"Am I alone in thinking......?" overcoming student concerns and isolation using a 'Shared Thinking‘ approach to FIMS Induction.

Nicholas Bowskill (Education)Q. Cutts (Computing Science) S. Brindley (Education), V. Lally (Education), S. Draper (Psychology)3rd Annual University of Glasgow Learning and Teaching Conference, April 22nd 2010

Research Thesis

If students can be supported to collaboratively construct a public view of their collective thinking, from reflective dialogue, then this will create new pedagogical and methodological possibilities for development and research

Shared Thinking is the process by which this might be achieved using a generative discussion protocol supported by network-based classroom technologies

Core Problem: Students are learning in parallel

Yet university students are part of several communities (learning with & about others)

Research Subject Institutional H.E. Year-group STARTS WITH INDUCTION

Shared Thinking (ST)

Inter-disciplinary PhD project Education, Psychology &

Computing Science Kelvin-Smith Scholarship funding

About Group-Oriented Enquiry Based Learning (EBL/IBL) with EVS Learning using the group as a

resource:

FOR COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT

FOR SITUATIVE DEVELOPMENT

Methodology = 5 case studies Research Design

New & Old Universities Different countries 1st, 2nd and Final Year students Support Staff at a Conference Teaching Staff in an academic

department Science and Social Sciences Induction, Transition and

Placement Review Staff CPD

Web site: http://www.sharedthinking.info

Shared Thinking as Group-Oriented Cooperative Inquiry

Cooperative Inquiry

Research is usually thought of as something done by people in universities and research institutes. There is a researcher who has all the ideas, and who then studies other people by observing them, asking them questions, or by designing experiments. The trouble with this kind of way of doing research is that there is often very little connection between the researcher's thinking and the concerns and experiences of the people who are actually involved. People are treated as passive subjects rather than as active agents. We believe that good research is research conducted with people rather than on people. We believe that ordinary people are quite capable of developing their own ideas and can work together in a co-operative inquiry group to see if these ideas make sense of their world and work in practice. (Heron & Reason, 2001)

Shared Thinking Recipe

Basic ST Recipe Individual Writes concerns Small Group Discussion List Construction and Voting Whole-Group View Response of others

FIMS Adaptation (Q.Cutts) Individual Writes concerns Small Group Discussion List Construction and Voting

using Texting Whole-Group View Response of others

Shared Thinking Structure

Basic ST Structure

1. 2nd year session

2. 1st Year session

3. Cross-Year Mentoring

Typically n = 30-40

FIMS Adaptation (Q.Cutts)

1. Level 2 session

2. Level 1 session

3. Cross-Year Mentoring In same session In break-out session

n = 250+

Whole-Group View as Mediating Artefact

Whole-Group View

Cognitive I saw from other students many

things I hadn’t thought of that I would face [L1 Male Student]

Yes, quite a lot of things like how exams might go….hadn’t thought of that before [L1 Female Student]

“as soon as you see them you can start thinking about…lots of solutions in your head and things to say or advice to give” [L4 male mentor]

Situative “I personally found it very rewarding

to throw out the concerns…into the public and getting to know it’s pretty much the same thing we’re all worried about” [L1 Male Student]

“It did bring everyone closer together…made you feel less of an outsider” [L1 Female Student]

Outcomes of Induction as Group-Oriented Enquiry Based LearningChanged Perception of the University &

Providers

I think the people that have organised it have thought about almost everything [L2 Male Student]

It gave me a feeling of good organisation…from the moment you become a student at the university [L1 Male Student]

I found it was a great method of the university..to welcome the students and make their landing a lot smoother [L1 Male Student]

Group-Oriented EBL

“It was like questioning ‘What is this for?’ What is that about? And going into more depth” [L1 Female Student]

“done with us not for us” [L1 Male Student]

It was presented like ‘What did you learn about it?’[L1 International Male Student]

“Otherwise you think ‘well this is for other people’” [L2 Male Student]

Any questions or comments?

Web site for Shared Thinking

http://www.sharedthinking.info