LEAD Associates 2016

The eight LEAD Associates for 2016 were as follows – click for more information on each project:

Amanda Hatton
The Reality of Reading – An exploration of the reading practices of undergraduate students

The aim of this study was to investigate the attitudes and practices of undergraduate students to reading; their reading behaviour, preferences and how this links to their academic reading and engagement and development of academic literacies. This also extends to understanding students reading preferences of digital or paper based texts and how this links to motivation and engagement and what strategies they use to develop understanding and critical thinking. This differentiation in reading and the impact of digital literacies is explored. The individual and taught strategies are identified that best support the development of knowledge, skills and academic identity.

Click here to view the presentation from the Celebrating Our Teaching Excellence Event held in January 2017.


Angela Maye-Banbury
Cultivating Creative Academic Communities: Exploring the potential of student societies in the development of academic identities

Student societies have become an increasingly important aspect of our learning environments in higher education. They provide a parallel and autonomous learning environment for students to engage with their discipline. But we know little about how student societies facilitate academic community building through a more enhanced dialogue between tutors and their students. Furthermore, there is a dearth of knowledge on the latent power of student societies to provide an authentic holistic student experience through skills and competency building. The “Cultivating Creative Academic Communities ” project explored these themes and more. The findings reveal the latent power of student societies to:

  • (i) foster student engagement through confidence building
  • (ii) create a parallel and genuinely student led alternative curricula
  • (iii) support the development of key employability related skills including leadership, team work and project management.

Click here to view the presentation from the Celebrating Our Teaching Excellence Event held in January 2017.

 


David Smith
Object Based Learning in HE Environments

Object Based Learning (OBL) is a student-centred learning approach that using objects to facilitate deep learning through inquisitive observation. They can be used to promote learning and engagement as a multi-sensory “thinking tool”. Objects (artefacts) in the learning environment can be used in multiple ways from a way of generating conversation to a method of linking form to function. In all cases, the tactile nature of the object, the associations with it and understandings of it become important in making learning real. This project has developed pedagogical aspects of OBL and developed a novel tool that can be applied in a range of HE environments.

Click here to view the presentation from the Celebrating Our Teaching Excellence Event held in January 2017.


Emma Heron
Friendship as Method: Understanding student experience through student conversation

This project has devised and piloted a novel method to elicit student perspectives on the journey through university study. Inspired by BBC Radio 4’s Listening Project and StoryCorps in the US, the project asks pairs of friends to undertake a private, guided conversation about ‘undergraduateness’. This approach:

  • allows us to dig deeper into how students navigate through and beyond their undergraduate studies;
  • shows us what it is to experience ‘doing’, ‘being’, ‘belonging’ and ‘becoming’
  • permits us to appreciate the challenges faced by students, as defined by students;
  • enables us to reflect on the effectiveness of our ‘offer’ around academic, personal and professional development;
  • offers a new way to explore any chosen aspect of the student experience, and
  • provides for students an empowering and usefully reflective activity in and of itself

The recorded conversations cover six key themes (each lasting 10 minutes) on the topics of happiness, confidence, belonging, becoming, journey and employability. Ten conversations have been undertaken for this project.

Against the backdrop of national, institutional, departmental, course and module surveying of higher education experience, this method offers a perhaps more quiet yet no less significant student voice.

Click here to view the presentation from the Celebrating Our Teaching Excellence Event held in January 2017.


Melanie Levick-Parkin
Do you know what it’s really like? Using participatory design methods to amplify student voice and enhance their HE experience

Positive and future-directed student participation in the reviewing and design of curriculum delivery can be notoriously difficult to facilitate. How can we use participatory and creative methods, to model the development of continuous improvement, based on co-creative and inclusive practices.
This toolkit has been developed in order to facilitate non-designers in the utilization of well-established and effective professional design methods to enhance their students’ experience, by creating spaces of agency and engagement with the design of their courses.

Click here to view the presentation from the Celebrating Our Teaching Excellence Event held in January 2017.


Stewart Hilland
Academic Writing Toolkit

Many university students find it challenging to compose a coherent piece of academic writing using the information that they have located and extracted from journal articles, textbooks and other sources. To help them succeed with this process, a toolkit of materials has been developed that employs conceptual approaches like gamification, visual metaphor representations, colour coding, text simplification and text scaffolding applied to a variety of engaging, non-academic themes. So far, the academic writing kit has been used successfully with SSM Department students and introduced to staff at an SBS CPD session. This has led to elements of the toolkit being adopted more widely in the SBS Faculty at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels. Next semester, it will be disseminated university-wide with a further CPD session.

Click here to view the presentation from the Celebrating Our Teaching Excellence Event held in January 2017.


Sue Beckingham
The PBL Toolkit – Embedding digital capability through project based learning and multimedia reflective practice

Students from all disciplines engage at some point with project based learning; independently or within groups. This LEAD project considers how digital and social media can be used to develop skills to help learners to organise and reflect upon their learning during the project. The PBL toolkit provides:

  • students with resources they can explore to develop their own toolkit which will help them connect, communicate, curate, collaborate and create, throughout the project lifetime
  • staff with suggested activities to use with students to encourage the development of their students’ project(s); and effective reflection and application of their learning.

Click here to view the presentation from the Celebrating Our Teaching Excellence Event held in January 2017.


Tanya Miles-Berry
Simulation Modules – A toolkit for development

This project builds on simulation modules developed in collaboration with a number of key stakeholders from the criminal and social justice professions. The modules were delivered almost exclusively by current practitioners from specialised fields such as forensics and the justice system to give students an authentic experience of the fields relating to their discipline. The modules provide a sense of the interrelation of different specialisms using an actual case.

The format also makes real-world learning accessible for students unable to participate in placements. A toolkit has been developed to support other staff interested in delivering ‘real world’ materials within the classroom.
Click here to view the presentation from the Celebrating Our Teaching Excellence Event held in January 2017.