Tab Content: Teaching Craft part 2

Group Discussions

One of the main challenges is getting students used to talking in front of their peers.

• Group discussion strategies that engage all students
• Tips for managing classroom discussion

There are a number of models to help with student engagement and combine some of the ideas above:

1. TTT: Test, Teach, Test

• You could a Menti/Kahoot quiz at the beginning and the end of a session.
• The first test could show you any prior knowledge that the students have or help them remember a previous session
• The last test helps them consolidate the learning from the session but also shows you if your teaching was effective.

2. PPP: Present, Practice, Produce

This is a common technique in language learning but has some wider uses. Firstly the lecturer presents some material, students then practice then produce their own version. Wider uses here could be in STEM, Management, Health, and Arts subjects but could also be applied to assessment tasks such as podcasting or presentations.

3. Think-Pair-Share

This is a good way to get the students discussing their thoughts with each other. You could give 5 minutes for solitary thinking, then 10mins for pairing up and discussing their ideas and finally 15mins for sharing with the wider groups Think-pair-share: how to structure online classes

See also ‘Small Group Teaching: a toolkit for learning’ and ‘The Teaching More students project’ for more ideas

Takeaways

Think about how you finish a session:

• You could ask the students to reflect on their learning and share one thing they have learnt.
• You could use Menti and ask students to ask a question for next time you meet.
• You could also link your current sessions to the next one?

Useful resources

• The AdvanceHE #52etc - a toolkit for student engagement is a toolkit with 52 ideas that you can use with your students. It's based around a series of cards with each card offering a different activity. Use it to spark your imagination and inspire your students.
• This series of podcasts is created by Times Higher Education. This one is all about tips for teaching. THE podcast: teaching 101 tips from your peers
• ‘In at the Deep End’ This is a Guide from Heriot-Watt University and contains sections on Lectures: Large Group Teaching; Tutorials, workshops and small group teaching and Assessment and Feedback.
• For lab sessions have a look at this Guide from the Engineering Subject Centre.
• ‘Ready for University LU guide’ Ready for university | ASK - Lancaster University

Large Group Teaching/Lectures

• Use this resource for ideas of how to make your large group teaching more interactive: Click the link to download Ideas for Lectures and Large Groups
• For underpinning theory around teaching large groups see Lectures: Pedagogic Advice and Guidance

Seminar Ideas

• Use this resource for ideas of how to make your seminars more interactive: Click the link to download Seminar Activity Cards.

Tab Content: Marking

Marking student work is a large part of an academic role. In order to be able to mark work you need to be able to judge against a standard. This is commonly done with assessment criteria/marking scheme or marking grids. These often give the weighting of importance so, as a marker, you have a better idea of what you are looking for in a particular assessment. These criteria will be different for different assessment types as you will be looking for different levels of skills and knowledge.

When you are allocated marking, as well as the assessment criteria it is best practice to have a standardisation meeting. This is where all the marking team mark 3 or 4 assessments then get together to discuss their thoughts. This helps to iron out any issues with different interpretations of the criteria. The module convenor may act as a moderator so will look at any borderline, fails or just assessments you are not sure about.

You could ask to see the work from the previous cohort. This would be useful for seeing what level, type and amount of feedback is usually given.

For some ideas see Susan Armitage’s video on marking and feedback

Unconscious bias

Unconscious bias can happen when we are making quick judgements. Biases are influenced by our backgrounds, culture and personal experiences. The ‘Halo’ effect occurs when a markers judges an assessment too harshly because of a small irritating mistake. This can also occur in reverse and marks can be too high based on a pleasing use of vocabulary, for example. Often if you are marking lots of the same assessment, you can change your judgement so the 30th time you have seen the same example is marked differently than the 1st.

To mitigate this, we can use anonymous marking or double marking and is why we have internal and external moderation. We also would advise that you mark in small batches.

​​​​​​​AdvanceHE: Unconscious bias literature review: bias in assessment

Standardisation Project

Using Standardisation approaches to support effective team marking: Susan Armitage and Simon Allan

‘Calibration within the higher education sector is an approach that aims to ensure consistent standards for judging the quality of student work. A ‘calibrated’ academic is able to make grading judgments consistent with those of calibrated academics in other institutions across the UK. The aim of calibration is to achieve comparability of academic standards across institutions and stability of standards over time.’ (Bloxham, S., Reimann, N. and Rust, C. 2018)

Standardisation approaches aim to harness peer discussion in order to reach a common understanding of standards and thresholds among markers. It is a process of calibration conducted internally within an institutionally defined marking team, and is distinctive from moderation practices that typically take place at the end of the marking process. Standardisation practices are based on the whole team marking a sample of live or historic assessment artefacts in a semi structured environment, prior to the process of marking and moderating the full cohort.
This project explores the notion that a shift from moderation towards standardisation and calibration is a means to reduce variability in making standards judgments. (Sadler, 2013) It builds on research on related practices that offer some evidence of decreased variability, and indicate improved marker confidence in making reliable judgements about standards. (O’Connell et al, 2016)

There is also evidence to suggest that student involvement in standardisation exercises has the dual effect of achieving common understanding of standards amongst markers, and heightening students’ understanding about how standards judgements were being applied to their work, improving their confidence in the marking system. (Bamber, 2014)

Our investigations suggest similar benefits across a range of contexts. In this session we provide insights into several standardisation practices that are being used by colleagues at Lancaster University, and discuss the effects of such practices on:
• The robustness and transparency of marking decision making.
• Any reduction in variability or inconsistency in making standards judgements.
• Consistency relating to feedback and marking team practices.
• Staff and student assessment literacy pertaining to academic standards.
• The impact on overall marking and moderation workload.

Education Conference

Susan Armitage and Simon Allan's standardisation of marking video from the 2023 Education Conference with abstract Using standardisation approaches to support effective team marking

Tab Content: Feedback

Giving Effective feedback to students is a crucial part of the teaching role. It is important that students read, understand and act on their feedback to help them improve their academic work. You can help your students understand their feedback and improve their literacy.

Feedback (comments on summative or formative work) is vital for students to know what they are doing well. Feedforward will help the students improve future work. You should have a combination of both in your comments. Feedback can be written or audio – students often prefer audio as they can hear the nuance and emphasis in your voice.

It is key that feedback is consistent across a module so talk to the module convenor about how much feedback you should write. Ask if the module uses a feedback model or template.

Useful Resources

• Feedback for students should be clear and constructive
• Take a look at these learning development resources to see the advice given to students about feedback Making the most of feedback and Understanding assessment.

Tab Content: Short Online Courses

Your context and your development

This course will help you understand how your unique context affects your practice and development.

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Collecting student feedback

This course supports you to explore ways to collect feedback from students in order to support your evaluation of the effectiveness of your educational practices.

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Developing practice through reflection

This course aims to help you to explore what reflective practice is.

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Observation of professional practice

This course will help you to explore what observation of teaching is and plan how to undertake it.

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Exploring the Professional Standards Framework (PSF) 2023

This course aims to help you to explore the PSF 2023, the Dimensions and Descriptors.

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Mentoring for Curriculum Education Development Academy (CEDA) provision

This course is for teaching mentors supporting participants undertaking Curriculum Education Development Academy (CEDA) programmes (ATP, PGCEP, ATLAS). and will explore the role and expectations of the mentor.

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Engaging Student Online (asynchronous)

An interactive, self-directed short course (approximately 2 hours). Completion of this course will show on your individual CoreHR training record.

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Engaging Students online (live session)

An interactive, self-directed short course (approximately 1 hour). Completion of this course will show on your individual CoreHR training record.

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How to Teach Online: a course design summary

Video resource providing a narrative rationale for the design of the 'How to Teach Online' course, by the course designer Dr Kyungmee Lee.

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How to Teach Online (self-taught course)

How to Teach Online (self-taught) course, which is available to self-enrol using the code LU2020 – a reminder that this is an non-facilitated version of the course.

Please note: Departments also have the option to request a version of this course which contains guidance for moderators if they wish to run it for themselves. Send a request to ISS to make you a copy of the 'How to Teach Online (Moderated)' template (NB: you cannot self-enrol into this template): https://modules.lancaster.ac.uk/course/view.php?id=31722