Session 10.1: Innovations in undergraduate teaching
General
Mr Jonathon Whitton, University Nottingham Hospitals
Aim: To assess the validity of an online polling website as a feedback tool for a new e-learning package.
Method: Seven new e-learning packages were constructed for undergraduate students at the University of Nottingham to improve their learning in paediatric surgery. The Nottingham University Xerte toolkit was utilised to construct the learning packages. These packages were used as an adjunct to the student’s surgical teaching and feedback was obtained by using the online voting website mentimeter.com. The feedback was designed to assess the entire paediatric surgical experience as well as the individual learning experiences.
Results: Feedback was obtained from 70% of students that participated. The feedback demonstrated a significant improvement in student knowledge provided by the e-learning packages. The preferred e-learning packages involved a case based study. The introduction of the e-learning packages improved the overall quality of the paediatric surgery experience.
Session10.2: PowerPoint is “dead”! So if you want interactive group teaching get out your whiteboards
General / Biological Sciences
Mr Paul Gregory, University of Leeds
Aim: How to facilitate group-teaching for 30-40 students in a clinical subject with the almost minimal use of Microsoft PowerPoint and yet gain the maximum level of student engagement and interactivity.
Objectives of the presentation: You will move from being “the repetitive voice in the dark” to become the “Facilitator in the light’. Learning becomes a group-orientated process supporting student learning by developing high quality learning material generated within the group to take away as a learning resource. Technology allows near instantaneous communication with vast databases and a “facilitated” learning environment can be used to incorporate this technology into the student learning process.
Session 10.5: Rethinking pedagogies for programming: Computational thinking codemanship and (software) carpentry
Computing
Dr Tom Crick, Prof James Davenport, and Dr Alan Hayes, HEI
In rethinking how we teach introductory programming to undergraduate computer scientists we have moved away from focusing primarily on syntax to developing a deeper understanding of principles of programming transferable language semantics underlying constructs and structures as well as fostering a culture of creating useful and usable software artefacts: in essence computational thinking codemanship and software carpentry. In this paper we explore and evaluate some of the pedagogies for teaching programming including assessment strategies and industrial engagement as well as practical solutions to the question of whether programming should be viewed a craft and is best learned as a practical skill — does it work best seeing the master doing it and doing it on one's own corrected by those more proficient?
