Social media, the democratisation of knowledge and physiotherapy. Can they play nice together?

Our department is gearing up for it’s annual planning meeting, where we review the physiotherapy course from the past year and plan for the next one. This is also the year that our newly formed Directorate of Teaching and Learning has developed an institutional teaching and learning policy, with a strategic implementation plan over the next 5 years. As part of the development of a scholarship of teaching and learning at the university, all faculties and departments are now being asked to develop their own teaching and learning policies, aligned with the institutional one. I’ll be conducting a short workshop at the planning meeting, where we’ll look at the institutional departmental policy and flesh out the draft document I’ve been working on for the past week or so.

As part of my presentation, I’ll be showing an example of how we can align a simple assessment task with the departmental teaching and learning policy. Here’s my initial idea, feedback or comments are welcome.

I work at a university with a long history of opposing injustice and inequity, and I really do believe that working here makes a positive contribution to progress in the country. Sadly, during the last few weeks we’ve been associated less with a vision for uplifting our people, and more with chaos and dispute. I wanted to publicly share this letter to the campus community, emailed to us all yesterday from the Rector. He is a wonderful man who presents the situation with insight and personal reflection that humanises the issues we’re currently grappling with. As always, I am extremely proud to be associated with this institution.

RECTORS LETTER TO THE CAMPUS COMMUNITY – 25th AUGUST 2010

When I drove into the campus this morning just after 4:30 I experienced such profound sadness. The campus was at rest and at peace. It reminded me of how it was before that fateful day, 2 August 2010, when the SRC led a march supported by SASCO and PASMA to protest about financial aid. That day added another dimension to the history of UWC from one where our University was being hailed as a great South African success story, an institution that had courageously faced its past and turned its face to the future.  We are known as a caring university which kept its fees low and which supports students in every imaginable way, especially with respect to finances. Our processes at the start of each year to assist students to continue with their studies despite deep financial challenges marked UWC as special. Much of that changed on 2 August and today UWC is spoken of in the press, as an institution in chaos, whilst only a very small number of its students have declared war on their fellow students and the university. This is indeed reason for profound sadness.

In my letter to the Campus yesterday I gave you an insight into the problem.  At the heart of the matter is the need by a small percentage of UWC students for support from NSFAS, the national students financial aid system.  Because of the large number of students who had applied and were eligible for NSFAS, most of the R64 million granted to UWC had been allocated to those students by June of this year. Many students applied after this and the funds available to assist them were by then depleted.

The SRC was informed that UWC had approached NSFAS for additional funds and that UWC would do its best to support those students when it received additional monies from NSFAS. This message was not well received by the students concerned and more marches followed. Aspects of the demands made were dealt with but the matter of additional funds from NSFAS remained as the major concern.

To our great surprise, the demands moved away from NSFAS funds to one that called on UWC to guarantee that the University would provide the funds for each of the students who had applied in the second semester. The responsibility was now shifted from NSFAS to UWC. Our surprise was even greater when students, still under the banner of the SRC, began to attack the university physically in order to press this demand.

The analogy is that of a large family where a few members have a particular financial need and demand that the rest of the family support them or face physical attacks from them. Instead of the family working out how they might best support the need, the family’s home is attacked by the family’s own needy members, and the other family members are even prevented from going to work. This is what UWC has now experienced.

UWC is a national resource funded by the state, donors and students fees to support the high level intellectual needs of our nation within its African context. It is a precious national asset and has a very important job to do. It is unconscionable that it should come under attack from its own family members and be prevented from performing its important task. On 24 August we experienced a dark day when groups of students went as far as disrupting classes, disrupting conferences and even causing some damage, though slight, to a few buildings. This cannot be tolerated and it is clear that some of our students have divorced themselves from our fellowship and have now constructed UWC and the rest of its family as their enemy, to be attacked with impunity. This cannot continue.

We have consistently been engaging with the SRC to find a way to deal with this matter. The bottom line from the SRC has been that UWC must find the money for these students and that the attacks will continue until we do. UWC is not in the position to take on the responsibility of NSFAS and can only assist students with the help of the state or from bursaries made available by donors for needy students who excel academically. Annually UWC does set aside some of its own funds money for financial aid but this is limited. The solution that the SRC is seeking does not lie inside the UWC family and attacks on the family cannot secure the funds.

Damage has been done to the reputation of UWC and it will take hard work to restore our, but we must begin the task. To protect its staff, students and buildings from those family members who have turned against us, UWC has sought relief from the courts through a Court Order which seeks to stop the attacks. This Court Order has been granted and will come into effect today, 25 August 2010. We ask all our students (our entire family, and especially those have been moved to turn against us) to reconcile and assist with bringing peace to our campus so that we can set about the tasks of finding answers to our challenges as a family.

UWC is a beacon of light in our nation and it will continue to demonstrate what is possible under challenging circumstances. Its responsibility is to educate its students to reach the highest levels of competence in their fields of study and to serve our much challenged nation diligently. In addressing this letter to all members of our family I am asking everyone to pause, reflect and then move quickly  to becoming a family again where we seek to support one another, while each of us commit ourselves fully to the task that this family has to grow our nations store of human capital.

My short term dream is to drive into this campus tomorrow morning (26 August) and know that the family has joined hands in search of a common good future.

Prof Brian OConnell

Rector & Vice-Chancellor

25 August 2010

Last week I attended a teaching and learning colloquium at Granger Bay, near the Waterfront. It was organised to showcase some of the teaching practices being used at the 4 teaching institutions in the Western Cape. I was fortunate to be invited to present one of the keynotes on Friday morning and since I’ve been thinking about PLE’s lately, that was the focus of my talk. Below you can see the graphical notes taken by Ian Barbour of the 2 keynotes of the conference.

[View with PicLens]

Here are my notes from the 2 days.

Innovation through foundational provision and extended programmes: future trends, threats and opportunities (Professor Ian Scott)

It can’t go on with us doing “more of the same”.

Higher education is elitist, with a tiny proportion of the population being recycled through the system.

We are moving towards mass participation, with all the associated problems that this brings

Innovation = taking new approaches, doing things differently from the mainstream (creative solutions to problems)

The main difference between HEI that do well and those that don’t, is the attention of the institution (Carey, 2008). There is effort and professional accountability, systemic enquiry and research

Success = developing strong foundations and completing the qualification well. Not just about access. It’s dependant on complex issues e.g. teaching and learning approach, affective support, material resources

Future challenges in academic development:

• Meeting the needs of the majority
• Low participation and racially skewed
• Poor and skewed graduation rate after 5 years = 30%
• Under 5% of black youth succeeding in HE (unsustainable)
• Makes little sense to continue on our current path, given the above stats

Who should extended programmes serve:

• Mainstream students who are now failing or are dropping out for learning-related reasons
• The majority of students who are not graduating in regulation time
• But EP’s are reaching less than 15% of the intake, even though it’s a majority need (how can we justify the status quo?)

What can be done?

• Extend the reach of EP’s in their present form, with a focus on improvement?
• Move to a flexible curriculum framework with a 4 year degree as the core?
• Can foundational provision be successful with limited student number, and if so, what are the limits?
• How does this sit with the need for expanding the programmes?

If success is dependent on small numbers, we have a big problem

Institutional differentiation: Looked at stratifying HEI’s, but who would end up in the “bottom” levels. Moved towards “reconfiguring the institutional landscape” through mergers. But there is a danger of institutions losing their way, and not sticking to their mission. Is this a distraction from the central goal of producing more, good graduates?

Implications

Will differentiation lead to further polarisation of the student intake in terms of educational achievement? Because educational achievement is not potential, and is still polarised along racial, socio-economic lines.

Will there be pressure to remove EP’s from “research” universities? → which will result in less funding and educationally disadvantaged institutions becoming the “new mainstream”

Are these bad things?

To what extent can structural change, in itself, make a difference? Are there any alternatives?

Building student confidence through a class conference in an extended curriculum programme (Maryke Meerkotter)

Some students are resistant to the concept of evolution (in biology)!

Initially, 45 students split into groups and given topics for poster presentation. But it was too open.

Next year had more specific guidelines, with more focused topic (53 students), and individual talks about their own poster

This year, conference was very specific. 87 students, so much more structure was needed i.e. specific mammals were assigned to individual students. Questions had to be answered to prevent cut and paste.

Initial intent:

• Relieve lecture stress
• Students to engage with “irrelevant” content
• Raise awareness of importance of course content
• Allowed students to take ownership of the content, especially when assigned individual animals
• Practice oral presentation
• Exposed to poster making skills
• To have fun trying something new

Initial scepticism and advice:

• Doubt that it would succeed
• Too much unnecessary work
• Needs a good relationship with class, as lecturer should be confident that students can perform
• Some envisioned chaos, so needed clear guidelines
• Some advised no rewards, but students appreciated being acknowledged

Setting guidelines:

• Holiday assignment
• Written and verbal communication of assignment tasks
• Guidelines about poster and oral presentations
• “Computer literacy” = Powerpoint
• Specific questions needed to answer in poster and presentation
• Lecturer created a poster as an example, in subsequent years take the best examples of previous years
• Provided rubrics for evaluation
• Minimum requirements for posters, and not part of evaluation, so students who could afford more weren’t advantaged

Evaluation:

• Oral presentations marked by lecturer and teaching assistant (reliability)
• Audience tested at the end of each session (to ensure attendance of non-presenting students)
• Posters were peer marked, using similar content as the marking group (each student marked 3 other posters anonymously)

Administration:

• Assignment of topics
• Find space for posters to be displayed
• Due dates for posters to be mounted
• Loading of oral presentations prior to talks (use email, caution with flash drives, time constraints)
• Lecturer needs to listen and mark at the same time
• Students were assigned posters to mark to avoid students marking their friends work

Empowers students to take ownership of course content, especially the “boring” courses. Recommended for small classes

Introducing concept mapping as a learning tool in Life Sciences (Suzanne Short and Judith Jurgens)

A lot of diversity in the course, in terms of student population

Some of the problems:

• The gap between school and university
• Testing of concepts reveals confusion
• Basic concept knowledge is inadequate, lecturers want to make assumptions about what students come into the course with
• Poor literacy levels for required university levels
• Low levels of student success
• Low pass rates
• Unable to manage the large volume of content
• Textbook content is “unfriendly”, not contextually relevant, language is inaccessible
• Poor integration of knowledge
• Don’t see how biology fits into scientific study
• Don’t apply knowledge and strategies from other subjects, concepts are compartmentalised

Hay, Kinchin and Lygo-Baker (2008). Making learning happen: the role of concept mapping in higher education.

Concept map: an organising tool using labels to explain the relationship between concepts, the links making propositional statements of understanding. Can be interesting to see how different “experts” in the course see it differently. We need to first negotiate our shared understanding of the course before we can expect students to understand it.

Rationale:

• To “deconstruct” faulty knowledge acquired at school and reconfigure it
• Better grasp the relationship between all areas of study
• Empower students with a learning and knowledge construction tool
• Facilitate better use of the textbook

Don’t rely on one source

Facilitates textbook use:

• overview of concepts and relationships
• awareness of learning strategies
• active use of resources
• Assists with knowledge construction:
• identified major concepts and links
• identified gaps in school learning
• useful as studying tool
• knowledge construction can be individualised
• Enables evaluation of student learning:
• view of student understanding “at a glance”
• encourage discussion of concepts and categorisation

Difficulties:

• time consuming
• high levels of collaboration between staff
• not all student work visually / spatially
• takes practice to do well

A genre based approach to teaching literacy in a university bridging course (Taryn Bernard)

How do structure a writing course to develop academic literacy, including other cognitive skills in the first year, among diverse student groups?

Students compartmentalise knowledge and find it hard to integrate into other courses. How can this be addressed?

Students want to feel as if they’re dealing with university-level content, and not high school content

Genre:

• Text-type e.g. journal articles, books, essays
• Abstract, goal orientated and socially recognised way of using language, limited by communicative purpose and formal properties
• Social code of behaviour established between author and reader
• “A term used for grouping texts together and representing how writers typically use language to respond to and construct texts for recurring situations”

Students need to be introduced to the “culture” of academic discourse

Genre-based pedagogy:

Student learning is affected not only by prior subject knowledge and by approaches to learning but also by the ability to deal with text genre (Francis & Hallam, 2000). An understanding of generic conventions increases success at university (Hewings & Hewings, 2001).

It’s important to validate prior knowledge, and many don’t see the purpose in academic discourse. Students sometimes feel it’s “too complex”

Quantitative literacy courses for humanities and law (Vera Frith)

UCT recognise information literacy as being an important graduate attribute

Quantitative information must be addressed in the disciplinary context

The more that content is embedded within a real-world context, the better

Students can be confused between focusing on the context, as opposed to the content e.g. placing emphasis on what they should be learning, with the contextual framework being used

The impact of horizontal integration of 2 foundation modules on first years knowledge, attitudes and skills (Martjie van Heusden and Dr. Alwyn Louw)

Earlier introduction to clinical placements have a significant influence on students professional development, especially in communication

Research assignments for first year med. students at SU:

• Identify conditions
• describe disorder
• use correct referencing
• submit to Turnitin with only 10% similarity allowed

Did knowledge improve? What about attitudes and motivation? Did it transfer to the 2nd year?

Research assignments contributed to improved student attitudes

Saw an improvement in writing and research skills

Assignments promoted self-esteem, increased background knowledge and allowed students to ask informed questions

Foundation matters: issues in a mathematics extended course

Important to be aware that students come into the course with mixed abilities, which affects how they perceive the course

Language support for communication skills of foundation Engineering students at CPUT (Marie-Anne Ogle)

Students ability to study is crippled by their lack of confidence in their ability to speak well

Problems:

• Students don’t speak or hear English often
• School teachers don’t give presentation training
• Student lack self-esteem / confidence
• Students don’t have an understanding of their own problems
• Only 1 language lesson/week in a very crowded timetable

Rules:

• Transparent goals
• Everybody must talk
• Students choose the subjects they want
• Intensive reading programmes to support this
• Students manage their own library
• Students take over the class towards the end
• Fun for self-motivation

“The limits of my language mean the limits of my world” (Ludwig Wittgenstein)

Use of clickers in Engineering teaching (Daniela Gachago and Dr. Mbiya Baudouin)

Useful because:

• Results are anonymous, instant, recorded for later
• helps to increase attention span, keeps students focused
• Every opinion counts, not just the correct one
• Works well with interactive learning and teaching style
• Direct feedback about students conceptual understanding

Good feedback tool for students, identifies misconceptions instantly that can be addressed immediately, students also become aware that others have similar problems i.e. they’re not alone

Important to use equipment to stimulate discussion

Mazur sequence (see also this transcript of Mazur presenting on using technology to engage students, as well as this video presentation).

You can forget facts but you cannot forget understanding

Use of clickers must be must be accompanied by discussion

“The more a lecturer talks, the less a student understands”

Students enjoy the experience of using new tools in class, very positive response, but they do need a short introduction

Challenges:

• System takes time to set up, and technical troubleshooting not always easy
• Can waste time
• Questions need to be changed often
• Type of question asked needs to change
• Can have “clicker fatigue”

Using clickers as a tool in classroom instruction to facilitate student learning (Mark Herbert)

Focus not on what student don’t know, but what they require to develop into successful practitioners of the discourse

Students exposed to how knowledge is constructed, structured and communicated

Lecturers facilitate student learning

Students must prepare for lectures (but do they?)

Constructive feedback given regularly and as soon as possible

Class attendance improved

Student interaction can stimulate learning. Students will often find the correct answer when discussing among themselves, without lecturer involvement

Student confidence increased as a result of using clickers

Innovative pedagogical practices using technology: my personal journey (Ingrid Mostert)

Blended learning model for ACE in mathematics

Bulk SMS (e.g. Frontline)

Off-campus access can be hampered with slow loading times, different to intranet

Someone else has already solved the problems that I have. The more people who know about my problem, the quicker it’ll get solved.

Moodle has a module for mobile access, which allows students to participate in forum discussions through a mobile interface

Can use mobile tech to conduct surveys. Is there a cost for students? Yes, but it’s minimal relative to SMS

Sharing experiences make the load lighter

Exploring the extent to which clickers enable effective student engagement (Somikazi Deyi, Edwine Simon and Amanda Morris)

Use real world events / contexts to make coursework relevant. What is important to students? Use that as a scaffolding for the course content

Planning is important

Students engage more deeply with complex questions. We should challenge them and raise our expectations of what they’re capable of

Difficult to draw conclusions after one session. Need to follow trends over time

Realise that other people have different perspectives and world views

Try group voting as opposed to individual voting

Our Directorate of Teaching and Learning has organised a series of seminars over the next few months, with invited speakers from a variety of institutions across the country. They’ll be presenting on a range of topics, including academic literacy, integrating technology into teaching, working with large classes, teaching practices, and educational theory. I’ll also be presenting a session on personal learning, which will be similar to the other talks I’ve give on the topic recently.

Today we had a presentation by Doctor Brenda Leibowitz, who spoke about the relationship between language and biography / identity and their impact on teaching and learning. Here are a few short notes I took during the session.

Language studies typically look at homogeneous groups, but few look at cross-institutional and cultural communities.

Language can be intimidating for students (“the words are so complicated”), which means that texts can take longer to read, result in more guessing and reduced coherence

“Too hard to find the words, so you just make simple sentences”

Students appreciated the focus groups where someone was paying attention to their difficulties (“This gathering is like rain in the desert”)

The ability to communicate effectively depends on genre. Context has implications for language

Attitude has implications for language, as does identity

Mastery of a second language is important, but is not the sole determinant of academic success

Role of language in teaching and learning:

• Proficiency
• Social – and isolation
• Utility
• Value (exposure)
• Ideological associations

Language has an impact on social and organisational structure

Code switching

How can we introduce students to the genre of academic discourse?

“Talking and writing students into the discipline”. How do you take your students with you to the conclusion, rather than leave them behind and create a gap that they cannot cross?

• Pepsi spill causes sticky mess in science blogging ecosystem http://bit.ly/8XiQ3N #
• Just started reading “Unseen academicals”. I love Terry Pratchett #
• Plagiarism Is Not a Big Moral Deal. I teach professional ethics in practice, and I agree with this http://bit.ly/b37kfw #
• Mobile Phone Learning on the Move in Africa. http://bit.ly/aVpdV3 #
• Juxio – combine image and text into visual streams. Could be useful for creating small learning resources http://bit.ly/9Vgswz #
• Comparing Books & E-Books. I’m still not sure where I stand http://bit.ly/9lOtGv #
• @tony_emerge nice to see I’m not the only 1 still up was good to chat at the colloquium on Friday #
• Do New Tools = New Learning? I don’t think using new tools automatically maps to new learning http://bit.ly/9x4ST6 #
• What You Need To Know About Data Portability http://www.downes.ca/cgi-bin/page.cgi?post=53116 #
• Social networking and loneliness. See this in some of my students…the pressure of living for an audience http://bit.ly/d1HQOM #
• @ianuct Wow, I’d love to have a look at how you do it. Maybe I can meet up with u sometime during the week? Do you have the desktop version? in reply to ianuct #
• @ianuct What are you thoughts on #Prezi I’ve played with it but actually find the lack of linearity hard to work with in reply to ianuct #
• Thank you. RT @ianuct: Drew the keynote “Experiences in personal learning”. Find a balance between consuming & sharing http://bit.ly/92CwDd #
• Battery getting low, so in case phone dies before the end…thank you #Maties for awesome #TEDxStellenbosch #
• Weird…they handed out #vuvuzelas during intermission at #TEDxStellenbosch & are surprised that people are blowing them? #
• @jpbosman hey man, how come you’re not at #TEDxStellenbosch Thought this would be the sort of thing you’re interested in #
• @geekrebel where are you? #
• Vegetarian meals only at #TEDxStellenbosch I’m not a vegetarian but…what a great idea when promoting sustainability #
• #TEDxStellenbosch We’re moving from an era of “me”, to an era of “we”. Similar ideas in education with social learning #
• Comment from earlier speaker at #TEDxStellenbosch “Africa isn’t poor, we just don’t have a lot of money” #
• @geekrebel Thanks for organising access, #Skyrove doing an awesome job again #
• @elodiek I’m going back to obz so can help you guys out if you still looking (i know henk) #
• @geekrebel I just got here and am 1 of those 4 I’m right at the back and can’t see any screens #
• At #TEDxStellenbosch so impressed with setup, thank you #Skyrove for wireless, always appreciated #
• Just got home from #ipex had a good 2 days, learnt a lot. Leaving in an hour for #TEDxStellenbosch (http://tedxstellenbosch.org/) #
• Spent most of yesterday marking tests & assignments, same again today…sigh #