In the lovely month of May, as the air was warm, birds were singing and that carefree feeling was apparent, Laura Woodhouse (SME) house brought us funnel plots! While these challenged us a little, we all secretly liked getting our teeth into the data of Woolf K, Potts HWW, McManus IC (2011) Ethnicity and academic performance in UK trained doctors and medical students: systematic review and meta-analysis, BMJ 2011;342:d901. Laura asked us to consider why we thought differences existed between performances of different student groups and what mechanisms we have to support (academically or pastorally) the different groupings of students we have. After much discussion as to the reasons why some students may underperform and what we could do to help, we hoped to focus on the individual student and their needs in higher education rather than grouping students.
Early June, Beth Lawry (BMS), brought to us Wilson, L, Ho, S & Brookes, RH (2017) Student perceptions of teamwork within assessment tasks in undergraduate science degrees, Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, DOI: 10.1080/02602938.2017.1409334. The group discussed student perceptions of developing teamwork skills during their degrees. There may always be the problems of unequal contribution and difficulty in scheduling meetings in group work but to produce a piece of work under those pressures is certainly a life lesson.
As we move into summer and hopefully are able to devote some time to developing our practice (and squeeze in a trip to somewhere with warm sand), we have Michael Atkinson (SME) presenting Berg, P & Seeber, BK (2013) The Slow Professor: Challenging the Culture of Speed in the Academy. Transformative Dialogues: Teaching & Learning Journal, 6 (3) April 2013. I hope this will set us in good stead to work at a nice pace over the summer and ready us to handle the speed of September. Please come along on Thursday 5th July, Ridley 2, 1.52.
If you want to start thought provoking, highly informative and inspirational discussions around education research and practice, please contact me at luisa.wakeling@ncl.ac.uk to present a paper. Do not forget, you also get your lunch!
Many thanks to everyone who has contributed this year, in presenting and taking part in discussion.
Luisa Wakeling, School of Dental Sciences
All links to articles and previous speakers can be found at the Journal Club webpage