6. Level 4 sessions
Finding the
good stuff
(60mins)
• An introduction to finding and
evaluating academic material.
Introducing NELSON, reading lists,
keyword and context searching,
situated with the modern
information climate.
Ethical use
of
information
(30mins)
• How to use and refer to sources in
an ethical manner (e.g. referencing)
Introduce self
Overview of presentation
To give an overview of UoN’s new ILS model
Give some honest feedback about what has/hasn’t worked during this pilot year and what we’ll do different in 19/20
Discuss tactics used to increase capacity within the team, to enable an increase to our teaching loads
New £330 million Waterside campus opened to students to students in Aug 18
Library relocated to “Learning Hub”, shared building with a Learning Commons ethos.
Teaching, learning spaces, academic offices, professional services & library resources all in one building, no designated “library space”, managed by committee. Designed to be flexible and adaptable
At the same time a new teaching & learning strategy “Active Blended Learning” has been implemented University wide
No lecture theatres, greater reliance on technology
Programmes completely redesigned e.g. pre-activity, face to face session (small group, active in some way e.g. team based learning), post session activity to consolidate. Not necessarily a reduction in face to face, but active, small group, higher quality interaction.
Other initiatives introduced e.g. hot desking, agile working, paperless.
However, we do have a problem with
Progression
Retention
Declining year on year continuation
Vulnerable students with increasingly complex needs, engagement with professional services in some areas low
Variations in the quality and consistency of the Personal Academic Tutor support:
Institute of Learning & Teaching decided to introduce a new model to help tackle this.
Integrated Learner Support – an overview
The team around the student, supports our strategic mission to be super supportive and to enhance student success.
Four parts as explained in diagram.
Previously all had happened, but not in a joined up way. Disparity, working in silos, inconsistency with student experience and gaps where we could lose students.
What does this mean on the ground?
Additional contact time at level 4 this is an additional 42 hours
(4 hours group tutorials, 20 hours co-working (PT), 12 hours assignment preparation (module team), 1:1 PT support plus 6 hour embedded academic, employability, digital skills support)
22 hours per year at level 5 and 6
Aims are:
Student continuation at Level 4 To reduce our withdrawal rates to 7% in Year 1 / increase our continuation rates to 93%
Progression to level 5 To increase our rate of progression from Level 4 to Level 5 to 83%
Specifically what it meant for ALs
Programme Focussed Professional Services Support is 6 hours mandatory contact time at each level from the three teams involved.
From an AL perspective this is 1.5 hour at Level 4, 2 hours at Level 5 and 1 hour Level 6
Means we will see every UG student on each year of their programme
Political will to enforce, coming from ILT & supported by UMT, compliance compulsory.
Delivery had to fit the ABL teaching model.
These sessions will be co-delivered with Personal Tutor support at Level 4 to support transition and continuation. These sessions will deliver an entitlement curriculum appropriate to the academic level that is versioned to achieve a subject/programme-specific focus An appropriate curriculum for Levels 5 and 6 will be developed in readiness for the roll-out of ILS in 2019-2020 and beyond.
PTs work alongside the Programme Leader and Learning Development, Academic Librarians and Learning Technology teams to embed academic and digital skills into the subject-specific curriculum staged according to academic level, thereby facilitating students’ academic progress. These activities may include: helping students develop their study skills, helping students understand feedback on assessed work and helping students create action plans for improving their academic performance, including supporting transition to the next academic level. PTs also provide personalised 1:1 support as appropriate through scheduled sessions or drop-ins. PTs refer their tutees to the University’s Student Support Team, for advice and support in relation to complex progression issues as well as navigating policies, such a mitigating circumstances, study breaks and re-starts. See PAT resources on the ILT website and also the new Learner Support, Personal Tutor and Welcome Week shared resource area on Tundra.
Went through a course design process with the other two teams to look at distribution over three years.
Standard learning objectives across all programmes, but designed to be interpreted in a context relevant to the programme.
6 LOs from the 3 team ours
gather, assimilate and critically evaluate information from a range of sources, spheres and media.
evaluate appropriate legal and ethical frameworks surrounding information and make judgements about their selection and application.
Outlines for the two sessions
Timetabling – new campus and concerns about capacity in terms of timetabling. Therefore in this first year the first session for all three teams was scheduled during Tue-Fri of WW.
Issues in terms of no longer “fully embedded”, it was not timely as timetabling meant it came earlier than subject sessions for some teams.
We’re a team of 5, it was physically impossible for us to cover between us as often 5+ sessions happening concurrently. Had to rope in others from the department who had previously been librarians or with recent teaching experience from other roles.
No longer embedded and tailored. Instead focussed on the transition to HE, audit of current skills, real-life application e.g. fake news, images, how this relates to HE & intro to some of the tools they’ll need. Activity based, generate discussion, generally well received with feedback centrally collated indicating that students found sessions useful.
This first session was part of a three hour block with the other team – too much, not timed right & consequently too generic.
The second session around the ethical use of information allowed us to redress some of these problems – scheduled more appropriately & more capacity to adapt for the specific subject. Although half hour was mandatory, in reality most programmes gave us an hour.
Smaller groups = more repeat sessions (but a better student experience)
Consistent for all level 4 students, every programme seen (though attendance poor in some of the initial sessions) – this was 132 session and 2208 students during this week
Co-delivery of 1st session with the PT in the room helpful in a) building relationships, b) academic colleagues knowing what we offer c) giving our support credence by association. Also good for developing relationships with LD & CM. Students at least knew who we were.
Consequently all but 4 programmes scheduled us for the 2nd session. Deans & UMT have been positive in ensuring compliance, but surprisingly some subject areas where it’s been historically hard for us to get in the door have been very receptive, recognised the values and subsequently brought us in to see levels 5-6/and or PG.
Four programmes that haven’t engaged with 2nd session all from the same Faculty, has been reported back. Won’t name & shame, but it wasn’t a surprise who they were!
No of workshop compared to 17/18: 444 workshops compared with 257 last year (extra 187) [across all levels] Increase of 73%
No of hours 429 hours compared with 241.5 (extra 187.5 hours) Increase of 78%
No of students 7,139 compared with 4934 (extra 2205) Increase of 44.5%
There was an interim review with survey on WW published in March. Mix of qual & quant
Survey reviewed all WW sessions incl. ours – well received by students (scored in the middle), though they confirmed what we also though about length of sessions & scheduling. Academic staff feedback indicated they felt there was too much scheduled, not enough autonomy which we agreed with too.
ILT currently reviewing ILS (focus groups, surveys both staff and students)
Will take a full cycle to see if a real impact.
Monthly community of practice – mix of PTs and associated professional services staff.
Small team – 4 faculty librarians plus me as manager
Increase not only in delivery of workshops but planning and liaising associated with this. Increased demand for support at other levels plus a greater awareness of other services we support e.g. Aspire, quality events etc. Compounded with a huge move & large amount of change e.g. learning new teaching room software, network issues etc.
Immediate concern was the capacity and workloads of the team
What can we stop doing? Who can help?
Extra support from within the department & redesigning workflows
Service Development supervisor – manages our generic inbox, offering tutorials on referencing, plus most drop-ins but also other admin tasks e.g. updating web content, collating stats, contacting new academics etc.
Coincided with a restructure to our resources department & redesign of some roles – which was needed to redress the change in print v electronic resources.
Reading list team created who deal with the day to day ordering of books, purchasing formulas, aspire reviews for auto-purchasing newly added items, basic admin of lists & supporting tutors.
Move from subject budgets to faculty budgets, resources manager does the day liaison with reps and suppliers & finance
AL still makes decision, but presented with info, negotiated price, usage stats etc. – cuts out the administration. Once decision made resources will do waivers, implementation etc. A lot of work in the redesign of workflows to streamline all processes
Disparity in the size of faculties in terms of students numbers & the range of subjects e.g. Health huge in both, FBL large numbers, FAST large cognate load.
Doesn’t include EWO which is 4,970 (actually 31%) of student body
EWO 4970
FHS 3338
FBL 2953
FAST 2105
EH 1432
JH 787
15,602 in total, 10,500 on campus
Additional interventions to manage this.
Keeping workloads even
Timetable for tutorials, 15 hours of contact during autumn, reduced to 10 in Spring/Summer (roughly)
Automated booking system – cutting down on admin, better for students
Opening up so that any member of the team will see any student
Greater flexibility with who deliver sessions
Asking for 2 weeks notice when booking a session to allow time for preparation & to ensure a more equal allocation of work
Preparation key - regular planning workshops as a team, sharing of our resources, central storage, “menu” that we offer academics, making the most of the summer so we’re ready to roll out in the Autumn
Working with LD – helping with liaison, more cohesive sessions,
Moved to a weekly team meeting, rather than fortnightly. Might seem counter intuitive, but more regular meetings help with team building & resolving problems quickly.
Giving up office beneficial – can see where pressure points are, reallocate work where necessary, pick up quick queries (less email), make sure they’re taking breaks
Not as easy as it looks on paper, some resistance initially on “giving up” students, confidence on supporting other subject areas – quickly realised it’s not as bad as we’d feared. Open outlook diaries so I can ensure they’re not getting overloaded & can suggest where reallocation might be beneficial.
Some concerns about the dilution of our role, feeling less connected to collections (however feedback from SSLCs/NSS etc. seems to suggest that actually we’re getting the collections right)
Fully integrated, academic year has been stretched by two weeks to allow tutor so support can be delivered at point of need. Stops it bottle necking into one week e.g. WW or a “reading week”, spreads load over a longer period, tutors don’t feel they are losing their contact time & it is a genuine 6 hours of additional contact time.
More flexibility with the delivery of the LOs, can be tailored more for subjects/assignments but preparing a range of activities than can be used in a “pick & mix type way”.
Continued collaboration with LD, approaching programmes together. More holistic & can piggy back on each others relationships.
Obviously going to be a further increase in number of workshop delivered as rolling out to level 5 (though we are already seeing a lot programmes already at L5 & L6 – this just makes it mandatory) – have tried forecasting based on this year