What Works & Why

Editor's Notes

• #3: There are many national and international reports highlighting the challenges facing higher education today and the potential of Technology Enhanced Learning. We are teaching in an environment of increasing student numbers, decreasing staff numbers. Staff development is highlighted as key. There is ongoing need for continuing professional development for teachers to support them in working smarter, working collaboratively and making the best use of TEL
• #4: As is evidenced by those of us here in the room, there IS tremendous work going in the educational technology field to support the student learning experience. The problem is that often it is individual effort and the lessons learned and benefits gained do not funnel down impact the practice of all teaching staff.
• #5: We wanted to spread more widely across our academic community, the affordances in learning technologies so in conjunction with our partners, this project sought to build digital literacy and engagement for both students and teachers by exploring the question: “What works and why?”. Our focus was to work within discipline specific contexts to support innovations in learning through technology.
• #6: Let us ask you….
• #7: At an early stage we sought to capture the student voice and their experiences of technology to inform the project. The reliance that the student see on Powerpoint is indicative of how important it is promote the use of innovative technologies to support T&L. As a result of this and feedback from staff, workshops, tabletop cards and other materials were developed further embed TEL enabled teaching approaches shared in the workshops
• #8: So what we did to tackle this, to support the spread of digital literacies On average we ran more than one workshop a week, over a five month period with a bulk of activity concentrating with an intense week We funded 26 different projects, small projects with a maximum of 2000 euro. Pre brexit time so that equates to roughly 1200pounds, now about 1600 pounds but we won’t even go there  We had 15 teaching groups, 12 internal groups i.e. all members belong to the one institution and then 3 groups than spread across institutions. I’ll talk more to these later on
• #9: Workshops and CPD events ran across TEL week and in fact over the full 6 months of the project. Just a few a referenced here.
• #10: Time today doesn’t permit an indepth discussion of the exciting projects supported but here is a snapshot of some of the projects funded across the institutions, all a focus on discipline specific contexts. Similar projects across institutions were connected and encouraged to collaborate.
• #11: There’s a full list of projects on our project website and even though the project has wound down – the website is our legacy. It is well worth a visit
• #12: What we found worked….most effectively for us… was Teaching groups. Teaching groups – essentially peer mentoring circles - were formed by teachers for teachers to discuss and share information on varied topics. Some met online, some did small workshops and others organised large scale events but all with the idea of sharing TEL approaches with peers. The formation of these groups is consistent with Heinrich’s (2013) research on the role that teaching groups play in scaffolding contextually rich pedagogical change which supports sustainable curriculum development.
• #13: Over 160 attended WW&W events and more participated in projects and teaching groups. So how do we evaluate this project – was it actually a success? I’ve no doubt that it was. Attendees were invited to evaluate the events based on the IEF by Coolbear and Hinton which measures Reach, Impact on Practice, Impact on Learners, Impact on Project Teams. We have some very positive initial qualitative data
• #16: Teaching Groups/Peer mentoring circles are now embedded across many faculties and interest has been strong. We are confident that, now established, they will continue beyond the end date of the project. They demonstrate the strength and sustainability of the approach and one which will continue to enable the spread of digital literacies. This is our key learning from the project. Project outputs include are Briefing guides produced by these groups which provide valuable information and recommendations for the broader community considering similar explorations as well as a superb resource by our project partners. These are available on the WW&W website. An unexpected output was the creation of table top cards for viewing in public areas as another mechanism to promote the usage of learning technologies.
• #17: We know from the literature that Integration of TEL in pedagogically sound ways is more likely to be effective when embedded in course design. The short term nature of the project makes it problematic to impact at that level….however…. The impact of projects funded will be fully realised next semester as videos, quizzes and innovative teaching techniques are integrated across many discipline areas – (click) - science, humanities, computing, nursing, business and more and the potential for TEL has been showcased effectively across institutions. . (click) Evaluation of the CPD events indicates that reflection on the multiple new approaches offered has created the stimuli which will result in ongoing integration into practice. I go back the phrase that I used earlier on – we have planted a seed .
• #18: The aim of the project was to change a mindset not just a skillset and I firmly believe that’s what we have started to do We’re happy to take any of your questions and comments….