A major challenge faced  by our learners studying online last year was simply orienting themselves; understanding what tasks to undertake next in a module and how much time to spend on them.

As we move back into more blended delivery, students will have to navigate a rich mix of online and campus-based activities. Clear ‘signposting’ of resources and activities becomes ever more important to reduce stress and guide learners though often quite complex teaching sequences. Pre-Covid, directions could be given verbally during on-campus sessions, but over the last 18 months much of this signposting has had to be provided via Moodle. In this sense, a Moodle course becomes a ‘map’ of the student journey, displaying the structure of each module while also allowing access to its online material and activities. 

We know students who are learning partially or entirely online may feel isolated or ‘disconnected’ from the learning process. It is not unusual for them to be unsure whether they have all the information they need and are doing the right things at the right times. A consistent and ‘friendly’ Moodle course design, with clear labelling of links will students help find specific resources quickly and easily. Learners also appreciate simple instructional direction, describing where, when (and why) to look for resources and how to complete activities. Students can especially benefit from suggestions on how long to spend on each task in order to prioritise and avoid overload. These simple adjustments can reduce students’ confusion and anxiety, enabling them better to focus on learning. 

To make this simple redesign even easier, many departments have aligned with the UCL Connected Learning Baseline which establishes the minimum expectations, or baseline, for Connected Learning in Moodle in 2021/22. Its 10 brief sections address the practicalities of how to arrange and present a course so that it is easy to use, how to help students get the most out of it, how to manage communications, as well as a digestible overview of legal requirements, particularly accessibility. A general, baseline-aligned template (see image) was created by Digital Education which has been adapted by many departments. While there is no requirement to present the course in a specific way, your Faculty Learning Technology Lead (FLTL) will be able to advise if a local template is available. 

Whether a template is used or not – and given everyone’s time constraints – we suggest focusing initially on the first five sections of the Baseline, covering structure, orientation, communication, assessment and resources. These five sections make recommendations for making your course more ‘friendly’, useable, and navigable.  For example, we know that simple welcome videos that provide an overview of the module and/or sections within it are much appreciated by our students. 

Beyond these basics, a real positive outcome of the last 18 months is that staff and students have become much better at using Moodle to its full potential, including for example using quizzes to help engagement and of course including pre-recorded short lectures in Moodle as a springboard for seminars (on campus or online). If you are interested these and other approaches, there is a wealth of help available online  (linked from the Baseline page) and again, your Faculty Learning Technology Lead (FLTL) or Digital Education Advisor should be able to assist. 

Open Education practices and resources have become increasingly important of late. Sharing what we have learnt and changes that we have made in our approach to digital pedagogy and learning design are important in helping create the best possible learning opportunities for our students. In addition, as students may not have access to all the resources available via campus, now is a good time to re-use, share and create open educational resources. For instance, selecting an open textbook will enable greater access to a textbook resource.

Ongoing support

UCL Digital Education are continuing to run a series of online drop-in and training sessions. A full list of all upcoming sessions is available on the DigiEd team blog. In addition, a series of how-to videos are available via the E-learning wiki.

Arena centre colleagues are also hosting a range of online drop-ins. Details are given on the Teaching Continuity webpages.

SIG update

All OpenEd@UCL SIG face to face meetings are suspended for the forseeable future, including both SIG meetings and the monthly informal meet-ups.  Instead we will be keeping in contact via our SIG space on Teams and the mailing list. We are have already held one successful remote meeting and we will advertise upcoming meeting dates and times via our Teams space.

Resources

• OpenEd@UCL – Find Open Education Resources (OER) and guidance from UCL
• Open.Ed – OER from the University of Edinburgh
• Open Textbook Library  – content organised by subject area
• Directory of open access books
• Carpentries.org lessons – Computing and Data Science lessons using open source tools
• Google Arts and Culture – a range of articles, videos and and virtual tours
• PHET Interactive Simulations – a range of STEM simulations
• Political Ecology Network – the sharing of political ecology syllabi
• UK Copyright Literacy
• The OER Starter Kit Workbook – Abbey Elder and Stacey Katz, this project offers worksheets for teachers to reflect as they begin to explore and create their Open Educational Resources.
• SEDA Pandemic Resources – an editable Google doc with a list of resources by topic
• Reflective Tool for Emergency response to teaching online (MSWord)– Centre for Distance Education, University of London. It will prompt you to consider what worked well and what was less successful, and the implications of the emergency teaching process for the next academic year and beyond.
  Loading...

  Taking too long?

  Reload document

  | Open in new tab

  Download

Things to read or watch

• Blog post:  Assessment alternatives at a time of university closures – Prof Sally Brown
• Free course: Take your teaching online
• Blog: The EdTechie – Martin Weller, IET OU
• Webinars: Tutoring Matters  – UK Advising and Tutoring (UKAT)
• Journal article: Becoming an open educator: towards an open threshold framework
• Journal article: Accessibility within open educational resources and practices for disabled learners: a systematic literature review
• Conference: Catch-up on #OER20 sessions, links to recording are available in the conference programme.
• Journal articles: 2019 Open Education Global Conference selected papers
• Blog post: Is it time to get wiki’d?– UCL Digital Education

About Reflect and its User Group

Reflect, UCL’s educational blogging platform, has now had its first birthday and the Digital Education team are delighted that staff from across UCL have enthusiastically taken up the challenge of asking their students to blog, or produce other kinds of online assessment on Reflect.

Digital Education initiated the Reflect User Group (RUG) with its first face-to-face event on Thu December 12th, 2019 from 2-4PM. It was an informal ‘show ‘n tell’ opportunity for staff users of Reflect to compare and contrast their experience of using this tool in their teaching practice. Curious non-users were also welcome as we sought to expand its use to enhance teaching and learning.

We had intended to have the first RUG event in the Spring term, but Reflect user and Russian tutor in SSEES, Maria Sibiryakova asked us to step on the gas (accelerator) to make it happen sooner rather than later. She was very keen to meet fellow Reflect users, exchange ideas and learn of/from their experience and practice.

The tutor experiences showcased

The event showcased the experience of four teaching colleagues who used Reflect in the following ways (click on the bar for more):

• To build an ePortfolio in PGCE Primary Education

  “Reflect as a portfolio tool” –

  Ros Walford, Lecturer and Maria Hadjisoteris, Senior Teaching Fellow, IoE

  Reasons for use

  • For students to develop a reflective e-portfolio of their practice whilst on placement
  • To facilitate more "back and forth" between teacher and student than was possible with the paper-based portfolio because it can be accessed online at any time.
  • To eliminate the administrative overhead that managing paper binders incurred.

  Outcomes

  • A template was designed that had all the required sections and included guidance to students on adding content. Hence, each student received the same portfolio structure.
  • Self-instructional video was created to get students up and running with their portfolio, which was effective and reduced the need for face-to-face sessions.

• As an ePortfolio in PGCE Post-Compulsory Education

  "Portfolio assessment using the Reflect platform" –

  Hilary McQueen, Lecturer, IoE

  Reasons for use

  • For students to develop a reflective e-portfolio of their practice whilst on placement
  • To facilitate more "back and forth" between teacher/mentor and student than was possible with the paper-based portfolio because it can be accessed online at any time.
  • To eliminate the administrative overhead that managing paper binders incurred.

  Outcomes

  • A template was designed that had all the required sections and included guidance to students on adding content. Hence, each student received the same portfolio structure.
  • The portfolio template has tabs that usefully break down the requirements for students.
  • It was possible to facilitate access to students e-portfolios by non-UCL staff mentors in the schools where UCL students were doing their placements.

  Wish list

  • A way to check progress – some kind of automatic system that shows what has been done and what is new, and ideally what has been checked as we have to keep separate records, which is very time consuming.

  What I would do differently

  • I would create a table for the observation form and insert ready for use.
  • We would book a computer room and go through how to use Reflect.
  • I would introduce Reflect (now I know how to use it) and ensure that other staff members were there, too.
  • Have a test blog that everyone could add something to (say), just to practice.

• To address the aims of the Connected Curriculum and ensure students engage with researchers and the institution’s research

  “Reflect for science blog assessments and showcase portfolios” –

  Nephtali Marina-Gonzalez, Principal Teaching Fellow, Medical Sciences 

  Reasons for use

  • The Department wanted to replace of traditional assessment methods with coursework activities designed to engage students in the research carried out in the Division of Medicine inline with the aims of the Connected Curriculum.
  • To give Year 1 students an opportunity to create a public-facing output that showcased the research done at UCL and their understanding of it in terms suited for a lay audience. 

  Outcomes

  • Students found this activity more engaging that last year’s traditional single answer question (SAQ) exam and general feedback from the students was very positive.
  • There was a significant increase in marks for their blogs across the board relative to past exam grades, (namely, 71.4 +/- 6.1 blogs vs 56.1 +/-15 SAQ). 
  • Students were able to appreciate the importance of broad public engagement to their learning process. One student said:

  “If you can’t explain something simply, you don’t really understand it”.

  • An example of an excellent student blog post that achieved the aims of a Physiology module assessment: Cardiovascular effects of exercise training.
    • See the same student's reflections on this learning experience.

  For Neph's 5 top tips more about his experience with Reflect peruse his case study and interview

  Wish list

  • Better marking tools that were integrated with Moodle.

  What I'd do differently

  • Give the students several examples of what is expected of them.
  • Invite UCL's Copyright officer to give a lecture to on copyright issues.
  • Utilise the Open tool kit for students that Digital Education's Leo Havemann and Samantha Ahern are developing.
  • Students found communicating scientific concepts in lay terms particularly challenging so the target audience of the blogs will be adjusted according to the level of expertise of the students.
  • Build on our use of Reflect to have our students use it to create a 'showcase portfolio' that will trace their progress and achievement throughout their degree.

• Using blogs to develop foreign language writing skills

  “The Use of Blogs in Developing Writing Skills in Russian” –

  Maria Sibiryakova, Senior Teaching Fellow, SSEES

  Reasons for use

  • For students to create a language portfolio, which serves as an ipsative form of assessment. They contribute to it regularly and can get feedback from peers and externals as well as their tutor that feeds forwards into their next post.
  • To motivate students  to write more in Russian by:
    • Providing an external audience for their work, not just their tutor
    • Enabling them to see and comment on each other's work – peer review
  • To prompt students to take responsibility for what they write both the:
    • Content they create
    • Language they use

  Outcomes

  • Students were less likely to submit a draft
  • This new form of assessment was as effective as traditional methods, e.g. exams
  • Students developed transferrable digital skills through their use of WordPress

  Wish list

  • Ability for students to see the number of views their posts have had
  • Would like Reflect to have more support for marking
  • To eliminate the need for Turnitin, Plagiarism as a trust issue

  What I'd do differently

  • Incorporate training on academic integrity
  • Include a copyright statement and seek guidance/support from the UCL library.

  For more view Maria's presentation slides.

   

Reflect user support

One of the things we had hoped to have time for at the meeting was to discuss how the RUG can be most useful to members. Although due to lively Q&A, we didn’t end up getting to that topic, we still want to hear your views on this. Hence, please let us know via our online form. All in all, we think the format of this meeting worked well and we intend to repeat it in the next few months.

Looking forward to the next User Group meeting, we are hoping once again to hear from staff with a range of use-cases for Reflect. Issues which we know people are working on include assessment criteria for Reflect blogs and sites, doing group work on Reflect, and comparing Reflect with MyPortfolio. Of course, if you would like to speak, or hear about particular things please complete this online form, we’ll be notified and get in touch.

I have been very excited by the flurry of activity that has been triggered by The Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) Accessibility Regulations (2018)   across my own and other institutions. These regulations haven’t really introduced anything new, much of it is covered by existing equalities legislation, but it has shifted the focus. Previously, we could be reactive and in our laziest moments rely on those that needed adjustments to request them. Now, we are required to be proactive. To create content that is accessible by design and follows Universal Design for Learning principles around designing for POUR (i.e., so content is Perceivable, Operable, Understandable and Robust). Aligning with the social model of disability: people are disabled by barriers in society, not by their impairment or difference.

Many colleagues I meet are concerned about what the regulation means in terms of workload, what is required of them and how they become compliant. A range of guidance and support is being delivered to help raise awareness and develop the required skills. But, fundamentally there needs to be a mind shift.

Although there are deadlines associated with the regulations, I would argue that digital accessibility is not a compliance challenge but a cultural shift. A move from directive or requirement to part of our institutional DNA.

In a workshop I co-hosted with my colleague Leo Havemann, a participant described Digital Accessibility as being akin to Escher’s staircase, and I believe that they are correct. We will never not need to consider accessibility as part of our learning and content designs, and it may at times be impossible to be 100% accessible to everyone. However, it doesn’t mean that this shouldn’t become part of our day-to-day practice. The recently launched Student Health and Wellbeing Strategy echoes this with Action 1D: Make key concepts related to disability awareness, inclusive learning, health and wellbeing an integral part of relevant professional services staff and Personal Tutor training. Incorporate these concepts into curriculum development, design and governance.

So, how do we make accessibility part of our everyday? The aim of the aforementioned workshop was to crowd-source ideas on how to create the cultural shift, but also to identify what we can do now to help affect our institutional cultures.

For creating a cultural shift, key themes were to obtain buy-in from senior leadership teams and to embed digital accessibility in induction, training and promotion/development requirements. Making it part of the institutional language and ways of working for all. There was an acknowledgement that we needed to be honest with colleagues that it would require additional effort and different ways of thinking and doing. However, this would reduce over time as a result of skills development, cultural shift and tools to help. There should also be a bottom-up approach facilitated by peer evaluation and creating a network of champions within and across institutions.

With regard to what we can do now, 15% solution, a key theme was walking the talk – demonstrating good practice through our own behaviours and leading the way for others to follow. Training and support were also key themes, as were demonstrating good practice and cultivating empathy.

There may well be dragons to face along the way, but they are worth facing for the creation of a more inclusive and equitable institution.

If you would like to run the workshop at your institution, the materials are available under CC BY-SA 4.0 license: DirectiveToDNA-AccessibilityWorkshop

The materials are also available via OpenEd@UCL.