Take5
#Take5 #118 From Statistics Anxiety to Confidence: The Power of Co-design and Collaboration between Academic and Library Support in Health Education
Studies show nursing students experience significant maths anxiety (MA) (Bull 2009; McMullan, Jones and Lea 2012); this is the ‘fear or an adverse emotional response to the idea of doing mathematics’ (Hart and Ganley 2019, p. 122). As MA is correlated with lower maths performance in nurses (Bull 2009), Dr Katie Woodhouse-Skinner (Academic Skills and Statistics Tutor) and Hannah Glenn (Senior Lecturer in Adult Nursing), wanted to know whether they, as university healthcare academics and library academic support working at Nottingham Trent University (NTU), could work together to reduce MA in the healthcare curriculum, using alternative pedagogies to develop students’ […]
#Take5 #117 What’s the deal with chickens? AI’s weakness becomes a strength.
Introduction Josh Thorpe is an Academic Skills Advisor in the Faculty of Natural Sciences and Faculty of Social Sciences at the University of Stirling in Scotland. Josh has been an academic advisor and writing instructor for over 15 years. He is the author of a new book, AI for Students. It is an illustrated guide to practical strategies for working with AI tools in education—without cheating or outsourcing creative human thought. In the blog post, Josh shares a flipped model of using AI. Book cover for AI for Students by Josh Thorpe What’s the most interesting thing about AI? In […]
#Take5 #116 Educator appears perplexed with student’s statement in assignment that GenAI was used to support their learning
This #Take5 is brought to you by Chrissi Nerantzi, Professor in Creative and Open Education at the University of Leeds. Chrissi shares a real-life scenario of a student’s use and declaration of AI and asks how you would react if one of your students declared their use of GenAI. Chrissi provides some useful questions to reflect upon and shares some openly licensed crowdsourced collections if you would like to learn a little bit more about emerging GenAI supported creative practices together with critical perspectives. What follows actually happened. At this stage I have many questions, which made me think. An […]
#Take5 #115 How Much AI-Generated Text Can Students Use?
This #Take5 is brought to you from Eva Shackel, a learning developer at Bath Spa University. Eva is co-chair of the ALDinHE Community of Practice on AI, and is currently researching students’ use of GenAI. Last year she wrote her university’s guidance on AI use, and here are her reflections on the decision making processes that went into deciding what to allow. Bath Spa’s Lessons from the Academic Phrasebank It’s a full academic year since I wrote Bath Spa University’s guidelines for students on using Generative AI (GenAI). At the time, I felt quite daring in stating that not only […]
#Take5 #114 10 reasons why it is good for you to #Take5
This #Take5 is brought to you by Dr Katharine Jewitt, Associate Lecturer, Researcher and Consultant at The Open University. As the new academic year gets underway, Katharine shares 10 reasons why it is good for you to #Take5 and invites you to read, comment and write for ALDinHE’s Take5 blog. Katharine is Co-Editor of #Take5 alongside University Teaching Fellow and Associate Teaching Professor, Sandra Sinfield at London Metropolitan University and always in spirit, Tom Burns Co-Founder and Editor of Take 5, who sadly passed away shortly after this blog was published on 23 October 2024. The #Take5 blog is the […]
#Take5 #113 “Many hands make light work”
by Helena Beeson and Anne-Marie Langford from the University of Northampton Introduction How many workers does it take to change a light bulb? This blog post is about a light bulb moment (pun literally intended). Helena Beeson and Anne-Marie Langford from the University of Northampton share a reflection on their learning development practice and how it can impact on others. The Challenge On our way back from the fabulous and thought provoking ALDinHE conference on the Tuesday evening with time to spare on the long train journey from Glasgow to Northampton (with a refreshing mini break at Rugby!) two weary, […]
#Take5 #112 Playful Pedagogies: Enhancing Hybrid Higher Education Through Creativity and Engagement
Introduction The COVID-19 pandemic has necessitated a rapid evolution in teaching methodologies, leading to the widespread adoption of hybrid education – an amalgamation of in-person and online instruction, synchronous and asynchronous activities, and compulsory and flexible tasks. This paradigm shift has prompted educators to explore innovative approaches to engage students effectively in hybrid learning environments. In this blog, Sandra Abegglen, Mia Brewster, Fabian Neuhaus and Sarah Wilkins, all from the University of Calgary, share how their Playful Hybrid Higher Education project seeks to address this challenge by investigating the integration of play and creativity into hybrid teaching practices. The Study […]
#Take5 #111 The art of storytelling
This #Take5 provides a summary of the recent LD@3 event “The art of storytelling for Learning Developers: how to transform complex ideas into compelling narratives” that took place on the 27 June 2024 with Dr Katharine Jewitt, Consultant and Associate Lecturer and Researcher at The Open University. Katharine looks at why stories work so well, sharing some of the secrets of great storytellers and explores types of stories you can use in your own work. Katharine delved into the art of storytelling, offering invaluable insights and practical techniques to effectively communicate with students with empathy, clarity, and impact. During the […]
#Take5 #110 So you want to be a National Teaching Fellow? Support for Learning Development Practitioners who aspire to be NTFs
This #Take5 is brought to you from Dr Steve Briggs, Director for Learning and Teaching Excellence at the University of Bedfordshire. Steve is a former ALDinHE Co-Chair and currently a member of the Committee for the Association of National Teaching Fellows. Over the last eight years Steve has championed and led work that serves to promote recognition for Learning Development Practitioners. The potential to be hidden Learning Development Practitioners play a crucial role in supporting student success and student outcomes. However, such contributions are typically part of integrated support structures as such raising the profile of the impact, value and […]
#Take5 #109 Waiting for the Gods: We’ve been saying embedded is good for ages, so why isn’t it happening more?
This post is brought to you from Drs Mark Bassett and Lucy Macnaught at Te Wānanga Aronui o Tāmaki Makau Rau Auckland University of Technology in Aotearoa New Zealand. As many of us know from experience – and shared frustration – although embedded practices are efficient and effective, they are not well supported. It seems we need to do much more to convince leadership of our value. In this blog, Mark and Lucy discuss their recently published systematic literature review of empirical research into the impacts of embedded academic literacy development: https://doi.org/10.1080/13562517.2024.2354280. An embedded approach It often feels like we […]
