CAN 2017 Day 2

Presentations from Day 1 are on this page.

The Storify from Day 2 is here.

Abstract

Theme

Presenter(s)

University of Exeter

Newcastle University

This ‘live brief’ covering one semester involved two sets of 3rd Year University of Worcester students, The University Sustainability department and Green Design tutor.

The students worked in partnership between the two cohorts, the design students requiring the primary research from the environmental scientists, as well as working with the University Sustainability Department and other key city stakeholders.  This demonstrates how students are working as change agents and as co-researchers to improve their educational experience.

University of Worcester

Students as Co-creators is a model of collaborative research that enables students to engage and develop whilst providing an opportunity for academic staff to reflect and inform their practise. This model is unique as it incorporates the role of a Post-Graduate student who co-ordinates the research projects that take place across all five faculties. These student-led research initiatives evaluate a variety of themes including technology and mobile learning, student engagement, assessment briefing and student health and wellbeing.

University of Westminster

In this session two experiences of curriculum co-design will be presented. The first one took place within a research project that intended to involve university students in the co-design of inquiry-based and technology enhanced learning scenarios in 4 online courses of different disciplines and degrees.  The second consisted in an innovation project that aimed the participation of a group of university students in the elaboration of design patterns for the gamification of online learning activities.

Universitat Oberta de Catalunya – Open University of Catalonia

We asked 100 students questions designed to gather their insight into what teaching, learning and technology could look like at LSE in 2020. The three-minute interviews, whether filmed or just audio recorded, have helped us start a conversation from the grassroots up about the future of education and innovation at the school.

Building on the findings from 2016, phase two of the project aims to uncover how students are currently using technology in their personal, academic, and working lives.

The London School of Economics and Political Science

To truly understand the learners’ digital landscape, the IT Services department has partnered with two students through the University’s award-winning Frontrunner scheme on a 25-week project. The Frontrunners set out to get a picture of how students engage with the myriad of digital tools and experiences on offer at Essex and in the wider world, including the distribution of the Jisc Digital Tracker survey.

In this interactive session, we take you through the journey of collaboration between our digital skills staff and our student Frontrunners and will be answering your questions on how their unique perspective and ideas are aiding the University in driving forward the Digital Revolution at Essex.

 University of Essex

Presenting research through innovative methods has a vast number of common-sense benefits, but engaging students in this process can help to increase their confidence and equip them with a whole host of lifelong skills. Penrynpoly is an example of how allowing students to have creative and intellectual intellectual freedom can develop a simple research question to an innovative, far-reaching project. This workshop shall focus on the freedom we as students were given to produce Penrynopoly, an adapted Monopoly board centered around the social and economic climate in a community in Cornwall, and the benefits that encouraging innovative research can have on a student’s academic and professional development. The workshop shall provide insight into the creative development process, the grounding in social research, and the role the game has played in both community interactions and our lives since its creation only one year later.

University of Exeter

The Jisc Digital Student Tracker gathers evidence from students about their digital experience. Tracker questions have been tested with students over several pilots and proved to positive actions for change. Over 100 institutions and over 35,000 students have now taken part. Engaging with the Tracker helps organisations to target investment, improve student support, embed digital skills more effectively into the curriculum, and engage students in their digital experience. This workshop introduces the Tracker and asks participants to consider how it could make a difference in their institution. There is an opportunity to hear more about the benefits from representatives of the University of Northampton and Epping Forest College.

Jisc

This project has grown out of a desire of academics from different universities to work together to share ideas around digital technology and student/staff partnership. It is clear that, although all parties are actively engaged in a range of student/staff partnership initiatives, and that the use of technology is a strong feature of many, dissemination of these initiatives, and therefore wider impact, is often less than effective within institutions and practically non-existent between our institutions.

This session will explore the challenges and rewards of different types of HE institutions working together and share some of the successes to date.

This presentation by an cross-disciplinary team of staff and students from the University of Westminster will show how student-led serious games development can be designed to facilitate the acquisition of both subject-specific and transferable skills, including digital capabilities, project leadership, and educational game creation with  Adobe Captivate and Articulate Storyline for various platforms.

University of Westminster

Engaging students in the decisions that affect them is crucial for developing and embedding a culture of partnership. This session will outline the deliberate steps taken by the University of Chester to meaningfully engage students in the recruitment process of staff, ensuring they play a pivotal role in interviews, presentations and teaching sessions through the ‘Students as Recruiters’ scheme.

Of the University of Exeter’s six academic Colleges, the College of Life and Environmental Studies is unique in having seven departments split over three different campuses; the farthest distance between these is nearly 100 miles. The College has this year made use of video conferencing technology and social media to facilitate a student-led partnership committee to share ideas and best practice between student reps and senior College management for improving the education experience.

There have already been some positive outputs from this committee, including the delivery of a student-led interdisciplinary journal. However, the varying needs and cultures in each discipline and on each campus have proven challenging in how the committee actually operates. This presentation will outline the journey of our partnership board so far, and also explore some of the benefits and challenges that have been encountered.

The Global Voices in Science Programme at NTU involves international students working in partnership with staff in delivering formal curriculum-based /informal activities. These include addressing subject specific issues relating to their home country and/or culture. Through this project international students become more integrated, by improving their relationships with staff and fellow students. This, results in an enriched inter-cultural experience for all.

Nottingham Trent University

The workshop will present key features of the scheme and its operation including examples of both the breadth and quality of research that has been produced. The session will also explore the impact of the scheme for students and staff, most notably the ways in which the scheme has developed students’ research skills and their career aspirations, and the opportunity for early career researchers to build research capacity and capability as well as identify potential postgraduate talent.  The session will provide delegates with the opportunity to consider how the scheme could work in their own institutional context, focussing on opportunities for developing students as researchers and ways to overcome likely cultural, practical and systemic challenges.

During this workshop we will facilitate activities that address the benefits and challenges of working in partnership on curriculum design, as well as explore some collaborative tasks and tools that enable course teams and students to work together towards mutually beneficial outcomes. The resources that we are developing, and intend to introduce at the CAN conference include:

•             Initiating and agreeing partnership

•             Exploring partnership and reviewing experiences

•             Critically reflecting in partnership

•             Actively listening in partnership

•             Collaborative working and writing

University of Brighton

Little of the current research on digital literacy addresses approaches between students and teachers to develop digital literacy skills and resilience collaboratively.  Additional research is needed to guide educational institutions in implementing approaches that will support the collaboration of students and teachers to actively develop these skills together.

A case study of students and teachers is planned to identify if a cascade approach to sharing knowledge and skills will impact on the development of digital literacy skills and resilience. An element of The Blended Learning Framework (Hart Clarida, 2017) will be used to guide this research, and suggests that involving student ambassadors in curriculum design and good technology use could support and develop the digital literacy skills and resilience of both student and teacher.

The case study will involve students and teachers working together at a planned digital development event, guided by experts from JISC and Lloyds Bank to improve their digital literacy and resilience. They will develop their skills by cascading what they learn to individual case loads of other students and teachers within the association.

This poster presentation outlines the background to the research, the approach to be  taken and intended outcomes from the students’ perspective.