Category: Effective Practice

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Maintaining meaningful connections

A recent study found that two-thirds of people living with dementia feel isolated.   Our free online course “Dementia Care: Staying Connected and Living Well”  starting on 23 May has been written to to help people stay connected and to communicate well.

In the first week of the course we explore dementia’s effect upon the person, on our personal relationships and on daily life.

Here is a sneak preview of one of the videos featuring Dr Lynne Corner:

The course has been written with family carers in mind.  In it we hear from carers and experts as we explore practical strategies that can improve communication.   Lynne draws on Newcastle University’s great expertise in ageing and dementia research and together with colleagues shares knowledge on dementia, language and practical strategies that can improve communication.

To find out more about the course and to sign up please visit https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/dementia-care/

 

 

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STAR CASE STUDY – Saving Sim-Man

Are you struggling to offer active and experiential learning to large numbers of students?  SimMan could save the day.

SimMan is a high-fidelity patient simulator who can be programmed to display a wide range of physiological and pathophysiological signs and respond appropriately to treatment, be it physical, e.g. cardiopulmonary resuscitation, or therapeutic, e.g. administration of drugs.

But surely only a few students can make use of SimMan at a time?

Clare Guilding (Lecturer in the School of Medical Education) has developed an effective way of using SimMan along with interactive voting technology to provide an engaging learning experience for a lecture theatre full of students.

Clare explains, ‘To enable the entire class to engage in clinical decision-making, split-screen and interactive voting technologies are employed.’

One of the screens projects the physiological readouts from SimMan such as his blood pressure, ECG heart trace and oxygen saturation; the other screen is linked to a TurningPoint interactive quiz.

Each student is supplied with a TurningPoint handset and at a series of key clinical points throughout the scenario, the students are asked to vote individually and anonymously on the most appropriate course of action (e.g. initial patient management steps, which drug should be administered etc.).

The option with the most votes, (whether or not this was the correct) is applied to SimMan and the students then observe the physiological effects this has in real time.

Clare said: ’In the online end of unit evaluation 76% of respondents agreed or strongly agreed that SimMan had enhanced their learning experience.’

It also enabled students to see how their lectures applied to clinical practice:

One commented that ‘the lecture using SimMan at the end was really good, especially using TurningPoint so that we could try to ‘treat’ SimMan. It kept the lecture clinically-focussed and enabled us to see how the information would come in useful in practice’.

To find out more about SimMan and read about medical students’ repeated attempts to save his life, read the full case study on the Case Study database.

Or if you have your own example of really effective teaching practice in your School do get in touch with ltds@ncl.ac.uk.

 

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If you go down to the Robinson Library today…

Psst! Do encourage your students to get down to the Robinson Library today for some Easter treats!
All they have to do to get a free creme egg (or a £1) and to be in with a chance of winning £20 is to visit the NSS Student Awareness table between 11.15 and 14.45.

Elliot Chapin (BA History and Archaeology) won £20
Elliot Chapin (BA History and Archaeology) won £20

Final Year students can fill out the NSS there and then if they wish.
There’ll be more opportunities for students to take part across campus over the next few weeks: Continue reading “If you go down to the Robinson Library today…”

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Dementia Care

“Dementia Care: Staying Connected and Living Well” is a course for carers, to help maintain connections,  manage stress and diffuse difficult situations.

kitchen

We have been delighted to meet some of our learners who have signed up for the course and introduced themselves to us on our pre-course welcome page.  It is great to have these introductions in the back of our minds as we put the course together.

Today we’ve been capturing video footage around daily living to illustrate our articles, videos and discussions around the real challenges of caring for a person living with dementia.

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You can sign up for the course here

 

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Research informed teaching: Do your students value it?

A study into our students’ perceptions of the links between research and teaching is currently considering this question.

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Charlotte Huggins, a Psychology MSc student, is investigating this issue through a series of student consultations and a survey. Supported by LTDS she is asking students about their understanding of the term, if they recognise the ways in which staff research expertise feeds into teaching, and whether this is something that students value.

This study is well underway with a number of focus groups involving students from across the University being held this week.

A survey is also gathering a wider set of responses. The survey is open to all Newcastle University students and can be accessed online here.

Do encourage your students to complete the survey, we want to hear their views. Those who complete the survey will be entered in a prize draw for a £20 Eldon Square voucher.

Dr Sara Marsham, Associate Dean in SAgE, is conducting the parallel staff consultation. These two strands will be collated and fed back to the University Learning, Teaching and Student Experience Committee (ULTSEC) under the direction of Professor Suzanne Cholerton, Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Learning and Teaching.

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National Student Survey Launches on Campus

Students on campus

This week sees the launch of the 2016 National Student Survey (NSS) at Newcastle University.

Entering its twelfth year, the NSS gives students the opportunity to give their opinions on their experiences at Newcastle, from teaching to accommodation.

We will survey our final year undergraduate students in Malaysia and Singapore as well as those based here in the UK. We are unable to survey non-UK based students as part of the NSS, so we will be running a simultaneous survey using EvaSys for students at NUMed and those at SIT. The results of this additional survey will not be publicly available in the same way that NSS results are, but will allow us to have comparable data for Schools and programmes on our international campuses as well as for those programmes delivered here in the UK.

What is the NSS?

The NSS is an annual survey of final year undergraduates in England, Northern Ireland, Wales and Scotland. It is a high profile annual census of nearly half a million students across the UK, which gives students a powerful collective voice to help shape the future of both their course and university or college.

The survey is widely recognised as an authoritative measure of student satisfaction and, as such, the results are highly visible on Key Information Sets (KIS) and on Unistats, and often reported in the media. It has helped to build a broader picture of the quality of higher education in the UK and has made it possible to monitor trends over time.

The NSS is commissioned by the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) on behalf of the UK funding bodies. Ipsos MORI, an independent research company, conducts the survey.

What questions does the NSS ask?

The questions allows students to provide feedback on a range of topics, relating to six aspects of their learning experience: 1) the teaching on the course, 2) assessment and feedback, 3) academic support, 4) organisation and management, 5) learning resources, and 6) personal development. Students also are asked about their overall satisfaction.

All final year undergraduates can complete the NSS.

WHO BENEFITS FROM THE NSS?

Current students

The University and NUSU examines the anonymised NSS data internally to identify areas of strengths and weaknesses. This information can be used to help effect changes designed to enhance or improve the student experience for both current and prospective students.

Newcastle has always supported the NSS and as a result of listening to what former students had to say, the following changes have been implemented in recent years:

  • increased opening of Robinson Library
  • increased availability of computer clusters
  • improved access to internet in University accommodation
  • new University policies on feedback turnaround time and feedback on exams

 

How important is the NSS?

Aside from helping the University ensure that students are satisfied with its courses the NSS is also increasingly crucial for prospective students and parents in deciding which institution to choose.

Data from the NSS are publicly available via Unistats. This official site allows prospective students to compare information across institutions and subjects/courses. The site draws together comparable data on areas that students have identified as important in making decisions about what and where to study, including the findings of the NSS.

As it is publicly available and the NSS can also be used by prospective students but also by other bodies wishing to measure student satisfaction and experience, from newspapers to government and policymakers.

Promotions and Incentives

This year we will once again be focusing on the Schools’ league table that has been a success in previous years. Two prize categories will exist – one for subject areas with fewer than 100 students, and one for those with 100 students or more, with two prizes available within each category: £500 for first place and £250 for second place. Again, we are including Malaysia and Singapore in the league table to help support their efforts in encouraging responses too.

Weekly response rate updates will be circulated to on the nss-updates mail list, so everyone can see how their School/subject area is doing and who is in the lead on the league tables. Members of staff who would like to be included in this list can request inclusion by contacting ltds@ncl.ac.uk.

We will be using more social media outlets to promote NSS this year and are putting together the final details of a plan with the University’s Social Media Team. Thank you for recently sharing School platform addresses and administrators. Please get in touch with Myra Giesen (myra.giesen@ncl.ac.uk) if you think we can help with your School’s NSS campaign.

Student ambassadors promoting the NSS across campus will be strategically located across campus starting in teaching week 6 through the end of April. Locations and times will be advertised through social media outlets once they are set.

Want to know more

To find out more visit www.thestudentsurvey.com or contact the NSS team at Ipsos MORI directly at thestudentsurvey@ipsos.com. You can always contact the Learning and Teaching Development Service on campus by emailing ltds@ncl.ac.uk.

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Entrepreneurs Panel

During the first run of The Enterprise Shed: Making Ideas Happen we held an Entrepreneurs Panel.

Simon Laing and Roland Glancy are entrepreneurs, so they are well placed to talk about becoming an entrepreneur and the everyday life of an entrepreneur. The challenges can come well before you even start developing your idea. During the first run of this course, we invited Simon and Roland into the Shed and explored with them how their lives have changed since becoming entrepreneurs. You can view the recording here.

The full video is 39 mins long, so you can select 2 or 3 questions from the list below that interest you most. If you click on the links they will take you to Roland and Simon’s answers in the video.

Questions posed during the session

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Ideas to action in The Enterprise Shed: The Chatterbox

The Chatterbox is an unique high bandwidth Skype facility launched recently in our brand new Majorie Robinson Library Rooms. The idea was something which Jo Robinson-Lamb, a Communications Specialist from NUIT, had been mulling over for some time. Here she tells us how taking part in our free online course, The Enterprise Shed: Making Ideas Happen helped her turn her idea into reality.

Jo Robinson-Lamb
Jo Robinson-Lamb

“The original idea for the Skype Booth came from the Digital Campus Scoping Project, part of the University Digital Campus Initiative, which looked at how our students make use of technology in their day-to-day lives on campus. One finding that really stood out for me was the basic need for students to connect with friends and family at home – especially our international students.

The idea stayed with me; could we use our IT skills and services to offer students the ultimate ‘Skype’ experience: a private booth, large screen, comfy seats and great sound so they really felt the person was in the same room?

After further discussions with colleagues, the idea started to grow. I’d heard about the Newcastle University MOOC: The Enterprise Shed: Making Ideas Happen and the free online course seemed like the perfect place to share my thoughts and discover how to turn ideas into action.

After sharing the idea in a blog post, I was overwhelmed by the support from the Shed community and mentors. My post was picked up by colleagues in LTDS, who passed it to colleagues in the University Library; they loved the idea, saw its potential and decided the new Marjorie Robinson Library Rooms would provide the ideal opportunity to give it a go. NUIT Audio Visual Services and the Estate Support Service came onboard too and the ‘Chatterbox’ was born.

I couldn’t have done this on my own. The Enterprise Shed helped me to make the connections I needed to turn an idea into reality and I’m thrilled with the results.”

Sign ups are open for The Enterprise Shed: Making Ideas Happen which starts on 15 February 2016 and lasts 4 weeks.

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Why should you join us in The Enterprise Shed?

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Katie Wray, Lead Educator for the course explores why we should all be joining her in The Enterprise Shed…

“Firstly, let me unpack ‘enterprise’. For me, enterprise is about making creativity, problem solving and ideas practical. This makes it relevant across all areas of education, not just business. Where enterprise is applied to creating a new venture, it is commonly known as ‘entrepreneurship’. We are increasingly aware of entrepreneurship, through the steady creation of new businesses (particularly in austere times), but also through the media. From this awareness we can each draw our own conclusions about what an entrepreneur is? The Enterprise Shed challenges a variety of definitions of an entrepreneur and looks at enterprise and entrepreneurship at a grassroots level. On the course you will be introduced to a whole bunch of entrepreneurial individuals and teams, not all of whom refer to themselves as ‘an entrepreneur’.

So if you can be ‘entrepreneurial’ (behave like an entrepreneur) without actually being an entrepreneur (starting a new business venture), who is ‘entrepreneurial’ and what can you do with your ‘entrepreneurialness’*?  We are committed to exploring this with you throughout the course, and to supporting each participant to draw their own conclusions about how they can make change in their own context. Our other commitment is to exploring your ideas, to collecting insights into what a solution looks like, and to help you to turn that idea into something tangible.

This course is about you; it is about your role, through your ideas, in making change. There are 3 main reasons why you should commit 3 hours per week, for 4 weeks to The Enterprise Shed:

  1. You will develop confidence in yourself as a ‘doer’. You will do this through analysing the behaviours of other entrepreneurial people that you will be introduced to on the course, and drawing conclusions about the way that they ‘do’ and what you might ‘do’ when approaching your own challenges, problems and projects.
  2. You will discover ideas that address problems you want to play a role in changing. You will do this through identifying problems, sharing them with others, creating and collaborating on ideas generation, and developing solutions together with peers on the course.
  3. You will have the opportunity to meet people and build networks.WE will do this by forming virtual and physical networks around the globe, which can outlive the end of the course. You will meet people that share your passions and drivers to make change in your world, find out where you can go for help, and collaborate to achieve impact.

The Enterprise Shed is not just a course, but a place where you can go to think, and critically, to do.

Join us from 15th February 2016 in The Enterprise Shed and Make your ideas happen”.

*Actually, you can also be ‘intrapreneurial’ (behave like an entrepreneur as an employee in someone else’s business), but I’ve tried and keep it simple for this post.”

Katie Wray
Lecturer in Enterprise

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Star Case Study – Mock Viva Video in Politics

Doing your viva in Politics has been revolutionised by a new mock viva video for Ph.D. students.

https://youtu.be/GZ7qXpEXfAQ

 

Politics PGR Director Professor Tony Zito and Kate Manzo (Geography) realised that students often were not attending or were not paying attention to more traditional approaches to preparing students for their viva, so he decided to show them exactly what to expect by making a video.

Tony said: ‘A lot of students were just not coming to the sessions I was running about vivas and what their viva would be like.

‘I think for those who were in first or second year of their Ph.D.s their viva seemed very far away and for those nearing the end of their project the viva had become something too scary to think about.

‘So we decided to make sure that there would be something online that they could always access, perhaps even in the middle of the night when they were worrying about an upcoming viva.’

Tony enlisted the help of politics student Russell Foster, himself preparing for an upcoming viva.

Russell agreed to be filmed during a mock viva with Tony and Kate taking the roles of internal and external examiners.

The mock viva was kept very formal, with Russell entering the room in a suit to greet his examiners, just like in the real thing.

‘It was great of Russell to agree to do that on camera because it’s a pretty scary thing but he was happy to help other students.

‘The video worked really well and will hopefully give other students an idea of what to expect as their viva looms.

‘You can see Russell go through the whole process so hopefully it will be helpful to them to see the whole thing so clearly laid out.’

The video was posted on Youtube, with Russell’s permission and is used frequently as a resource for students in GPS approaching the end of their Ph.D.s.

Tony said: ‘We’re not sure of the impact yet. We did this in October 2013 and Ph.D.s are a slow process so we’ve not had that many students through yet to notice any particular trends but we expect that it can only have a positive impact.’

Thinking of doing a similar thing in your school? Contact LTDS@ncl.ac.uk  for more information or for technical support.

For more examples of good practice in teaching and learning from across Newcastle have a look at the Case Studies Database.