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Gems of the LTSNs - part 2Stephen Bostock FSEDA, Keele University This is the second half of a review of the LTSN web sites that idiosyncratically picks out a selection of resources of interest to an audience outside each discipline. It is based mostly on browsing each site so it is by no means exhaustive. Rather, it indicates that there is a lot of useful material tucked away where you won't find it when you need it. Having searched these sites recently it may be worth passing on some of the experience. Suppose you were looking for a briefing document on a topic from any one of the LTSN web sites. There are several options.
However, method (iii) above will only work in the minority of LTSN webs that have a ltsn.ac.uk domain name. For an example of what happens with a Subject Centre using a different domain, the paper on VLEs in paragraph 15 below is on www.ukcle.ac.uk/ (the Law subject centre). A search on 'VLEs' produces 10 000 hits but our target is in the top 50 - not bad but leaving us some work to do. An advanced search on 'VLEs' using the domain field with 'ltsn.ac.uk' does not find it at all (although there are 216 other hits). More surprising, method (ii) - putting 'VLEs' and 'ltsn' in the search field (separately, without quotes) - produces 1340 hits and the target is not among them; there is no mention of ltsn on that document so the search excludes it. We would never find the target document. The moral of this? Because many Subject Centre web sites do not have an ltsn.ac.uk domain name, and some of their documents may not mention LTSN, using 'ltsn' in the search (either as a domain restriction or as page content) is unhelpful. That's a pity. The LTSN webs provide a degree of quality assurance and relevance to UK HE. A search of all their documents would be useful, and it could be done so easily with the google advanced search if only they all had a ltsn.ac.uk address, such as the admirable www.ics.ltsn.ac.uk and www.psychology.ltsn.ac.uk . No doubt greater minds are already addressing this problem. However, let's hope their solution is not one almighty web database accessed in real time. The LTSN web sites that retrieve documents from a database are noticeably slower, seem less reliable (sometimes crashing my browser), and provide unmemorable (even unwritable) URLs for their documents. Google is a fantastic search engine with all these documents already indexed. Let's make the best use of it, either with sensible domain names or with a standard kite-mark on every page, such as 'ltsn'. On with the show: the numbering of the Subject Centres below follows on from part 1 of this review, in the previous issue Educational Developments 4.1. The web sites were accessed on 2/7/03. 13. At the Information and Computer Sciences site there is an online Journal ITALICS (I'll leave you to work out what it stands for). In the recent volume 2, issue 1, is An Action Research Model for the Management of Change in Continuing Professional Distance Education by Nunes and McPherson. The model emerged from the need to manage a conversion of a paper-based distance education course to e-learning. They propose the model as a basis for the management of change in continuing professional distance education generally. At the same site, in the Resources/Policy Priorities section is a useful brief review of resources on student retention, a known problem in computer science but an issue rising up agendas everywhere. www.ics.ltsn.ac.uk/pub/italics/issue1/nunes/008.html www.ics.ltsn.ac.uk/resources/student_retention/index.html 14. At the Languages, Linguistics and Area Studies Centre there is a collection of briefings. One of them is Evaluating tandem interactions by Christine Penman. I had not come across the term 'tandem learning' before but "Over the past decade, tandem learning has become an integral part of second language acquisition in many institutions as a complement to more traditional learning practices." It is an interesting variation on student peer teaching that might be useful in other disciplines. There is a discussion of assessment of learning in tandem learning and other sources and references. www.lang.ltsn.ac.uk/index.aspx www.lang.ltsn.ac.uk/resources/goodpractice.aspx?resourceid=411 15. The Law Centre is The UK Centre for Legal Education (UKCLE). Its web has a small section on Using information and communications technology in legal education, including Frequently asked questions on virtual learning environments (VLEs) by David Grantham. Dated June 2003 this is a very useful overview and Frequently Asked Questions that benefits from a specific example of an undergraduate law module. A real bonus is a 25 minute multimedia guided tour (running in a JavaScript enabled browser) of a WebCT site used to teach a law module. Recommended. www.ukcle.ac.uk/resources/vles/index.html 16. The UK Centre for Materials Education (a slow, database-driven site) has a resource database, like other Centre, and also a 'discussion forum' of shorter pieces. Modularisation and Sliced Bread by Peter Goodhew (Director of the Centre) discusses this topical issue. He lists the arguments against modularization and semesterization and summarizes the problems facing the teaching of materials science and engineering in 'slices of white bread'. The arguments would apply to most subjects. www.materials.ac.uk/discuss/modularisation.asp 17. The LTSN Maths, Stats & Operational Research web site is pleasantly accessible. It has a quarterly newsletter with a section called "Something that worked for me" where one page account of teaching innovations are described. In volume 1 number 4 Using the student resource to write CAL material is a good example. (CAL = computer assisted learning, one of the many previous terms for what is now eLearning.) Martin Greenhow describes his Mathletics project where third year maths undergraduates write diagnostic objective tests (using QuestionMark) for first year students. Both sets of students benefit, and after editing the student questions and answers he is left with a large (4500 questions) bank of questions. ltsn.mathstore.ac.uk/index.shtml www.mathstore.ac.uk/newsletter/nov2001/pdf/worked4me_seenthis.pdf 18. Medicine, dentistry and vetinary medicine has a newsletter, "01". In the first issue is Better learning through discussion by Jean McKendree, This article reviews the advantages of discussion for deep learning and introduces some of the innovative forms in which discussion can be used in an educational context. These include Task-Directed Discussion Games which elicit discussions from students by providing them with a group task such as ranking a set of concepts in various ways. www.ltsn-01.ac.uk/newsletter/01.1_html/discussion 19. The Performing Arts network web site (PALATINE) has a directory of resources with thousands of reviewed links, and a collection of Guides to Good Practice. One of these is Design for learning: a guide to the principles of good design by Paul Kleiman Associate Director of PALATINE. He takes Braun's 10 Principles of Good Design (the people who make shavers) - innovative, aesthetic, honest, minimal, enduring and so on - and applies them to curriculum design. Much food for thought here. www.lancs.ac.uk/palatine/design_for_learning.html 20. The Philosophical and Religious Studies Subject Centre has an online journal, catchily called The PRS-LTSN Journal. The first issue of summer 2001 - vol 1(1) - includes "Double marking versus monitoring of exams" by Roger White (pp52-60 in the .pdf file). It caught my attention partly through being largely discipline-independent and partly from an existing interest in marking and adjustment (In praise of medians, Ed Devs 2.3). If you have a double marking system for quality assurance you might read this and think again! www.prs-ltsn.leeds.ac.uk/index.shtml http://www.prs-ltsn.leeds.ac.uk/journal/summer2001.pdf 21. The LTSN Physical Sciences has a good range of resources. The short Briefing Papers include recent ones on on Personal Development Planning, Employability, and Plagiarism. The longer Practice Guides are designed to provide practical advice and guidance on current issues. Evaluation of Teaching by Alex Johnstone (9 pages plus appendices) concerns student evaluation of teaching quality; a perennial issue that is being rattled by the HEFCE plans for student experience questionnaires. It includes a case study of student evaluation in science at Glasgow, with questionnaires included for evaluating teaching, laboratory work, and attitudes to learning, teaching and knowledge. dbweb.liv.ac.uk/ltsnpsc/default.htm dbweb.liv.ac.uk/ltsnpsc/guides/evaluation_teaching/guide2.pdf 22. The Psychology LTSN has a beautifully clear web site. It also has exactly what you would hope psychologists would give us - a report on Applying psychology disciplinary knowledge to psychology learning and teaching. Of course, it applies to much other learning and teaching, too. This 2003 report by Zinkiewicz, Hammond and Trapp is comprehensive at 97 pages, and a mine of useful information. The chapters consider human development, student diversity, learning and thinking, motivation, and the social context. After each section is an invaluable "Implications for teaching" paragraph. Put aside a whole morning for this one! www.psychology.ltsn.ac.uk/index.html ltsnpsy.york.ac.uk/LTSNPsych/Webdocs_not_nof/r2p.pdf 23. The Sociology, Anthropology and Politics centre web site (C-SAP) It is building a collection of Findings, short accounts or case studies based on practice. One is Assessing Sociological Knowledge by Computer by Victor Jupp, based on experience in a level 1 course where fifteen formative assessments were provided on-line, followed by a summative multiple choice test. The evaluation brings out the benefits and the limitations of objective testing. A second Finding is Peer and Self-Assessment: Some issues and problems by Jennifer A Platt. She tried several forms of peer and self-assessment, both formative and summative. Her evaluations suggested that, although the activity might be structured to have formative value, it could be difficult to justify as a contribution to summative evaluation where practice was not specially planned for the purpose. www.c-sap.bham.ac.uk/index.htm www.c-sap.bham.ac.uk/projects/findings/ShowFinding.asp?projectnumber=51 www.c-sap.bham.ac.uk/projects/findings/ShowFinding.asp?projectnumber=48 24. Social Policy and Social Work web site has a section on learning approaches. The resource on Practice learning and placements will be relevant to profession-related studies. It includes Practice Learning for Professional Skills: A Review of Literature (2002) by Dick, Headrick and Scott (77 pages). It concerns practice learning within professional education, with particular attention to social work. www.swap.ac.uk/learning/practice.asp www.swap.ac.uk/docs/gov/PracticeLearningScotland.rtf 6 July 2003 |
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