Shock Absorber discussion

1
Shock Absorber discussion

• Enhancing student experience rather than
  retention is primary focus of Shock absorber
  project, so difficult to say what impact it has
  had on retention
• Factors affecting retention very complex
• Part-time students, coping with full-time course
• Technology could enable pre-entry self-test
  diagnostics
• Different modes of delivery can adopt the SA
  toolkit
• Toolkit pre-entry (voluntary) activity,
  followed up in induction,, diagnostic and
  formative assignment, overlaid with additional
  information for different contexts has changed
  structure of courses, more interactive and better
  paced.

2
Shock Absorber discussion

• Have to work hard to encourage take-up of
  pre-event activity
• 1st assignment impacts on self-esteem, confidence
• Less complex question for 1st assessment to
  prepare students for the larger 2nd assessment
  task
• Should UCAS provide feedback to successful
  applicants as well as unsuccessful to enable
  additional support ,using predefined statements?
• Good quality timely , feedback key to engagement
  and retention

3
Student Panel discussion

• Lily Huggins
• some of use of technology has overshadowed
  passion of teachers in schools
• Inappropriate use of technology an issue in
  schools e.g. whiteboard/smartboard technology not
  used well
• Rachel Shanks - PhD student, School of Education
• blogs too much like hard work
• E-journal and email groups very useful

4
Student Panel discussion

• Donna
• Deficits education is a right not a privilege
  technology may exacerbate digital divide
• Accessiblity software, tools not available at
  home
• Mature students IT skills
• Loss of social interaction
• Issues for foreign students
• Amanda
• Peer mentor for 1st yr students use facebook
  social networking sites to get in touch
• 1st yrs emailing assignments to check referencing
• Students worried about financial and housing
• Pre-induction, not many opportunities for use of
  ICT to support this

5
Student Panel discussion

• Desh
• Time to support new international students is an
  issue
• Aaron Porter - summary
• Presence of academics in social networking
• Support for different levels of IT skills
  necessary - could harness more skilled student
  peers
• Networking of international students would help
• Questions
• Is there a tension in needing to be seen using
  ICT vs being able to use it appropriately?
• Is technology being used effectively?
• Initial Teacher training courses emphasise
  appropriate use of ICT,
• Staff skills there are steps/processes staff
  need to go through before can begin to use ICT
  appropriately

6
Student Panel discussion

• Dissemination of sharing of good practice can
  be an issue
• Turnitin being used to encourage academic
  integrity among students
• Aaron Porter
• Feedback NSS postgrad experience survey
  highlights issues, some universities using
  Amazon process to track submission of
  assignment
• Experience of turnitin
• Positive in Aberdeen
• Donna good tracking system, turnitin used by
  some psychology tutors, frightening need to
  ensure that people know what theyre doing
• Lily use of Moodle to submit assignments and
  receive feedback

7
Student Panel discussion

• Challenges for peer support
• Bradford has a team of 5 IT student supporters to
  assist with software hardware support,
  dedicated training sessions plus surgeries
• Issues with finding authentic information via
  Google, effective use of search engines not
  taught?
• Role of technology in group work employer
  criticism of HE that group working skills not
  taught, are academic staff up to speed with use
  of technology to enable group work e.g. wikis?
• Digital divide is an issue but cant go
  backwards! Has to be a move to find solutions to
  problems of inclusivity. Gap some academic
  staff need to bridge becoming larger.

8
Student Panel discussion

• Digital divide
• access to ICT a socio-economic issue not just
  about digital literacy skills
• would timetabled support help?
• peer/mentor support would be better as would
  reward senior students and enable less able
  students to develop necessary skills.
• provision of lap-tops for students would help
  reduce divide