Core Area 1c: Supporting the deployment of learning technologies

Guidelines:

Statements about your involvement in supporting the deployment of Learning Technology might relate to providing technical and/or pedagogic support to teachers or learners, advising on (or redesigning to take account of) technical and usability issues, developing strategies or policies, managing change, providing training or other forms of professional development, securing or deploying dedicated funding and so on, all within the context of the educational use of Learning Technology.

Supporting staff

As outlined in section 1b, I am a strong believer in fostering a collaborative and supportive environment for teaching, and one of the factors I enjoy most about my job is supporting others in their own teaching, particularly helping them to develop ways in which to use technology to enhance their teaching or the way they support students with their learning. This came to the fore in March 2020 and afterwards when the pandemic changed the way we approached the delivery of our teaching, and support for students.

Through my role as the Departmental Teaching Enhancement Champion, I was responsible for much of the pivot to online learning in our department which began in March 2020 following the outbreak of the COVID-19 virus. I therefore became a point of contact in the department to support those who were teaching during the latter part of the 2019/20 academic year and the 2020/21 academic year. This support was varied and although I didn't particularly think of myself as an expert in any one platform (assuming others would already know how to use the different technology tools), it soon became apparent via various requests for help that some staff needed support with a variety of online tools.

One of the big changes was that as time moved on, the majority of staff wanted to use Mentimeter. Since presenting a departmental session on Mentimeter in 2017, I had become the go-to person for help with this platform though up to this point not many staff in the department had used it in their teaching. However, the way we'd designed our pivot for Year 1 and Year 2 students was to have an online synchronous session at the end of each day for them to review activities they'd been set and for students to get a chance to ask questions. As time progressed (and in response to student requests), many staff were keen to use Mentimeter in these sessions to allow students to anonymously submit their answers to the activities and to ask questions but these staff had no experience of using the platform and didn't really know how it all worked. They therefore needed support with the basics of how to use the platform. To mitigate the possible influx of emails I could get from staff wanting to know how to set up the different questions on Mentimeter, I decided the best way to support them was to write a guide which is now housed on our Staff Wiki. The guidance seemed to be helpful for staff though it was very much a pragmatic guide on how to set up the basic questions, and most staff used the more basic question types (e.g. open ended response, Q&A). If colleagues in the department continue to use Mentimeter, I would like to expand on this guide to give more detail about how to use the different types of questions and how these can be used in different scenarios to support student learning.

Guidelines to departmental staff on how to use Mentimeter

By this point, I had already supported colleagues across the university when I delivered a workshop on using Mentimeter for the University's Programme Development and Learning Technology lunchtime workshop series. I had become aware that some colleagues around the university were starting to use this type of software but this was few and far between; most colleagues had not even encountered these types of tools yet alone used them. Hence, when planning this workshop, I ensured I gave attendees the opportunity to see the different types of questions that could be used in Mentimeter and how these could translate to different teaching contexts (see section 4 for more information).

PDLT lunchtime workshop: 'Knowing what they know'

Mentimeter slides from the PDLT lunchtime workshop 'Knowing what they know'

The transition to online teaching also involved the migration of lectures from offline teaching in large lecture halls to online asynchronous teaching via a series of short videos. Most staff used the Panopto platform to create their videos and then upload them to the Blackboard VLE for students to view but in order for them to comply with legal requirements on accessibility, we had to ensure the captions were accurate. Although Panopto includes automated captions, they often are not accurate. GTAs were paid to go through these videos to correct any captions. This is where my two roles (Teaching Enhancement Champion and GTA Coordinator) merged. I set up a folder on Panopto for staff to transfer their videos that needed to have the captions checked so that GTAs could access them, work on them, and then staff could transfer them out of the folder once the captions had been completed. I could see the experiences that both staff and GTAs had had of Panopto at this point was not extensive so I knew they would need some guidance. Staff had only used it as a platform to see where their automated recordings of lectures were stored (in previous years) so didn't necessarily know how to copy or move recordings; GTAs had had no experience of the platform so needed to know how to access it and importantly, how to edit captions. To support staff and the GTAs in their role in this process, I created two documents (one for staff and one for GTAs) to explain what they should do. This meant both staff and GTAs were clear on what they needed to do, and captions were completed in a timely manner. On the whole, the process ran smoothly and I had few emails from either GTAs or staff requiring further help. One glitch that happened along the way was that some GTAs had issues with the timings of the captions not matching the timing of the speech on the video. I was unsure why this was happening but we sort of muddled through it together. If I were to do this again, I will need to find out from someone more experienced in using Panopto why this happens and to add details to both the GTA and Staff guide to ensure everyone knows what they need to do to address and/or fix the problem.

Staff instructions for GTA captioning work

GTA instructions for captioning work

Email from GTA

Email from staff

Other staff needed help with other online platforms and tools which I had not used before myself (e.g. Zoom) but had quickly learned about the different characteristics of the platforms just by exploring the technology in my own time. Again, I'm not really sure why I became a point of contact for some staff on this as I was as new to some of the technology as they were. I can only assume that given my role in the pivot to online learning, I was the first person to ask. Nevertheless, it seemed that for many questions, the experience I'd had in the past with other forms of technology and the information I'd learned through exploring the platforms enabled me to support my colleagues with their questions and/or issues. It also very quickly became something I enjoyed doing; sharing the expertise I had to help others (no matter how small) was (and still is) a part of my job that I find very rewarding.

Email from colleague asking for advice on using Zoom

Email from colleague asking for advice on using Collaborate

Email from colleague asking for advice on using Google Sheets

Supporting GTAs with the switch to online teaching

One of the key roles of our GTAs in the department is to deliver tutorials. While the start of the 2020/21 academic year enabled some of these tutorials to be online, we needed to still offer online equivalent sessions for those who were unable to travel to York. Additionally, as the Autumn Term progressed the pandemic worsened which resulted in all teaching (including tutorials) being delivered online. As the GTA Coordinator, it was therefore my responsibility to train GTAs on the use of the online tool we were using at that time, Collaborate Ultra (available as a tool on our Blackboard VLE system). At this point, they had had no experience of using Collaborate Ultra and so I was aware they would need to know the basics as well as the tools they'd likely use in their teaching. I ran a training session for our GTAs to demonstrate how to use this platform (e.g. how to use the breakout rooms, share their screen, and how students can use the chat function), and to allow them practice using it with other GTAs. During this training session, they were able to experience it as a student as well as the teacher so they had a holistic experience of the platform.

During the session, I did feel as though there was a limit to how much time I could allow each GTA to explore the different tools available to them as a teacher, and due to their inexperience of using this platform, I thought some may have anxieties about using it for the first few times. In order to minimise this, I set up a Collaborate room in a private area on the Blackboard VLE that was open for just over a week. That way, GTAs could go in and explore in their own time the different tools available to them. I also invited the Chair of our Early Careers Researchers group (which provides support for PhD students, Post-Docs and Early Career Academic staff), the option to organise a separate session so GTAs could practice setting up breakout rooms, using the room I'd set up.

Email to GTAs with link to Practice Collaborate Room

My own teaching started fairly early on in the Autumn Term which for everyone teaching at that point was a 'Baptism of Fire'. We were all learning new ways of delivering teaching and trying to find strategies that led to good quality teaching and therefore a positive experience for the students. I was one of the first to use the Breakout rooms on Collaborate and thought my experience would be useful to pass onto the GTAs seeing as most of their teaching would use this function. During my very first few experiences of using these Breakout Rooms, I realised that some students would leave the session the moment these rooms were mentioned or as soon as they'd been put into a Breakout Room, perhaps feeling anxious about being 'forced' to discuss their learning in small groups. This is perhaps one downside of online teaching as they would be considerably less reluctant to leave a teaching space in a face to face session even if they felt like they wanted to. Additionally, some students were dipping in and out of the session due to poor wifi connection. This had an impact on the Breakout room sizes in that some were left with only one student. I quickly learned that placing a larger number of students in each Breakout room was the best way to go as it ensured a reasonable number of students in the room to enable them to have a decent discussion. I therefore passed this information onto the GTAs via an email and encouraged them to also share with the group about their initial experiences of teaching the tutorials online. This led to a flurry of emails from different GTAs sharing their experiences but also giving advice to one another. Although I didn't necessarily envisage this happening, it was really pleasing to see the group of GTAs work collaboratively and share hints and tips with each other so that the department as a whole could offer quality teaching to our students.

Email to GTAs sharing good practice

This support given early on in the year stood the GTAs in good stead and prepared them well for online teaching. I received no requests for further help after the initial training and all GTAs took really well to teaching online even when it transferred to Zoom. There were a few technical issues but these were few and far between so the online small group GTA-led teaching ran very smoothly. It is likely that this small group teaching will return to face to face but there may be opportunities for GTAs to still engage in online teaching. I am due to have an Away Day with the GTA this summer (2021) and so one of my aims is to ask them about their online teaching experiences to see if they require further support. If online teaching is something that remains for sometime, I will need to update the GTA training and Google Support site to reflect the need for GTAs to be trained in this different way of teaching.

Supporting Students

As part of the degree in our department, students need to use a statistical package, SPSS. They are taught how to use this package as part of their Research Methods modules in Years 1 and 2 of the degrees. However, they are only taught how to do a specific set of analyses (the ones they are most likely to need in their assessments and final year project or dissertation). Three years ago, some of my own project students wanted to do their project on a topic that would involve a slightly different analysis (mediation analysis). This meant they had no experience of how to run the analysis or how to interpret the output that SPSS created. I therefore delivered a short session on this analysis, how to use SPSS to carry out this analysis and then how to interpret the outputs. The students found it very useful and were able to follow the clear instructions to help them use this statistical software for their projects. The following year, it became apparent that a few other members of staff also had students who needed to know how to use this analysis so for the past two years, I have invited along the students of my colleagues so they too can benefit from the session. I have very few email requests for help after these sessions which infers the students found them really useful and were able to carry out their analyses independently.

SPSS support for projects students (mediation analysis)

Another area where I've supported students across the degree programmes is with using the online survey platform Qualtrics. As mentioned in section 1b, I am proficient in using this platform due mainly to its use in my PhD. Similar to the above scenario, a few years ago, I organised a session for a select number of students who needed to use it. They had had no to minimal use of this platform before so I talked them through the basics as well as some of the advanced tools they'd likely use. However, it became apparent that many colleagues also had students who needed support with using Qualtrics. I initially started to get emails from colleagues and students asking for support so I thought the best way forward was to record two videos that outlined the basics and the more advanced tools. This was better than just pointing them to the generic videos online as I could tailor them specifically for our own students. These are now used by many final year students to support them with their final year project.

Qualtrics support for students: The Basics, and Advanced Tools

The fact I'd already done these recordings became really useful during the academic year 2020/21. In 'normal' times, students in Year 1 and Year 2 usually engage in group projects, testing their participants face to face but clearly this was not feasible due to the pandemic. We therefore had approximately 470 students who needed to do their experiments online with one of the options being Qualtrics. I was therefore able to embed my videos into the different module pages where this was required.

Qualtrics videos embedded into other module VLE pages

These videos have been extremely useful to students and I've had very few follow-up emails asking for clarification on information in the videos or asking for help with tools not covered in the videos. However, although these videos have been extremely useful to students over the last few years (and particularly the current year), Qualtrics have just updated their interface so my next step is to take some time to familiarise myself with this newer version and to update my recordings accordingly so they remain useful to students over the coming years.

Maintaining skills and expertise

The role I have played in supporting staff during the pivot to online learning (and before) has been something I've really enjoyed and will likely become a much bigger role as time progresses (e.g. within my role as Teaching Enhancement Champion develops). Although the pandemic has thrust many of us into using tools that we had never used before, it is likely that the return to 'normal' will be laced with many changes in the way we use technology. For example, at the end of the Spring Term 2021, I surveyed the staff in our department and many of those who had not used technology in their teaching before were very keen to keep doing so even when we return to some level of face to face teaching. This is where my experience (and that of others) can be of real support.

However, I'm aware that unless I keep up to date with the different tools and platforms available, the knowledge I have can very soon become outdated. This will clearly affect the degree to which I can support staff and students, and could potentially affect the quality of teaching that's delivered and thus the student experience. As outlined in section 1b, one way I can keep on top of any changes and developments is to ensure I attend a broad range of CPD events (e.g. conferences, workshops, presentations) both within the University and externally. I am also on many email lists (e.g. Future Teacher, HEA Events) which enables me to stay in touch with the different events or online materials such as blogs, that I can access to help with this development. As stated in other sections in this portfolio, I have a very strong collaborative and supportive ethos in relation to teaching and I am certain that this is the way in which I can maintain a high level of knowledge and skills to support fellow colleagues and students with relevant technology in future.