Design and evaluation of a 'Making history' group project for history undergraduates at UCL. Students used Mahara to showcase outcomes of research-based learning in year 1. Presented at APT2014, Greenwich, July 2014.

1. Making History in the Digital Age
Vicki Dale1, Mira Vogel1, Paul Walker2, Zubin Mistry3 and Margot Finn3
1E-Learning Environments, 2Centre for the Advancement for Learning and Teaching,
3Department of History, University College London
Main contact: m.vogel@ucl.ac.uk
http://pixabay.com/en/london-silhouette-skyline-city-147791/

2. Rationale for Making History Group Project
• To promote research-based learning (Healey, 2005) in
new first year history curriculum
• To help students develop:
– Digital literacies (Mahara, iPads)
– Historical skills (original research, primary sources)
– Other employability skills (groupwork, communication, time
management, critical thinking, presentation)
• To encourage student engagement with London’s rich
historical past
• Complement to parallel ‘Writing History’ course

3. (Wordle of text from the course handbook)

4. Design of student project
• Groups of 6-8
• Decide their research
question
• Website using different
media and modes
• Three group essays
including one on
teamwork process
• One 20min presentation
• Weekly logs of planning
and progress
Assessment criteria not
specific to web genre but
originality double-weighted.
A single mark shared by all
group members.

5. Comparison for Teaching Committee - http://goo.gl/HEcCu2
• Assessment would be single mark per group; in need of
show space more than collaborative space
• Operational issues loomed large (academics convinced
that tech would pose the problems)
Staff choice of platform

6. Technical questions are pedagogy questions
are ethical questions
What risks do
we anticipate
and how can we
manage them?”
Should all
students have
the same
powers?
Should they
have
maximum
powers?
e.g. should students
have a Member role
or an Admin role in
their Mahara group?

7. e.g. how can students balance ownership and
sharing?

8. e.g. what do
students need to
know about
assessors’ needs?
https://myportfolio.ucl.ac.uk/vie
w/view.php?id=41235
(not public access)
Delclaux, Ruumi, Helm,
McBurnie, Cassir, Saunders,
Tushingham, and Rist, 2013.

9. Some of the other questions we settled
• Do local deadlines have any grip on work embedded from
third party sites?
• How might students who are reluctant to directly edit each
other’s work influence each other?
• Would an exemplar group space help or interfere with
creativity?
• How can students best be inducted to Mahara en masse?

10. Evaluation
• Student survey (response 33/150=22%)
• Focus groups (n=5)
• Interviews with PGTA tutors (n=8) and course leaders (n=2)
• Interested in ascertaining views about:
– Groupwork
– MyPortfolio (Mahara)
– Assessment process
– Skills developed

11. Groupwork
• Generally positive
– Friendships formed
– Learned to solve issues
themselves
– Students found own niche
• However…
– Evidence of dysfunctional
groups/social loafing
– Tendency for male students
to predominate
• Weekly logs
– Added transparency
– (Staff) stimulated students
to work
– ‘Sanitised’ version of events
“You could tell some of them [the
weekly logs] were a very artful
constructions, and not entirely true.”
(PGTA tutor)
Student survey, n=33 Students (survey & focus groups) and tutors (interviews)

12. MyPortfolio (Mahara)
• Generally positive
– Good support from ELE
– Easy to use, students did not
require additional support
– Good way to showcase
student work
• However:
– Limited functionality, problems
embedding, design limitations
– Students left using MyPortfolio
to last minute
– Used mainly by IT savvy
students
– Not a suitable group ‘working’
space
"I didn’t have a single student … who said they
couldn’t use the platform … The platform as a
whole wasn't an impediment, and that's crucial
because it was of course meant to be a vehicle,
it wasn't supposed to be the thing that the
course was about.“
(course leader)
Student survey, n=33 Students (survey & focus groups) and tutors (interviews)

13. Assessment
• Generally straightforward for
tutors to mark
– Weekly logs helped tutors, though
they made an effort to assess
‘finished product’
• Mixed student views on peer
assessment
– Some found it easy, some felt
criteria were vague
• Mixed views on allocation of
‘group mark’
– Some thought fair, others not fair
“All members of the group should not receive the same mark. There should be
at least one element of the course which is individually assessed to give every
member of the group the incentive to commit to working as a team, otherwise a
few members of the group can get away without putting in any effort and still
get the same mark as a person in the group who worked the most.”
(student)
Student survey, n=33 Students (survey & focus groups) and tutors (interviews)

14. Skills
• Digital literacies
– Range of literacy levels
– Using other internet tools
– Students saw relevance of
blogging as a medium
• History skills
– Primary sources
– Original research
– Historiography
– Material culture
• Other generic skills
– Groupwork, working with others
professionally
– Communication & presentation
– Time management & organisation
– Referencing
– Interviewing
– Writing
– Dealing with ethical issues
Student survey, n=33 Students (survey & focus groups) and tutors (interviews)
As a result of the MHGP, I consider
myself to be more effective at …

15. Conclusions and other observations
• Commended by external examiner
• Engaged students successfully in primary research from day 1
• Tutors (PGTAs) saw themselves as facilitators rather than
information-transmitters
• MyPortfolio (Mahara) fit for purpose although limited
– Recent upgrade allows for more flexibility
• Evidence of functional and dysfunctional groupwork, including
‘sanitising’ groupwork accounts and unequal division of labour
• Assessment straightforward though some reluctance towards
shared group mark
• Other observations: So much follows from the assessment
strategy.

16. References
• Delclaux, A., Ruumi, A., Helm, C., McBurnie, C., Cassire, J., Saunders,
K., Tushingham, P., Rist, R. 2013. Welcome to Hooray for a 4a3 foray
into History's MyPortfolio Page. Making History group project webpage
[not public access], UCL.
• Gourlay, L. and Oliver, M. 2013. Digital Literacies as a Postgraduate
Attribute project. Available at:
http://jiscdesignstudio.pbworks.com/w/page/50732695/Digital%20Liter
acies%20as%20a%20Postgraduate%20Attribute%20project
[Accessed 3 July 2014]
• Healey, M. 2005. Linking research and teaching: exploring disciplinary
spaces and the role of inquiry-based learning. In: Barnett, R. (ed.)
Reshaping the University: New Relationships between Research,
Scholarship and Teaching. McGraw Hill/Open University Press. pp.67-
78.