No Images? Click here Welcome to the dissertations issue!With the summer semester under way, Masters students are undertaking their intensive research projects. With this edition, we've brought you a focus on the dissertation classes we can offer your students, advice from the experts about how to differentiate between Honours and Masters level work, and a podcast episode about the particular challenges your student are likely to be facing with this particular piece of assessment. There's also our usual range of regular features, but we'd also appreciate your feedback on any contact you've had with LEADS as a member of staff at the University - either through our events, through our taught courses, or through face-to-face advice on developing your teaching. Classes for your studentsSummer is one of the busiest times for Effective Learning and Effective Writing Advisers here in LEADS. Students in the Colleges of Arts Social Sciences can still attend classes from our summer series. Students in all Colleges can find subject-specific class slides in the relevant College section at moodle.gla.ac.uk/LEADS. Podcast: Dissertations - What Are the Challenges, and How Can We Respond?With this new addition to the LEADS Magazine, Dr Matthew Williamson (Director of LEADS) will invite staff with expertise in particular areas to discuss topics in learning and teaching in the all-new podcast. While we put the finishing touches to creating its permanent home on the University website, we've launched episode one as an audio track on YouTube. (You can navigate through the different questions and answers by using the links in the video description, on the YouTube page.) In this episode, Janis Davidson and Elina Koristashevskaya discuss the challenges that students face in writing dissertations at a research-intensive University. As a central department in the institution, we see students from every discipline. Also, we often find that they are more candid with us about the difficulties and the new academic abilities they're working to develop. Our hope is that our insight into how students rise to these challenges might help shape your practice where you think it would be beneficial. Ask the ExpertsQ: I am due to teach courses that are open to both Honours and Masters students concurrently next semester, and this is already causing me all sorts of trouble. How can I make seminars relevant to both levels? My Masters exercises are too complex for the Honours level, but if I just teach to the Honours level students, how can I bring the Masters cohort up to standard? Answer by Dr Jessica Bownes and Dr Scott Ramsay Brief answer (link to full response at the end): There are two opposing approaches you could adopt here, and your choice hinges less on empirical evidence (which isn't abundant on this particular topic) and more on whether you're happy to segregrate the cohort for groupwork and other activities. The case for keeping them togetherStudents in a PGT class are already of a more mixed ability than we often think about. There will be some who have an UG degree in a directly relevant subject, and those who have a less closely related degree. To ensure that the Masters students are up to the appropriate standard, you might ask them to do more advanced things like lead the discussion of the seminar topic in their groups. The case for keeping them apartIn designing their respective tasks based on the common taught material, remember the general kinds of abilities Masters students should be developing over and above Honours students: more evaluation; more synthesis of their own conclusions and ideas; more critical judgement of what they're learning about. This list of assessment command words organised relative to their inherent difficulty (i.e. Bloom's Taxonomy) might help you formulate your ideas. Whichever choice you go for...Look at the aims and outcomes of the different Programmes the two cohorts are enrolled on. Focus your differentiated activities around developing those particular sets of competencies through the different academic activities and assessments you ask them to carry out. With the aims of alleviating the potential fear of the unknown created by a TEAL (Technology-Enhanced Active Learning) environment, and imbuing colleagues with greater confidence in using our recently developed TEAL spaces around campus, this LTDF project carried out by Susan Deeley, Wendy Anderson, Jessica Penney and Jack Tully developed a series of teaching tips. The tips are evidence-based, and were co-created through staff-student partnerships in the College of Social Sciences and the College of Arts. Twelve Teaching Tips for TEAL Spaces are now available on GUSTTO: https://teachingtips.gla.ac.uk
Staff with an interest in using Moodle for facilitating active learning are being asked for their views for a development project. The LEADS ‘How To Moodle’ group is currently running an LTDF-supported project called the 'Moodle Active Learning and Teaching' project (or MALT, for short). The MALT team, which includes two student interns, is producing a set of digital resources that staff involved in teaching can use to support active learning through Moodle and that they will be will be able to access via the How to Moodle site www.glasgow.ac.uk/howtomoodle. As part of the process, the team are investigating of how active learning can be enhanced through the use of digital technology. This will be used to inform a series of CPD sessions on active learning that LEADS will deliver next session. The first phase of their research into active learning using Moodle involves completion of a brief online survey. A later phase of the project will involve a series of focus groups where the MALT resources will be shared and evaluated by staff. These focus groups are proposed to take place in late June / early July. Any staff who want to take part in the focus groups can book a place via Moodle. Meet the teamNext IssueOur CPD series for 2018/19 will launch in our next issue, and we'll introduce you its coordinator: the Good Practice Adviser. If you've missed any previous issues, check our archive on the main University website where we'll keep a list of back issues and collate all of our Ask the Experts answers in one place - glasgow.ac.uk/LEADS/Magazine. As always, keep sending us your questions about learning & teaching for the Ask the Experts section. Get in touch: |