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T o innovate in higher education can be seen as a fundamentally foolish thing

to do. In almost all instances the status quo works pretty well and the established ways of doing things have the advantage of having been tried and tested. Carrying on with the same modus operandi is entirely uncontroversial, it causes no conflicts, it requires no approval and it appears to be the risk free option.

By contrast innovation in the vast majority of cases can appear to offer few immediate benefits. It certainly seems to have little to recommend it when viewed from the perspective of the potential innovator. Initially it requires you to spend precious time just reflecting on whether or not anything is sufficiently broken to require fixing. After that you may have simply articulated a lot of troubling questions or failings to which there may not be any ready solutions. You are then obliged to dedicate a good deal of creative imagination to conceive potential solutions to problems which in many cases nobody but you is even aware of. If that

wasn’t sufficient disincentive, you can be pretty sure that any potential innovation will meet with less than universal support from those you work with, placing you in conflict situations which you will then have to manage. Finally, once you have the minimum necessary support you will probably have to navigate your way through various unfamiliar approval processes.

It might seem therefore, that innovation is a fool’s game. Thankfully our University is fortunate enough to have many people willing to play it. Whilst any individual may need to be a little daft to innovate, any institution has to be entirely mad not to. I’m therefore delighted this issue celebrates innovation as it’s the least we must do to encourage it and in this edition of Better@Bath we have 12 representatives of Bath at its best.

Professor Alexander WrightHead of Architecture Group, Dept of Architecture & Civil Engineering

November 2012

Learning & TeachingEnhancement Office

Contents

1 Foreword

2 Real-life industry interaction to boost student employability

2 Lecture capture in the Department of Physics

3 Social work with young people: breaking down

barriers

3 Crystallising the concepts: classroom inversion and

‘just in time’ teaching

4 Celebrating 25 years of innovation in English Language teaching

4 Reinventing engagement with undergraduate students

5 Teaching the social politics of public policy: a serious game

5 Use clickers and add ‘wow’ moments to lectures

6 Lights, camera, reflection! Modelling investigative documentaries to develop

critical thinking

6 Bath student takes home SET 2012 award

7 Innovation: from small beginnings………..

7 Taking the case study to the next level

Innovation in Learning & Teaching: Foreword

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Welcome to Better@Bath. In this issue we focus specifically on innovation, and how innovative people and techniques are changing the delivery of learning and teaching here at Bath. Alexander Wright, who was recently promoted to Professor for excellence in his teaching, introduces this issue. Alex’s experience makes him particularly well placed to share his personal perspective on innovation.

Lecture capture in the Department of Physics

What happens when a student misses a lecture, or fails to catch a key point in their note-taking? Traditionally, these

students will either rely on their friends, will need additional support during office hours, or will struggle with the area of work during examinations.

Introducing lecture capture for the Department of Physics has been easier than expected, and has had a significant positive impact on teaching. A single e-mail to the Audio Visual department allowed my first year physics relativity unit to be automatically recorded and posted on the unit’s moodle page for the students to view at their convenience.

To be sure that this method was suitable for students I carried out a class-wide survey, the results of which showed that many considered the recordings the best bit of the course precisely because the confusing or missed material could be viewed again.

Many of my students use the recordings as a study-aid before the exams - easing the pressure on my office door! When students ask me for the notes of a missed lecture I now direct them to the recordings. The recordings haven’t affected attendance at lectures - I still see good attendance at all my lectures bar a core of 10 per cent who seem happy to just use the recordings. I do try to give those that attended the lectures more value-for-attendance by introducing many questions, tests, and discussions into the lecture hour which are left out of the recordings.

In addition, the recordings have been valuable to me in assessing my own performance. They give me insight to my lecturing style, and allow me to address the surprising number of annoying habits that can develop over time.

Dr Peter Sloan is a Lecturer in the Department of Physics.

Real-life industry interaction to boost student employability

In order to enhance the teamwork and employability of students in the Department of Physics, we have recently introduced new

Industry Team Projects.

This level three unit, now in its second year, requires students to spend one day per week during semester one working in small teams of four to six students on a task set by an external project partner. The students meet their industrial contacts at the beginning of the project and again to discuss their initial ideas after a period of three weeks. The remainder of the time is spent working on their solutions to the problem posed, with the teams presenting their findings to the companies at our ‘Placements Conference’ held in January. Throughout these projects, there is a strong emphasis on the students managing themselves. Although work takes place on campus and each project has an academic supervisor, it is made clear to the students that we are not experts in the areas in which they are working. Therefore, the teams must take responsibility for interacting with their industrial partners and in shaping the direction of their projects.

Student feedback from the first year of this unit was very positive, with team members particularly enjoying the “real-life interaction,” “freedom,” and “clear purpose” the task offered. As a result of the popularity of this unit, the number of participants has more than doubled for this academic year. Dr Peter Mosley is a Lecturer in the Department of Physics.

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Lecture capture in the Department of Physics

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For students studying social work programmes, working with young

people can be a daunting step and one that requires practical experience.

The Social Work staff group in the Department of Social & Policy Sciences is working to find new ways in which children and young people can be directly involved in the teaching of social work students.

To support this, I have designed new and innovative approaches to involve service-users in the teaching of our students. I knew that if I could engage my students’

hearts as well as their heads then I could create a ‘transformative’ learning experience that they would remember for years to come. The result of this work was the introduction of a series of events we called ‘Learning From Each Other’ held on campus. The events were run in collaboration with a local group in Bath called ‘Off The Record’ and involved 40 children and young people who were ‘young carers’ and, therefore potential service-users our students might come into contact with in their careers. During the events we arranged a variety of activities, including storytelling, presentations, discussions, craft and role plays on the theme of social workers.

The young carers were also given a taste of University life – they were shown what accommodation for students is like, and we gave them a

tour of campus. We arranged for them to take part in workshops on CV writing and applications for further and higher education - supporting the University’s aim to widen participation among young people who might not otherwise consider higher education. The feedback from both our students and the young carers was very positive, and our students’ assignments reflect the learning and fun that came out of the project, and the connections they made between their own experiences and study.

One student said: “My work with the Young Carers was an amazing opportunity to develop and utilise my skills and learning from the course. I met some truly inspiring young people who really do enjoy collaborating with the University to teach us about being Young Carers, which develops our learning but also empowers them.” A recent graduate said:

“I was a bit scared before the Young Carers days, I wasn’t sure if I could work with children. I have since done two full time placements with children and families and I’m looking for a job in this area of social work. It’s where my vocation lies.”

Social work with young people: breaking down barriers

Crystallising the concepts: classroom inversion and ‘just in time’ teaching

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Caroline Hickman is a Teaching Fellow in the Department of Social & Policy Sciences. She has won a University ‘Innovation in Learning & Teaching’ award for the Young Carers’ Project and its positive impact on the social work programme.

Better@Bath

Much of the theory behind crystallography, a technique used in Biochemistry for determining

the atomic structures of macromolecules such as proteins and DNA, is based in physics, chemistry and maths. These are not the everyday considerations of most undergraduate biochemists, and although there are many ‘wow’ moments in this subject, students can get stuck on some of the unfamiliar physical concepts embedded in the technique.

After several years of telling them not to worry about the detail I decided to try a new approach. Classroom inversion is a broad term, and suggests that some of the learning, or content, of a subject is moved out of the classroom. In its broadest sense, this is similar to what we would expect students to do anyway - spending time reading up on their subjects.

However, current jargon tends to imply that this is enforced in some way and that the reduction of ‘classroom content’ allows you to use that time to do other things. These other activities could include discussions, quizzes, written assignments or peer marking.

‘Just in time’ teaching (as outlined by Novak et al, 1999) goes a stage further, and allows students to feed directly into the content of the session. Online student responses to pre-lecture material is analysed by the teacher and the session is designed to meet the student’s particular needs. Getting students to

try new ways of doing things is always daunting, but I have been greatly encouraged by participation in both the online work and in class. We were able to frame the content of the classes around the questions students asked online, questions I asked them in class using the audience response system and then further questions they posed in the class. What did we learn? Initially, some student feedback suggested, and I agree, that we could still have done with some more time as we couldn’t cover all the questions the students asked in our slots. This has reinforced for me the inadequacy of just telling students things and assuming that they understand. Secondly, even though I thought I was quite familiar with the points of difficulty in the subject, students still thought up questions and responses that were unexpected, and often allowed us to go deeper into the material.

The feedback I have had has shown that this has been a helpful method for many of the students, allowing them to clarify concepts and become more confident in the material.

Dr Hazel Corradi is a Teaching Fellow in the Department of Biology & Biochemistry. She was recently awarded a Higher Education Academy grant to develop learning and teaching in her undergraduate lectures.

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Reinventing engagement with undergraduates

I n the Department of Chemistry the Staff Student Liaison Committee (SSLC) is viewed with great importance as this

is one of the most effective and proactive methods we have for fully engaging with our undergraduates. The committee comprises of three academic staff (Drs Matthew Jones, Mary Mahon and Gan Shermer) and 15 or so students across the various cohorts.

However, we recognised that ensuring that the SSLC is inclusive, and represents our undergraduate community fully, was posing a challenge that required confrontation. How can we ensure that the voices of all our undergraduate students are heard? To address this challenge we introduced a number of new measures last year. The first was the introduction of an ‘SSLC suggestion box’. Initially we were sceptical that this would work, expecting to find it filled with banana skins and rubbish, but we actually received some really helpful comments concerning laboratory classes and timetabling (along with some loose change!) which we could then address.

For the first time we also held an ‘open’ SSLC meeting with an invitation to all students to attend. The experience was really useful - our students were able to voice their feelings and opinions about issues that were important to them, and we were able to act upon them.

A topic that regularly appears on the agenda is ‘feedback’ and we’re exploring how we can tackle this issue more effectively. We are now looking not just at feedback from staff to students but also at the

feedback our students are giving us. The Department has many ways of gaining this feedback from students - one of which is the SSLC. We discuss what we do and why we do things the way we do and what we could do better. Some of the suggestions that are made are not educationally appropriate, but if we explain the thought behind our decisions it proves beneficial to both the staff and students.

The key point is for the students to be actively engaged and to participate with the SSLC in order to make this a successful two-way relationship. The presence of good home-baked cake at all meetings also helps!

Dr Matthew Jones is an RCUK Fellow in the Department of Chemistry

Celebrating 25 years of innovation in English Language teaching

This year the English Language Centre is celebrating its 25th anniversary

T he English Language Centre (ELC) provides much more than just English Language teaching. We’re also responsible

for the provision of essential ‘English for Academic Purposes’ courses, which can include academic communication skills, presentation skills, critical reading, note taking, and of course, academic writing. Since its beginnings in 1988 as a small unit within what was then the Department of Modern Languages, the ELC has expanded and developed, but never veered from its initial purpose, which has been to support the recruitment of international students to the University by developing their academic English and study skills, and to provide continuous support in academic communication for students throughout their degree study. One of the most important recent developments has been to extend our provision to all university students,

whether native or non-native speakers of English. We have always provided academic writing units for home students; this year the ELC is piloting its ‘Academic & Professional Communication Skills’ programme, which, from next year, will be delivered to all undergraduate first year students. The ELC has extended its remit in other ways. We provide a highly popular summer school which attracts students from partner institutions in Asia and elsewhere, showcasing Bath for prospective PGT students. We have earned an excellent reputation for our teacher training programmes, particularly DELTA and CELTA, accredited by the University of Cambridge. The ELC provides a special unit with an add-on CELTA programme for Modern Languages students, enabling them to make the most of their placement year abroad. The ELC also has a great deal to celebrate in terms of innovation over its 25-year history. Working with internal and external clients, we have developed English tests for healthcare professionals, immigration and academic purposes, and specialised distance-learning programmes. One of the ELC’s most recent in-house products, due to be launched soon, is a language learning iOS app for healthcare professionals and students. It will provide a template which can be adapted for other contexts, languages and specialisms. In its new home in the Learning & Teaching Enhancement Office, the ELC is better placed than ever to work with other partners in the University to provide coordinated and coherent academic communication skills development to all our students. As we enter the next phase of our work as a professional service we look forward with enthusiasm to the challenges and developments ahead.

Magdalen Ward Goodbody is Director of the English Language Centre, now part of the Learning & Teaching Enhancement Office

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Reinventing engagement with undergraduates Use clickers and add ‘wow’ moments to lectures

U sing the TurningPoint Audience Response System (commonly known as “clickers”) in my lectures has

allowed me to deliver ‘wow’ moments that students remember.

Clickers have now been available for over four years through the University’s Audio Visual Unit, and I have incorporated them into all three of my units using the TurningPoint ribbon, which is available in Microsoft PowerPoint. The clickers have certainly transformed my teaching into a more interactive experience and my students are very positive about them during unit evaluations.

I use the clickers in a number of different ways: • Forstudentstoapplythematerialthattheyhavejust

learnt to a real problem. This provides great feedback to

my students about whether they have understood what they have just listened to, and also to me about whether they have understood what I have just presented. The most difficult aspect is getting the question right.

•Encouragingmystudentstodiscusstheiranswerswiththeir neighbours to encourage collaborative learning.

•UsingthemtodemonstrateaspectsofPsychology.Gender differences in spatial ability are one of the most memorable demonstrations and takes advantage of the demographic slides available in the TurningPoint ribbon.

• Facilitatingmyrevisionlecturesasaquiz.Studentsanswer questions about aspects of the course and the software compiles a leaderboard, where the winner (or winners) receive a prize.

All in all, the clickers are a lot of fun and provide a great way for my students to review their knowledge. My only concern in using them was the collection and return of the clickers, but thankfully I have only ever lost one!

Dr Richard Joiner is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Psychology, where his main area of research is the use of digital technology to support learning

Teaching the social politics of public policy: a serious game

O ne of the biggest challenges in teaching policy-related units is how to demonstrate to students the dynamics of policy

decision making or the complexity of the policy impact.

Years back, when I began teaching the unit ‘Power and Policy: An Introduction to Critical Policy Analysis’, I used a variety of means to assist students’ understanding of the policy world while making our seminars and workshops more enjoyable.

For example, extracts from the series ‘Yes Minister’ and ‘Yes Prime Minister’ proved invaluable in exploring the role of bureaucracies, the politics of decisions and the limits of the Minister’s power. I also devised the ‘Election Game’ where the class was split between the public and simulated ‘political parties’. The former simulated different combinations of voters while the latter had to formulate policy proposals on different topics based not only on their party’s principles but also on electoral tactics vis-à-vis voters. Policy proposals were presented to the ‘public’ which, at the end, casted its vote, and the party with most votes won the ‘election’ (and a large amount of chocolate).

In recent years, I experimented with more sophisticated policy simulation games, often called ‘serious games’, and I have embedded one of them in my teaching - a policy simulation game called ‘Democracy 2’ by Positech Games. I use this game as a demonstration tool to visualise whole sets of intended and unintended consequences of policies upon different groups of voters or different policy domains, to show the importance of time and sequence in the politics of policy, as well as the importance of resource constraints and the quality of political personnel; and all of these within the demanding timetable of the electoral cycle.

The programme is versatile enough to experiment with different combinations of socio-economic, scientific, environmental, and security policies and, thus, test one policy mix against another. For example, the programme demonstrates visually how increases in the public funding of stem-cell research may have positive health outcomes in treating non-curable diseases and improving public health. Such increases may also act as an indirect subsidy to corporations which may see positive commercial results from the patenting and selling of new drugs, with beneficial impact on the national GDP, but also that it is highly controversial among many voters who register serious objections about the ethics behind this type of research. Different policy alternatives imply different direct costs and benefits in terms of votes or in terms of levels of public spending but also different indirect costs and benefits in terms of economic and health outcomes. The lesson is that no policy decision is straightforward!

Currently, my colleague Dr Hannah Durrant, has been awarded a Teaching Development Fund grant to experiment further with this programme in her unit ‘Social Justice, Social Policy and the State’. She uses it to explore the redistributive aspects of policy decisions.

Dr Theo Papadopoulos is a Lecturer in the Department of Social & Policy Sciences

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Lights, camera, reflection! Modelling investigative documentaries to develop critical thinking

T his autumn we have introduced a new teaching intervention on the MSc Advanced Management Practice which aims to

develop greater critical thinking in both business and society, by exposing our students to investigative journalism.

Students were asked to ‘produce a documentary on the impacts of the food and drink industry, that exposes a significant current issue, presents balanced and well-evidenced perspectives, and develops a recommendation for action’.

Within the field of management significant attention has been paid to teaching based upon the case-study method and problem-based learning, both of which have been associated with the acquisition of ‘functional knowledge’ useful in the professional context. The benefits of these approaches have been identified as anchoring learning in real-world application. Guest speakers, selected to provide different perspectives on the topic, emphasized the real-world nature of the learning. Further, several experiential challenges were used to focus attention on issues - for example, setting a daily budget of £2 highlighted issues of access to healthy nutrition for those on a low-income or benefits.

Our students were also asked to discuss a short criticism of a recent documentary, with reference to guidelines from BBC on critical investigations, which shared many characteristics with texts on critical reading and writing. This helped develop their understanding of the marking criteria and expectations of the submission. We then used several waves of brainstorming to help students develop and enhance their topics allowing considerable freedom of choice in the final assignment.

In keeping with the theme, students from Campus TV have been capturing student feedback, teaching perspectives, and speakers’ observations, and will produce a short documentary for broadcast later in the year.

Paul Caulfield is currently ESCR/FME Fellow in the Centre for Business and Society in the School of Management. He was winner of the University’s 2012 ‘Innovation in Learning & Teaching’ award

Bath student takes home SET 2012 award

L ast summer I was lucky enough to win one of the prestigious Science, Engineering and Technology (SET) Awards 2012,

and attend the award ceremony in Kensington Town Hall, London.

The SET Awards are presented to the student of the year in categories ranging from Maths to Engineering, and claim to be Europe’s most important awards for science and technology undergraduates.

I was therefore honoured to receive the award for Aerospace Engineering for my final year project, entitled ‘Breaking the Rules in Composite Laminate Design’. My project was inspired by the idea that moving away from standard industry practices could

yield significant benefits. The use of composite materials within the aerospace industry has increased dramatically in recent years, driven by the need to reduce aircraft weight and fuel burn. This has culminated in the development of Boeing’s 787 Dreamliner and its competitor the A350 XWB, built by Airbus, sponsor of the Aerospace Engineering award.

I’ve always been interested in flying and found the structures units during my course at Bath suited my strengths. My final year project therefore seemed like an excellent opportunity to combine these facets and make a valuable contribution to the field. I really enjoyed carrying out the research work, as I did my entire undergraduate study. Although I had more questions by the end of the project than at the start, I was pleased with the work I had done and thought it was largely successful.

I am grateful to my supervisors Dr Richard Butler and Professor Giles Hunt, as they supported me throughout the project. In fact I enjoyed the project so much that I decided to stay on and do a PhD at Bath in order to answer some of those questions - or potentially to generate even more! Attending the SET Awards was a great way to round off my undergraduate years and being presented with the award itself was a genuinely unexpected bonus.

Tim Fletcher is now a full-time PhD researcher in the Department of Mechanical Engineering. He is continuing his work in the field of aerospace engineering, having completed his undergraduate study in the department earlier this year.

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T his year marks 20 years since the very first student graduated from

the University’s first distance learning programme, now called the MSc International Construction Management. That student was Vernon Rowland. He had just taken retirement when he started the programme in 1989, and he graduated three years later aged 64.

I remember embarking upon the development of Construction Management with colleagues from the Department of Architecture & Civil Engineering with a modest grant of £30k, which I had secured from the University Grants Commission. We had been concerned about low full-time numbers, and the international character of construction ideally lent itself to a flexible distance approach. We started with a challenging aim of securing 30 students in the first year - but achieved 70 admissions in the first month! Many innovations in our learning and teaching can be traced back to that early success - it quickly led to Masters courses in sports medicine, rheumatology, environmental management and electrical power systems, thanks to continued success in winning teaching development grants.

This was pioneering work - sometimes against a less than conducive backdrop. But our focus was consistently on the learner experience, with an attention to market research, which was not a University requirement in those days! The saying is to think big and start small, and that is exactly what we did. After making a sucess of our distance learning courses we took them online. Serendipity played some part in my opportunity to work with the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh, which led to Bath’s first e-learning degree and to the Department for Health becoming the first

department in the University to implement Moodle. Today the University has more than 1500 distance learning postgraduates (40 per cent of the PGT total) studying in our Faculties of Science, Engineering & Humanities and Social Sciences. Subsequently many colleagues across the University have developed wonderful and creative online learning opportunities - activity-based learning, virtual worlds and work-based learning - all of which have significantly enhanced Bath’s reputation. All these examples originate from creative and committed individual teachers; we need to maintain structures that allow them to continue to experiment and innovate. Vernon Rowland now lives in Australia. He represents all those distance students who came after him. To date, 1624 have graduated. They might not have had the opportunity to study at Bath without this form of provision. Recently I had the privilege to be invited to be Editor of a book that celebrates the achievements of National Teaching Fellows across the country. The book, sub-titled ‘Innovations from Outstanding University Teachers’, showcases many wonderful examples of innovation in learning and teaching across disciplines and institutions. In Bath we can be assured that we up there with the best.

Tim Bilham is Director of Studies for Postgraduate Healthcare Programmes in the Department for Health, and Director of the Faculty Flexible Learning Project. He received the University Innovation in Learning & Teaching Award in 2005 and was made a National Teaching Fellow in 2007. His book, For the Love of Learning: Innovations from Outstanding University Teachers, is due to be published in 2013.

Case studies allow students to apply the theoretical knowledge they learn in class to specific situations, giving

them the opportunity to develop essential analytical skills. However, all too often students will ask ‘is it actually like this in real life?’

Seeking to overcome these limitations, we have developed a case study for a final year unit in Management Consulting in the School of Management which takes particular account of learning technologies to support the student learning experience. We enhanced a research-derived case study in three ways making use of Mahara:

1. Creation of a websiteFirst, we used Mahara, an e-portfolio application, to host what appears to be a website for the company in the case study. This offers all the normal digital benefits of student access and usability, but critically it also allows the information on the case study company to be updated, just as it would in real life. Students therefore have to pay close attention to the website for updates on the case study company.

2. Using Mahara to facilitate online team collaborationWe then used Mahara to host an online workspace for each of the student teams, allowing them to communicate online and to share documents. This resembles actual practice where management teams might be scattered around the world and rarely meet in person. It also has practical benefits in facilitating student communication, providing a record of student interactions and progress, and in hosting project documentation.

3. Practitioner involvementFinally, alumni of the School of Management who are now experienced practitioners role played as members of the case study company. This gave the students a very strong sense of reality, especially when they had to engage in a question and answer session with a partner of a major professional service firm! All the presentations were captured using the Panopto lecture capture platform to ensure the moderation and external examiner involvement could be maintained.

Some key lessons:• Thesecasestudiesgothroughchangesovertime,asthe

students engage with them. This is not a one-off exercise, the case studies adapt and grow.

• Clearrulesareneededtogovernthewayinwhichthecase study runs – but within those rules students have the freedom to be creative.

• Innovativetechnologiescanmakeasignificantcontributionto student learning and help replicate real life.

• Ittakestimetodevelopcasestudieslikethis–thecurrentcase study is now in its third iteration.

Dr Nicholas Kinnie is Associate Dean of Undergraduate Taught Studies in the School of Management.

Nitin Parmar is a Learning Technology Officer in LTEO, responsible for exploring, promoting and supporting the use of a range of e-Learning tools within the university context.

Innovation: from small beginnings…

Taking the case study to the next level

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Learning & TeachingEnhancement Office

Gwen van der VeldenDirectorEmail: g.m.vandervelden@bath.ac.ukTel: +44 (0) 1225 383775

James MacdonaldHead of Student Learning Experience & QualityEmail: j.macdonald@bath.ac.ukTel: +44 (0) 1225 385273

Dr Helen KingHead of Academic Staff DevelopmentEmail: h.king@bath.ac.ukTel: +44 (0) 1225 386933

Kyriaki AnagnostopoulouHead of e-LearningEmail: k.anagnostopoulou@bath.ac.ukTel: +44 (0) 1225 385578

Magdalen Ward GoodbodyDirector - English Language CentreEmail: m.m.ward-goodbody@bath.ac.ukTel: +44 (0) 1225 386191

LTEO Main Contacts

Published by the Learning & Teaching Enhancement Office (LTEO) at the University of Bath