Framing an Appropriate Research Question 6b9b26d93da94caf993c038d9efcdedb.pdf
Digital insights impact on strategy
1. Digital Insights impact on strategy
Rob Howe – Head of LearningTechnology. University of Northampton.
06/06/2019
2. Why?
»History of learner experience work from 2005
»Involved in JISC tracker pilot 2016
»Link to the strategic plan
»Enhancing knowledge of the student
experience
»Address issues prior to 2018 University move
»Continuous improvement
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7. Digitised education –
Active Blended Learning
‘The programme [or module] is taught through student-
centred activities that support the development of
subject knowledge and understanding, independent
learning and digital fluency.
Our face-to-face teaching is facilitated in a practical and
collaborative manner, clearly linked to learning activity
outside the classroom. Opportunities are provided for
students to develop autonomy, Changemaker attributes
and employability skills.’
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8. Findings’ including response to findings
»Access to devices and wifi
»Frequency of access
»Guidance and support
»Response to tech used in teaching “e.g. When
digital technology is used on my course…”
»Qualitative responses
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Relationships and Collaboration
32% had worked online with others
each week
32% Felt more connected online with
other learners
38% Felt more connected online with
lecturers
53% can access support when needed.
Support mechanisms:
• 36% rely on online information
• 22% rely on lecturers
11. Interventions
»Faculty focus
› Involving:
–Deputy Dean - Faculty of Health & Society
–Head of LearningTechnology
–LearningTechnology Manager
–Faculty LearningTechnologist
–Employability & Enterprise Manager
–Students’ Union
–CIO & Director of IT (Northampton General Hospital NHSTrust)
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12. Survey of Health providers
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Please find attached a collation of the feedback from Health
providers. None of them identify any specific gaps in our
students’ digital capabilities and the requirements range from
basic things like use of email, to very specific systems.
However, they all provide training in their specific software. It
seems it is more about confidence than anything else.
13. Health systems are complex but you
don’t have to know everything
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14. What is success? (From Northampton
Hospital)
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15. Groups of staff working together
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“Laura (who is truly a shining star from the Changemaker Hub) and I
have been working hard to incorporate the Bronze Changemaker
award within a core first year accounting module - ACC1009
embedding the bronze requirements into the second assignment.
This is a trial and we are unsure if it will be a success, especially
when we have also embedded other workshops from Learning
Development and Educational Linguistics into the same module.
However the aim is to ensure that our students at UoN consider, from
an early stage in their University life, the skills required to give them
a better advantage point than others that will also be graduating.
Please feel free to enrol on the NILE site ……”
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Over the past year, Learning Technology have been working with
various teams to develop as set of guided study Etivities as part of
the Learner Support Model related to the development of digital
capabilities and skills, linked to activities that students will need to
build confidence in when studying and working in digital
environments, such as NILE, Office 365, the StudentHub, the
SkillsHub, and the Changemaker hub.
18. Don’t be afraid to fail – not all pilots
work!
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In effect, the pilot has proven that adding the resources in at a
module level is not effective, therefore embedding within more
structured support systems will be the most effective way to provide
opportunities and support for students to develop their digital
capabilities.
Centralised Professional Support – the Student Support and Advice Team
This new team, accessed via the Student Information Desk at Waterside, is intended as a first point of call for students with questions or concerns about any aspect of University life and who would require either academic advice or broader personal support. They will undertake a triage role with respect to the issues so that students most in need can get the support they need as soon as feasible.
Centralised Professional Support – the Specialist Support Teams
These teams are largely the same as previously and comprise Financial Guidance, Residential Life, ASSIST, Counselling, Accommodation etc. They are also accessed via the Student Information Desk at Waterside.
Programme-focussed Professional Support
During 2018-19, 2 Library and Learning Services (LLS) teams – the Academic Librarians and the Learning Development team, together with the Changemaker Hub will, for the first time, be delivering an embedded service to all Level 4 students through their academic programme. The 6 hours allocation of academic, employability and digital skills support is designed to be tailored to the programme of studies. From 2019-2020 onwards, it is intended that these sessions will be offered in addition to module hours. In addition, the Learning Technology team have produced a set of NILE e-tivities to support the development of student digital literacy.
Programme-focussed Academic Support
Evidence from past staff and student Personal Academic Tutor surveys demonstrates that students will usually speak to the person they have the best relationship with, should they have any concerns. This quadrant of the model is designed to increase that level of pastoral support, recognising that the primary point of contact for students will be someone from their programme team. Sector research (Thomas et al, 2017) also demonstrates that a students’ sense of belonging to their University is largely driven through their academic programme. Redesigning the role of the (renamed) Personal Tutor is intended to strengthen belonging and to help create more of a cohort identity, particularly in those first few weeks of first year through running regular group-based Personal Tutor sessions. Alongside this, the Programme Leader is expected to drive this sense of social belonging at the programme level (through acknowledging success and achievement and through organisation of programme-related activities (both academic and social). Finally, in order to support students to retrieve academic failure or non-submission over the duration of the year, rather than leaving it to the end of the year, the model requires module tutors to provide an additional 2 hours of assessment coaching.
A majority of students agreed that:
the pre-arrival communications were clear, useful and easy to use
all core sessions were useful (PT Group Welcome session was the most useful)
that WW had prepared them for life at University and was interesting and informative
BME students were consistently more satisfied with the sessions than white students
While Joint Honours (JH) students were consistently the least satisfied, a clear majority in each instance found the sessions ‘useful’ or ‘extremely useful’
Meeting new people (staff and peers) was the most overwhelming positive theme in the free-text feedback from students. This resonates with the aim of Welcome Week to support social belonging linked to and driven through the academic programme of study.
Overall, both the staff and students want to see more interaction, shorter sessions and less repetition.
