Introducing electronic resources into tutorial and seminar teaching
For many disciplines, tutorials, seminars, and workshops have a special role in developing expertise in applying complex and abstract theories to rich, diverse bodies of material. The ability to present convincing arguments, both written and verbal, is a skill that undergraduates need to acquire. Discussion between tutors and students, be it in the form of feedback on assessed work, structured classes, or ad hoc meetings, can help students to acquire a deep understanding of their subject, and the confidence to find their own paths through a discipline. C&IT (communications and information technology) can be used in many ways to improve and enhance smallgroup teaching, both within and beyond the classroom.
Available tools and resources
Electronic communication – supports dialogue via the use of email, discussion lists, bulletin boards, electronic white boards, and more. It can enable collaboration at a distance, with peers from other institutions, and to provide a level of tutor support when students are away from the university. CMC also facilitates record keeping - staff can monitor what students are doing, and students can look back on virtual discussions for reflection and/or revision Virtual Learning Environment - an integrated collection of facilities, which can include email, discussion lists, course notes, assessment and course administration. VLEs support students and staff in creating, accessing, and managing information on the Web. A major advantage for tutors in using VLEs is their support for maintaining student records, and options for tutors to monitor students’ progress through materials in the VLE. Digital resources - collections of text, graphics, audio, video, which are available, usually without support material and structure, in digitised format, CD or via the Web. Examples include astronomy data, census data, literary collections and facsimiles (original manuscripts online). These can be consulted prior to or after the class, or within the class as illustration. Perhaps one of the greatest advantages of using digital resources is in providing opportunities for students to work with current data, and to be aware of current research. Simulation software - applications to help students visualise complex concepts or phenomena, or perform virtual experiments. These can be used within tutorials to illustrate concepts or follow experiments, and support revision of practical work. Multimedia courseware - integrates text, graphics, and audio to present material to students in a structured way. Assessment, data presentation and analysis components may also be incorporated. Multimedia courseware is available for virtually all disciplines, particularly for foundation year courses. The structured, interactive approach built into most courseware encourages active and exploratory learning, and many tutorials include feedback, further supporting students in working independently. Automated assessment - computers can be used to automatically deliver questions to students and, in some cases, collect and mark the answers. There is no suggestion that automated tests should replace other assessments, simply that they can be a useful, additional means of gathering information about student performance. Computer-aided assessment, and multiple choice questions in general, are more widely used in the social sciences and sciences than the arts and humanities, and these differences may influence how tutors and students react to the use of computer-aided assessment. Presentation tools - software applications that can be used to present textual or graphical material and information, for example Microsoft PowerPoint. Students can be set group assignments and present these formally in the class as an alternative to working independently on essays. Analytical tools - tools which have been written to perform analysis on data e.g. statistical packages and text analysis tools. Students become familiar with research practices, and working with primary sources.
Does C&IT benefit students?
The evidence that the use of electronic resources leads to improvements in teaching and learning is limited, largely because this evidence is so difficult to obtain. It is hard to identify benefits resulting from C&IT as it is used alongside other resources; additionally, modifications made to a course or class are unlikely to relate only to C&IT, and the effects noticed may derive from changes in class size and activities within and beyond the classroom. The ASTER project documents cases of partial success in the use of C&IT, based on feedback from students, personal reflection by tutors, and additional information. These highlight many problems that should be considered before changing your teaching, and may impact on your decision to alter your current practice. The areas you should consider are: How much time you can devote to the project. Developing or customising materials for local use will probably add to your workload. Your efforts may be recognised in the TQA process, but will not be suitable for the RAE. Your personal IT skills. You may be able to get some support to introduce or extend the use of C&IT in your teaching (see the Learning Technologies Group for further information), though you will probably need to do some maintenance work on the resources used for your teaching.
Frances Condron
ASTER Project
http://cti-psy.york.ac.uk/aster/
The extent to which you can modify courses or modules. Any new resources or activities need to be embedded in the curriculum, which may require changes to be made to teaching facilities, and assessment practices. Access to suitable equipment. This can be a complete barrier to the use of C&IT in teaching, and will have timetabling implications. Support. Students (and staff) need support and training in using new resources, and working in novel ways. This needs to be fitted into the curriculum without overworking students. Student attitudes. Students are highly influenced by their previous learning experiences, and can be reluctant to use new materials or work in innovative ways. There are several important ways in which C&IT supports small-group teaching, and some problem areas: Weaker students can benefit from multimedia courseware, though improvements are not apparent with the most competent or hard-working students. C&IT can support the acquisition of key or generic skills, most obviously C&IT skills. Students develop a wider range of analytical and writing skills by using new resources, if assessments are adapted to make good use of these. Multimedia resources can motivate students to study and to more rapidly acquire a familiarity with their discipline, particularly for those subjects traditionally relying on text-based material. Interactive and simulated models are also valuable in explaining complex theories for science courses. Multimedia courseware is expensive to develop and may not be useful outside the department in which it was developed. This is because the contents are often designed with a particular course in mind, and the software used to develop the courseware can make it very difficult to update or modify. Computer-mediated communication does not always support learning. Virtual seminars carried out using email or a related tool need close monitoring by tutors, and students may need regular prompting to participate. Group dynamics have a big impact on the success or failure of teaching practices. What works one year may not be successful with another group, particularly if students are reluctant to change their learning styles. Extensive use of digital resources may equip students with the ability to find information, but lead to limited retained knowledge – this is a concern amongst academics in disciplines with limited use of IT in teaching, but remains to be proven. These disciplines tend to use digital resources for research, suggesting that the problem lies in academics’ wariness to change the curriculum for fear of dropping traditional skills.
Why should I use IT?
While institutions and national bodies (in particular the Quality Assurance Agency) have general guidelines about teaching and learning in higher education, they are rarely specific about how C&IT is to be used. It seems that, in general, individuals take the decision to innovate (Hannan et al. 1999), to make teaching more interesting for themselves and/or their students, and to introduce new ideas and practices arising from research. Another major driving force for change is student expectations, particularly as schools, and FE colleges, are making increasing use of C&IT. Perhaps one of the greatest changes is the push to use Virtual Learning Environments which are being investigated in particular by the JISC Committee for Integrated Environments for Learning.
Further information
Learning Technologies Group has information about using C&IT within Oxford http://www.oucs.ox.ac.uk/ltg/ ASTER Project has case studies and practical guidelines to using C&IT in small-group teaching http://ctipsy.york.ac.uk/aster/ Learning and Teaching Support Network centres provide guidance on teaching and learning in many disciplines. Most of the centres have information on software suitable for university teaching in their discipline http://www.ltsn.ac.uk/ Resource Discovery Network (http://www.rdn.ac.uk/) is a collection of gateways to the Web, pointing you to resources identified by academics as suitable for university teaching and research. If you are new to the Web, try the Virtual Training Suite (http://www.vts.rdn.ac.uk/), a collection of 40 tutorials giving introductions to the Internet for a range of subject areas, aimed at first year undergraduate students. The Costs of Networked Learning Project shows that introducing C&IT into teaching and learning is an expensive exercise http://www.shu.ac.uk/cnl/ JISC Committee for Integrated Environments for Learning (VLEs and more) http://www.jisc.ac.uk/jciel/ Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education, where you can find subject benchmarks and institutional and departmental reviews http://www.qaa.org.uk/ Hannan, A., English, S. & Silver, H. (1999). Why innovate? Some preliminary findings from a research project on ‘innovations in teaching and learning in higher education’. Studies in Higher Education 24, 279-289. Frances Condron ASTER Project http://cti-psy.york.ac.uk/aster/