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Sept–Nov 2006

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Please note - Some links and content within this document may now be out of date.

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EditorialMark Huxham, Senior Teaching Fellow and Senior Lecturer, School of Life Sciences, shares his experiences, professional and personal, of life ‘down under’ during an exchange visit to Australia

‘I’m away for three months, broadening my mind’.

The note on my neighbour’s door neatly displayed the typical Australian virtues of brevity and straight talking. It contrasted poorly, I thought, with the ponderous email I had circulated before leaving Napier that was full of phrases about ‘an enriching cultural exchange’ and ‘refreshing my academic perspective’; the apologetic sub-text had been ‘no, this isn’t a holiday’.

And no, it wasn’t. It was an academic exchange with a colleague from the School of Arts and Sciences at the Australian Catholic University (ACU) in Sydney. We swapped jobs and houses for six months, following in a long tradition of exchanges that at one time were common, and were encouraged and facilitated by the Commonwealth and other organisations. A number of my older colleagues in the School of Life Sciences benefited from exchanges, and their stories were one of the inspirations for organising this experience. But those formal channels seem largely to have dried up – broadening one’s mind is no indicator of esteem in the RAE. So this exchange was a blind date following a query on an education discussion list, and it was possible only with the active support of our peers and managers. Before leaving, the usual response from friends and colleagues to news of my trip was ‘you lucky sod’; it seems there are many people interested in working elsewhere. So I want to share with you some reflections on the benefits and challenges of the exchange, as well as some observations on HE teaching down under.

It’s easy to feel at home in Australia. I walked passed oak trees lining Norfolk and Oxford Street, on my way to Epping and work, and could read how Hibs and Hearts were getting on in the weekend paper. But the raucous screeching of sulphur-crested cockatoos careening overhead would serve to remind me that Australia is really a very different country. Australian higher education presents similar contrasts between the familiar and the novel. The first universities (Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide) were based on UK models, and that legacy is still strong in the 44 major Australian HE institutions of today, and in wider HE policy. For example, Australian academics are

Contents2 Editorial

4 Eureka!

5 Reports

8 Review corner

9 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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believe the opening lines of their wonderful national anthem: ‘Australians all let us rejoice, for we are young and free...’ My students exuded a languorous optimism with much less apparent anxiety over assessments than I find in Scotland. The ability is the same but the attitude is different; the success of the schools in fostering such confident young people surely has lessons for us in the UK.

The working environment is different too. I attended only one formal meeting during my whole time at ACU. Colleagues there were amazed when I described the reticulate scaffolding of committees and meetings that supports our decision-making at Napier; ‘what on earth do you find to talk about?’ they asked? This culture of simply being left to get on with things reflected the general Australian traits of distrust of authority and contempt for garrulous rhetoric. But other differences were probably unique to ACU. For example, the Catholic heritage of the university is celebrated in its mission statement, which states its goal to be the production of graduates who are:

highly competent in their chosen fields, ethical in their behaviour, with a developed critical habit of mind, an appreciation of the sacred in life, and a commitment to serving the common good.

This bold commitment to ethical and sacred values was a refreshing change from the bland managerialism typical in the UK. My colleagues were proud of the mission and told me it did influence their everyday lives – for example, through ACU’s commitment to courses that enhance the ‘common good’ such as environmental science.

So how would I describe the benefits of this exchange? It has re-introduced me to the creative anxiety of teaching new subjects in a different place, and of making new friendships with colleagues and students. It allows me to see my work and institution from a different perspective, to reflect on my strengths and weaknesses and on those of my university.

But I can summarise it for you in a pithier, and more Australian, way – it helps to broaden my mind. •

anticipating, with justified trepidation, the introduction of their own ‘Research Quality Framework’, inspired by the RAE. There is talk of greater differentiation within the sector, with the ‘gang of eight’ (elite, older universities) pushing for this, and a fear that some institutions may become ‘teaching only’. So Australia is following the UK in many ways, and in others it illustrates where we might be going. Students there have paid into the Higher Education Contribution Scheme (HECS) since 1989, with repayments through tax after an income threshold. Since 1997 universities have been permitted to make up to 25% of the enrolment on a course from full fee-paying students; in some cases, this has meant lowering the entrance requirements for such students, with worries that the rich can buy their way into university. Australia realised the potential of overseas markets many years ago and now has the second largest percentage of overseas students – mainly from China and India – of any country. Many of these students choose courses that will give them the best opportunities of immigrating into Australia.

And what of the differences? There are many, some of which involve subtle changes in perspective that have radical implications for how things feel. Take the dead hand of health and safety, revived by the bright southern sun into a gentle protector. The risk assessment forms are similar to those required at home before taking our students for a walk in the park. But the content throbs with uniquely menacing possibilities. Australians love to tell tales of the many miserable ends that might befall you in the outback and the sea. The best of these are embellished with details of how Uncle Keith, or a friend’s cousin, lost his leg to a redback spider or was chased across a field by a tiger snake. And the most worrying aspect of these tales is the suspicion that they might be true. Australian biologists conduct fieldwork in a country with the most venomous animals on earth; they respond with a refreshing mixture of planning and optimistic acceptance of risk. Suddenly the risk assessment process makes sense and I wonder if this is not its natural niche, and it has spread like a noxious weed to the UK? Then there is that famous Australian confidence, a kind of positive, secular fatalism that asserts ‘she’ll be right, mate’. Australians appear to

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Eureka!Wise Ways With Word

Many of us regularly use Microsoft® Word to create our documents. Margaret Nairn, Learning Materials Developer and tfj Web Editor, EdDev, offers ten tips for quicker working with Word based on colleagues’ most frequently asked questions

1. The saving habit It’s good to get into the habit of saving your document at regular intervals especially when you’re making major changes and always before printing. The quickest way to do this is to use the keyboard shortcut CTRL + S.

2. Moving through your document Try using these keystrokes instead of the mouse to move quickly through your document.

Move to the start of a word

CTRL + (left arrow key)

Move to the next wordCTRL + (right arrow key)

Move to the start of the paragraph

CTRL +(up arrow key)

Move to the start of the previous paragraph

CTRL + (up arrow key twice)

Move to the start of the next paragraph

CTRL + (down arrow key)

Hint holding down the SHIFT key at the same time as using the above keystrokes will also select the text for you.

Move to start of the line Home keyMove to the end of the line End key

Move to the start of the document CTRL + Home key

Move to the end of the document CTRL + End key

3. Selecting text Selecting text can be time-consuming and it’s difficult sometimes to be accurate with the cursor so try these foolproof ways of selecting text.

To select a word double click the word

To select a paragraph place the cursor in the paragraph and triple click

To select a line of textplace the cursor in the left margin (it’ll change to an arrow) and click

To select more than one line of text

place the cursor in the left margin (it’ll change to an arrow) and drag

To select the whole doc-ument

place the cursor in the left margin (it’ll change to an arrow) and triple click

Hint to delete text, select it in the ways described above then CTRL + X.

4. Keyboard shortcuts Using keyboard shortcuts instead of picking from the toolbar with the mouse can really speed up your work and can help to reduce the strain on wrist and elbow of constantly moving from keyboard to mouse.

To embolden a word or words

select the word/s then CTRL + B

To underline a word or words

select the word/s then CTRL + U

To italicise a word or words

select the word/s then CTRL + I

Hint Remember from items 2 and 3 above to double click to select a word and CTRL + SHIFT + arrow keys to select a series of words.

To undo your last action CTRL + ZTo repeat or redo your last action CTRL + Y

5. Backtracking It’s often useful to backtrack through your document to previous editing locations. A quick way of doing this is SHIFT + F5 which will take the cursor, in turn, to the three previous editing locations before returning it to your current position.

6. Capitalisation To quickly change the capitalisation of a word, place the cursor in the word then SHIFT +F3 will Capitalise it. Repeating SHIFT F3 will CAPITALISE the whole word and SHIFT F3 again will return it all to lower case. By selecting more than one word you can also use this keyboard shortcut to change the capitalisation of a series of words.

7. Copy formatting To quickly and accurately copy

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the formatting of one piece of text to another use the Format Painter button on the toolbar . Highlight the text whose format you want to copy, click the Format Painter button and the cursor will change to a paintbrush and I-beam. Then click in the word or highlight the text you want to apply the formatting to and it’s done. If you want to copy the formatting more than once just double click the Format Painter button and when you’ve finished copying the formatting click the Format Painter button again or press the ESC key to restore the cursor to normal.

8. Special symbols If you’re looking for a special symbol you’ll find them by choosing Insert > Symbol from the toolbar. Scroll through the lists on the Symbols or Special Characters tabs and when you’ve found the one you want double click on it to insert it. In the scroll boxes you’ll find a host of symbols such as the Euro € and the Yen ¥, the registered trademark ® and copyright © symbols, diacritical marks such as accents (été), umlauts (über) and tildes (Señor), mathematical and drawing symbols.

Hint to format your symbol as superscript or subscript, eg ™, H2O simply highlight the symbol or

text character and from Format > Font on the toolbar, tick the superscript or subscript box.

9. Hyperlinks If you’ve typed a URL but you want to remove the blue hyperlink text and the underlining that usually appears automatically then insert the cursor anywhere in the URL and from the toolbar choose Insert > Hyperlink and click on Remove Link. Similarly, if you’ve typed a URL but it doesn’t appear automatically as a hyperlink then select the whole URL and from the toolbar choose Insert > Hyperlink and click OK.

And finally…

10 Backing up You’ve invested a lot of time in your document so always make a backup copy on a CD-Rom or memory stick. You can also use your personal ‘H’-drive on the university’s network to store your important documents securely.

Microsoft is a registered trademark of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and/or other countries. •

ReportsAngela Benzies, Lecturer and Teaching Fellow, School of Engineering and Built Environment, reports on EE2006

Sandra Cairncross, Senior Lecturer and Senior Teaching Fellow, reports on the Higher Education Academy Conference 2006

Angela Benzies reports on EE2006

EE2006 or, to give it its full name, Innovation, Good Practice and Research in Engineering Education is a biennial event that took place this year in Liverpool, England from 24–26 July. I can’t say that the location struck me as particularly exotic but then most things I end up at are local so at least I felt it was a change. However, I have to say that I was pleasantly surprised to find an attractive and friendly city. Old warehouses in the waterfront area, apparently the largest group of listed buildings in the country, have been turned into a modern complex that includes the Granada TV HQ, a Beatles Museum, hotels, the Maritime Museum and the Tate Liverpool Art Gallery.

The conference programme was fairly intense, especially as two of the days featured working lunches, and we also had a full social programme including a ‘Ferry ’cross the Mersey’ complete with entertainment from a Beatles tribute band. During one of the lunch breaks sixteen electronic posters, arranged under four themes of hardware, materials, assessment & feedback and design & creativity, were displayed in PowerPoint® format on large plasma screens with authors in attendance. The idea was to allow a large number of posters to be viewed in a confined space with author input but in reality most of us wanted to get lunch and have somewhere to set a glass and a plate, as well as to chat to people then return for seconds.

Another lunchtime session was used for the ‘Steel Making Challenge’, where groups competed to produce batches of steel to the appropriate specification in a fixed period of time using a virtual steelworks facility produced by the Steel University, which provides a number of free e-learning resources. This was a very good example of computer-supported collaborative learning and the competitive element added to the fun.

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The certificate and memory stick given to participants on completion of the Challenge was also a nice reward. The Challenge has been successfully run as an international competition, and will be staged again this year, but it is also suitable for use with students at all stages as well as professional groups. Perhaps we could make use of it within Engineering at Napier, either as an ice-breaker during induction week, or as part of a materials programme?

Another potentially useful application demonstrated was Pebble Pad, an e-portfolio tool developed by the company in conjunction with academics at the University of Wolverhampton, which can efficiently record achievements and related data of many different formats. It struck me that while it would be useful for students, it would also make the process of maintaining and presenting a Teaching Fellow portfolio much easier.

There were many interesting keynote presentations, although I thought that the initial talk by Sara Parkin, originally entitled Sustainability in Engineering Education, was a little strange in places in that she argued that the purpose of life was the achievement of happiness, with the ‘economics of happiness’ requiring that we achieve social and economic goals at the same time as protecting the environment. Personally I believe that happiness is a by-product of a way of life, not an aim in itself or even a right, but I appreciate that many would differ (eg presumably 300 million Americans). I agree that we as educators have a great opportunity to instil values into new engineers and encourage their creativity in terms of sustainability, though she advised that ‘we need to think how we can ‘retrofit’ old engineers as well’.

Early on in the conference we were asked to use electronic voting technology to help identify ‘hot topics’ to return to in a later keynote (as well as to help with the presenter’s research!). I have heard of this technology but hadn’t used it (only 13% of the audience had) and, being perfectly honest, had always felt that it was an expensive gimmick. However, I found it easy to use and enjoyed the immediate feedback from the audience and the fact that the speaker could then respond to the issues raised. However I can tell you that when asked how we would reduce the engineering curriculum to improve results the attendees indicated that management subjects were the key targets for removal/reduction. An interesting conclusion, as that’s what I teach!

A highlight of the event was a talk by Professor Lewis Elton, who holds multiple education posts including Visiting Professor in Education at Manchester

University where he is looking particularly at the implementation of problem-based learning within the curriculum. He is a small, eighty-three year-old man with a very sharp mind, great energy and enthusiasm, and a pronounced disdain for toeing the party line. His work has recently been recognised by a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Times Higher Educational Supplement. In his talk, entitled Trust and Accountability as a Basis for Professionalism in Higher Education, he argued that while the balance used to be in favour of trusting academics to do a good job, now we are more focused on accountability (as he says QAA exemplifies) but to really address the issue academics need to come into line with other professions and accept that appropriate training is a significant factor in performing well and being judged worthy of trust. I found this view refreshing as often academics say that they do not need to be trained to teach and should never be challenged about what they do, even though the truth is that academic freedom and flexibility has been abused in some cases and there is such a thing as a failing lecturer.

The prize for the briefest visit by a presenter went to Ed Crawley, who had flown in from the US for his talk and headed back almost immediately after it was over. He outlined the Conceive Design Implement Operate (CDIO) project, a joint venture involving many universities around the world including Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Queen’s University Belfast and Chalmers University in Sweden, the aim of which is to create ‘an innovative framework for engineering education’. He began by considering what knowledge, skills and attitudes students should possess as they graduate from university and how we can better ensure that these are acquired, before discussing the approach to curriculum design and pedagogy and then showing the details of the syllabus. Problem-based learning, and how it may be effectively introduced across programmes of study was a key consideration in the team’s work. Slides from this talk and some other conference presentations are available from the downloads section of the conference website. The project team have invited other contributors to join them and there is an event in Massachusetts next year. Perhaps the School of Engineering and Built Environment at Napier should send a representative and even consider joining the project?

So, in conclusion, it was a good conference with plenty of practical and helpful materials, including some electronic resources that we could take away. My own talk, Supporting the professional development of engineers using WebCT (available from the downloads section of the conference website) was received

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well and people from various countries spoke to me afterwards with a view to keeping in touch with what we’re doing in engineering and online learning training at Napier.

A final point to ponder: at the last event one professor commented that engineers often demonstrated an anecdotal approach to good practice in engineering and encouraged us to get familiar with the research through the subject centres or other resources. While this is probably a helpful idea, I feel that research output is often poorly written in that the language is deliberately obscure and full of jargon, rendering it useless to even the competent and committed lecturer. So if educational researchers want their work to be taken seriously and used by practitioners I suggest that they take a leaf out of the book of the Plain English Campaign. See my blog entry ‘Obstacles’ from 17 June for further comment on a proposed ‘CREEP Index’ of readability of academic papers!

PowerPoint is a registered trademark of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and/or other countries.

Sandra Cairncross reports on the HE Academy Conference 2006

Over 550 delegates from the UK, Europe and further afield attended this year’s Higher Education Academy Conference in July at the East Midlands Conference Centre, University of Nottingham. The theme was one which is close to many of our hearts – Enhancing the Student Learning Experience. The conference offered the usual mix of plenary sessions, paper presentations, workshops, discussion and posters.

Of the several keynotes, the one which resonated most for me was the one by Professor Caroline Gipps, Vice-Chancellor, University of Wolverhampton, on the Scholarship of Teaching. Professor Gipps started by exploring why research into teaching and learning is needed and went on to describe how Wolverhampton has developed capacity in this area. This had lead to National Teaching Fellow appointments, a successful CETL (Centre of Excellence in Teaching and Learning) as well as an increased number of publications. Although we as a Scottish university cannot take part in some of these initiatives, there are some useful lessons that we can learn from the Wolverhampton experience. Professor Gipps’ slides are available from the conference website.

As an aside I was struck by how few people there were taking part in the conference from Scotland. This may

be because colleagues feel isolated from part on the HEA agenda in that key aspects, or what are perceived to be key aspects, such as the National Teaching Fellowship (NTF) and CETLs do not apply in Scotland. I do confess to a touch of jealously when hearing about the mentorship scheme which the NTF has set up whereby ‘experienced’ fellows mentor a group of ‘new’ fellows and work on a project together, something which offers opportunities for cross-discipline and cross-institution collaboration. Age and the University has been the focus of one such group and initial findings were shared in a discussion forum which proved to be thought-provoking and a change from papers that focus on presentation rather than participation.

It may also be the case that we in Scotland feel well-served (and rightly so) with the QAA Enhancement Themes and the opportunities that these afford for networking and sharing of good practice. However, despite separate funding arrangements in different parts of the UK, there are issues in common that face us and there is still a need for joint activities. I took part in a forum exploring how external examiners arrive at judgements and one thing which struck me was the similarities north and south and across different subjects.

One highlight for me was Ranald MacDonald’s workshop entitled From theory to practice in enhancing the learning experience. As ever it is a pleasure to take part in a workshop which is genuinely a workshop with lots of discussion and hands-on activities. Participants worked in groups to explore what we mean by student-centred and ideas were shared through developing a poster which we then presented to other groups. Not only did this prompt me to reflect on my own practice and conceptions (and misconceptions) but it also gave me some ideas to use in my own teaching. Students from Sheffield-Hallam also took part in this and other presentations. The CETL focusing on learning autonomy (Centre for Promoting Learner Autonomy) is based there and the activities which they are undertaking are clearing working – it was really encouraging to hear confident and articulate students give presentations and take part in discussions.

Some of the most worthwhile aspects of the conference were the ample opportunities for networking and informal discussions in the wonderful surroundings. I especially enjoyed lunch on the lawn outside the conference centre and my early evening strolls around the campus with other delegates. Residential delegates also got an insight into the authentic student experience through staying in halls. •

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Review cornerJohn Cowan, Napier Visiting Professor, reviews ENGINEERING EDUCATION: Research and Development in Curriculum and Instruction by John Heywood (2005)

Hoboken, New Jersey: Wiley-Interscience ISBN 0-471-74111-6 520pp £73.95

Most papers and books on this topic are hampered by pandering to two divisive influences. The first is the tendency of those who write in English to restrict their sources mainly to one or other side of the Atlantic. The second is that publishers, and those of their readers who are interested in engineering, are disinclined to consider pedagogical matters, and restrict their interest in engineering education to anecdotal accounts of practice. Equally, educationists are somewhat reluctant to engage with the detailed complexities of engineering. Consequently those who write in this field often restrict themselves to something akin to a quarter of the total available literature and concepts. Not so John Heywood. The result of his work is a veritable encyclopaedia of what has been published since 1960 in America and Europe (and beyond) on the subject of engineering education and the underlying pedagogy.

Consequently I would not advise anyone to read this book. Rather would I commend it to them as something to use. It should be used, I suggest, as a personal library which draws together a comprehensive review of the findings of over 2000 recent papers, providing an illustrative account of the research and development in engineering education since 1960 or thereabouts. This is a rich source for more than engineers. It will also provide clear treatment of curriculum issues for any university lecturer. With its succinct and well-referenced coverage of such topics as taxonomies, concept learning, learning strategies and styles, problem-solving, co-operative learning, and attrition, it goes far beyond the limits of just engineering education ,

No-one perhaps, other than John Heywood (Professorial Fellow Emeritus of Trinity College Dublin) with his astounding memory and command of the

literature, could have done justice to such a massive task. Had anyone else attempted it, I suspect the result would have been heavy, indigestible and off-putting, whereas in some almost miraculous way, Heywood, with incredible industry, has managed to make this magnum opus readable, useful and relevant. Indeed I would rate it more highly on these three qualities than his seminal and valuable work on Assessment in Higher Education1.

The chapters here are gathered into four sections. The first of these, of relevance to more than engineering educators, demonstrates how the elements which constitute a foundation for education – history, philosophy, psychology and sociology – should determine the aims of our curricula and its internal structure. Hence assessment, content, teaching and learning will be properly aligned. The second section, again of general relevance, concentrates on the organisation of content in the curriculum, with special attention given to interdisciplinary and integrated studies, and to project and problem-based models of curricula. The third section, particularly relevant to engineers, concentrates on problem solving, creativity and design, while the fourth and final section goes deeply into matters of teaching, assessment and evaluation.

There are, as ever, a few points with which a reviewer can quibble, if only to show that he or she has given the book careful consideration. The struggle to assemble camera-ready copy has, I suspect, led to a few instances of index entries which are a page out. The burgeoning area of project-oriented problem-based learning does not feature, and the coverage of both feedback and feedforward is scant. But I quibble. Any reader will, no doubt, find that some favoured sources or topics have been omitted or dealt with briefly. Rather however should we concentrate on what is there, and there in good measure – which is an excellent overview of some four decades of theory and practice.

1 John Heywood (2000) Assessment in Higher Education: Student Learning, Teaching, Programmes and Institutions London: Jessica Kingsley Publishers •

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Web spotlightIntute: Virtual Training Suite, funded by JISC as part of Intute, provides free online tutorials to help students, teachers and researchers improve their Internet information literacy and IT skills and help them to get the best from the web for education and research

The tutorials are written and kept up to date by subject specialists from UK institutions so you can be sure that the materials are relevant, authoritative and reliable. The current list of over 60 diverse subjects includes Civil Engineering, Performing Arts and Nursing

through to Theology, Business Studies and Politics. Each subject-specific tutorial includes search tools and tips; how to assess the quality of information from the web; how to cite and reference internet resources correctly; quizzes; a personal links basket for your most useful links and much more. There are also additional tutorials including the ‘Internet Detective’ that helps students to develop their critical thinking skills and to ‘discern the good, the bad and the ugly’ when using the Internet for their research.

Take a look at this attractive and easy-to-use website and bookmark it for future use.•