From Constructive Alignment to Natural Lines – Learning to Share Control in Education

Mark HuxhamDirector of Academic StrategyEdinburgh Napier University

m.huxham@napier.ac.uk

Sharing Power – Why Not?

The Oscar Wilde Problem

• ‘The problem with socialism is that it takes up too many evenings’

The Roy ‘Chubby’ Brown Problem:

‘Leave as you arrived.. only more so’ Stewart Lee

The Proudhon Problem• What is

‘authentic authority’?

• ‘In the matter of boots, I refer to the authority of the bootmaker’ Michel Bakunin

The focused feedback failure

• Ask students to direct feedback to areas of concern… ‘focused feedback’

• As suggested by educational literature and the NUS

• 13 modules recruited• Years 1,2,3,4 and postgraduate• >700 annotated student scripts collected and

analysed• What could go wrong?

Only 6% of students requested ‘focused feedback’

Those that did focused on relatively superficial issues

(eg references)

‘what if it's wrong and I would draw their [the tutor's] attention?’

My ‘better than average’ D.I.Y.?

Model answers: Student preferences?

Category 1st year2004 2005

4th year All data

Both personal and model feedback

27 60 77 48

Personal feedback 49 35 8 38

Model feedback 20 5 8 11

No preference 4 0 8 3

‘I prefer to receive feedback as handwritten because you don’t just give the rite (sic) answer you tell us where we went wrong too..’.

‘..(it is) a friendlier way of marking with comments..(which can) prove helpful’

Model answers: Student performance?

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2004 2005

mea

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ark model feedback

personalfeedback

Year 1 Year 2

Mid

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My module ‘pre-mortem’ before ‘Sharing Control’

• A sense of fragmentation and surface learning –limited time to explore important topics

• A feeling of missed opportunities – have I failed to really enthuse everybody with this important and fascinating topic?

• A lack of commitment and engagement – some students don’t turn up, some don’t prepare, some don’t share problems

So where do students have ‘authentic authority’? First..in the experience of classroom learning..

The effects of ‘interactive windows’ on student learning in lectures

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

Part time group Full time group

Window 1 Window 2 Window 1 Window 2

‘open’ ‘closed’ ‘closed’ ‘open’

Single lecture, given in the same week to two separate groups of students, containing two ‘windows’

SIGNIFI

CANT !

second… in assessment…‘assessment seems to me to be another learning opportunity and an exam doesn’t strike me as any sort of learning opportunity, it is just a memory exercise. I understand that there is a lot of technique involved in sitting exams and answering questions but I don’t think that the exam is necessary to develop those particular techniques’

‘problem solving questions – having to apply skills – are needed…whereas exams, if you can master mnemonics, or any other memory technique, then you just concertina the information down and then spread it back out again’

‘If you are going to rejig the exam then I wholeheartedly support refocusing it on applying skills to solve problems rather than recounting knowledge’

https://www.facebook.com/groups/112769092142788/

third.. in location and duration..

Fourth… in content?

• ‘I am personally more interested in participating in deciding how the course will be delivered than the actual content of the course itself; not through fear of the unknown or indifference but rather that in that matter I feel it is sensible and most beneficial to our education to defer to the wisdom of our teachers.’

Original arrangement Arrangement following discussion

Teaching and learning practiceAll lessons in classrooms ‘Sandwalks’, trips, pubs

Two hour lectures or one hour tutorials

Up to 6 hours of ‘blocked’ time

Clear distinction between lectures and tutorials

Distinctions between didactic lecturing, discussions and problem solving blurred

Module evaluated by a standard ‘end-of-module’ questionnaire

Continuous evaluation; ‘bootgrit’, facebook, discussion

Assessments and feedbackAn unseen, three hour, end of module exam (60%)

An open book, ‘take home’ examination with five days for completion, based around three critical essays (50%)

A critique of a fabricated scientific study, due in week 5 of semester (20%)

A critique of a published scientific paper, due in week 4 of semester (30%)

Written feedback on the critique by week 7

One to one oral feedback week 6, replacing and enhancing a timetabled class

We can do better than Roy Chubby Brown…but it takes time and trust

• Many graduates are ‘determined from above..’ (Freire)

• , ‘well we’re students so we are interested in assessments that give us the highest marks’.

• I'm not paid to make the curriculum, I'll just roll with the punches. In all honesty the way education is going why not just let us all pass and release us into a world where we can work in a bar or Tesco metro with all the other undergraduates ;)

• ‘Felt like I learnt a lot. I understood things instead of just pretending to understand. Really relaxed, hard work and fun at the same time.’

Natural lines Constructive alignment

Mountaineering metaphor

Surveying/engineering metaphor

Identifying an elegant route

Creating an efficient route

Team effort Individual effort

Process informed by outcome

Outcomes determine process

Bounded flexibility and spontaneity

Carefully planned and predictable

Requires risky commitment

Risk is minimised