'Blether' magazine, edition one!

Some members of the teaching team have diversified into creating magazines with the students. I have tried to show one such publication using PowerPoint slides. It was originally a pdf file so you may not be able to see all the content clearly. The content demonstrates a wide range of interests from the class (Preparation for Work) and I think it is rather good!


 

Blether pdf pp slides

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Vocation, vocation, vocation

Many of our instruments of assessments cover at least one of the following areas of interest: vocationally relevant material, CfE agenda, integrative opportunities, citizenship, sustainability, employability. Below are some interesting presentations from a variety of students. They cover the vocational and citizenship aspects of our teaching. The students responsible for researching and delivering these talks are from Portugal and Austria respectively and have given permission to use these PP slides as exemplar materials. Thank you to both Ana and Christian.

Vocational PP - Tourism

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Referendum presentation - citizenship

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Curriculum for Excellence in practice - literature, music and photography

The teaching team are committed to working as part of numerous teams cross college and on June 13th 2011, Music, Photography and Access to Languages students were involved in a wonderful concert in the Music Box Auditorium that combined music, poetry and visual imagery. Learners studying Literature with one member of the teaching  team, Scott Inglis, were invited to pick a favourite poem of theirs (sometimes in their native langauge), recite it and the music students prepared and performed music to accompany the words (sometimes original compositions). Photography students were encouraged to supply images to anchor the spoken and musical 'texts'. Below is an example of one such poem, 'The Deil's Awa Wi' Th' Exciseman' by Rabbie Burns.

The Deil's awa, the Deil's awa,
The Deil's awa wi' th' Exciseman!
He's danc'd awa, he's danc'd awa,
He's danc'd awa wi' th' Exciseman!

The Deil cam fiddlin thro' the town,
And danc'd awa wi' th' Exciseman!
And ilka wife cries: -'Auld Mahoun,
I wish ye luck o' the prize, man!

' We'll mak our maut, and we'll brew our drink,
We'll laugh, sing, and rejoice, man,
And monie braw thanks to the meikle black Deil,
That danc'd awa wi' th' Exciseman!

'There's threesome reels, there's foursome reels,
There's hornpipes and strathspeys, man,
But the ae best dance ere cam to the land
Was The Deil's Awa wi' th' Exciseman!'

Video evidence of the performance will appear shortly.

What is the shortest word in the English language that contains the letters abcdef? Answer: Feedback. But don't forget that feedback is arguably one of the most important elements of effective communication.

Below is the article that I wrote for 'Illuminating Practice' in November 2010 but was never published as the publication ceased to be. I thought it worthy of some webspace however.

Summary of good practice

Teaching Communication and English means that student groups are varied. Learners can be assessed on some of the following: reading, writing, talking, listening, group working, summarising, analysing, self and peer evaluation, creativity, critical thinking and critical evaluation of literary texts. Different constituencies demand different approaches to teaching and learning, but one thing remains constant and that is the need for clear and meaningful feedback. It is apparent that there is considerable variety in the ways in which outcomes (tasks) and implications of student performance in assessments are communicated to our students.

                                       

After formative or summative assessment students may receive a written report on their performance from their lecturer, either as a standard proforma or as free text. Students may also participate in an oral feedback session with their lecturer, or be invited to make an appointment to discuss their performance if they wish. There is no doubt that feedback is vital to the learning process and the Communication and English teaching team value the importance of the student taking an active part in their learning. In a team meeting last year, I asked each lecturer to highlight how they deliver feedback to learners and prepared a short report for the HMIe reviewers. It demonstrated quite clearly the variety of methods we use and the positive effect this has had on the students. In this article, I aim to give a breakdown of how I approach the issue of feedback, illustrating my thoughts with qualitative data from a variety of sources. 

Benefits of outcomes

Constructive feedback should not be taken as a criticism and it is important that learners understand the importance of feedback given to them by their lecturers. It is important that lecturers should be culturally sensitive to the feelings of their students and should give them honest, timely, objective and specific feedback in a skillful and tactful manner. Constructive feedback should aim at bringing self-improvement and development in our learners. It is equally important that students are given the opportunity to give lecturers feedback on their progress too!

I deliver feedback in a number of ways, depending on the type of assessment and the onus is on the student to be an autonomous learner. I use the ‘praise sandwich’ approach, which starts with a positive comment, the filling may encourage an agenda for future improvement and finally another positive comment or two to close.

This helps to reinforce what was good about their submission or delivery. When assessing oral presentations, I ask the student how they feel they have performed, using a checklist which acts as a prompt for them to self reflect. I ask for some supportive peer commentary before I deliver positive oral feedback, summarised from a written checklist used to mark the presentation. A reflective template is used for reading assessments, with responses in the main typed out with (hopefully) helpful bespoke comments to encourage the learning of the student .

Report writing, film reviews, essays and minutes may have extended feedback annotated on the student submission with commentary summarised on a checklist. Often the student is asked to sign a self-evaluation form saying that they accept the decision made and any comment they feel would help their learning in the future. It could be argued that Open Learning feedback (via a letter) is slightly more impersonal than other feedback mechanisms, as the lecturer may never meet the student. It is important to pitch this feedback at a level appropriate for the learner, using positive comments and encouraging them to keep working through the workbooks until they are ready for summative assessment.

In a classroom setting after an assessment has been successfully completed by all of the class, I often peer reflect on the good and not so good areas of learning from that outcome in the next lesson, to help refresh the parts that other students couldn’t reach…

This is an open session and I am always open to suggestions myself on how I could improve the assessment, organisation of materials, feedback mechanisms etc.

End of Unit questionnaires are used to ascertain what the student has learned and this reflective commentary is sometimes done verbally as well. I keep a log of comments from students (not just my own, but from all team members) after each semester and save them as a report on our shared drive. Feedback is wide and varied and gives the teaching team a sense of what we are doing well as a team and where improvements can be made, individually and collectively.

Noted below are the main issues gleaned from a large sample of students from the 2008-10 teaching sessions. I have omitted specific comments from students, carefully collated by me at the end of each semeser, but I am happy to share the information with any interested colleagues.

I break the document down into three areas – delivery and feedback, ICT use commentary and room for improvement. A summary of findings gathered from a variety of sources, such as end of Unit evaluation questionnaires, blogs, Wikis, letters, cards, commercial activity comments and e mails are noted as follows:

•           Developing understanding and confidence building.

•           Able to speak in front of peers without fear and nerves.

•           Development of ICT skills.

•           Positive and focused feedback by students and lecturers.

•           Well organised lessons.

•           Learners realise that they are more capable than they thought.

•           Lots of encouragement and reassurances given about their abilities.

•           Skills have been improved – listening, presentation, writing, listening, analysing, evaluating.

•           Students are enjoying presentations more and more and feel involved in the assessment process.

•           Confidence has been gained by learners undertaking the vast array of communication tasks we offer.

•           Skills learned and applied to other Units and/or work.

•           Students are engaging with our Wikis, Blogs and Google Groups more.

•           Students have made quite a lot of comments about not being in rooms with computers.

•           Students are commenting on relevant tasks and seem to like the fact they aren’t being over assessed in our classes.

•           The flexibility of the curriculum has been noted by students learning at different levels of the SCQF framework.

•           Lots of positive feedback about the lecturer’s role in the learning process.

•           Students like using the remote control presenter and are happy with the Flip camera as it is unobtrusive where presentations and meetings can be easily saved on a USB stick.

Working examples

I teach Communication and Oral Presentation Skills to a wonderful group of Access to Languages students. Although this is just one of my classes, the reflective template minus the student names and signatures (please see slideshow below) is used in a number of ways.

1. I give the student bespoke written and verbal feedback on their work.

2. I note the result on their work - remediate or pass (at first sitting).

3. The student looks at my comments and if they understand what they have to do, they continue with the assessment.

4. When the student has passed (and I have annoted their answer paper appropriately) they are asked to make comment on their work in a box titled 'student self-evaluation'. This is an opportunity for the learner to make a comment on such things as how well they thought they performed, what they thought of the assessment, what will they do better in the future etc. What they comment on is up to the student as I don’t want this section to be too regimented but I prefer it not to be blank.

5. When the student agrees with the result they validate the feedback sheet by signing it.

A selection of comments from students this semester are as follows. The summative reading assessment was an article titled ‘Digital books are a threat to writers’.

"When I first read the assessment I found this to be very difficult as English is not my first language. When I read it again and started to look at the questions, I actually thought it was a great resource for me and it turned out to be really appealing. I am glad that I passed as I put a lot of work into the assessment."

"I enjoyed this task more than I expected. Picking apart an article and analysing it was good. The assessment was helpful in terms of writing critically although I think I could have been more succinct in parts."

"I thoroughly enjoyed slowing down enough to really read and absorb a piece of writing and then produce a set of answers which had to be well thought through and relevant."

"This assessment showed me that I need to work on my time management a bit more. During the assessment I ran into a bit of stress because of that but am very happy to have passed. Although we had plenty of time to do it, I know at University there will be stiffer time barriers so I have to improve on that, without losing out on the quality of my responses."

"I am pleased with my overall assessment and evaluation of the article as this is my first assessment in a long time."

"In future I will pay more attention to reading the questions and when it clearly says use your own words, that's what I will do!”

“I think doing the assessment in class over a few sessions was a great way of taking pressure off me. Mind you, I am a Will Self fan so I might be a bit biased!”

“I thought the assessment was testing. We had done some practise reading in previous classes so I knew what was expected. The article itself didn’t really appeal to me and if I was reading a magazine with an article like that, I would probably turn the page over if I’m honest. Despite not liking the content that much, I know I have passed the outcome and that is what I am here to do”.

“I really enjoyed this task. It is a good way to test our skills to analyze and you have to think about lots of things. I will read news articles differently from now on. Thanks”.

Finally, I created a blog for this cohort at the start of session and I regularly update it to go over what we have learned in classes and invite students to make comment. It is one of the ways that helps our learners in particular to become confident individuals, effective contributors and successful learners in line with the Curriculum for Excellence capacities. The students enjoy using it and see it as a supportive aid to their learning, they like the tone of the blog and often comment on this (positively I may add)!

The web address for the blog is http://accesstolanguages.blogspot.com and I would be happy to show colleagues how to set one up for their classes.

Please see slideshow below for info that demonstrates the two-way process of the blog and I will take on board all comments from the students in terms of assessment, delivery, feedback, content of learning, teaching methodologies etc. in a proactive way. This is an ongoing process and one that works well within our teaching team.

Different contexts:

Feedback is very efficient cross college, of that I am certain and there is no magic answer to how we should deliver it. I will leave the last words to Michael J. Gelb who notes "champions know that success is inevitable; that there is no such thing as failure, only feedback. They know that the best way to forecast the future is to create it.”

Feedback as a two way process

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They flash upon that inward eye which is the bliss of solitude; And then my heart with pleasure fills, and dances with the daffodils.

One of the members of the teaching team was involved in an ambitious project with the Working with Communities class. What follows is an outline at the start of the project and a reflective piece of writing at the end of the project. The students were enrolled on the Level 6 Core Skills (Communication) Unit which is at Higher level on the SCQF scale.

Working With Communities (Communication)

Planned Activities

Project: Bulb planting

Introductory (practical) activities

·         Participatory engagement outline/exercises

·         Videos – The Estate We Are In  (General thinking about changing attitudes, making a difference to a community)

·         Slides – previous planting projects

·         Site visit

Reading activities

·         General articles about community projects/volunteering activities

·         A simple constitution

·         Websites: funding sources (How to find the money)

·         Grant application forms

·         Sample letters

·         Sample report

·         Reading Assessment (Article on volunteering)

Writing

·         Letter to College Innovation Fund asking for support (£1500)

·         Letter to wholesale operator, Makro (Alan Laing), explaining project, asking for support.

·         Letter to Council Recreation Dept (Douglas Cruikshank) as above.

·         (If required) letter to Environmental Group (GreenFerry) asking to borrow equipment

·         H-diagram (to be designed) for a participatory event (public survey work)

·         Funding application forms (completed exemplar)

·         Poster advertising the event

·         Press release/article for local paper publicising the event

·         Risk assessment

·         Preparation for leadership/working in a team (planning forms)

·         Report/review of the event for your funder (Summative)

Speaking

·         Preparation: How to give instructions (prep for planting day)

·         Sample/practice talks

·         Speaking Assessment: Give a talk about a potential funder, types of project they fund, funding criteria, case study of a successful project etc.

Daffodil Planting Project – Final report - student exemplar

Introduction

As part of Communication Class, Joyce Faulkner, our class tutor arranged for our class, “Working with Communities” to take part in an environmental project . This project initially involved planting daffodils around the college grounds, and in the grounds outside Makro Cash and Carry. Joyce had provisionally made arrangements  for this, having spoken to Alan Lang at Makro.

To get inspiration, the class watched a series of videos called “The Estate That We’re in”. These were about a woman called Silla who lived in an estate in London which was run down and needed lots of work done on it. Silla become involved with the clean up and revamp of her estate with the help of the local community and the local council.  This documentary was to inspire the students, to make them realised that you can get things done, even in difficult circumstances.

Joyce herself also had a lot of experience in managing environmental projects in her local area, and she showed the class slides of what her environmental group had done in South Queensferry.  This includes slides showing a previous daffodil project that had taken place with local school children.  Again, Joyce showed the class these slides to inspire us.

Joyce also gave out articles on the subject of volunteering, the benefits of volunteering, working with volunteers, and how volunteering can enhance a student’s CV.  We used these as assessments for Communication.

Finally, she gave the class a list of tasks she had prepared, that needed to be done to make our project a success.

Planning and prepration

As a class, we had we did not have much of an input into the choice of project, as Joyce had created the course in advance.  So, it was already decided that the daffodil planting would take place on the 22^nd of November 2010.  Some of the class were unhappy that they didn’t have a say in the project.

We also looked at a model constitution, and discussed how volunteer groups got set up.  Unfortunately, we were not allowed to constitute and handle our own money. 

Funding

We started out by looking at funding forms and researching various sources.  This led to a set of class talks where everyone chose a different funder to present.  Joyce showed us some examples of completed application forms for projects she had been involved in, and explained about match funding.

Our next job as a class was to write the letters either to the Innovation Fund, or to Makro or to the Edinburgh City Council to ask for permission and support.

Some students in the class also did the costing for the clothing and equipment we needed to complete the project.

I wrote a formal letter to Craig Wilson, the Vice Principal of Stevenson College, to ask for funding for the project from the Innovation Fund.   We requested £1500, which was more than we really needed, so that we knew that we would have enough money for the project.  As well as my letter, there were letters from others in the class.

Some students also wrote a second letter to Alan Lang asking if we could do the planting in the grounds of Makro.   Joyce on sent all letters to the relevant people.  

Advertising and Publicity

When all the letters were sent, students began to write up press releases, and Joyce sent these to a local paper at Western Hailes.  We got their address from the internet.  Unfortunately these were returned as the paper was no longer there, so it was decided that the College newspaper should print an article about the event instead, and Joyce sent one of the student’s press releases to the Marketing Department.  They published this in the staff newsletter, SCEne.

The event was also publicised by posters which we designed ourselves, which were put up in classrooms of the CPCs, asking if anyone would like to help with the project, and telling them what was happening and when.  Joyce also spoke to other tutors.

Tools and Equipment

The list of tools and equipment was made up by a group of students from the class, and these were bought by Joyce and someone from the finance department who went out one afternoon to B&Q as there was a special event on at the time with 15% off.   With this discount, there was a saving of £100. Later on, Joyce ordered wellies for the project as well.

Site Visit

One week before the event was due to take place the whole class went outside to do a site visit of the area we would be planting in.   We decided we would not be planting in the grounds of Makro as they hadn’t got back to us in time to make arrangements.

So, instead of planting around Makros, it was decided that we would plant the bulbs only in the college grounds.  When we tested the ground we found that some sections were not suitable for planting, so we left out those areas.  Joyce then demonstrated how to the bulbs should be planted in the correct way.

It was then decided who would be doing which section of the grounds and who we would be working with.  Each member from our class would pair up with a College Preparation Student.  Leadership forms were completed so that the student leaders of each group knew what they had to do with their CPC students next week.

Planting Day

Unfortunately I was not able to make it in to college that day as my daughter was unwell and I had no other childcare for her.

However I heard from the other members of my class that there was a bit of confusion at the start as too many CPC students turned up to help.  This meant there were not enough jackets to go around for everyone. The weather was also bad (it was raining) so not everyone had weatherproof clothing.

Some students got on well with their CPC partners and learned to direct them, but some of the CPCs had not listened well to what they were instructed to do, and as a result of this they hadn’t planted the bulbs properly – too many together, planted on top of each other etc.  

On the positive side, the planting eventually went ahead as planned, and 2000 bulbs were planted. Three other teachers turned out to help too.

The whole event was also filmed by college students for Stevenson TV, and photographs were taken for the college magazine.

After the planting itself, Joyce thanked everyone for their help, and we were given a lunch vouchers to use in the college canteen as a reward for our efforts.   

Conclusion

In the end all the 2000 bulbs were planted.   And, from what I have been told, everyone enjoyed the experience once the initial confusion of having more students than we were expecting.

We had also seen how a whole project was managed from start to finish.

Finally, I think that too much was done for us previous to us getting told about the project.  We did not think that it was fair that we had no input in at all in the decision. However, Joyce explained that this was because the course was written in advance and everything had to be fitted in.

Finances

This project was completed within the budget that we had from the Innovation Fund.  We spent £1126.43 in total  and there was also a reminder of £373.57.  This was because Joyce had been able to borrow jackets from her environmental group instead of buying them.

I think that the remainder of the money should be used for our other class, “Self in Society”  as we are going on a residential weekend with outdoor team-building activities and we still need to have outdoor clothing.   Any new jackets we buy could also be used for students on projects next year. 

Postscript (from Joyce Faulkner, 8 March 2011)

It turns out that the students’ residential weekend had to be cancelled due to snow.  The class are now planning a one-day team building activity as part of their “Self and Society” Unit.  They would now prefer to use the remainder of the money for a “Go Ape” outing in Beecraigs Park.    

Tutor, Graham Zajac, is co-ordinating this event, and students, who are planning it, would appreciate the financial support.   

Examples of curriculum team planning sheets (internal and external)

Curriculum planning meetings in pp format

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Verification, verification, verification!

The teaching team were involved in a successful External Verification in 2010. Under the Good Practice section the following points were noted:

·         Master folders were comprehensive, detailed and helpful to new assessors.

·         Shared drive materials as above.

·         Integration of assessment across Units ensure vocational cohesion.

·         Reading material for LO1 of Analysing and Presenting Complex Communication was vocationally relevant and varied.

·         Many examples of helpful feedback to candidates.

·         IV systems and procedures are exemplary. Folder was detailed, including evidence of cognate meetings.

·         IV forms detailed and ensured helpful feedback to assessors.

·         Use of ‘blogs’ and ‘Wikis’ to keep in touch with students and help with assessment was excellent and innovative.

·         Recording of individual presentations on the USB stick made accessing assessment evidence very easy and enabled learners to have a copy of their talk if they wished.