Another thing I would do differently

One other thing I would do differently if I was teaching this course would be to have the lectures on how to set up a blog or contribute to a wiki at the beginning of the course. Then we could have had group discussions online or read each others blogs much sooner in the course. I have found it very valuable to be able to read other teachers' blogs and gain ideas about being a better teacher.

I have really enjoyed writing my blog, and feel excited about learning how to make it more artistic and interesting, e.g. by adding video clips.

What I would do differently if I was teaching this course

1. I would rewrite the statement about the purpose of the course, learning outcomes, assessment. I find the writing obscures the meaning. Here is the purpose description:

"The purpose of this course is to enable students to engage in Case Study and Activity-Based learning to develop their professional skills in tertiary teaching with particular regard to learning and teaching design and delivery focussed on experience and activity based methods, projects, case studies, Russell Bishop's "80:20" rule and others and with particular emphasis on vocational contexts."

The lack of correct grammar in this phrase makes it hard for me to grasp the meaning, e.g. the sentence is far to long.

Regarding the statement on Assessment:

Assessment in this course is competence based: you will receive a pass for the course if you meet all the assessment criteria (i.e. if you have the right answers, you will pass - yes, thats usual in education), for each contributing source of evidence (evidence? Makes it sound very serious and scarey).

To continue:

Evidence/artefacts (artefacts? Are we studying anthropology?) for the portfolio will accumulate throughout the course (again, stating the obvious in an obscure way). Ongoing peer review, discussions and feedback .....will influence your selection of evidence/artefacts (evidence and artefacts again - what does this mean?).

The online portfolio may be presented by way of an online platform (platform? What is an online platform? Obscure meaning again). For example, a wiki, blog...or other as appropriate to the cohort (there must be a simpler way of writing this). This will be agreed by the end of the third session (no, it wasn't agreed by the end of the third session).

Now, onto "Sources of evidence and Guidance Criteria."

No. 3 - Teaching practicum:

Your ongoing teaching practice will provide the opportunity for you to collect authentic, triangulated evidence of the design and delivery learning outcomes on your practice.

Authentic, triangulated evidence - sorry, this is completely meaningless to me.

I would ensure that the statement about the course would be written in clear language. If students can understand the aims and objectives of the course, it would be a good start.

What I would do differently if I was doing the MIT Design & Delivery course again

You may be asking yourself what a photo of myself on a ferry in the West of Scotland has to do with what I would do differently if I was doing the MIT Design & Delivery course again?

Nothing! I'm just showing Nuddy how clever I am that I can upload a photo onto my blog. Also, of course, pictures make text more interesting.

Also, just wanted to publicise the west of Scotland. Its a beautiful place with friendly people.

Anyhow, back to the main business of what I would do differently if I was doing the MIT Design and Delivery course again.

• I would put more of the ideas I learnt into practice. Often, being a first year teacher, I was so frantic about getting the lecture material ready for the next day (often staying up until midnight to do it), that I forgot to think about what we had learnt in Design & Delivery.
• I would read the resource material more thoroughly. There is such a lot of wonderful material on eMIT, I don't want to miss out on any of it. I am going to do my best to download it all before it is made unavailable.
• I would be more assertive in asking for clarification when I didn't understand an important idea. For example, I was puzzled about what we were supposed to be doing to prepare the ePortfolio, until Nuddy came along and explained it clearly. It was a cause of anxiety that I didn't understand this. I'm not boasting, but I have gained a Post Graduate Diploma in Health Studies, so my comprehension is not too bad. One of my colleagues, who is very organised usually, was equally puzzled.

Review of recommended reading: Teachers & Maori/Pacific students; Constructive Alignment

Hawk, K., Cowley E., Hill, J. & Sutherland, S. (2002). The importance of the teacher/student relationship for Maori and Pasifika students, SET, 44-49

Main theme is the huge importance of the relationship between the teacher & Maori and Pacific students, in low decile schools.

Ethnicity of teacher not important, but the type of person they were, e.g. values, attitudes, skills. Needed to have sympathy towards Maori/Pacific culture, however.
The following attributes promoted a good relationship with students: teachers who took care over pronouncing names, made an effort to learn about a student's world, were caring, showed mutual respect, went the extra mile to promote learning, shared something of themselves, showed enthusiasm, patience and showed belief in a student's ability.
Students needed teachers to model the behaviour they wanted from their students, and were very observant of teachers' body language.

Teachers who set clear goals and had high expectations of their students tended to find that students would achieve them.

This study leads to further questions, e.g. how can teachers be enabled to develop effective relationships with their students, and what should happen if they don't. More research needs to be done.

I enjoyed reading this article, and it is very relevant to our students at MIT. It has helped me to develop better relationships with my students and will be a good basis for continuing to achieve effective relationships in the future.

Biggs, J., Tang, C. (2007) Teaching for Quality Learning at University. McGraw-Hill, UK.

This book proposes the theory of constructive alignment and outcomes based learning. This is a model for good teaching and assessment.

With universities increasingly being funded by student fees, they have had to improve quality of teaching. To do this, many are using constructive alignment.

In constructive alignment, the teaching/learning tasks and the assessment tasks are aligned to the intended learning outcomes, according to the "learning activities" required in the outcomes.

I must confess that I have only read the first chapter of this book, but I agree with what it says so far. It is a difficult read, however.

Constructive alignment seems to be exactly what we are doing to assess clinical skills in our nursing programme.

Promoting deeper learning

The teachers in my team regularly give our students multi-choice questions to do, as the state exam is based on these.
For example,

Which one of the following is a respiratory disorder:
a) The pharynx
b) The coccyx
c) The larynx
d) The bronchus

The respiratory system takes:
a) Carbon dioxide from the bloodstream to the atmosphere
b) Oxygen from the bloodstream to the atmosphere
c) Sodium chloride from the bloodstream to the atmosphere
d) Carbon monoxide from the bloodstream to the atmosphere

The "Pub Quiz" exercise

Recently I designed another way of students to test their knowledge.

• This method was designed to be fun, and to test their existing knowledge.
• It involved group work, enabling them to develop skills in working together with others.
• This test did not give them any prompts, unlike the multi-choice question format.

I love pub quizzes. This exercise was based on the pub quiz format.

Students got into groups of four, and thought up a name for their group.

The first question flashed up on the powerpoint slide:

Name 3 signs & symptoms of Myocardial infarction

Each group came up with an answer, which was checked by the two lecturers involved in the tutorial. A point was allocated to any team which got the answer correct.

Other questions included:

Name 3 things you would look for when assessing a wound

Explain the disease process which leads up to an MI

What is one indication (reason) for a Doctor prescribing the medication Frusemide for a client?

Which medical condition has the following signs/symptoms:

i) Swollen (oedematous) ankles/legs

ii) Shortness of breath

iii) Unable to tolerate exercise

After each question, a point was allocated to each team, on the whiteboard.

The winners were given a small prize.

The students enjoyed this quiz. It is good to have variety in teaching methods, to keep students (and lecturers) interested.

Hopefully it showed the students where they needed to do some revision.

Interestingly to me, the students I expected to win did not, and the students who I thought were average, won!

Surface vs Deep approach to learning

I think that the pub quiz was a method of promoting a deep approach to learning, as defined by Biggs & Tang (2007). This is because of the following points:

The quiz got an active response from students

Answering it was building on what students already knew

It helped students to reflect on questions they got wrong, or did not answer adequately

It was promoting assessment in a positive, fun way

REFERENCE

Biggs, J., Tang, C. (2007) Teaching for Quality Learning at University. McGraw-Hill, UK.

Things I would do differently: more self-reflective practice

Group work

I was finding with group work that the dominant person in the group would take over, and the quiet ones wouldn't say anything.

Cath Dickey suggested the following idea:

Each person in the group has 1 minute to talk, no-one else to interrupt

After this, anyone may contribute

I haven't used this yet, but intend to do so.

What is the question? Making changes in teaching style using SOLO taxonomy

Having my consciousness raised about different levels of questioning has been very valuable, and has enabled me to be a better teacher.

In a lecture to nursing students about Spirituality, I asked the following question:
What does the word "Spirituality" mean to you?

Here are a couple of responses I got:

• Belief, culture, support, values


• The human spirit is something you cannot see, touch or hold on to, but we know it exists. Every human body has a spirit, it is energy and it is what makes us unique. Our spirit has needs, we call it our spiritual needs. There are many religions that millions and millions of people belong to, to learn about the spirit and to get in touch with their spirituality. The spirit is unique and needs to be recognised and understood, and we as nurses need to acknowledge that people have different ways of expressing the spirit. People use their faith to nurture their spirits. The spirit is energy and it always was and always will be.

The question I asked was, I believe, at a unistructural level. The student in example one wrote a simple list. The student in example two wrote a fuller, more considered answer, and recognised that nurses need to recognise that we don't all express spirituality in the same way, but there was no comparing or contrasting, e.g. that some people express their spirituality outside of religion.

The direction that I planned to take in the lecture was that considering a person's spirituality is part of holistic nursing care. Also, that spirituality for some may not include a religious faith, but other things like a love of nature, music, art.

The students would have learned more, and reached the objectives of the lecture sooner, if I had used a relational question, e.g.

Explain your understanding of Spirituality, including whether it applies only to religion; and how we can meet a patient's spiritual needs in our nursing care.

REFERENCE

Biggs' structure of the observed learning outcome (SOLO) taxonomy. Teaching and Educational Development Institute, University of Queensland.