Reaching out beyond the module space and connecting with others to support student learning
Date: 14/05/21
Dr Clare Horrocks
Summary
Clare will continue to teach this module completely online next year as she continues to connect students across the institution and through the alumni to understand the challenges of employability in a post covid world.
Further Information:
Subject Area:
Media and Culture
Level: 6
Class Size: 30
Keywords
Assessment, Audio, Course Design, Digital Literacy, Discussions, Employability, Formative, Reflection, Student Engagement, Student Feedback, Video Conferencing, Whatsapp, Zoom
Case Study:
Clare has found that her students have been remained highly motivated during the process of moving her module online and Clare thinks this has been ‘great’ for her too. The redesign has created different opportunities to engage with a much wider range of people both internally and externally. The design was collaborative in terms of students and Clare sharing ideas, online tools and perspectives in the area of employability. Tools identified by students might be then built into workshops and discussions with students. The delivery for each week did change which required the students to be more proactive in their own time management and learn and develop those skills. This was very different from the previous year when it was taught face to face as students would tend to drift off during the workshop based activities.
Alumni
One group that has always been useful to motivate, inspire and inform students are past students.
This group has been easier to reach out to and engage with because suddenly everyone was online. Clare has become more engaged with her alumni using social media such as LinkedIn. here she follows her past students to help her understand where their careers are developing but also to see how the knowledge and skills they've gained are also influencing their career paths. This knowledge helps her feedback to the current students but also helps her consider the current curriculum.
In the past Clare would need to arrange times, dates, travel etc to get a past student to attend physically. The convenience of all being online and having the skills to engage in live online sessions has meant alumni and current students can get together with a minimum amount of fuss and the maximum amount of engagement.
Her alumni have been particularly supportive with one of them offering two free tickets to Cambridge Universities ‘Social Media Day’ worth £200 per ticket, and donated 2 social media kits to the students that created the most effective online presence. This has helped students to engage with course activities and content but see the relevance and connection with possible career paths. Clare's students have really benefited from this engagementa and are further ahead in terms of learning than previous years.
Working across the institution
Clare also reached out to engage with other departments. Similarly the ability to run session online meant it was more convenient for staff to engage. She worked with the careers centre, the digital incubation hub, and the equality and diversity team. She incorporated their resources, such as the online careers 24/7 tools, and the prospect career planner, into the resources on the course.
but she's also developed her own skills audit tools using the canvas quizzes function.
Digital skills
There was a lot for students to get used to in terms of the tools and methods through which this module was delivered. There was some resistance and students did struggle in places but what is interesting is the clear communication of the modules aims and helping students to understand the commitment that they would need to make in order to succeed in this particular module increased engagement. An important outcome from the module is the developing digital confidence of the students. This is embedded into a reflective process where students saw understanding and reviewing their progress as they make different representations of themselves online. Some of the formative activities included a discussion board on the impact of covid on the workplace, where they responded to recent podcasts highlighting different issues.
Personal reviews and reflections
Clare ran 4 hour online workshop where she would set up a single Zoom room and then allowed students 15 minute slots where she reviewed where they were up to. She found the process of having students attend a single room easier because it allowed her and them the simplicity of a single link, but also allowed her to easily connect emerging issues from previous students to the next appointee. This was major improvement on face to face sessions where interruptions would lose the focus, flow and direction of the discussions. Self-reflection activities such as discussion board posts allowed students to engage and leave their own digital footprint inside canvas to explore, reflect on and include in ongoing assessments.
Creating a community
Clare's tip for creating stronger engagement and community is to focus on understanding where students are up to and their individual interests. Students set up their own WhatsApp group to help develop a supportive online community. They might mention to Clare that they were discussing particular things in this community and Clare would ask them to highlight particular resources to review rather than join their space.
Next year
Clare will be feeding into the faculty employability group as she learns more about how her students are adapting to an increasing online working environment. This module has been given the ‘green light’ to run completely online next semester and feedback from the students showed that they agreed with this approach.
