Channelling the choices - navigating the technology-enhanced teaching landscape

Online or f2f, blended, at a distance or on campus? With the help of ever-improving digital technologies, an increasing number of channels are open to learning and teaching. We recently reviewed online provision at Brookes and particularly looked at how suitable our infrastructure (technology and capabilities) is for online and blended delivery. We also explored to what extent the current infrastructure allows ‘playing around’ with the range of channels to find out ‘what makes good learning happen’.

The aim of our workshop is NOT to put everything right (we can’t!). Instead, we want to explore why it could be crucial at this point in time to explore more fundamentally what we will need to put in place to make good practice in teaching and learning in 2020 happen - for different subjects, levels, types of students and contexts. In other words, what it would take for sessions, modules, programmes and Brookes as a whole, to make the best use of the plethora of channels and technologies. Clearly, the COVID-19 virus puts an additional sense of urgency to this agenda.

Attendants of this short workshop will find themselves thrown into predicaments along the lines of:

• Spoiled for choice versus puzzled by overload: vast amounts of information and knowledge are available through a variety of different media, a plethora of technology tools await exploration, and don’t even mention the gadgets..

• Flexibility versus losing directions: the promise to learn at one's own pace, capacity and capability - but can we provide adequate individualised support to ensure completion?

• Self-study versus communities of learners: what works best, when and for whom?

Field Trips for Learning: Taking Lessons Outside the Classroom

Taking students out of the classroom is a crucial component of learning, the flipped classroom approach. Training of field skills is crucial for aspiring conservation biologists and there is an onus on universities to train students, especially post-graduates (MSc Primate Conservation). Watching primates in captivity can often be the first opportunity for the students to observe a primate at close quarters. The audience will learn about different forms of field trips including wildlife parks, museum and zoos, and how this experience adds to the learning environment for the postgraduate students.

Disrupting the Teaching/Learning Binary: Peer-mentoring as border-crossing pedagogy

Teaching and learning in Higher Education have arguably come a long way from passive lecture-based classes, and most Geography degree programmes today reflect this. However, the traditional relationship between teacher and learner often remains, whereby the former supposedly ‘imparts knowledge’ to the latter. Challenging this binary view, a growing body of literature has demonstrated the advantages of staff-student partnerships, and more widely the power of ‘compassionate’ pedagogy (e.g. Gibbs 2017).

Building on these insights, this paper presents experiences from a two-year pedagogic project. In short, the project has involved staff and students collaborating on research skills-resources and it has given final-year students the opportunity to mentor fellow undergraduates. Student mentors’ reflections on their experiences of the project suggest a sense of moving from learner to co-teacher, while also shining a light on their own learning processes. Moreover, the increased responsibility and role of supporting other students have been described in terms of compassion and wellbeing, aiding understanding and confidence. Nevertheless, a range of challenges also persist, in particular relating to institutionalised structures of assessments and accreditation.

In this paper, we discuss some of these outcomes and challenges, and do so by staff and students presenting together at the conference. As such, audience will receive an update on what was presented as a work-in-progress at BLTC2019, and will hear directly from students how they have experienced a Brookes Teaching Excellence Innovation Award-project.

A Trial Run of Buddy Schemes in Japanese Studies

This session reports on two voluntary buddy schemes that were introduced in Japanese Studies in 2019-2020.

The first buddy scheme was with first and second-year students. The aims were two-fold: to facilitate first-year students’ transition into university and to help second-year students develop their soft skills, in particular, empathy and active listening. The second scheme was with final-year and Japanese exchange students. It intended to enhance students’ intercultural understanding and language skills. Overall, the two schemes aimed to enhance students’ employability as well as create a more engaging learning community in our programme.

To give direction and structure, there were two meetings each semester in which students engaged in activities and self-reflection. After one semester, one scheme continued meeting and the other stopped as students said they no longer felt it useful. In this session, we will analyse the two schemes and discuss some of the factors that seem to make buddy schemes work.

What We Learned from Our Students: Lessons from the Coalface of Upgrade

The Learning Development tutors in Upgrade get a unique perspective on the student experience. Teaching takes place away from the usual power constructs of the tutor / student relationship and that means students are often very open about what they do or do not find helpful and how they are finding their higher education journey. In this session the Upgrade team will use some of the critical issues and incidents that we have seen this year to promote discussion on inclusive assessment and language, the academic conduct blame game, and nurturing student identities. Following the second phase of the OBI / Upgrade restructure, the session will also explore our Academic English team’s experience of using ‘English for Academic Purposes’ approaches to meet widening participation needs.

Decolonizing and Diversifying the Curriculum in Social Work - Wider lessons for truly developing the inclusivity agenda.

This presentation is aligned with the new university strategic objective of ‘Inclusivity’. It discusses the development of our strategic initiative ‘Diversifying and Decolonising the Curriculum in Social Work’ that focuses on teaching, learning and research, informed by the issues of the attainment gap and the wider focus in Higher Education on Widening Participation in universities generally (Dale-Rivas 2019).

Much of the work that exists on the BAME attainment gap examines data and the issues Universities face in trying to overcome this gap. This presentation focuses beyond that examining strategy, and accompanying actions and practical solutions that helped to begin to put this challenging work into practice. It will help academics, senior leaders, and other interested people to gain an insight into our journey in Social Work.

My background of white privilege made me realise I had overestimated my understanding of issues of Race and Racism and the associated complexities of being a white leader in a diverse set of programmes. Because of this, I relaise my lack of legitimate power to fully comprehend the problems and issues associated with the student group I serve has affected my leadership. This presentation focuses on the successes on that journey, the lessons learnt, and the work to do going forward.

Enhancing the learning experience of different student groups at Oxford Brookes: a review of the emerging data and an evaluation of some pilot interventions.

This presentation will share initial findings from institution-wide research into the learning experience of different student groups at Oxford Brookes University and will report on pilot interventions to address variations in degree outcomes. Examples will be shared of curricular and pedagogic developments designed to enhance the participation and success of under-represented student groups including BAME students. With reference to sector evidence and drawing upon evaluation of localised interventions and initiatives, we seek to identify good practice and areas for development in the areas of inclusive curriculum and pedagogy.

Cultural Venues and Creative Cross-Curricular Teaching and Learning

The principle of universal free access to museums and galleries in the UK has a long tradition, with many education programmes focusing on widening the demographic of in-person and online visitors. One such programme unites Oxford Brookes School of Education and 16 cultural venues in and around Oxford. Aiming to help teacher training students experience learning beyond the classroom, a 3-4 day ‘cultural placement’ at a venue is an integrated element of the BA(Hons) Primary Education course. This includes students producing an assessed learning resource; a selection of which are displayed this year in an online exhibition.

This paper looks at how the Oxford Brookes cultural placements have evolved from firstly being part of a National/Regional Museums Education Partnership project in 2003, led by the National Gallery, London. Considered, is to what extent and in what ways the three key objectives of the partnership have been fulfilled, 17 years on. These were: To promote the use of museums and galleries in creative cross-curricular teaching and learning; support trainee teachers' development of pedagogy and practice in using a visual stimulus; and build sustainable links between regional museums, galleries, local Initial Teacher Training providers and local primary schools.

Concluding, the paper proposes that to gain a fuller understanding of how the cultural placements help to shape students' pedagogy and practice, an in-depth analysis is needed of (i) student experiences, (ii) venue staff experiences, and (iii) the impact of a cultural placement on the professional practice of former students. The paper looks forward to a study being undertaken by Dr Hosack Janes with Jane Fletcher, Senior lecturer in Education at Oxford Brookes and third year lead on the BA(Hons) Primary Education course, focusing on student experiences of the 2019/2020 cultural placements.