Assessment, Learning & Teaching Reflections |
15-21 March 2010
As we begin shaping the University's next Strategic Plan and thinking about our core values, it is useful to consider what we value in assessment, learning and teaching and what it is we do that is most important. The University values, agreed upon after wide consultation, are that we should be respectful, professional, enterprising, purposeful, creative, and inspiring.
Below Ruth Pickford and Sue Palmer reflect on what the values underpinning ALT are. Some of our Teacher Fellows have also been thinking about the same topic. "Our ALT strategy is at the core of our mission to understand, implement and review the best way to help the greatest number of individuals develop subject and personal understanding in the most effective way - it is how we learn to help others learn," says Graham Webb. For Sue Smith of the Institute for Enterprise, "learning should be meaningful, authentic and useful for a student's future in the wider world", while Belinda Cooke believes that "ALT values are the key to high satisfaction and high aspiration for staff as well as students". Cath Sanderson thinks that: "ALT values are about ensuring students fully get what they are learning, why they are learning it, how the extent of their learning will be measured and that the measurement method will actually do that fairly. ALT values are about caring enough about setting up opportunities that create and sustain motivation to learn in students by inspiring them. ALT values are about making students WELL so that they not only attend but Want to attend, Engage when they do attend, Learn things they need to learn as well as things they want to learn, and Love learning."
Mike Hooper (M.Hooper@leedsmet.ac.uk) is looking for members of staff willing to be interviewed for a short video in which people talk to camera about what the University's values mean to them: if you are interested in taking part please contact him. And please do read the draft Strategic Plan and contribute to it by sending your feedback.
Reflection
Parkinson's second law, the law of triviality, argues that organisations give disproportionate weight and time to insignificant issues because we can all relate to trivia and feel we can contribute to discussions around these issues. At a time when the sector is facing reduced resourcing, it is timely to take stock and consider what is trivial and what it is that we do that is really important. As we work towards a new Corporate Plan and identify our priorities we also need to assess the trade-offs we will make to fulfil our ambitions. We need to stop doing those things that are not adding value. We need to be purposeful.
In an era of league tables and impact factors and red tape, and in the midst of a digital revolution, a focus on what is really important can sometimes get lost. Excellent teaching practice, supporting, guiding and inspiring learners may be difficult to measure but what do we do that is more important? For me, higher education has always been (and will always be) about the quality of the conversations between teachers and learners. A real challenge lies in ensuring we make time for these conversations. So what should we stop doing?
Ruth Pickford
Professor of Assessment, Learning and Teaching
This past week I have been involved with staff in presenting existing courses for periodic review and offering new courses for approval. I have found myself at all sides of the table, chairing events, presenting the case as a member of senior management, writing course documents, and as a member of the team preparing to deliver a new course. Sometimes I felt that I would want to be somewhere else - particularly when looking through the pile of papers to be read and annotated for each event.
Looking back, I am struck by the number of times that approval event panels (including myself) have commented that the papers and materials presented do not really do the course justice. The opportunity to meet a dedicated group of staff who are clearly committed to their students and academic provision is both inspiring and engaging. Listening carefully to the answers about how students learn and progress through our courses offers an insight into the extreme professionalism of staff in the Faculties.
We have tried to describe the courses using module specifications and the new course document template and yet, it seems, we are not able to bottle the creativity of our courses into the frameworks. Perhaps this is because we are too cautious in making claims for the excellence of our teaching and the inspiration offered to students by the teaching teams. We should also find ways to value the whole team involved in supporting student learning, including administrators, learning support, the library environment and the other spaces for learning, both physical and virtual.
Sue Palmer
Associate Dean
Faculty of Arts & Society
Update
Gordon Joughin, Associate Professor in the Academic Development Unit at the University of Wollongong, Australia and Visiting Professor at Leeds Met, will be visiting us from 22-31 March. Gordon will lead a workshop on 24 March entitled 'Assessment 2020: Applying seven propositions for reforming assessment in courses and programmes'. Assessment 2020 has drawn on the expertise of 50 highly experienced assessment researchers, academic development practitioners and senior academic managers from Australia and elsewhere to identify current best thinking about the ways assessment will need to address immediate and future demands. Places are limited: please contact Louise Conyard (l.conyard@leedsmet.ac.uk) to book your place.
Gordon would be pleased to meet colleagues on a one-to-one basis. If you have an area of your curriculum that you feel he may be able to help you develop, please email l.conyard@leedsmet.ac.uk
Our Employability Conference 2010 will be held on 19 March from 9am-4pm in the Rose Bowl. The conference will provide academics and practitioners with an opportunity to share up-to-date research in the area of employer engagement. This year delegates can choose whether to attend for the whole day or just the morning or afternoon sessions. The range of experiences and activities will challenge delegates to consider what employer engagement means to them, their students, and their institution. In the afternoon, we will hear from a number of employers in a question and answer panel session exploring topics such as graduate skills, Personal Development Planning, partnership activity and employer expectations. Contact Georgi Sinclair (G.Sinclair@leedsmet.ac.uk) for details.
Sally Brown
Pro-Vice-Chancellor (Academic)
S.Brown@leedsmet.ac.uk