Are we serving from the baseline? Student and staff perspectives on an Institutional VLE Baseline re Members : Annual Conference 2017

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Tue, Sep 5 2017, 1:30pm – 2:50pm

Authors: Daniel Roberts, and Tunde Varga-Atkins

Room: Library Rm (1)

Theme: Empowerment in Learning Technology

Type: 40-minute session

Description

Recent years have seen a focus on responding to student expectations in higher education (Kandiko and Mawer, 2013). As a result, a number of technology-enhanced learning (TEL) policies have stipulated a requirement for a minimum virtual learning environment (VLE) standard to provide a consistent student experience. Our session examines and reflects on a large-scale evaluation of the impact of the rollout of a VLE module minimum standard/expectation at the University of Liverpool. In particular, we present the practical experience and methodological framework of our approach, collaborating with our students as research and evaluation partners. We situate this approach in the context of recent models and case studies of students acting as researchers and evaluators of their own learning and teaching (Dunne et al, 2012).

For attendees, our session presents a valuable example of a staff/student partnership approach to institutional strategy development, implementation and evaluation, embodying the conference’s empowerment theme of ‘students as influencers’. The partnership with the student body is key to the entire lifecycle of the Baseline project, from highlighting the need for a particular institutional TEL initiative to support student learning requirements, to the definition and development of the standard, to the joint evaluation of the first year of roll-out. We will consider the tensions between such partnership models acting unintentionally as co-opters of the student voice to the institution’s status quo, or acting as routes of radical change (Fielding, 2001).

You will be interested in this session if:

Your institution currently has/is planning/reviewing a minimum standard policy for your virtual learning environment (VLE).
You are working with students as partners in evaluation and research.
You develop or evaluate institutional policy and strategy collaboratively with students.

The focus of this presentation is the collaborative evaluation work. We will discuss some of the most interesting findings, including the ‘perception gap’ identified between the staff and student responses. Our session will also include a series of ‘think-pair-share’ activities so that participants will:

Build a picture of attendees’ current practice around VLE minimum standards.
Share examples of own research or evaluation carried out with students as partners.
Reflect on some of the methodological issues both from experience and from the literature.
Generate ideas on utilising evaluations and evaluation findings to influence institutional culture, for example to embed benchmarking, evaluation, review as key activities in TEL policy development.

(Think-pair-share is a technique for encouraging individual contribution to co-operative tasks in a classroom, where students are first asked to think for a minute themselves about the question posed, then to share with a neighbour for a minute, and then the room).

References

Fielding, M. (2001) ‘Students as Radical Agents of Change.’ Journal of Educational Change, 2: 123.

Kandiko, C. B. and Mawer, M. (2013) Student Expectations and Perceptions of Higher Education. London: King’s Learning Institute.

Sandover, S., Partridge, L., Dunne, E. and Burkill, S. (2012) ‘Undergraduate researchers change learning and teaching: A case study in Australia and the United Kingdom.’ Council on Undergraduate Research Quarterly, 33, 33-39.

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