across as slightly disjointed.

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Moreover, at times, Bowles seems to contradict himself. In chapter 6 on ‘Generating Knowledge through Learning’, Bowles advocates constructivist approaches to learning. Central to such approaches is the concept that the learners themselves construct new ideas through relating ideas being presented to them, to their present knowledge and previous experiences. Learning, then, is an active process in which new knowledge is constructed by the learner, rather than something which can be transmitted from the teacher to the learner or acquired by the learner passively. However, in the summaries at the end of both chapters 1 and 7, for example, he takes a more transmission-based view, talking about the acquisition of knowledge rather than its construction.

Notwithstanding the above criticisms, each chapter is well researched and can be helpful in contextualising the current growth of e-learning. For example, in chapter 2 ‘The E-Learning Marketplace’, Bowles takes an interesting look at the how e-learning has spread through a variety of different sectors, private and public, focusing on markets in the US and the Pacific rim. The focus is on take-up rates and market trends, some of which echo our experience at Napier. For example, commenting on the rise of blended learning, Bowles states:

‘E-learning is increasingly used as an extension of classroom learning rather than a replacement for it. In this context, it offers instructor-lead classes a sense of

community, stronger communication, flexible delivery and supplementary materials.’

I’d subscribe to that. Later chapters focus more on the learner and their experiences, eg chapter 7 ‘Exploring Individual Factors in E-learning Performance’ and chapter 8 ‘Towards Collaborative Learning’.

The book can be bought as normal book, as a digital book printed to order or as an e-book. It also has a companion website2 which hosts ‘a major report on investigative research, a suite of tools, a manual, case studies and supplementary publications’.

The book works best not as a guide on how to design e-learning systems but as a series of separate essays3 to dip into rather than read consecutively. Viewed in this light the slight contradictions become less jarring and a number of interesting insights emerge.

1 This chapter can be downloaded as a sample, in pdf format, from the publisher’s website http://www.mup.unimelb.edu.au/pdf/0-522-85126-6.pdf

2Companion website can be accessed at http://www.portal.unitas.com.au/elearn/elearnindex.asp

3 Selected chapters can be purchased from the MUP e-store http://www.mup.unimelb.edu.au/ebooks/0-522-85130-4/contents.html

[All URLs last accessed November 2004] •

Web spotlight

As our own postgraduate student community grows, the web spotlight highlights how postgraduates themselves network nationally and internationally.

The National Postgraduate Committee website is a robust, topical website with news, coming events, new features and hot topics sections. It contains advice and useful links on postgraduate funding and accommodation as well as providing a portal

to sources of information and comment about postgraduate education and topical issues. One of the website’s main strengths is its links to relevant and related websites. Postgraduates can start discussions or contribute to existing discussions via the moderated discussion board.

Take a look at this interesting, attractive and topical website and find out how the postgraduate community communicates!•