Dustin Hosseini 26/09/2023 Dustin Hosseini 26/09/2023

Exploring ideas for decolonizing the curriculum using generative AI tools

In this post, I share some examples created by generative AI for decolonizing the curriculum. I also contextualize the examples by providing commentary from colleagues from the University of Glasgow Decolonising the Curriculum Community of Practice.

“The master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house.”

— Audre Lorde

Decolonizing education is part of many university strategies, including the university where I work. So, it seemed natural to think of how generative AI tools might help university students and staff think of ideas for decolonizing the curriculum. However, we must remember that the underlying logic of generative AI represents tools created by those in nations that hold power over others. Generative AI tools are often created in former imperial nations that seek out and obtain cheaper labor in other parts of the world to train and ‘develop’ the tools further. Generative AI also imparts a significant environmental impact, which must be considered.

AI and ethical considerations: coloniality of…

There are several caveats to using AI and generative AI generally, which I briefly outline in Karen Hao’s article from July 2020:

ghost work
- this is invisible labor provided by underpaid workers who are often in former US and UK colonies (among others)
beta testing
- sometimes beta testing is used on more vulnerable groups; yes, this is unethical, but it does still happen
AI governance
- think about who creates governance for AI; high-wealth nations and the Global North largely drive this at the expense of Global South nations
international social development
- if we consider ‘AI for…’ initiatives, we have to consider who drives these and who the targets or recipients are
algorithmic discrimination and oppression
- if we consider who creates algorithms, then we can begin to understand why some algorithms can portray racist, gendered, xenophobic imagery

Generative AI’s suggestions for decolonizing

For the following outputs, as shown in the GIF images below, I used the initial prompt:

I'm a lecturer and there is talk of decolonising the curriculum. I teach mathematics and statistics. What can I do to start decolonising my curriculum?

As we can see in the GIFs below, each generative AI tool appears to give some considered suggestions for how a lecturer in this particular area might go about decolonizing the curriculum they teach. Ideas such as incorporating more diverse views, Indigenous knowledges and contextualizing what is being learned are all general suggestions that I might expect to find in such a curriculum that is undertaking decolonizing.

However, I wanted to see more detail and so I followed up with another prompt.

The follow-up prompt was designed to see what else generative AI might suggest. Interestingly, with insight from colleagues, plenty could be done and suggested to create a curriculum that undertakes decolonization within a specific context.

In this case, the lists seemed familiar and similar in some respects and then a bit different in other respects in ways that I couldn’t immediately pick up on. The suggested names stem from ancient to modern times, albeit with a jump between ancient and modern times! Some familiar names are there, but are there perhaps some that could be included?

Here is the prompt I used:

What are some prominent but overlooked non-Western scholars of mathematics and statistics?

Reflections from colleagues

I consulted some colleagues, given the topic, the example is from an area I’m not familiar with. Specifically, I consulted colleagues in the UofG Decolonising the Curriculum Community of Practice who kindly provided their thoughts.

Soryia Siddique, whose background is in chemistry/pharmaceuticals/politics, provided the following:

My initial observation is that we ensure women of colour are represented in the materials. Perhaps a specific search around this.
BAME and Muslim women are underrepresented in many professions, including senior roles in Scotland, and are likely to experience systemic bias. Taking into consideration that Muslim women can experience racisim, sexism, and Islamaphobia. It is questionable whether media/society represents Muslim and BAME women's current and historical achievements.
They are also "missing” from Scotland’s media landscape.
In utilising AI, are we relying on data that is embedded in algorithmic bias and potentially perpetuating further inequality?

Soryia also suggested the following reading: The Movement to Decolonize AI: Centering Dignity Over Dependency from Standford University’s Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence. It’s an interview with Sabelo Mhlambi who describes the role of AI in colonization and how activists can counter this.

Samuel Skipsey, whose background is in physics and astronomy, also shared his thoughts:

The "list of important non-Westerners" is fairly comparable between the two - Bard is more biased towards historical examples and is pretty India-centric (with no Chinese or Japanese examples, notably), ChatGPT does a lot better at covering a wider baseline of "top hits" across the world (although given that "Nine Chapters on the Mathematical Art" doesn't have known authors - the tradition of the time it was written means that it probably had many contributions whose authorship is lost to history - I would quibble about it being a "scholar"). I note that this is still a Northern-Hemisphere centric list from both - although that's somewhat expected due to the problems citing material from pre-colonial Latin America, say. Still, it would have been nice to see some citation of contributions from Egypt, say.
In general, both lists are subsets of the list I would have produced by doing some Wikipedia diving.
The "advice on decolonising" is very high-level and tick-boxy from both. It feels like they're sourced from a web search (and, indeed, on an experimental search on DDG [DuckDuckGo] for "how can I decolonise my course" the first few hits all have a set of bullet points similar to those produced by the LLMs, which is unsurprising). To be fair to the LLMs, this is also basically what a lot of "how do I start decolonising" materials look like when produced by humans, so...
As Soryia notes, because the answers are quite generic there's a bunch of specific considerations that they don't touch on (they're not very intersectional - Hypatia turns up on both lists of non-Western scholars, doing a lot of heavy lifting as the only female name on either!)

Dustin Hosseini 26/09/2023 Dustin Hosseini 26/09/2023

Experimenting with generative AI: (re)designing courses and rubrics

In this post, I share some ideas for (re)creating courses and assessment rubrics as well as getting ideas for creative assessments using generative AI.

Experimenting for creating a course

I tried out Google Bard and chatGPT 3.5 to design courses and rubrics. In each case, being specific about what I wanted to see created was key. What this means is that when you are creating your prompt or query, you should be specific in terms of:

Context: e.g. state who you are or who you imagine yourself to be when creating the prompt
Audience: who is the audience of what you want to create? Students? Staff? Administrators? Management? The Public?
Purpose: in brief terms, what do you want to achieve?
Scope: similar to context, however, I see this as more focused, so ‘create a university level course on sociology’ is fine, but narrowing it down to ‘Year 1, Year 2’ etc. will focus the prompt and subsequently generate examples more tightly.
Length: it’s always helpful to state the length of the proposed course or output. For example, are you asking for a draft of a 12-week course? A two-page maximum syllabus? A three-paragraph summary?

For this example, I used the following prompt…

I am a lecturer who teaches university-level chemistry. I wish to create a new course on inorganic chemistry for Year 2 university students. The course should be 12 weeks long and have 4 assignments. What might this look like?

Below are two GIFs showing chatGPT and Google Bard respectively.

NB: You may wish to select the images to see a larger version.

Brief reflections

I used a similar prompt for both generative AI tools. I decided to add an element of creativity when so I slightly changed the prompt when using Google Bard to get it to suggest creative assessments. I then went back to chatGPT to ask it do also suggest ideas for creative assessments within the context of this course.

They seem to produce similar results regarding this particular prompt. Both suggest an outline of a suggested course on inorganic chemistry; while Google Bard integrates the creative assessments into some of the topics, chatGPT predictably creates a list of suggested creative assessments as I had asked it after the initial prompt.

Interestingly, Google Bard also expands a bit at the end of the outline with further examples of non-written, creative assessments. chatGPT, on the other hand, does give some examples of ways of supporting learning and teaching after creating an example course outline. The creative assessments it lists are similar to those of Google Bard, although they are different, such as the quiz show example among others.

For transparency, I do not teach chemistry nor have I taught it. I have, however, supported those learning chemistry with their academic writing abilities, including writing lab reports and researching the topic. On the surface, the course looks coherent. However, I will leave that to those who teach chemistry!

What you can do

To replicate what I’ve done, copy and paste the prompt into your generative AI tool of choice.
Please note: you’ll likely get a slightly different response. I did not test each response again. That said, Google Bard automatically offers additional draft examples.

Creating assessment rubrics

Educators are often handed marking rubrics with little chance to develop or create their own. What this means is that when it comes to creating an assessment rubric, some educators may not have practical experience beyond what they have observed. In this case, generative AI can provide ideas and food for thought. This can be especially helpful for getting ideas for creative assessments that are still valid and rigorous while offering a suitable alternative to traditional assessments.

I ask generative AI tools to create assessment rubrics in the examples below. Remember: you need to give generative AI a context (e.g. you’re a lecturer teaching X), a specific request (e.g. you want to create an assessment rubric) and ensure the request has specific parameters (e.g. you provide your specific criteria for this rubric) .

I am a lecturer. I wish to create a marking rubric for an essay-based assessment. The rubric should include the following criteria: criticality, academic rigor, references to research, style and formatting.

NB: You may wish to select the images to see a larger version.

Reflections

In both cases, I state my (imagined) role and the type of assessment I usually employ and ask the tools to suggest ideas with specific criteria included. In both cases, each generative AI tool creates a sample rubric based upon what I have asked it.

Both tools create a table I would expect an assessment rubric to look like. Each table includes the criteria and sample grade bands with descriptor text that cross-references to the criteria. What both generally do well with is providing some sample descriptor text. However, you will need to tweak, modify and/or change the criteria to your specific, local context.

Creating rubrics specific to your institution

If your institution has a general, overarching rubric often used, you can get generative AI to suggest sample rubrics. This may, however, be difficult given how complex your institution’s rubric may be.

In the examples below, I ask chatGPT 3.5 and Google Bard respectively to create an example rubric based on Glasgow University’s 22-point marking system. This did, however, prove difficult!

Can you change the marking scale to a 22 point scale used at the University of Glasgow?

Reflections

The prompt above initially confused both generative AI tools. This could be because a 22-point scale differs from many scales out there. This could also be because I hadn’t provided specific context of the different bands. In this case, my suggestion is to suggest that chatGPT or Google Bard create a rubric based on your marking criteria. You can then tailor the created sample rubric to your local needs.

As you can see, both tools got some areas right and others wrong.

What chatGPT did well:

it created a scale based on the criteria I provided
it included the marking bands, cross-referenced against the criteria
it included some basic descriptor text

What chatGPT can do better at:

the descriptor texts were wildly off compared with the example marking schemes
it struggled to capture the nuances between the marking bands

What Google Bard did well:

the descriptor text for each band more closely matches what I would expect to see
the marking bands are divided out nicely
the criteria are cross-referenced against marking bands

What Google Bard can do better at:

it’s hard to say what it can do better at right now given how it created a marking rubric based upon my query!
that said, the descriptor texts for each band would likely need some tweaking to match local styles

Getting ideas for creative assessments

As I noted earlier, you can use generative AI to get ideas for (more) creative assessments that aren’t traditional, written-based assignments. Traditional, written-only assignments are great for some things. However, there are other, more inclusive and creative ideas for assessments that you can use in your teaching, no matter the subject.

For this particular example, I draw upon my own area of expertise and subject area which lies at the intersections of education and sociology.

I teach a social sciences subject in university. Traditionally, we use written assessments such as essays and exams as assessments. What are some creative alternative assessments?

Reflections

In brief, similar to the first example on chemistry, both generative AI tools create a good range of creative and event collaborative assessments that you can use within your own context.

You may already use some of these, such as mind maps and portfolios. That said, there are a lot of good ideas that have been suggested that might be worth trying out. I would recommend co-creating these with students, especially if an idea appears new or innovative or out of your personal comfort zone as an educator. You may be surprised at how quickly your students take to becoming partners in learning and teaching.

12/09/2023 12/09/2023

Reflections on work - from the past

I originally authored this post in April 2020 not too long after the COVID-19 pandemic caused cities and nations to lockdown. I found this as a draft post that I hadn’t published perhaps due to all that was going on at the time.

What I wrote here in April 2020, still holds in September 2023.

An image of a person standing on still water, which causes a reflection of the mountains and sky. Source: Unsplash

“If we cannot recognize the truth, then it cannot liberate us from untruth. To know the truth is to prepare for it; for it is not mainly reflection and theory. Truth is divine action entering our lives and creating the human action of liberation.”

— bell hooks quotes Black theologian James Cone in hooks, b. (2003). Teaching Community: A Pedagogy of Hope. Routledge.

Reflections on work

I've worked as a 'digital education facilitator / senior teaching associate' for almost 3.5 years at the Lancaster University Management School. I arrived hopeful, looking ahead to entering a new phase of my career within higher education where I would be explicitly working with a range of colleagues - academics, administrators, subject librarians and students - to develop both blended and online learning experiences. My time in my current role is coming to an end as I plan to move on to a new challenge and to both undertake a doctorate. In many ways, it makes sense to do these in the same place. In this post, I share some thoughts, reflections and hopes.

Synergy is key, when enacted

My current role is based in a large management school - a business school - where you have a range of business subjects divided into departments ranging from Accounting and Finance; Economics; Organization, Work and Technology; Management Science; and Marketing. There is also the Undergraduate Office where consortial programmes are situated.

One of the best part of working in such a large school was getting to meet a range of people from all walks of life and experiences. There are a lot of colleagues who care about their students. Indeed, the Dean at the time of this writing has had a project that sought to develop a cross-departmental community for students which takes the form of a module called MNGT160: Future Global Leaders: Sustainability Across Business.

This module has often been a source of contention as it sought to create a community that cuts across departmental boundaries, and thus, requires both contribution from each department and some hours to be workloaded from each department. Since it is not 'owned' by any one department, this module has, at times, not received a welcoming view. However, the aim and ethos of the module are fairly sound: to create a community while developing some graduate attributes within students through getting them to work together across their subject silos. Idealistic? Perhaps. Doable? Definitely.

With the amount of expertise and experience across the management school, such a module has great potential to create a very collaborative, cross-departmental community of learning and teaching that could strengthen the identity of the school itself while creating networks of students (and staff) who could work closely together in order to grow, develop as students, people and future professionals and subject experts.

Synergy is key for such a module to happen. Working together and drawing upon the expertise of such a large school to create good curricula, well-structured systems and a positive, welcoming environment for learning can only be a good thing surely.

The pandemic and the move to digital

Covid19 has upended a lot of systems, processes and practices. Initially, there was a lot of uncertainty that allowed some leaders to emerge in order to mitigate some for the panic and anxiety that the sudden shift or pivot to digital education that the pandemic caused.

During these first weeks and months, a lot of educational technologists were doing their utmost to help staff however and wherever possible. In fact, this is still continuing. What has been at the back of our minds - some of us - has been those little fleeting thoughts of ah, if we only had more blended learning before, we'd be more prepared for this!

Of course, learning/educational technologists have been trying for years to get academic and teaching staff to integrate in the digital into learning and teaching. We do this because we understand that, on the whole, students require a full range of digital literacies in order to live and work within the 21st Century to the full. People can live without collaborative and smart technologies, sure, but the world is generally progressing in the direction of closer collaboration and working together through digital means. Sustainability, efficiency and richness of opportunities are just a few reasons that digital literacies and their development are so key for the future. We could not have predicted the pandemic, nor used this as part of a rationale for integrating digital education practices for sounding, at best, alarmist.

That all said, what the pandemic has caused for digital education is a few points:

a sudden, renewed interest in digital education, whether blended or fully online;
a deeper understanding of working and studying at home, and how this can work;
a better appreciation for educational technologists and those who have integrated digital education practices into their teaching;
the development of a range of solutions to address issues arising around learning and teaching both remotely and at a distance;
and many others.

The fourth point is particularly interesting for me within my current role because I have been able to observe developments locally, nationally and internationally through a mixture of professional networks sustained by email lists, social networks on Microsoft Teams and Facebook and looser networks on Twitter and LinkedIn.

Working in silos: missed opportunities

Initially, I observed the same questions arising from the different places. I frequently saw the same or very similar questions coming from a range of staff that mostly where 'how to?' questions. I helped wherever I could by providing advice, solution and consultations where appropriate.

I began observing with a bit of annoyance and sense of powerlessness a pattern that slowly began to develop: colleagues were working in their departmental silos to create solutions. These solutions were not always shared across the departments at a macro level. As far as I was concerned, given my role and position that allowed somewhat of an overseeing eye, if I did not hear about it, I believed that a potentially valuable idea was not being shared to colleagues whom might need or find value in such solutions.

To my mind, this type of working did not make sense for a few reasons:

the problems themselves are common across the faculties - the 'how to?' questions;
solutions/ideas created in silos and thus not shared is, in effect, a replication of effort;
those with the most experience within digital education were not always consulted first despite their expertise, and in effect, time and attention was misused;

08/08/2023 08/08/2023

Generative AI: a problematic illustration of the intersections of racialized gender, race, ethnicity

NB: this post is a draft and subject to change; it forms a pre-print (an author’s original manuscript) I have authored.

Learning, teaching and technology have often been a big part of my career - since way back to the mid/late-2000s! Now in 2023, talk of artificial intelligence and education is omnipresent, and it's here to stay. Machine learning allows AI tools to become more intelligent by drawing on datasets to develop expertise over time. However, AI tools rely upon raw data created by humans; these datasets, in turn, reflect the biases of those who have gathered the evidence, which will be racial, economic and gendered in nature (Benjamin, 2019, p. 59).

Several researchers (Noble, 2018; Benjamin, 2019; Mohamed et al., 2020; Zembylas, 2023) are looking into the underpinning reasons that enable AI to skew results and create representations that overlook and erase others while focusing on specific, dominant groups. Specifically, the way that the human-created algorithms informing AI and generative AI tools portray racialized, gendered people is especially problematic. To understand why problematic representations of people are created, it is worth looking at the ideas of intersectionality (Crenshaw, 1991; hooks, b, 2015; Hill Collins, 2019). I draw on bell hooks and Patricia Hill Collins’s works here and recommend the reader acquaint themselves with Kimberlé Crenshaw’s work.

I write this post from my position as a part-time doctoral student, educator and higher education worker at a Scottish university in the UK. I write it as someone who’s interested in and curious about technology and as someone who teaches, develops, coaches. mentors educators (lecturers) how to teach and augment their teaching practices. However, I also write it from the perspective of a US migrant and dual national who has lived/worked in China, Russia, Kazakhstan and the UK. I note these as they inform my positionality when writing this post as I am interested in the interplay of education, culture, media representation, critical pedagogy and decolonial thinking as some of the ideas underpinning these areas inform some of my personal and professional values.

As a colleague of mine wrote "As per the Russell Group principles, I strongly believe it’s my job as an individual educator and our job as a sector to guide students how to use AI appropriately." I take their words and apply them to my own context: I believe it is my job as an educator to guide students and university staff in understanding and using AI appropriately.

For educators, this will give you an insight into some of the affordances of generative AI tools for creating images while exposing you to some of the opportunities and serious problems of using, for example, DALL-E, to create images. This post should give you ideas for developing your own practice with your students and your colleagues, no matter their experience as educators.

Thank you to colleagues and friends who have helped expand my thinking when writing this post.

Introduction

Using generative artificial intelligence (AI) tools can be exciting, confounding, scary and confusing. This was my experience and observation upon showing an academic colleague how a generative AI tool like ChatGPT can work by taking text prompts that are then create text-based content. Although text content creation tools have been at the forefront of everyone's mind since at least mid-2022, there are other generative AI tools that exist and merit attention. At the time of this writing, I can see common generative AI tools being categorized into three or four major types:

text to text (e.g. ChatGPT, Google Bard, Cohere.ai)
text to image (e.g. DALL-E, Midjourney, Stable Diffusion)
text to media, such as audio or video
and text-to-code, for coding and programming purposes

In this post, I focus on text-to-image generative AI through example prompts that I created. I analyze what it produced to demonstrate that educators must experiment with generative AI tools to understand and critique the tools and what they produce. In doing so, we can begin to understand how and why such tools create the content that they do. I use intersectionality as a heuristic (Hill Collins, 2019) to analyze the AI-generated avatars by looking at how these represent socially constructed identities in terms of racialized gender, race, ethnicity and nationality. Humans create algorithms and algorithms, in turn, create representations based upon human-created algorithms.

Specifically, we can deepen our understanding the reasons that generative AI tools (and other technologies) create questionable content that might, at the very least, underpinned by stereotypes representing an intersection of racism, misogyny, classism and/or xenophobia.

Finally, we must recognize that, for the moment, there is no concrete solution that a lay academic or layperson can implement to achieve this without a collective, concerted effort that includes a range of groups focused on shining light on the issues, changing hearts, minds and code and imaging ways forward to an equitable, inclusive world. Decolonial thinking can offer some imaginations to counter the coloniality of AI.

I first provide the context by laying out four (4) example prompts that I created an entered into DALL-E. I briefly touch on the prompts I created before moving on to analyze the results of each of the prompts. I provide a basic critique of the subsequently created representations by looking at the atmosphere, decor, clothing, facial expressions, ethnicity, or race.

For clarity, I use definitions of race and ethnicity offered by Fitzgerald (2020, p. 12) that sees race as referring to a ‘group of people that share some socially defined characteristics, for instance, skin color, hair texture, or facial features’ while ethnicity encompasses the ‘culture, nationality, ancestry and/or language’ shared by a group of people irrespective of their physical appearance (ibid). Grosfoguel offers another take on race informed by decolonial thinking: race is what he terms ‘a dividing line that cuts across multiple power relations such as class, sexual and gender at a global scale (2016, p. 11). In this case, race and subsequent racism are institutional and structural in nature in that the concept of race creates hierarchies of power and domination which are compounded by gender, sex, class and other factors.

While the concepts of race and ethnicity are social constructs and neither are mutually exclusive, I use these definitions to frame my analysis.

I highlight what is represented, and why the representations might appear this way and leave you, the reader, with critical questions to consider as you and your prospective students/learners explore the usage of generative AI for creating images from text. I then offer some possible solutions drawing on decolonial thinking.

NB: some readers will find the results disturbing, upsetting and potentially angering.

Sweet old grannies

Generative AI allows us to experiment with ideas to then create representations of those ideas, whether these are text, images or other media. In these short cases, I asked DALL-E to create illustrations of sweet old grannies making pancakes. As a reminder, DALL-E is one of three major text-to-image generative AI tools, and there are many others out there.

This was an impromptu idea that came up for a few reasons. In my current role, there is much discussion on the issues of generative AI and how to prepare students and educators. I also like pancakes and I have some fond memories of one of my grandmothers who would visit regularly when I was younger. I also worked and lived in Russia for a while where both pancakes and grandmothers are a big part of the culture. Pancakes are big around Maslenitsa or Carnival as it is known in other countries that celebrate the Western Christian version of the event, while grandmothers are a major cultural symbol, source of unpaid family work (Utrata, 2008) and symbol of stoicism that represents an intersection of age, gender and class (Shadrina, 2022). I also thought it would be playful and also allow me to see how DALL-E, a tool created by humans who programmed algorithms, would represent humans.

For transparency, I acknowledge that I am using gendered, ageist and even stereotypical language, especially in terms of describing 'a sweet, old X grandmother'. I am also aware that I am focused on a particular type of social/familial role, a grandmother. Not all old(er) women are grandmothers and not all grandmothers are old! As Benjamin (2019, pp. 102 drawing on Blay, 2011) asserts, qualifying words - those adjectival words used to describe 'opinion, size, age, shape, colour, origin, material, purpose' (Dowling, 2016) often encode gender; race, racism and racialization; and the humanity of individuals and groups of individuals (see Wynter, 2003).

Initial prompts

I used a prompt and only changed the adjectival qualifier describing the national origin of the imaginary character or avatar: "Create an image of a sweet, old X grandmother making pancakes". I tried out these prompts over a period of two weeks in July 2023. The queries I created are these:

"Create an image of a sweet, old Polish grandmother making pancakes"
"Create an image of a sweet, old Russian grandmother making pancakes"
"Create an image of a sweet, old American grandmother making pancakes"
"Create an image of a sweet, old Black American grandmother making pancakes"

I use specific terms to get the generative AI tool DALL-E to generate specific results to allow me to see what the AI tool produces so that I can then analyze the results. This, in turn, offers evidence and clues to understanding how human-created algorithms create the outputs that they do within generative AI tools.

In each case, DALL-E created four (4) individual representations of each character or avatar to illustrate the prompt I had created; in total, there are 16 images which you can see below with a caveat. Generative AI does not currently do well with the finer details of humans such as facial expressions, eyes, and hands. While I won't focus on hands and eyes specifically, facial expressions and ethnicity will be important later.

Representations of Polish and Russian grandmothers

At first glance, to the untrained eye and perhaps even to the untravelled eye, we might think nothing is amiss. There are four different images created that seemingly portray what is meant to be a sweet old Polish grandmother who is making pancakes, and another four representing Russian counterparts. Generative AI does not currently do well with the finer details of humans such as facial expressions, eyes, and hands. While I won't focus on hands and eyes specifically, facial expressions will be important later.

Images of sweet old, Russian grannies making pancakes by DALL-E — Images of sweet old, Polish grannies making pancakes by DALL-E - representations created by DALL-E for the prompt on Polish grandmothers

Images of sweet old, Russian grannies making pancakes by DALL-E - representations created by DALL-E for the prompt on Russian grandmothers

Atmosphere, decor, clothing

As we can see, each image illustrates a sweet, old Polish grandmother who appears to be in an almost gloomy environment. The lighting isn't bright but rather dark and almost shadowy. The representations of their Russian counterparts are very similar in many ways: the atmosphere is dark, perhaps gloomy. We can see what looks like wooden utensils being used and in some of the windows, we can see stereotypical lattice-type window net curtains.

Such portrayals could indicate a lack of modern lighting and/or electricity. The light also indicates the time of day, which could be an early morning golden hour, when they might rise to make an early morning breakfast. This does offer a stereotyped, ageist view of the women represented, however, by generalizing that all might rise at a very early hour to make pancakes.

If we look at the clothing, we see that each avatar is wearing clothing that is stereotypical of elderly Polish and Russian women: patterns that are floral in nature while headscarves. Some women do occasionally wear headscarves when attending church. However, these women are depicted in the home. However, we don't really get any indication of their hair or hairstyles, or whether these are things they might worry about simply because the representations cover or hide this particular aspect of all of these women.

In each case, it seems that perhaps these avatar-grandmothers are living in a different time based on the depictions of the atmosphere and technologies they are using. This doesn't mean that some do not live this way, however, it is problematic as certainly not all might live this way depending upon their means, wealth and family ties.

Expressions and ethnicity

The expressions of the Polish and Russian grandmothers are problematic for a few reasons. If we look at each of the women, most of them appear to be looking either down or away with only one of each looking ahead at the imaginary camera. The images as a collective might be seen to represent a sort of melancholic and depressing environment.

The women are either expressionless or perhaps seemingly unhappy in the eyes of someone from the US or UK apart from one of the Polish avatars. While there may be socio-historic rationales for portraying the women in such a way (e.g., World War I and World War II, followed by the Cold War) these images are explicitly problematic as they represent stereotyped, gendered and xenophobic representations of elderly Polish and Russian women.

In terms of ethnicity, for both the images representing these groups, all of the women are White or appear to be White. Poland, according to some statistics is 98% Polish so perhaps the representations are close to portraying the norm. On the other hand, Russia is more complex with its 193 ethnic groups yet the images portray a high level of homogeneity.

Ethnic Russians make up 77-81% of Russia's population of 147 million, along with Tatars, Ukrainians, Baskhirs, Chuvashs, Chechens and Armenians being other major ethnic groups of over a million (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Russia#Ethnic_groups and https://minorityrights.org/country/russian-federation/ for a breakdown; there are other Russian-language sites that you can check as well). My point is here that Russia is a diverse nation of peoples of ethnic backgrounds and mixes including those of Slavic, Turkic, Caucasian, Mongolian peoples, indigenous and Korean ancestry. However, the images created by DALL-E portray avatars that represent only those who appear Slavic and/or European (i.e. White). There are no representations of other types of Russians who may be Turkic, indigenous, or Mongolian in origin.

However, this could be due to how algorithms encode the concept of a Russian person. Does 'Russian' mean a citizen of Russia, and therefore anyone who lives in Russia? If this is the case, then it is likely dominant views that inform datasets will skew any possible representations. On the other hand, does it mean those that see themselves as ethnically Russian? If this is the case, then perhaps it is valid to show only Slavic/European avatars. In either case, the representations are problematic as they highlight whatever the dominant 'norm' is while erasing Russia's historically rich diversity. Another perspective could be how a particular government might influence how the imaginations of its populace are portrayed, which may mean the prominence of a dominant group at the expense of an ethnic minority group. In Russia’s case, there are concerns surrounding ethnic separatism and how migrants are portrayed, especially of those from regions traditionally associated with Turkic and Asiatic peoples and those whose faith is Islam (Coalson, 2023). However, such concerns are not reasons for erasing different representations and portrayals of peoples of different ethnicities.

Representations of grandmothers from the US

As a reminder, I used the following prompt: "Create an image of a sweet, old American grandmother making pancakes". I acknowledge that using ‘American’ can be problematic. It can refer to people of the United States, or if you live in Latin America, American can refer to anyone from the Americas, not just people who live in the United States of America.

In addition to the term ‘American’ being problematic, this prompt quickly revealed more serious issues that I will touch upon.

Representations created by DALL-E for the prompt on American grandmothers

Atmosphere, decor, clothing

The images of American grandmothers offer a stark contrast in many ways when compared with the representation of Polish and Russian grandmothers. The DALL-E produced illustrations appear to show these women, for the most part, in a different light.

While the first two women in the top row appear to be in the home, their homes appear to be more modern in some respects. They all appear to be using what appear to be metallic utensils as opposed to wooden ones. The lighting in the bottom two images is much brighter with almost an appearance of a representation of a cooking show as indicated by the lighter-colored walls. The atmosphere appears a lot less cluttered and lighter in many respects. This lack of clutter and more light might indicate, at the very least, modern homes that are efficient.

Then there are the hairstyles. These are, admittedly, something that I hadn't picked up on as it wasn't something that I am fully literate about until a friend prompted me. As that friend noted, the hair of these women tells another side of the story related to class. What does the hair say to you? How do each of their hairstyles represent their own lives? What does each style say about their socio-economic background?

The clothing also offers clues to how these avatar-representations live. Their clothes appear more modern, perhaps more expensive than their Polish and Russian counterparts. What does this say about the data that has informed the creation of these avatars?

Expressions and race

If we look at the facial expressions, again while generative AI does not yet get the finer details right, something appears and feels more warm, perhaps more positive about the expressions of these avatar women. The first one appears thoughtful and focused on what she is doing with almost a sense of enjoyment. The second one appears content - at the very least - with what she is doing. The third and fourth images appear to represent a wholly positive image of two different women engaging in cooking as indicated by slight smiles whether looking down (image 3) or looking straight ahead (image 4).

However, there is a significant problem with these representations which is indicated by the perceived race of the sweet, old, American grandmothers: each avatar represents a White woman. This is particularly problematic as the US has a population of over 330 million with nearly 80 million (nearly 1 in 4 people) who comprise non-White people. The question here then is why has the generative AI tool created only White faces to represent the qualifier ‘American’ when 1 in 4 people in the US fall under the broad categories of Black, Asian, Indigenous and others? Why is the US portrayed as, at least according to these AI-generated images, representing only one part of its population?

Data gathered from https://www.census.gov/

Representations of grandmothers from the US racialized as Black

Representations created by DALL-E for the prompt on Black American grandmothers

Atmosphere, decor, clothing

If we consider the representations generated by DALL-E below, we see deeply problematic underlying issues that represent an intersection of race, gender and class in the portrayals of imagined sweet, old Black American women.

The atmosphere in each avatar appears generally warm and inviting, reflecting the representations of sweet, old, ‘American’ grandmothers. There is a certain simplicity and modernness to the environment. Two avatars appear in a home kitchen (the bottom two) as indicated by kitchen cabinets/cupboards and a nearby window. The top-left image appears perhaps in a larger, commercial kitchen or perhaps a kitchen in the home, and the second (top-right) appears perhaps in a TV studio as indicated by the lighting and focus.

One colleague, Dr Ruby Zelzer, notes something that I had missed:

… something struck me about how utilitarian the kitchens were, the kitchen tiles in 3 of the 4 pictures, and also that the type of tiles were very basic in appearance. How none of the other images had these tiles (to my eye).

However, the images appear to say something about the roles of these avatar women. Three of the images appear to represent the avatars as cooks or chefs, as indicated by what appear to be chefs' hats and their attire in general. The avatar in a pink apron and white outfit (top-right) appears to be in an ambiguous situation in part due to the lighting and the red nose: are they in a TV studio or in a circus? I will discuss this later as the representation harks back to minstrelsy and blackface.

In addition, two of the avatar women are wearing what look like cleaner gloves. The avatar portraying yellow gloves is also problematic as the gloves appear slightly worn and tattered. This can be seen to place someone, or here an older Black American woman, in a lower socio-economic position.

In 3 out of the 4 images (all bar the lower-left image), the avatars representing Black American grandmothers are situated in positions of service through the attire that they are portrayed to be wearing. In fact, only the avatar in a blue shirt and pink apron appears to be in a position that seemingly isn’t attributable to a service role. In contrast, the White representations of American women don’t appear to be in positions of service as indicated by their clothing. I now turn to discuss the problems that nearly all of these images is (re)producing.

Expressions and race

All the women appear to be smiling or enjoying what they are doing. At first, this may seem like a good thing. However, the expressions of the top-left and bottom-right avatars are highly problematic for a few historic reasons rooted in racist, gendered and classist portrayals of Black American women. In addition, the larger bodies of three of the other avatars also reflect how Black American women have historically been portrayed within the United States and beyond. In contrast, the avatars representing White American women are constructed with what appear to be more delicate and smaller features, something that several researchers (Bowdre, 2006; Downing, 2007; Thompson Moore, 2021) argue has frequently been attributed to representations of White women.

The origins of stereotyped representations of Black American women lie, in part, in minstrelsy in the 1800s (Bowdre, 2006; Downing, 2007; Thompson Moore, 2021). In minstrel shows, White men portrayed Black Americans by blackening their faces using burnt cork while exaggerating other facial features, such as the lips, by using 'red or white paint' (Bowdre, 2006, p. 37). The avatars representing Black American women are illustrative of how Black women were constructed in minstrel shows through the caricature of the wench (Thompson Moore, 2021, p. 318). White men performed the wench character representing Black women through cross-dressing and drag performances (ibid). Other characters would go further by dressing in 'brighter, more flamboyant dress' and their faces would be further exaggerated by makeup, creating 'larger eyes and gaping mouths with huge lips' (ibid). As Bowdre (2006) asserts, minstrelsy has aided stereotypes around people racialized as Black and continues to inform media representations of Black American men and women in the present day.

Another representation is that of Black American women as a ‘mammy,’ or a good-natured, submissive and motherly figure who would provide care for White families. Taken together, an excerpt from King (2019, p. 13) explains why such representations are deeply problematic:

“Aunt Jemima,” a well-known trope that (mis)represents/distorts Black/African womanhood in the USA, is a fictional historic advertising icon that reinforces the national stereotype of the slave plantation “mammy.” In the late 19th century, this image of a smiling, usually corpulent dark-skinned Black woman wearing a red bandana became the trademark logo for a technological innovation: ready-mixed pancake flour. Commercial advertisements that invented this denigrating image of Black womanhood expressed the white imagination, which was then reified in film, fiction, the fantasy world of plantation mythology, and consumer consciousness. This stereotype epitomises the dominance of hegemonic white memory and imagination in the material culture of American society (Wallace-Sanders 2008).

The images below depict what hooks (2015, pp. 65-66) would argue that such images portray Black women in a negative light through the construction of Black women having ‘excessive make-up,’ ‘wearing wigs and clothes that give the appearance of being overweight’ while simultaneously representing large ‘maternal figures’. bell hooks's message here is that historical depictions of Black American women portray them as fat/obese, older, asexual and unkempt, homogenizing this group while mocking them through the ‘wench’ and/or ‘mammy’ stereotypes, which both (re)produce demeaning representations of Black American women.

Discussion

What we see here in each of the images represents what are what Benjamin describes as (2019, p. 59) ‘deeply ingrained cultural prejudices’ and ‘biases’ drawn from data that the generative AI tools use to create representations.

While the imaginary representation of Black American women was reified in media and consumer consciousness, we can see that this portrayal resurfaces in the digital realm within the context of generative AI. What we see here then is one manifestation of ‘algorithmic coloniality’ (Mohamed et al., 2020; Zembylas, 2023). For those new to the concept of coloniality, this is a state of knowing and being that pervades knowledge and power relations that sees those formerly colonized and/or enslaved as regularly encountering inherent disadvantages in all aspects of life while former colonizers retain many advantages in all areas of life (Quijano and Ennis, 2000; Wynter, 2003; Ndlovu-Gatsheni, 2015). In simple terms, this means that accepted knowledges and ways of being represent those of the dominant members of society.

In this case, the role of Silicon Valley, located in the United States, which is a hegemonic power and an extension of the former European colonial nations as one of her settler-colonies, is significant. This extends beyond the technological companies of Silicon Valley and elsewhere in the US to anywhere that readily accepts, uses and replicates their models. Those who follow the dominant modes of cultural, and technological production take part in the creation and perpetuation of algorithms which overvalue some humans (those racialized as White) while undervaluing and actively devaluing the humanity of other humans (those racialized as Black, Asian and others).

Considering the #BlackLivesMatter movement and the daily injustices that people racialized as Black in the US (and elsewhere, even the UK for example) experience, it is particularly problematic that human-authored algorithms informing generative AI reflect dominant systems of knowing and being. It is, however, a testament to the existence of coloniality within AI and AI algorithms which (re)produce gendered, racist and xenophobic representations of racialized and minoritized peoples.

Although there is some hope for everyone to influence the datasets that inform algorithms, which in turn might allow for some change, this will not be easy: collaboration will be key and conscientization of everyone on the issues will be as well to address and rectify the issues of problematic algorithms, which are just one tool in a greater system.

Some specific solutions can help by drawing on decolonial thinking that can develop and deepen the understanding of students and educators. This can start with understanding where sites of coloniality replicate harmful generative AI algorithms. Drawing on Mohamed et al. (2020, p. 8)this might include understanding and identifying such sites, which might include where and how algorithms are made and function, who is involved in beta-testing and testing generally, and what local and national policies can be developed. This also includes specifically developing algorithmic literacy as part of digital literacy initiatives (Zembylas, 2023)

Key questions for students/educators

Why do the avatars represent these particular groups in the way that they do?
What, if anything, do the representations get right?
What, if anything, do the illustrations get wrong?
- How are the representations problematic?
- Where representations are problematic...
  - What message does this send to someone without knowledge of the context?
  - What message does this create about the people/cultures/objects portrayed in the images?
  - What can you do to ensure generative AI creates, if it is possible, more accurate and equitable representations of peoples/cultures/objects?

References

Benjamin, R. (2019). Race After Technology: Abolitionist Tools for the New Jim Code. Polity Press.

Bowdre, K. M. (2006). Racial mythologies: African American female images and *representation from minstrelsy to the studio era. [Doctoral dissertation/thesis, University of Southern California].

Coalson, R. (2023). Russia’s 2021 Census Results Raise Red Flags Among Experts And Ethnic-Minority Activists – RadioFreeEurope/RadioLiberty. Retrieved 2023-07-24 from https://www.rferl.org/a/russia-census-ethnic-minorities-undercounted/32256506.html

Crenshaw, K. (1991). Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics, and Violence against Women of Color. Stanford Law Review, 43, No. 6, 1241-1299. https://doi.org/10.2307/1229039

Dowling, T. (2016, Tuesday, 13 September). Order force: the old grammar rule we all obey without realising – The Guardian. Retrieved 2023-07-24 from https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/sep/13/sentence-order-adjectives-rule-elements-of-eloquence-dictionary

Downing, C. (2007). “Interlocking oppressions of sisterhood: (re) presenting the black woman in nineteenth century blackface minstrelsy”. Senior Scholar Papers, Paper 539. https://digitalcommons.colby.edu/seniorscholars/539

Fitzgerald, K. J. (2020). Recognizing Race and Ethnicity: Power, Privilege and Inequality (Third ed.). Routledge.

Grosfoguel, R. (2016). What is Racism. Journal of World-Systems Research, 22(1), 9-15. https://doi.org/10.5195/jwsr.2016.609

Hill Collins, P. (2019). Intersectionality as Critical Social Theory. Duke University Press.

hooks, b. (2015). Ain’t I a Woman: Black Women and Feminism. Routledge.

King, J. E. (2019). Staying Human: Forty Years of Black Studies Practical-Critical Activity in the Spirit of (Aunt) Jemima. International Journal of African Renaissance Studies - Multi-, Inter- and Transdisciplinarity, 14(2), 9-31. https://doi.org/10.1080/18186874.2019.1690399

Mohamed, S., Png, M.-T., & Isaac, W. (2020). Decolonial AI: Decolonial Theory as Sociotechnical Foresight in Artificial Intelligence. Philosophy & Technology, 33(4), 659-684. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13347-020-00405-8

Ndlovu-Gatsheni, S. J. (2015). Decoloniality as the Future of Africa. History Compass, 13(10), 485-496. https://doi.org/10.1111/hic3.12264

Noble, S. U. (2018). Algorithms of Oppression: How Search Engines Reinforce Racism. New York University Press.

Quijano, A., & Ennis, M. (2000). Coloniality of Power, Eurocentrism, and Latin America. Nepantla: Views from South, 1(3), 533-580.

Shadrina, A. (2022). Enacting the babushka: older Russian women ‘doing’ age, gender and class by accepting the role of a stoic carer. Ageing and Society, 1-18. https://doi.org/10.1017/s0144686x2200037x

Thompson Moore, K. (2021). The Wench: Black Women in the Antebellum Minstrel Show and Popular Culture. The Journal of American Culture, 44(4), 318-335. https://doi.org/10.1111/jacc.13299

Utrata, J. (2008). Babushki as Surrogate Wives: How Single Mothers and Grandmothers Negotiate the Division of Labor in Russia. UC Berkeley: Berkeley Program in Soviet and Post-Soviet Studies. https://escholarship.org/uc/item/3b18d2p8

Wallace-Sanders, K. (2008). Mammy: A century of race, gender, and southern memory. University of Michigan Press.

Wynter, S. (2003). Unsettling the Coloniality of Being/Power/Truth/Freedom: Towards the Human, After Man, Its Overrepresentation—An Argument. CR: The New Centennial Review, 3(3), 257-337. https://doi.org/10.2307/41949874

Zembylas, M. (2023). A decolonial approach to AI in higher education teaching and learning: strategies for undoing the ethics of digital neocolonialism. Learning, Media and Technology, 48(1), 25-37. https://doi.org/10.1080/17439884.2021.2010094

04/07/2023 04/07/2023

Creating a student induction with ChatGPT: what it does and misses

ChatGPT seems to be all the rage at the moment, and has been so since at least November/December of 2022. Students and educators are simultaneously worried, excited and fearful of the possibilities that a tool like ChatGPT might create. The inspiration for this post comes from a lot of thinking since at least February and March of this year, coupled with a couple of insightful blog posts from a colleague Dr Emily Nordmann.

What is ChatGPT?

I won't labor the point as this has already been talked about in many places, many times over the last few months. In my own words, ChatGPT a tool that draws upon a large set of information that is out there on the web while constantly being trained by its users to finesse what it produces for its users. Depending on whether you use the free or paid version, this information goes back to either 2021 at the time of this writing, or up to now when using the paid version.

The knowledge that ChatGPT draws on is shaped by a mixture of key factors that you should understand:

those who created the ChatGPT AI model - i.e. the programmers
the openly available information that ChatGPT is drawing from
the users whose queries and questions are training ChatGPT, in essence, to become better at what it is doing

Specific knowledge frames outputs

Understanding both what knowledge and whose knowledge informs ChatGPT, and any other tool, is important. When we lift the lid on such tools, we deepen our own understanding of how they work on multiple levels. This then allows us to understand how tools like ChatGPT might (and probably will) create potential omissions, erasures and bias in the knowledge that such tools produce.

With this in mind, I encourage you to try and test out such tools while also asking yourself:

Who has created this tool?
Where are they from?
What are their motivations?
What knowledge is this tool drawing on?
Whose knowledge is this tool drawing on?
What knowledge is missing? And why is it missing?

An example in practice: creating a student induction

I chose the image above to represent the first prompt and example. What you ask of a large language model like ChatGPT will directly influence the example answer you receive. So, the more vague your question is, the more encompassing the response you will receive.

For a practical example, I decided to get ChatGPT to create a student induction. I choose this example for a few reasons:

to understand what the tool will create using my question prompts
to share with educators an example of a student induction created by ChatGPT
to determine what could be missing from the example that ChatGPT creates

Initial prompt and first output

Below is what ChatGPT created from the initial prompt.

Me: Can you help me to create an induction program for first year students at a university?
ChatGPT: Absolutely, I'd be happy to help you design an induction program for first year university students. Here's a basic outline you could consider:

1. Welcome and Introduction (Day 1)

Welcome Speech: The head of the university or a senior faculty member can begin by welcoming the new students.
Introduction to University: Give an overview of the university's history, ethos, academic structures, key personnel, campus culture, and student life.

2. University Overview (Day 1 - Day 2)

Academic Session: Detail about the course curriculum, academic calendar, grading system, internships, research opportunities, and expectations.
Campus Tour: This could be conducted by senior students. Show important locations like lecture halls, library, labs, student support services, sports facilities, canteens, etc.
Introduction to Faculty: Introduce the teaching and administrative staff. This could be done departmentally.
Workshop on the University's Digital Infrastructure: Train students on how to use the university's website, student portal, learning management system, library resources, etc.

3. Student Services and Support (Day 3)

Presentation from Student Services: Discuss available services like counselling, career guidance, health, accommodation, international student services, etc.
Safety Briefing: Include information about campus safety, emergency services, important contact numbers, and any apps or systems used to enhance student safety.
Presentation from Financial Aid: Discuss scholarships, grants, loans, work-study opportunities, and other financial assistance available.
Presentation from Student Clubs: Representatives from various clubs and societies can introduce their activities.

4. Skills Workshops (Day 4 - Day 5)

Study Skills: Sessions on time management, effective study techniques, research skills, and academic writing.
Soft Skills: Workshops on communication skills, presentation skills, leadership, teamwork, etc.
Personal Development: Sessions on mental health awareness, stress management, maintaining a balanced lifestyle, etc.

5. Social Activities (Throughout the Week)

Ice Breakers and Team Building Activities: To help students get to know each other.
Welcome Party: A casual social event.
Quiz Night: A fun trivia night with questions about the university and general knowledge.
City Tour: For universities in or near cities, a tour of important city landmarks could be helpful.
Meet and Greet with Seniors: Casual interaction sessions with second-year students or student mentors.

6. Reflection and Feedback (End of the Week)

Reflection Session: Allow students to share their experiences and feelings about the first week.
Feedback Collection: Collect feedback about the induction program to improve future iterations.

Please note that this is a general schedule and might need adjustments according to the specific needs of your university and student population. The key is to provide essential information, introduce students to support services, foster community-building, and address any initial worries or concerns students may have.
ChatGPT will often end examples with a little statement like this

Some reflections

As we can see, this is a very detailed student induction for a week-long induction. My question was not specific and therefore the example it produced was broad and encompassing. The example likely draws on a range of university inductions for Year 1 students entering university from across the Internet. However, as we can see, the example is based upon a university that probably has stable electricity, Internet access and good facilities. It is a department within a university that is probably concerned with its reputation and so it takes strides to ensure the students get the best experience (services) possible.

Getting (more) specific

I wanted to understand how ChatGPT might compress or summarize the previous request. The aim was to understand what might change as a result.

This is only an example and I do not recommend a single day student induction!

Me: Thank you, can you regenerate this but for a 1 day program?ChatGPT
ChatGPT: Certainly, condensing the induction program into one day will require some adjustment, but it's still achievable. Here's a simplified structure:

1. Morning Session: Welcome and University Overview (9:00am - 12:00pm)

Welcome Address: The head of the university or a senior faculty member can begin by welcoming the new students (9:00am - 9:30am).
University Overview: A brief overview of the university's history, ethos, academic structure, key personnel, and student life (9:30am - 10:00am).
Academic Session: Detail about the course curriculum, academic calendar, grading system, and expectations (10:00am - 10:30am).
Short Break (10:30am - 10:45am)
Quick Campus Tour: Highlight the most important locations such as lecture halls, libraries, and student support services. This could be a virtual tour, if needed (10:45am - 11:30am).
Introduction to Faculty: A quick introduction to key faculty members and administrative staff (11:30am - 12:00pm).

2. Afternoon Session: Student Services and Workshops (1:00pm - 4:00pm)

Lunch Break (12:00pm - 1:00pm)
Presentation from Student Services: Highlight the main services like counseling, health, accommodation, etc. (1:00pm - 1:30pm).
Workshop on University's Digital Infrastructure: Train students on how to use the university's website, student portal, learning management system, etc. (1:30pm - 2:00pm).
Short Break (2:00pm - 2:15pm)
Essential Skills Workshop: A condensed workshop on essential academic skills like time management, effective study techniques, and academic writing (2:15pm - 3:00pm).
Safety Briefing: Share information about campus safety, emergency services, and important contact numbers (3:00pm - 3:30pm).
Q&A Session: Allow students to ask any remaining questions they might have (3:30pm - 4:00pm).

3. Evening Session: Social Activity and Close (4:00pm - 6:00pm)

Social Mixer: A casual event where students can interact with each other and faculty members. This could include light refreshments, ice breakers, or team building activities (4:00pm - 5:30pm).
Closing Address: A brief closing note from a senior member of the university staff, encouraging students to make the most of their time at the university (5:30pm - 6:00pm).

Remember, the aim is to provide essential information, help students feel comfortable in their new environment, and foster a sense of community. Be sure to let students know where they can find more detailed information or support if needed.
ChatGPT's disclaimer

Reflections on the details

When I saw this example, I was surprised and left wondering. What surprised me was the time that ChatGPT allocated to such sessions. This would be a highly regimented and time poor induction!

While the overall plan isn't bad, we know from practice that inductions can take a lot longer and might have unexpected events that just happen. Students and staff can get lost along the way, people might cancel and rooms might suddenly be unavailable due to unforeseen circumstances.

Testing ChatGPT for basic biases

I went one step further by asking ChatGPT what might be some good dedicated social media platforms for fostering community among the students. The idea is that these could be spaces where students connect pre-arrival. However, there were some problems in the examples that ChatGPT produced.

Here are some of the examples it suggested:

Facebook
WhatsApp
Discord
Slack
Instagram
LinkedIn
Twitter
Microsoft Teams or Google Workspace
Reddit
Clubhouse
SnapChat
TikTok

Perhaps the biggest problem with these examples is that they are all very popular and widely used in the West and perhaps particularly in the Anglophone and European West. However, to what extent is this inclusive of those from other regions of the world?

I had to prompt ChatGPT to get it to consider using Telegram and WeChat. For context, Telegram is popular in eastern Europe and the Middle East while WeChat is particularly popular in China and other parts of Asia. The graphic below provides one picture of how some suggestions that ChatGPT are perhaps good ones while others are missing.

Statistic: Most popular social networks worldwide as of January 2023, ranked by number of monthly active users (in millions) | Statista

Find more statistics at Statista

Closing thoughts

What does this all mean for students and educators? I think it means that we need to do what we can and should be doing: when we use a tool, we should question critically who made it, what its purpose is and what it can and can't do. We should practice it, get to know it and see how well it works. Finally, we should question the information it is generating and be mindful of what is omitted and why it is missing.

For further information...

There are a lot of voices out there who are discussing ChatGPT and all of its potential. The two I have found most useful are those who have been consistent and have provided regular examples, while also creating space for dialogue.

One of the most consistent voices on the uses of ChatGPT on Twitter has been Mushtaq Bilaland one of the most regular organizers of voices has been Phil Anthony from the University of Kent who organizes regular Digitally Enhanced EducationWebinars.

A screenshot of the Digitally Enhanced Education Webinars channel on YouTube.

03/09/2021 03/09/2021

Potential theoretical frameworks

The resource below is from AdvancedHE Pedagogies of Internationalisation theoretical frameworks. These are various theoretical frameworks that can be used for far more than internationalisation for questions and issues related to, for example, critically reflective professional practice, education policy, education futures and many others. Thanks to Sara for finding this one! I've slightly modified the formatting to the original source.

Looking down onto the rocky beach near Portencross Castle in West Kilbride, Scotland. Shot from a DJI Mini 2.

The resource below is from AdvancedHE Pedagogies of Internationalisation theoretical frameworks. It's meant to give a bird's eye of what there is to choose from. These are various theoretical frameworks that can be used for far more than internationalisation for questions and issues related to, for example, critically reflective professional practice, education policy, education futures and many others.

Thanks to Sara for finding this one! I've slightly modified the formatting to the original source.

Theoretical frameworks are essential for guiding research about international students and framing their experiences away from deficit narratives. We’ve compiled here a list of potential theoretical frameworks for research with international students that researchers might consider, along with suggested readings to get you started with learning about them.

Please note this list is still a work in progress and is not fully comprehensive. We welcome any suggested additions.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

AdvancedHE Pedagogies of Internationalisation.

Theories about international students’ transitions and broader experiences

Theory	Purposefully over-simplified description	Suggested reading(s)
Ecological systems theory	The multiple environmental and social systems that impact on an individuals’ experiences	Original: Bronfenbrenner, 1979 Further conceptualisation in higher education: Jones, 2017 Example in practice: Elliot et al., 2016
Multidimensional transition theory	The multilayered academic, social, and emotional transitions that individuals encounter when moving from one space to another	Introduction: Jindal-Snape & Ingram, 2013 Example in practice: Jindal-Snape & Rienties, 2016
Academic resilience theory	Students’ capacity to adapt and develop under uncertainty or adversity	One approach: Holdsworth et al., 2017 Example in practice: Singh, 2021
Rhizomatic transitions	Construction of students’ transitions experiences away from linear pathways towards more fluid, ongoing experiences	Original: Deleuze & Guatarri, 1987 Further conceptualisation in higher education: Gravett, 2019 Example in practice: Balloo et al., 2021
Student engagement model	Model of factors that impact students’ university retention and success	Original: Tinto (1975) Example in practice: Rienties et al. (2012)
Liminality	Transitional space that may lead to disorientation or ambiguity	Original: Turner, 1969 Example in practice: Parker et al., 2010

Theories about identity development and the self

Theory	Purposefully over-simplified description	Suggested reading(s)
Student agency theory	Students’ capacity to make choices within the constraints of their lived realities	One approach: Biesta & Tedder, 2007 Example in practice: Tran & Vu, 2016
Identity theory	The construction of the self through interactions with experiences and culture	One approach: Hall, 1996 Example in practice: Pham & Saltmarsh, 2013
Capability approach	Theory that people achieve well-being through their capabilities to be and do what they value	One approach: Nussbaum, 2011 Second approach: Sen, 1973; Sen, 1995 Example in practice: Fakunle, 2020
Possible selves	Approach to understanding individuals’ imagined ‘like-to-be’ and ‘like-to-avoid’ futures	Original: Markus & Nurius, 1986 Application to higher education: Harrison, 2018; Henderson et al., 2019 Example in practice: Yang & Noels, 2013
Intersectional theory	Framework for understanding how a person’s multiple identities lead to different forms of oppression and discrimination	Original: Crenshaw, 1989 Example in practice: Forbes-Mewett & McColloch, 2015
Critical race theory	Recognition of race as a social construct and that social structures are inherently racist	Starting point: McCoy, 2015 Example in practice: Yao et al. (2018)
Gendered racialisation	The intersecting identities of gender and race	Original: Selod (2018) Example in practice: Karaman & Christian (2020)

Theories about intercultural friendships / relationships

Theory	Purposefully over-simplified description	Suggested reading(s)
Intercultural friendship framework	Framework for understanding how intercultural friendships develop on higher education campuses	Kudo et al., 2019
Intergroup contact theory	Theory that biases and prejudices can be minimized through positive contact with people from different outgroups	Original: Allport, 1954 More modern introduction: Dovidio et al., 2005 Meta-analysis: Pettigrew & Tropp, 2006
Intergroup threat theory	Theory that encounters between individuals from different backgrounds can lead to discomforts or threatening feelings	Original: Stephen & Stephen, 2000 Example in practice: Harrison & Peacock, 2013

Theories about pedagogies with international students

Theory	Purposefully over-simplified description	Suggested reading(s)
Critical pedagogies	Application of critical theory to education; philosophy of education that focuses on issues of social justice, power imbalances, and domination	Originals: Freire, 1970; Giroux, 2011 Linked to international students: Khalideen, 2015
Engaged pedagogy	Critical pedagogy approach that values relationships between student / teacher, teacher self-actualisation, humanistic approaches to education	Original: hooks, 1994 Linked to international students: Madge et al., 2009
Academic hospitality	Reflection on academic staff as ‘hosts’ to reciprocally support students as ‘guests’	Original: Bennett, 2000 Further conceptualisation: Ploner, 2018
Bernstein’s pedagogic devices	Theory focusing on the ways pedagogies represent symbolic control over knowledge	Original: Bernstein, 2000 Example in practice: Zeegers & Barron, 2008
Transformative learning	Evaluation of past experience through the acquisition of new knowledge	Original: Mezirow, 1991 Example in practice: Nada et al., 2018; López Murillo, 2021

Theories about international students and the curriculum

Theory	Purposefully over-simplified description	Suggested reading(s)
Hidden curriculum	The unwritten lessons learned about normative values, beliefs, ethics, etc. as a result of educational provisions and settings	Starting point: Apple, 1989 Example in practice: Kidman et al., 2017
Internationalisation of the curriculum	Inclusion of international or intercultural elements into the content and delivery of education	Starting point: Leask, 2015 Further theorisation: Clifford & Montgomery, 2017 Example in practice: Vishwanath & Mummery, 2018
Glocalisation	The blending of global and local elements in the curriculum	Starting point: Robertson, 1994 Further theorisation in higher education: Patel & Lynch, 2013
Tourist gaze	Approach to learning about other cultures as a ‘guest’ or ‘tourist’	Starting point: Urry & Larsen, 2011 Example in practice: Vinall & Shin, 2019

Social learning theories

Theory	Purposefully over-simplified description	Suggested reading(s)
Communities of practice	A set of people who share a common interest or practice	Original: Wenger, 1998 Example in practice: Montgomery & McDowell, 2008
Figured worlds	Development of the self in relation to the social types in their surrounding world	Original: Holland et al., 2001 Example in practice: Chang et al., 2017
Cultural historical activity theory (CHAT)	Relationship between the mind and action within an individual’s situated social world	Original: Engestrom, 2001 Example in practice: Straker, 2016

Sociological theories

Theory	Purposefully over-simplified description	Suggested reading(s)
Bourdieusian theory	Set of thinking tools for investigating power and the way it impacts individuals and societies through structural constraints	Original: Bourdieu, 1979 Helpful guide: Grenfell, 2013 Example in practice: Xu, 2017
Foucauldian theory	Set of thinking tools for investigating power relationships in society, including how they influence language or practice	Original: Foucault, 1977; Foucault, 1972 Helpful guide: Ball, 2013 Example in practice: Koehne, 2006
Gramscian theory	Theory of cultural hegemony – how the state and high economic class use institutions to maintain power	Original: Gramsci, 1971 Helpful guide: Mayo, 2015 Example in practice: Kim, 2011

Decolonial / postcolonial theories

Theory	Purposefully over-simplified description	Suggested reading(s)
Orientalism	Negative portrayals and ‘othering’ of ‘the East’ by ‘the West’ which serve to maintain colonial power and assumed superiority	Original: Edward Said, 1978 Helpful guide: Leonardo, 2020 Example in practice: Yao, 2018
Subjugation	Forced dominance of one group over another through (neo-)colonialism and violence	Original: Fanon, 1952 Helpful guide in education: Leonardo & Singh, 2017
Third space / hybridity	The sense of ‘limbo’ or ‘in between-ness’ of individuals’ cultural identities	Original: Bhabha, 1994 Example in practice: Pitts & Brooks, 2017
Double consciousness	The experience of dual identities in conflict within an oppressive society	Original: Du Bois, 1903 Example in practice: Valdez, 2015

Theories about mobilities

Theory	Purposefully over-simplified description	Suggested reading(s)
Spacial theories	Relations between socially-constructed spaces and times	Original: Lefebvre & Nicholson-Smith (1991) Further theorisation in higher education: Larsen & Beech, 2014 Example in practice: Waters & Leung, 2012
Migration infrastructures	Interlinking structures that enable or constrain mobilities	Starting point: Xiang & Lindquist, 2018 Example in practice: Hu et al., 2020

24/04/2020 24/04/2020

MNGT160 - Leadership on a large module

Unique challenges

Given the size and scale of the module, there were bound to be challenges. The module in question cuts across the faculty as the audience in question are nearly all first year management school majors: this equates to well over 1200 students on one module, which is something innovative and different to what we had done prior.

First, a bit about the module itself: MNGT160 Future Global Leaders: Sustainability Across Business. The faculty I work for has 6 diverse academic departments that each bring their own unique perspectives, and I wanted these diverse perspectives to be reflected both the description and practice of the module in order to ensure stakeholders (the departments and their staff) would buy into the idea of the changes I was offering for the module. I won't go into the details of the changes, but below are the educational aims:

The module will use the lens of sustainability and the UN Sustainable Development Goals to develop students' academic, personal and professional dimensions, and their understanding of different aspects of sustainability and leadership to encourage their involvement with student life and prepare them for future careers.

Students will engage with global issues within the overarching context of sustainability and sub-topics of resilience, diversity and geopolitics with a view to linking these ideas with what can be achieved at a local level in practice.

Throughout this module, students will use the lens of their own specific subject area(s) as a looking glass through which to examine and apply what they learn per sustainability and leadership.

Given that no one of our departments explicitly teaches about either sustainability or leadership in the first year (these topics come later), it made sense to cover these topics and sub-topics of resilience, diversity and geopolitics especially in light of the environmental, sociopolitical and economic upheaval of the last couple of years related to the issues raised by Brexit and new figures such as the environmental activist Greta Thunberg who are passionate about the evermore important issue of climate change and sustainability generally.

In this regard, this module would get all students (and staff) thinking about these topics in broad terms and through the perspective of each subject's lens in order get students to consider critically the issues and draw connections between their own subjects and the overarching and underpinning topics. My own goal was to get students inspired, thinking and questioning the issues... which is what university is all about!

This process, was at times, a tricky process to manage but equally rewarding in terms of what was experienced and learned along the way.

Practical day-to-day challenges

The day-to-day issues were perhaps some of the most frequently occurring issues that created little barriers, hurdles and obstacles for general progress on getting the module off the ground whether we're talking about module development, curriculum design and approval or agreeing actions and general courses of action.

One of the most frequent issues that came up was time and scheduling. Time is precious - for everyone - and everyone has their own availability, teaching and/or research load and pre-arranged commitments whether relating to time off, family, health and so on, especially in the time between August and October prior to the start of an academic year in England when academic and teaching staff may have other commitments that might include undertaking research and research related activities, planning ahead for the academic year or taking annual leave prior to the start of the new academic year and autumn term.

For me, what this means in practical terms for the initial meetings is that I was not always able to get everyone into a single room in order to discuss the general course of action for the module's development. I remember that at the initial meeting, not everyone was able to attend due to various commitments. Despite this, the first meeting was productive and we laid groundwork for development - there was a contagious sense of positivity and things were looking GOOD!

And then came the second meeting...

Apart from a couple of colleagues, the rest of the faces were 'new' in that they hadn't attended the first meeting, and so, in effect, this meant that we had to recap what went on in the first meeting in order to get everyone up to speed. However, this presented itself with an opportunity.

The learning from this was: yes, we can plan ahead and take notes and share these notes, though colleagues may not have time or a chance to read through these notes. That said, if a significant contingent to a subsequent meeting is new, a short recap can get everyone on the same page and win over potentially influential and/or powerful colleagues who may be doubtful of the direction and/or content of the programme in question. A recap may seem like time lost - but rather, on reflection, this is time well-spent getting everyone on the same page so that a project can proceed with a clear sense of direction that has received input from all colleagues.

From this process and experience, I feel that I've learned that when leading on a large, collaborative project, there is an increased likelihood that not all colleagues may be able to attend meetings all of the time, the best plans intended and/or planned must be flexible, and ensuring everyone is on the same page is more important than simply moving on to the next meeting or set of actions.

Hearing people out pays off

When collaborating with a large number of people, sometimes we have to just stop, be silent and allow others to voice their concerns, opinions and views. Though it may seem obvious to some, this process might feel (read this as definitely will feel) a little uncomfortable for the uninitiated leader especially if you're having to deal with one or more heads of departments whom you haven't yet won over!

When a colleague has a concern, hear them out and remain calm no matter what the message is, especially when leading a module or new project is something that you're new at.

It pays off to take the time demonstrate effective listening by hearing them out with an open mind, be 'in the moment' while listening, take note of their concerns and ideas and see how their ideas can complement and/or improve what is already on the table. What is more is that the colleagues who are providing some of the constructive criticisms might be deeply in support of your ideas and what you are trying to achieve - but - they are trying to push you to see a different perspective in order to improve your offering.

Although their initial message may sound direct, patience may well pay off, which in turn leads to new/different perspectives gained, colleagues feeling that their views are being heard and listened to and trust both built and gained.

22/03/2020 22/03/2020

Holding virtual office hours - suggestions

A colleague asked about holding virtual office hours. The question entailed both how to do this in terms of the pedagogy and the technology. So, I drafted a document that addresses some suggestions around holding virtual office hours (and tutorials) which can be found here: https://sway.office.com/yqhBJFryvfm46a5e?ref=Link as a Sway document that can be printed and shared.

A colleague asked about holding virtual office hours. The question entailed both how to do this in terms of the pedagogy and the technology. There were quite a few considerations to take in to account namely:

class and cohort size;
possible apps/tools to be used;
getting the most out of a virtual session;
preparation required prior to a virtual office hour/tutorial;
expectations for students/attendees of said events;
and many more!

So, I drafted a document that addresses some suggestions around holding virtual office hours (and tutorials) which can be found here: https://sway.office.com/yqhBJFryvfm46a5e?ref=Link as a Sway document that can be printed and shared.

I should note that, while I focus on using Microsoft Teams, the principles for this apply to Zoom and Google Hangouts, among others. The main differences are that Zoom allows 'breakout rooms'. I haven't used Google Hangouts for a similar purpose, so can't comment.

I hope this is helpful!

13/03/2020 13/03/2020

Moving to digital education

The purpose of this post is to shed some light on some thoughts to consider, good practices and tips for moving from face-to-face teaching to digital education.NB: These are suggestions to help you to move to digital education. These solutions depend on your own abilities, desire and time. You have the support of your colleagues both in-intuition and beyond – you only need ask. The solutions here are informed suggestions.No perfect solutions exist.

The purpose of this document is to shed some light on some thoughts to consider, good practices and tips for moving from face-to-face teaching to digital education.

The impetus for sharing these ideas comes in light of the spread of the novel coronavirus, COVID-19, which has reached the status of a pandemic on Wednesday, 11 March 2020. Various countries reacted in different ways. As of the time of writing this document, several UK universities (London School of Economics, Durham University, University College London, Lancaster University and Glasgow University) have suspended classroom-based teaching effective either immediately or from Monday, 16 March. More universities are expected to follow the steps of other schools, colleges and universities that have already taken steps in other countries.

NB: These are suggestions to help you to move to digital education. These solutions depend on your own abilities, desire and time. You have the support of your colleagues both in-intuition and beyond – you only need ask. The solutions here are informed suggestions.

No perfect solutions exist.

NB: I may update sections of this post in the coming days as developments take place.

Developing pedagogy for digital delivery & communities of practice

There are a lot of networks out there that are discussing this right now.

One of those networks is on Twitter and you can find out more by following the Learning & Teaching in Higher Education Chat by looking for #LTHEChat and/or by visiting the following link: https://lthechat.com/2020/03/11/covid19-special-edition/ or by following @LTHEChat on Twitter.

Due to the impact of the coronavirus COVID-19, there is a daily chat on Twitter where you can meet and network with colleagues from across HE who are facing the same issues as you. In addition, you’ll also find a lot of ideas directly related to pedagogy, learning and teaching.

Pandemic Pedagogy

Another space that has sprung up is a large, interdisciplinary community on Facebook called Pandemic Pedagogy that has nearly 15,000 members and is constantly growing. You'll meet colleagues from almost every discipline that universities tend to offer.

Considering this group was set up on Thursday, 12 March, it's very quickly becoming a space for educators especially within higher education to ask questions and get and offer solutions on a grand scale.

NB: you will need to request to join but this should be approved within an hour or so!

Taken from a user on the **Pandemic Pedagogy** group.
*My own take: This is highly relevant and we should maybe think of this while transitioning our teaching. Things won't be picture perfect and we'll be learning as we go!*

Repurposing existing content – thoughts to consider

Review what content you have; if this is video content such as a pre-recording lecture that was captured earlier, ask yourself:

What, if any, improvements need to be made?
Is the content still relevant? Do parts of it require an update?
What needs to be cut/curtailed?
Can you tolerate sitting through this content for an extended period of time?

As an example of this, if your content has been recorded through lecture capture software you might have to consider the following:

does the content have good audiovisual quality, or will this impair the learning experience for students?

What to do with existing slide decks from presentations?

Some of you may have a slide deck that has slowly grown over the last few terms or semesters that have become potentially invaluable teaching tools. It's tempting to take an existing slide deck and place it online without any changes as this might be considered a path of least resistance.

However, even with your voiceover and a recorded video, students might benefit from a bit of structure that neatly breaks down the content. If we refer back to our earlier principles, we need to consider relevance and timeliness. So, when we look at a giant slide deck we've prepared over the years, we should reflect and ask ourselves:

How much of the content is suitable for this particular course or module?
What needs to be cut?
What can I do to make the content more engaging and/or interactive for the students?

Solution: Repurposing existing slide decks

One way of taking a slide deck and making it more engaging is to neatly divide content into easily digestible sections; most good slide decks will have a clear enough structure that this won't present an issue.

The next step is to insert an activity slide or two that gets students to think about the issue, problem, or topic at hand by constructing a task or problem for students to consider, process and/or solve in a meaningful way that helps connect what they've learned to practice.

The activity slide(s) can then be followed up by a worked-out solution (or more, depending upon the subject) that looks at the different solutions and provides some commentary/analysis that break the solutions down.

Of course, adding an activity slide and solution will take some time and this is perhaps a drawback. The advantages, however, are numerous: you will have created a reusable learning resource that students can use to learn, apply, practice and check their learning. Whether or not they do this is a different question!

How to structure content for effective delivery online

Structuring online learning and teaching is absolutely key to a successful experience for all stakeholders. Although it may seem obvious, since a significant part of learning online takes place without a teacher/lecturer in the room, students must be shown the path(s) to learning in an explicit manner. This path must be shown within the course/module handbook and through a mixture of audiovisual and visual signposting within a virtual learning environment, such as Moodle.

One way of creating an effective design for learning is to include, at the very least either a video or audio recording that introduces the module/course in brief. A recording of about 5 minutes should generally suffice. The message is best if it's clear, succinct and on point.

A screenshot of a social media postDescription automatically generated — Structuring an online module - an example

Developing netiquette & nurturing a community of online learners

Learning online often entails an increase in text-based communications. In 2020, with a lot of text-based communication already happening via WhatsApp, iMessages and other apps, understanding how to author written messages in an understandable, diplomatic manner is as important as ever.

Therefore, netiquette and how to communicate effectively in text when no visual or body language clues are present is important. This link gives a brief guide on developing good netiquette: https://sway.office.com/ObLxmwHTMKZE4vRB?ref=Link

As far as developing a community of online learners, the link in the post below by Sarah Honeychurch neatly encapsulates a few good thoughts and practices of how to do this. There are a few points to consider when fostering a community of online learners - have a read in the link below!

https://twitter.com/NomadWarMachine/status/1238504043728842753

What to do with seminars?

Although lecture sessions may be recorded and previously recorded lectures may be archived, some of you may be thinking about how you will have seminars.

Seminars are where students get more personal, face-to-face contact with peers and their instructors as these offer an opportunity to discuss, analyze and operationalize concepts and ideas presented during the lectures. There are a few potentially actionable and valuable solutions with the main drawbacks relating to Internet connectivity and access to devices.

Hosting digital seminars

Live seminars can be conducted through using web conferencing software such as Microsoft Teams, Zoom or Google Hangouts. Think of your digital seminars as webinars for your students. If your students already work in small groups, then they could form their own private chats to discuss ideas during the seminar.

Questions prior to moving to digital seminars

What type of connectivity do your learners have access to?
What can be pre-recorded?
- What can be broken down into smaller bites?
- What interactivity can be built in?
- Worried about video size? Handbrake (https://handbrake.fr/) can help to shirk file sizes while maintaining audio-visual quality
What would be best delivered live?
What do we want students to work on together – regardless of when the learning takes place?
What type of discussions do we want?
- Asynchronous vs synchronous?
What technical tools do we have at our disposal?
- PowerPoint presentations – recorded with audio
- Presenting via Teams – and having this recorded
- Collaborative documents for team-based group work
  - Invite specific members into each group-specific collaborative document

Practicalities

You can schedule an online meeting in Teams that will allow your learners to join a digital seminar – make sure that you invite them or send them a link!
You can record a meeting in Teams by using the red record button, and this will allow others to take part in part of the session and catch up if they weren’t able to attend.
Make sure that you lay out expectations:
- Have all learners downloaded and signed into Teams successfully?
- Have learners had a chance to ‘get to know’ and play with Teams?
- Do you want students to mute their microphones?
- Do you aim to have a member of each group participate and/or represent their group?

Tips on good practice for online seminars

These tips below were kindly shared by a couple of colleagues I work with - Emma Watton and Florian Bauer:

Make a note of key messages in advance to give attendees a clear direction of where the webinar is going;
Keep sentences short and avoid jargon;
Use slides/diagrams/models to help communicate ideas;
Signpost to follow up web content/reading etc.;
Use a booster plug-in speaker if available to improve sound quality, book a room if your office is by the building works;
Consider a guest joining on a webinar to add different perspectives;
Be mindful of the length, 10 minutes is a lot of content to listen to online so create more shorter webinars rather than one long one;
Don’t wear heavily patterned/checked clothing as this can cause pixellation on the screen especially for slower connections;
Request students to mute their own microphones when they aren't speaking to reduce feedback caused by mics.

Meme shared by a friend.

Remember: when you're joining a web conferencing video, especially if you'll be speaking, take a moment to adjust your web camera and the level of your seat height. Don't sit too close to the web camera and make sure the lighting is decent!

Traditional online discussions

One simple way of creating a longer, asynchronous (not live) discussions around content is through the use of online discussions, such as the use of discussion forums on Moodle. You can assign content that students can access prior to engaging in the discussion.

Tips for successful discussion forums:

Ask open-ended questions that foster critical thinking and analysis
Ask questions that get students to reflect and relate their learning back to their own unique contexts (where appropriate)
Avoid yes/no questions
- Yes/no questions can encourage simplistic answering and thinking.
Set parameters
- what do you expect of students in terms of behavior and responses?
- How often do you want them to post?
- Will you respond to each and every post?
Don’t expect everyone to participate
- lurkers gain a lot by silently reading what others are posting; these posts can give them food for thought and cause for writing about their own perspectives

Of course, there are tips for students, too. They can get a lot out of discussions in terms of critical thinking, idea development and written communication and abilities development by taking part in online discussions:

The University of Waterloo offers this quick guide on tips for students.

What to do with exams?

Exams are often held in person in rooms with an invigilator. Exams can be held online with some limited oversight.

Perhaps more importantly, in light of the circumstances, you might wish to ask yourself:

Have students already met their intended learning outcomes through other tasks? If so, then is an exam still necessary?
Why is the written exam still necessary?
What’s the scope for making the exam ‘open book’?
Can time parameters for exam be flexible?

Online exams – one way to do it

If you have an exam that consist of short or longer text-based answers, multiple choice questions (MCQs) or mathematical equations, then you can re-create this exam using Google Forms, Microsoft Forms or using the Quiz feature in Moodle.

One simple way I’ve recently tested with success is to use a Microsoft Form to replace a traditional, face-to-face exam:

the exam consisted of relatively short answers of less than 200 words per question;
each question was assigned a whole-number mark;
the online version was set to start and finish at specified times;
the students were required to log in using their normal university login and password which meant that we could identify

Other tips for doing online exams with Microsoft Forms:

send students the exam link prior to an online exam with clearly set time parameters;
send students an exam link immediately prior to the exam – and set no time limits;
build in some leeway which often standard with Moodle exams in other faculties, departments;

Advantages of using Forms for quizzes/exams

students are required to log in using their university credentials;
time restrictions can be set to allow for clear start and end dates and times;
questions and submitted answers will be collated into an Excel spreadsheet for easy marking;

Example of how an exam or quiz looks in Microsoft Forms

An example of a quiz/test/exam using Microsoft Forms

Want more information?

To find out more about how to build effective and authentic quizzes and exams, then take a few moments and follow this link that has more information https://education.microsoft.com/en-us/course/ac59d6bc/overview

Summary & kudos

These are just a few suggestions that I decided to add to the ever-growing amount of solutions that people are putting together after reading inspiring posts by Dale Munday and Kyungmee Lee (see below).

https://twitter.com/Dale_Munday/status/1237403844109389824

https://twitter.com/hi_klee/status/1237081081507196929

Selected ideas, guidance and readings for designing for learning online & communities of practice

The Universal Design for Learning (UDL) http://udlguidelines.cast.org/
Approaches to learning design from JISC, UK: https://www.jisc.ac.uk/guides/designing-learning-and-assessment-in-a-digital-age/approaches-to-learning-design
Designing an online course from Mesa Community College, Arizona, USA: https://ctl.mesacc.edu/teaching/designing-an-online-course/
Designing and Teaching Online from SkillsCommons.org: http://support.skillscommons.org/showcases/open-courseware/teacher-training/teach-online/
Theories and Frameworks for Online Learning: Seeking an Integrated Model: https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1154117.pdf
Pandemic Pedagogy: https://www.facebook.com/groups/2528669267346197/

18/02/2020 18/02/2020

Getting students to use (new) apps

I've decided to quickly write up some thoughts on getting students to use new apps for learning and teaching as a reflection on what I've observed over the last few years and more recently.

It's safe to say that I approach this post from the point of view that there are many opportunities for digital education to enhance the learning and teaching experience.

More specifically, I'm writing this short article in relation to #MicrosoftTeams and what you need to do to ensure successful uptake by students and staff. What I write here applies to any other new systems - even ones such as Moodle.

Social media all around

It's fair to say that a lot of students and even staff in higher education use a variety of social media for various purposes. Students and staff still may use Facebook to connect with their friends and family, and classmates and course mates. Statista has a wealth of data on users of Facebook and Twitter, if you're interested.

Both of these groups may, if they're interested, use Instagram to create, collate and share images and/or video - photography and multimedia generally. A good number of students use Snapchat and in the UK high numbers of users aged 18-24 are likely to use Snapchat. Some university staff even use Snapchat to engage students in the classroom - with success!

Students aren't digital natives

A lot of my colleagues in higher education might understandably believe that because students regularly use apps like Snapchat, Instagram, WeChat, Facebook and others that this ability translates into a being able to effectively use digital tools and being tech savvy - being digital natives. - well beyond what my colleagues may have grown up with.

A lot of us use technology to 'passively soak up information' which could be scrolling through a Facebook or Instagram feed and reacting to posts. Yes, perhaps we share the odd image, video or article and add a bit of commentary - commentary - but are these acts critical or rather habitual?

I'd say these are habitual acts that form part of a series of daily routines in which users might fill time - gaps between spurts of attention to other things - and/or while navigating and exploring the vast ocean of information that's out there. From funny memes to noteworthy articles or click-bait news - it's all information, and it doesn't take much effort to open our favorite app to access that information! And this leads me to my main point...

New and unfamiliar systems

In a university setting, students will often use platforms such as Moodle, Blackboard, Google Apps for Education or similar. Microsoft has an answer, too, #MicrosoftTeams. All of these platforms offer a range of activities, structures and systems that can greatly help to manage the design, flow and presentation of information for users.

One thing we should not forget is that the aforementioned systems are created for the purposes of education, business and collaboration generally which go beyond the basic functions of Facebook, Snapchat and Instagram which are primarily for 1:1 or small group chats/discussions that are often centered around the sharing of media.

However, what unites all of these systems, platforms and apps for education is that generally these are unfamiliar to students unless there is a chance that they'd previously used one of them in school. Even then, if, for example, students have used Moodle in school, the look and feel of the system may not represent what they end up seeing in a university setting. Indeed, where modules on Moodle are still often used as repositories rather than engaging learning and teaching hubs, this can be daunting for users of 21st Century systems such as Google Search or Bing that offer information at your fingertips with few hurdles if you understand how to do key word searches. This leads me to a question:

How often do you explicitly train your students in using your university system or an app for a module?

I suspect not a lot of programmes take the time to explicitly provide training to students. That said, think of all the time we spend when we start a new post to receive training on the following:

health & safety
diversity
data protection & GDPR

So why don't we spend a bit of time investing in the training of digital abilities and skills rather than assuming that the use of a smart phone = being digital and tech savvy? Taking a selfie does not make you a tech expert!

New systems require explicit training

#MicrosoftTeams is taking off as the latest app for learning, teaching and collaboration generally within higher education in the UK. Indeed, I'm using it on a module that I lead on and it's confirmed a few things that I learned a few years ago.

Between about 2014-2016, I was working with pre-sessional student who would come to the UK during the summertime period to study English as a foreign language for the purposes of improving their academic English language abilities. Students generally had an English language knowledge of about B1 to B2 and they had digital skills that ranged significantly. Nearly all had a smart phone and could use the main apps of the day.

We used Moodle as our online platform with our students to set readings, have online discussions and set assignments that students would write up, upload and submit. Moodle was a system most students hadn't used and would only use in their university studies. In order to ensure the students' success in using the online platform as an enabler rather than a distraction, I convinced colleagues to allow all students to receive 1 hour of explicit instruction on hows and whys of using Moodle.

During the summer, we had around 700 students over 3 cohorts that we needed to train up. So, we booked computer labs and trained students in groups of 30-50 each in the space of about 1 hour; there were frequently 3 staff (including myself) on hand to help out and ensure that everyone was on the same page.

Effective training = tangible benefits

Although with the sheer numbers of students to train some days were long, the result was that we were able to ensure that over 90-95% of the students understood what Moodle was and what it was for, why we were using it and how they could access it. This number was able to ensure that we had created a relatively strong community of learning in which students could support each other in understanding and practicing how to navigate an unfamiliar and new system, which in this case was Moodle.

As a side benefit, also important, for students whose first language wasn't English, they were able to understand that they were going to get a lot of writing practice in English, which would boost their confidence in writing more fluently (albeit not always accurately) in a relatively authentic, meaningful way that they could then transfer back into their own writing for essays and assignments.

Key takeaways

The key takeaway here is this: If we throw the apps at students, they don't always get it. They generally get Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat... because those are fun apps for fun, social stuff. They won't necessarily get apps for education, business and collaboration though; these aren't natural apps - they aren't always fun (or associated with fun!), so we should prepare our students first before letting the apps loose!

With nominal training (1 hour) students will:

develop a critical awareness of the reasons for using the system;
gain effective practice in using the basic, required elements of the new system;
develop transferable digital skills that can be used for approaching and understanding new systems.

So, if you're going to teach on a module that involves Moodle, Microsoft Teams and/or similar, and/or if you have a student induction coming up, take the time to build in 1 hour of training.

The results will pay off and speak for themselves!

08/02/2020 08/02/2020

MNGT160 - making a massive, online module happen

Although I have taught on courses, designed modules and developed modules from scratch, nothing had quite prepared me for leading a module, let alone one that is almost entirely online - whose creators consist of dozen or more staff from across the Management School, whose facilitators include 4 graduate teaching assistants, one administrator and myself and whose audience is over 1200 first year undergraduate students!

That said, leading such a module is something that I have found equally both incredibly challenging and rewarding as an educator working in the field of higher education within the context of a large management school.

Through reflecting upon my experiences and development of learning from failures and successes, the areas that I aim to cover in a series of posts will touch upon the following (in no particular order):

understanding leadership on a large module
the people factor
curriculum development and design
innovation in curriculum
digital and information literacies and development of related abilities and skills - of students and staff

Before embarking upon this mini-journey, I offer some thanks to Cathy S and Casey C passing on the leadership baton. I also offer thanks for the collaboration to the array of colleagues (Karine R, Nichapa P, Alex S, Ahmad T, Huan Y, Sylvia D, Lucia C, Matthew H, Chris S, Emma W, Hina K, Mahnaz A, Casey C, Jeffrey U, Geraint J, Steve K, Maurizio Z, Debbie D, Josi F, Elena L, Robyn R, Guglielmo L, Arpit R, Chloe V, Chris F, Emma J, Mark D and Rachel D among many others) that have made this module possible, and by allowing it to take on a unique format that students appear to find engaging, thought-provoking and worthwhile.

15/01/2020 15/01/2020

Digital, information and media literacies, and the development of related abilities and skills of students and staff

An image of two mics, a desk and chair representing a recording studio. Source: Unsplash

I have been able to gain a wealth of understanding of the varying levels of digital, information and media literacies among the students and staff through my role of leading on the module and seeing the module launch. What I seek to write about here relates to the digital and information literacies of both groups of stakeholders from my own interactions and observations.

Part of MNGT160 is particularly innovative in that we are doing the following. To allay doubt, in our use of 'innovative' I'm talking about breaking with tradition within our own context rather than creating the next best thing since sliced bread...

we have created a podcast mini-series, of sorts, as the central medium for the content; all episodes are transcribed as standard, and hyperlinks to further relevant texts and media are added in to make the transcripts be a bit more engaging, insightful and useful as a potential resource for those who might want to read along as they listen and/or read the transcript generally;
the module radically departs from traditional modes of delivery such as having solely face-to-face sessions and using Moodle as a static repository of resources;
this module is run entirely online via Microsoft Teams and, to a lesser extent, OneNote is used to collect and collate further references, articles and other supplementary content;
there are a few face-to-face events that directly tie in with the overarching topics and sub-topics.

The inspiration for doing the podcasts came from colleagues agreeing to try out podcasting as the main content vehicle and my own listening to Sophie Bailey's #EdtechPodcast and a presentation by Nellie El Enany on using podcasts in the classroom at ELTME2019.

Media literacies

Media literacy is an umbrella to consider other literacies, including news literacy, visual literacy, information literacy, technology and platform literacy, and data literacy.
Media Literacy and Politics of Identity - Resources for Educators. https://criticalmediaproject.org/media-literacies/

The first point I'll touch on has to with the idea of using podcasts as a central medium. Initially, my colleagues and myself all felt this would be a particularly innovative, flexible and different way for students to engage with the different topics and subtopics of the module.

The benefits in terms of flexibility for students seemed numerous and too attractive to pass up: students could listen to the episodes of the podcast anytime, anywhere, whether this was while on the bus, in the gym, while cooking and/or while reading or studying. In contrast to a recorded video lecture, a podcast seemed to make more sense for this particular module.

Generally, we felt fairly confident in using this as the medium for the module. However, as further conversations were had, I quickly came to understand a few things:

not everyone listens to podcasts;
not everyone knows what a podcast is and/or entails;
not everyone listens to 'talk radio' such as BBC Radio 4 in the UK or NPR in the US;
not everyone can imagine what a podcast is if they don't listen to the radio, let alone talk radio!!

What I was perhaps struck by most was that some colleagues had difficulty imagining what a podcast might entail, whether we're talking about a podcast itself as a concept, or in another case, actually sitting down to record a podcast. This general lack of media literacy in itself created a few issues, one which relates directly to how the time of colleagues are allocated via the workload.

However, this also presented unique opportunities for learning, staff development and creating a positive impact upon colleagues who had not previously engaged with and/or used podcasts or podcasting previously.

A practical issue: workloading

In terms of workload and the infamous 'workload model', the idea of preparing for a podcast nearly became a bigger issue than it was. Most podcasts are either informal talks about a topic or more or fully-informed chats, debates and/or discussions about a topic.

However, from what I observed, part of the lack of understanding more generally of what a podcast often is and can be did lead to some colleagues believing that they would have to spend hours and hours preparing for a podcast. Some colleagues initially thought preparing for a podcast would be similar to how a lecturer might spend time writing up a lecture and/or creating or repurposing slides, all of which can take a significant amount of time if the topic to be covered is new and/or fresh.

Such lengthy preparation might also be merited if we planned for the podcasts to be a debate rather than a discussion in which colleagues are talking about a question from their own subject lens perspective. If we were planning on a talk where we wanted to 'catch people out', then sure, preparation is key! However, in the cast of our own podcast series for MNGT160, I wanted people to do a bit of preparing (1 hour or so maximum) and come to the recording studio to sit down and have a collegial, informed chat about the topic in question.

Butterflies & speaking to mic

Recording podcasts, like recording video or taking a photograph of someone, is likely to generate a certain level of nervousness even with colleagues who may have daily student-facing roles whether these are administrative or teaching focused. It's easy to assume that those who are confident in their daily roles will be confident speaking for a podcast. Nope, this isn't always the case!

That said, I found the easiest way to manage the nerves of speakers, for the most part, was by getting people to meet for about 15-20 minutes, chat about what we'd generally aim to chat about and briefly sketch out tentative talking points for each episode, bearing in mind that we could be flexible as long as we focused on the general question for each episode and spoke no more than the allotted amount of time.

Another way that I found that worked particularly well for both myself as a new podcast/radio host and for other colleagues was to get in touch with the press office on campus. One colleague, Paul T, had extensive prior experience as a journalist and so was particularly helpful in coaching and mentoring colleagues and myself in terms of how to speak in a radio-type setting, what to do and how to approach things generally. Our digital media engineer, Martin T, was also particularly helpful from the recording, technical and design side of getting a podcast up and running. Sure, we could have recorded the videos with a mobile phone, but we wanted to get things right the first time around.

On reflection...

From a leader's perspective, I perhaps should I have predicted this lack of understanding of the notion of podcasts, podcasting and talk radio generally. I was very enthusiastic and wrongly assumed that people generally listen to spoken word radio shows, if not podcasts.

But then again, going back to my earlier point, not everyone understood the concept of a podcast and they instead immediately relied upon what they did know: teaching and lecturing which are very different (!) from spoken word for a radio show or a podcast.

Going forward, when podcasts are going to be the main content vehicle, I'll take the time to do a bit of fishing of my colleagues to see whether they listen to the radio or podcasts, and if not explain what a podcast is and share one of the podcast episodes we've since created. Even if 3-4 colleagues out of the 7 know what a podcast is, it's best to spend time making sure the other 3-4 are fully aware so that they can be more relaxed when taking part.

Yes, of course, I could have shared a currently running podcast with a colleagues, though the issue would have been 1) choosing the 'right' podcast and 2) ensuring that everyone had a list (even briefly) to a few moments of the podcast - something that I can request, but not demand and 3) potentially setting unintended expectations per quality, length and so on!

The key takeaways

Doing a podcast

Whereas a lecture is designed to tell a story or impart information, often presented by one person from start to finish with relatively fixed starting and end points within a specified timeframe, a podcast should be a dialogue, a conversation between the speakers present. This is something that one can prepare for but one cannot entirely script a podcast episode else it might end up sounding unnatural. There is some preparation on the part of the host and speakers.

However, the good news for anyone wanting to try out podcasting for learning, teaching and development is that the time involved is far less than the amount of preparation that goes into a traditional face-to-face lecture that may consist of writing up a script, creating/modifying a series of slides and rehearsing a lecture. While a basic level of pre-recording preparation required can consist of bullet points and a brief meeting either face-to-face or a couple of email exchanges to lay the groundwork for a good, fruitful conversation, as I noted above, it is not necessary to plan out the entire episode of an informed conversation.

Media literacies

17/05/2017 17/05/2017

Repost - #15toptips for Student-Centred Teaching 7: Build peer mentoring into your students’ higher education experience

This is a good post about how to build peer mentoring into university courses. With growing numbers of students studying, the value of having experienced students support first-year students is also increasing.Shazia Ahmed and Sarah Honeychurch from the University of Glasgow have also done quite a bit of work on peer assisted learning (PAL), and I've often referred to their research/scholarship when making the case for PAL. One of their latest papers can be found here. Source: #15toptips for Student-Centred Teaching 7: Build peer mentoring into your students’ higher education experience

01/05/2017 01/05/2017

Thoughts on 'Why Believing in Your Students Matters' by Katie Martin

teaching beliefs cycle Today I came across this succinct article by Katie Martin on why believing in our students matters, as this can have a significant impact upon a teacher's practices and students' uptake of learning regardless of where learning and teaching that takes place - whether face-to-face or online.While I have known about the need to wait for responses from students for some time, and I value this approach, sometimes one can wait a bit too long. UK universities have had high and growing numbers of students from China for a while now. Some universities throw their doors open to International students since they pay higher fees.One such university near London where one Master's program of 150+ students has well over 95% of its students from China. At the same time, some of these same universities that seek to recruit large numbers of International students, often heavily reliant upon specific markets such as China, can, at times, lower the bar in terms of language requirements. From my own experience of observing and delivering teaching, this situation, which isn't unique to the aforementioned university, creates a number of issues since the students often:

come with different levels of language readiness for an intensive postgraduate level of study;
are not or may not be used to interacting and socializing with those from other countries;
are unlikely to work outside their 'peer' group of compatriots due to shyness, peer pressure or do so begrudgingly; and/or
lack confidence in their own abilities and are perhaps not provided with enough motivation from teaching staff to instill a positive, 'can-do' attitude to learning.

The result of any or a combination of these is that lecturers, academic tutors, learning developers and tutors of English for academic purposes are frequently put into tricky situations: the content has to be delivered, but if students are struggling to understand, what is to be done? Too often I have heard over the years, from staff at various institutions, similar negative remarks that Katie mentions in her article. I've always found these types of comments particularly demotivating and, silently, I ask myself upon hearing sustained negative comments "Well, why the hell are you in teaching?!" It is as if those making such comments were perfect students who always worked hard.On the flip side, the best colleagues I've had have always been positive, supportive and empathetic to the student journey. This empathy seems to set apart the negativity of the moaners from the teachers/lecturers whose lessons that we would always look forward to when we were once students. I think part of this empathy that some educators have is at least partially informed by the works of the Brazilian educationalist Paolo Freire, among others.Going back to Katie's article, I think one solution is creating a positive, welcoming environment that seeks to recognize the students as intelligent participants who are able to interact at Master's level successfully with regular, positive support that seeks to push the students' boundaries and to modify our teaching practices to engage the students in such a way that might tease out from them meaningful participation.One way, I believe, is to have a meaningful, welcoming induction to a program that gets students involved in getting to know their peers and teaching staff beyond the polite formalities of titles and names (think: basic teambuilding activities that get students to solve real problems related to their studies and/or life within their new educational setting). Oftentimes, I've seen inductions that were so superficially boring, stereotypical and/or dry that it immediately set the wrong (superficial) tone for the program of study in question.Another solution is to embed positive thinking throughout a program. As Katie says in her post:

... when we believe we can learn and improve through hard work and effort we can create the conditions and experiences that lead to increased achievement and improved outcomes.

In terms of learning and teaching, this is particularly powerful for our students. If they feel the above, they can and will improve in their learning journey. We, as educators, have a responsibility to instill these ideas into our students, especially International students who might genuinely need extra support, encouragement and motivation in order for them to become independent learners. Part of ensuring the success of our learners is to change our thinking - to think more positively, and to believe in our students.This also means we might need to change our approach to learning and teaching. So, for example, imagine you have a session of 15-50 students and they don't volunteer answers without being called on and prefer to stare at their phone or laptops (or both!). If our students are quiet and reticent to raise their hands to volunteer an answer, then there are some easily-doable solutions.

Creating regularly-spaced questions to gauge/engage/formatively assess learning can significantly help improve participation, and these can be easily delivered via a response system such as Mentimeter or similar as students only need to use their mobile phone/phablet/tablet/laptop.
Implementing a Twitter feed so that students can engage during/after a teaching session can also foster learning by using a module/course specific hashtag. These two blog posts have a range of good ideas:
- Teaching with Twitter: Engaging Students in Large Lectures
- Twitter in the University Classroom: Live-Tweeting During Lectures

Apart from those small solutions, I believe that part of ensuring the success of our learners is also to change our thinking - to think more positively, and to believe in our students. So, for example, rather than immediately assuming that most, if not all, International students are likely to plagiarize essays, we can set the stage from the start by building a positive, supportive environment that seeks to educate rather than pontificate. Another quote from Katie's article below underscores my message:

“When we expect certain behaviors of others, we are likely to act in ways that make the expected behavior more likely to occur. (Rosenthal and Babad, 1985)”

Let's take plagiarism. I've often heard from colleagues both genuine concerns and negative comments/expectations of students in terms of plagiarism. This, in turn, leads to plagiarism being approached in an almost compelling manner within course materials: plagiarism is bad, and therefore if you plagiarize you are bad and so if you plagiarize, you will fail, etc.Using the above example, one relatively simple way to embed a positive approach to learning and teaching is to change the negative, hellfire-and-damnation discourse on plagiarism often present within course materials to one that offers an open, frank discussion on attribution and giving credit. One such way I have done this is by getting students to look up and understand attribution through discussion, and then following this up by reading an in-depth report on a politician who plagiarized a paper for a Master's degree. From what I have observed, these combined approaches give students a chance to explore the issue of plagiarism through a more empowering lens while exercising their academic literacies (digital and information among others).From what I have observed, these combined approaches give students a chance to explore the issue of plagiarism through a more empowering lens while exercising their academic literacies (digital and information among others). It gets them thinking and talking amongst each other rather than being spoken [down] to in terms of the issues of plagiarism. Along with the teacher creating an empathic, positive atmosphere, this also makes students feel part of the discussion and (more) part of the academic community as they seek to understand expectations that may be new and/or alien to previous educational experiences.Ultimately, the choice lies with the teacher in question to change their practices or not. There is always an element of risk to transforming teaching practices. However, without taking risks (even small ones) to innovate, one will simply never know how effective the changes to might be. Mulling ideas over is a good way to get started, but as with anything, mulling ideas over for an extremely long amount of time can kill ideas and innovation. Staff who have ideas should be allowed to experiment, and line managers should be proactive in supporting staff who are enthustic about learning and teaching.If things don't entirely work as planned or expected, well, at least learning has occurred on the part of both the learners and the teacher(s) in question. The light bulb and radio weren't perfected within a day's time, so why should a new teaching approach be perfected before trying it out?! Just do it!Just do it!

08/08/2016 08/08/2016

Ideas on teaching: should we abandon adherence to lesson aims?

2016-05-07-1462656027-694441-Manypeoplechattingabouteverythinglearning

Reflections on an article on Bakhtin & digital scholarship

I've recently read an article from the Journal of Applied Social Theory called 'Bakhtin, digital scholarship and new publishing practices as carnival' which discusses how digital scholarship causes disruption to traditional academic practices (Cooper & Condie, 2016). The authors theorize the issues by using Mikhail Bakhtin's concepts on language and dialogue 'to understand how new forms of digital scholarship, particularly blogging and self-publishing' are able to both foster and limit academic dialogues (ibid). One idea throughout the discussion is that of whether digital scholarship represents something 'carnivalesque,' or in other words, something that disrupts traditional, established practices in academia (Bakhtin, 1984b as cited by Cooper & Condie, 2016).

According to the Cooper & Condie (2016), one part of the dominant discourses in academia and research is that these can be viewed as 'finalising' which thus creates a definite, fixed understanding of subjects as opposed to them being viewed as 'unfinalised' and thus changing. Cooper & Condie (ibid) discuss this notion through Bakhtin's view that a more ethical approach to social science is one where research dialogues attempt no finalization of participants in research or topics of inquiry (Frank, 2005 as cited by Cooper & Condie, 2016). Cooper & Condie (ibid) note the example from Bakhtin's analysis of a character called Devushkin from the Dostoevsky novel Poor Folk:

Devushkin, who in recognising himself in another story, did not wish to be represented as ‘something totally quantified, measured, and defined to the last detail: all of you is here, there is nothing more in you, and nothing more to be said about you’ (p. 58). Thus from a Bakhtinian perspective, researchers should not ‘Devushkinise’ their research participants, and the power to finalise people with social science discourses should be scrutinised (Frank, 2005).

In brief, Cooper & Condie (2016) appear to be advocating an 'unfinalised' approach in research that invokes a 'carnivalesque' element is one that seeks to be inclusive by welcoming voices from students, teachers and researchers alike rather than solely established researchers and traditional, established 'norms' within academia.

Traditions in EFL/EAP teaching: the teaching observation

What most interested me about the ideas and theories in the article was the potential applications to teaching within English as a foreign language and English for academic purposes. One tenant of EFL/EAP especially within the UK context is that one should be indoctrinated, as it were, by undertaking the Cambridge CELTA course initially and the Cambridge Delta course subsequently. Indeed, many English language schools and professional organizations, such as BALEAP and the British Council, often require teachers to have one of these qualifications while most UK universities where EFL/EAP is taught often demand the Cambridge Delta qualification which is an expensive and narrowly focused undertaking that does not always fit 'well' within the context of teaching academic writing for university.

Both the Cambridge CELTA and Delta qualifications place a high value on narrow aims for lessons, which must be adhered to in order to demonstrate learning. However, I believe that any experienced teacher would fully understand that a list of 3 aims for the lesson does not indicate learning and will not indicate that the students have learned everything by the end of the lesson. Learning is a continuous process that does not begin and end within the confines of the walls of the classroom. However, those seeking CELTA or Delta qualifications are forced to demonstrate that these fixed aims have been met within the space of 60 minutes, and thus, that learning has been achieved by the students as a result of the teacher's success in addressing and thus ticking off each of the aims!

As part of one's employment as a teacher of English as a foreign language and/or for academic purposes, mandatory observations are often required as part of the contractual obligations, whether employment is in a language school or a university. One set of criteria that observees must note down are the lesson aims. In the observation, the observer will look to these and attempt to identify whether the aims have been met within the context of the lesson plan, often within the space of a 60-90 minute observation.

However, this approach to observations, in my opinion, raises several questions which relate back to the theories in Cooper & Condie's article:

Can the lesson aims, without a doubt, demonstrate whether learning has taken place after the lesson?
Do not a series of lesson aims suggest that learning is fixable, and thus able to be finalized?
Where do student interest and inquiry come into play as far as the lesson aims, and whether these are met or not?
Where the students and teachers spend more time on specific aims that lead to an aim not being met, should this reflect poorly on the teacher?

A potential solution

I think one potential solution is to revamp how observations are done: they should not be conducted according to how Cambridge CELTA and Delta observed lessons are conducted as these observations are quite narrow in focus and presume that a 60-90 minute 'snapshot' of the teacher is 'enough' to make a value judgement. These observations also tend not to focus on students at all, but solely on the teachers - as if learning and teaching were not a dialogic process! Learning and teaching is a dialogic process - without dialogue, the teacher would become a speaker who talks at the students as opposed to discussing with the students the issues being covered.

Therefore, observations should also look at learning on the part of the students rather than focusing solely on whether the teacher is delivering a lesson and meeting lesson aims according to a plan. A pre-planned lesson on paper might indicate that deviation from the plan should be avoided in order to fulfill the lesson aims and thus the plan. For some reason, lesson aims are traditionally seen as tenants - they must be achieved.

However, learning and teaching in the classroom does not often go according to plan for various reasons. One reason is that students might want to know more about a particular area, and thus might have questions, deep questions, about a particular topic. If we, as teachers, only quickly address their questions on the surface without going into depth in order to meet our aims, I feel we are doing our students a disservice. This also can make teachers appear a bit rushed or hesitant to address students' concerns - within the eyes of the students - at their expense and for achieving the lesson aims, which might negatively affect the atmosphere in the classroom.

Another reason might be that the materials, at times published within a book or within a course pack, might work in theory within the lesson plan and thus within the mind of the teacher but in practice do not work according to plan. In this case, the teacher has to 'teach on their feet' especially they observe that the materials are presenting problems for the students.

Final (but unfinished) thoughts...

To sum up, if learning and teaching is a dialogic process, it is very likely an 'unfinalised' process that does not end once the class has ended. Students do not simply learn everything within the space of 60-120 minutes whether or not lesson aims have been met. Teachers should advocate for different forms of observation in order to reflect the complex reality and nature of learning.

Learning continues through dialogues outside the classroom, whether face-to-face or online through discussion forums or text messaging or most importantly, within the minds of the students. I would argue that learning has no natural endpoint, and thus, it simply cannot be encapsulated or evidenced within a lesson observation.

We can attempt to understand what learning has taken place in the classroom, but in order to do this, observation practices will need to start taking a closer look at the learners perhaps before, during and after a particular lesson. A more 'carnivalesque' approach is merited - one that is inclusive and looks at all participants in the learning and teaching process, and gets a sense of their voices on the processes. A snapshot observation of teachers is old hat, and in the world of the digital - where information can be easily obtained and disseminated to foster and support learning and teaching - I believe such observations are outmoded. A new model for observations must include student learning and participation as they are also key stakeholders in the process of learning and teaching. To close, Bakhtin would not support traditionally accepted notions of teacher observation practices in 21st Century world of teaching English as a foreign language/English for academic purposes, and therefore, change is needed.

Bibliography

Cooper, A., & Condie, J. (2016). Bakhtin, digital scholarship and new publishing practices as carnival. Journal of Applied Social Theory, 1(1). Retrieved from http://socialtheoryapplied.com/journal/jast/article/view/31/7

26/06/2016 26/06/2016

Designing and Conducting a SoTL Project using a Worksheet: A Baker’s Dozen of Important Sets of Guiding Questions — The SoTL Advocate

I came across this post from another blog that I follow. The post has a few ideas for scholarship and some guiding questions that can help teaching staff identify potential areas for scholarship/research.Read more below at the original post.

Written by Kathleen McKinney, Professor and Cross Chair in SoTL, Illinois State University Many of us have numerous SoTL research topics or questions floating around in our minds. We have multiple ideas for design and measurement. We have thoughts, perhaps concerns, about IRB issues. We may be unsure about multiple methods/measures or whether to obtain […]

via Designing and Conducting a SoTL Project using a Worksheet: A Baker’s Dozen of Important Sets of Guiding Questions — The SoTL Advocate

19/05/2016 19/05/2016

Facebook for Peer Assisted Learning

Today I gave a presentation in which I shared scholarship that has been done by Shazia Ahmed, Sarah Honeychurch and Lorna Love from Student Learning Service and the Learning & Teaching Centre of the University of Glasgow on virtual peer assisted learning groups organized on Facebook. teaching-student-success-centre-02

Project background & issues

The groups support first year undergraduate students, and beyond, from a variety of subjects. The Facebook PAL groups have proved to be highly successful, and indeed, the math and statistics support group, sigma, recognized the significance of the contribution that the Facebook PAL groups have made to the field by awarding Shazia and Sarah sigma prize winner for 2014 for Innovation of the Year.The virtual PAL groups have been in operation since 2010 when they were first piloted as a solution to address issues that voluntary, traditional, face-to-face peer assisted learning sessions raised:

Different timetabling across the subjects and students' own schedules made it difficult to schedule PAL sessions within a typical 0900-1700 working/study day
Low attendance was more often the norm since PAL sessions were often scheduled outside of the 0900-1700 working day, and as winter approached after the start of the academic year, the days grew shorter, darker and thus students were far less likely to attend voluntary, optional PAL sessions.
Student had other competing responsibilities (e.g. part-time work, caring responsibilities, commuting and others).
Traditional PAL sessions were optional whereas tutorials were mandatory. First year undergraduates already face confidence and shyness issues, so attending an optional session was not a priority for them.
New, first year students lacked of a sense of identity or belonging as many were new to not only the Glasgow area and university, but also the academic community.

Solution

In 2010, staff from the Student Learning Service & Learning and Teaching Centre teams at Glasgow instigated and semi-moderated Facebook groups for Year 1 Maths and Computing students in the first instance, with the aim of:

Providing a space to encourage interaction and academic dialogue between classmates, senior students and support staff.
Having students share questions with each other.
Allowing virtual peer assisted learning sessions to happen spontaneously and asynchronously.

Students would also share resources, ask questions about lectures, labs, the university, etc. and generally support each other and their transition from school to university.

Structure of Facebook PAL groups

Figure 1 below (Ahmed & Honeychurch, 2015) shows how Student Learning Service set up the groups for the College of Science and Engineering at the University of Glasgow. SLS set up a 'landing group' on Facebook with links to respective subject-specific Facebook PAL groups. Students were invited to join via e-mail.Students would first join the landing group and then join their subject group (e.g. Comp Sci 1 for first year computing science). Students would remain members of their subject group throughout the year. In the following academic year, first year groups would be renamed as 'Subject 2' (e.g. Comp Sci 2) and the groups would be rolled over, thus preserving the learning communities that had been formed with the first year undergraduates.

Rationale for Facebook PAL groups

Throughout their scholarship and literature, Lorna, Shazia and Sarah note the following reasons for using Facebook for PAL groups:

Glasgow University conducts a bi-annual 'digital natives' survey of incoming first year students, and evidence has shown that students do still use Facebook.
Students can form relationships immediately prior to starting a course, thus smoothening the transition from school to university, and their course.
Students can obtain support quickly, when they need/want it, and thus this leads to increased student engagement and learning being fostered.
Learning communities can be formed over a year, and maintained beyond that year.
Social interactions online can transform into face-to-face interactions, which lead to students organizing and holding face-to-face study sessions when convenient for them.

Lecturers do not maintain a presence within the Facebook PAL groups as their presence can be intimidating, but the presence of academic development/support staff, along with peers (senior students) provides encouragement and support to students in the group.It's worth noting that although apps like WhatsApp and Snapchat are growing in usage and popularity, these are fundamentally different as they are not social networking apps in the same sense as Facebook or Academia.edu.Interestingly, related research on this topic offers further insights into student-led Facebook groups as examples of open educational practices that actually foster educational inclusion, and can help group members in learning to manage their 'emotional reactions, anxieties and stress levels' while improving retention and providing 'just in time' academic support (Coughlan & Perryman, 2015:9)

Concerns & ethical considerations

I communicated with Shazia and Sarah via e-mail on a few occasions and quizzed them about various concerns that I had - just in case! - and they kindly addressed them:

Recruiting/training senior students:

In August I post a message on all the groups with a link to the new Entrants group and just ask the senior students if they would like to join and contribute. It always amazes me how many will volunteer and actively participate. We don’t provide any training.

Plagiarism/collusion:

This has never been an issue. Part of the reason could be that Sarah and I have a presence on the groups and that deters students. Even with ‘simple’ things like first year maths homework whenever students post queries, the classmates or senior students respond with hints and clues as to how the question can be tackled, or sometimes refer students to the relevant section in the notes on Moodle. I have never seen anyone ‘hand over’ an answer.

Interaction and moderation required from academic support staff:

I think you just have to try it and see! The point for us is to promote peer- assisted learning and to create a community so I tend to make more effort to interact with everyone at the beginning of the year to help ‘establish’ the groups, and gradually step back.There are a lot of groups to moderate so it’s difficult to keep an eye on all the conversations – but other students (including older students) are usually quicker to reply than I am anyway! If students are anxious to hear from me or Sarah, they just tag us and we respond to them as quickly as we can.It’s a good idea to have more than one admin in the groups. It’s useful if one admin is unavailable and there are members to add, spammy posts to remove, or posts to pin, etc.

Ethical considerations of using Facebook

ethics049webiv

Privacy

Of course privacy is an issue that some staff might be concerned about in terms of supporting students within a Facebook peer assisted learning group. This concern is understandable, but luckily, also easily addressable.Staff can manipulate Facebook's privacy settings to ensure that their posts are only seen by their friends. Staff needn't be 'friends' with students in Facebook groups. Indeed, when I queried whether staff were in Facebook groups, many said 'yes'. When I asked whether they were friends with all group members of a Facebook group, many said 'no', and generally this isn't a requirement of being a member of a Facebook group rather it's an added plus if you know someone who's already a member.

Ethical issues of using Facebook

An interesting and valid point came up toward the end of my presentation about the ethical considerations of using Facebook for peer assisted learning groups. The crux of the point made was that Facebook is a for-profit company which makes money off of people, and whether we as academic staff should be asking students to use Facebook for learning and teaching purposes. I did find this to be an interesting point, and it got me thinking of another large for-profit company...Microsoft products are (still) widely used in many higher education establishments. Indeed, universities do pay a certain premium for using Microsoft products, although the Microsoft Office Suite of programs is not nearly as expensive as it used to be.This is despite the fact that Google Apps for Education offer a free suite of products that university students and staff can use (if their university has signed up to a free Google Apps for Education account) that work effectively and efficiently across devices, provide for data and Intellectual Property rights protection, and simply just work and do what users want to do.In short, I appreciate the point about whether it is ethical to ask students to use Facebook for learning and teaching purposes. I think a bit of informal querying of students might reveal that they already use Facebook for study purposes in some respects (e.g. arranging meetings, sharing files en masse and so on), and that they have no problems doing so.I would ask whether it is ethical for Microsoft to make a profit off students, staff and universities who use or have to use its products. Microsoft is a very large company that has embedded itself within business and higher education to a very extensive level, but generally speaking, it does not receive the same level of criticism, as say, Facebook or Google do. Sure, a lot of people do complain about Microsoft products, but interestingly, I have rarely heard anyone question the ethical considerations of using Microsoft products. I suspect this is because Microsoft is embedded, and therefore invisible to such scrutiny.

Benefits of Facebook PAL groups over traditional PAL

There are several key benefits that should seriously be considered as reasons for instigating, trialling and implementing Facebook peer assisted learning groups that Sarah, Shazia and Lorna have observed since 2010:

Availability:
- Online conversations can take place at any time. Access to peer assisted learning is constant and students don't have to wait for a scheduled session, which is important for students with full academic timetables and/or other commitments. They can get help when they need it.
- Conversations can be easily revisited, and students aren't forced to participate.
- One question asked may lead to several questions being answered simultaneously. In a large cohort (100+ students) this can be quite valuable, as several students are likely to have the same question simultaneously or at (slightly) different stages of an assignment.

Academic & social skills development:
- Collaborative learning is instigated and co-creation of knowledge is fostered, which lead to learning communities being formed.
- Students develop their written communication skills (e.g. clarity, precision) in that they are forced to use clear language when asking questions of peers.
- Students have to use subject specific terminology, and written conversations online gives students practice of this while getting them to think critically about their language and the terminology usage. A clearly-worded question is likely to garner attention and answers, whereas one that's unclear/poorly worded might not.
- Facilitators (e.g. senior students and academic support staff) act as academic scaffolders who provide clues, hints and links to resources rather than solely provide. For senior students, this helps them develop their mentoring abilities and related skills, for newer students, this can help them to understand that their peers can be good resources better understanding their subject.

Inclusivity
- Online interaction fosters inclusivity and leads to real world, face-to-face connections and relationships.
- Students whose first language isn’t English appreciate the extra time created by this medium to digest, understand and participate in conversations.
- A more level playing field is created and shy students are more likely to participate.
- Conversations in virtual peer assisted learning extend to all group members rather than just session members. In other words, face-to-face sessions based upon conversation afford a more ephemeral mode of communication unless students/staff are recording and writing down everything that is discussed in a session. As noted above, written conversations can be revisited.

Scholarship & evidence
- The scholarship that Sarah, Shazia and Lorna have undertaken since 2010 with several hundred students demonstrates that such an approach to peer assisted learning can work and does work. They have provided an easily replicable model that could be set up for any program and within any institution.

References & further reading

Many of the papers and presentations that Shazia, Sarah and Lorna have done can be found at the following links:

Shazia's Academia.edu profile: https://glasgow.academia.edu/ShaziaAhmed
Sarah's Academia.edu profile: https://glasgow.academia.edu/SarahHoneychurch
Lorna's Academia.edu profile: https://independent.academia.edu/LoveLorna

Ahmed, S., and Honeychurch, S. (2015) Using social media to promote deep learning and increase student engagement in the college of science & engineering. In: IMA International Conference on Barriers and Enablers to Learning Maths: Enhancing Learning and Teaching for All Learners, Glasgow, Scotland, 10-12 Jun 2015.Coughlan, T. and Perryman, L. (2015) Are student-led Facebook groups open educational practices? In: OER15, 14-15 April 2015, Cardiff. Available at http://oro.open.ac.uk/42541/4/OER15.pdf.Love, L., Ahmed, S., and Honeychurch, S. (2013) Social media for student learning: enhancing the student experience and promoting deep learning. In: Enhancement and Innovation in Education, Glasgow, UK, 11-13 Jun 2013.

15/05/2016 15/05/2016

Notes on 'How we answer the questions'

Event overview

I attended an event called 'How we answer the questions' on the ALDinHE mailing list and though that it would be a good event to attend in order to get insight into how staff at other programmes address the issues related to questions that students bring to tutorials and also for me to better understand what kind of materials and provision exist for students elsewhere. The one-day event was hosted by the welcoming staff of The University of Manchester's Library and those who work on the skills programme My Learning Essentials. So, I went up to Manchester the evening before and stayed overnight and the next morning I walked from where I was staying along Canal Street through Manchester Met University to reach the University of Manchester. They both appear to sit right next to each other, and have very large campuses.The agenda for the day had a focus set out by the convenors but would also be participant driven as the convenors invited people to share why they had come. The attendees gave the following reasons...

To bring in new ideas and experience
To establish the scope of support
To find out how others do it
To gain confidence in their own programmes and provisions
To identifying hidden needs that students may have
To find out how to measure/explain impact of de
And many others…

Images

NB: All images here apart from the one of Bloom's Taxonomy were taken by myself with an Olympus Pen E-PL7.

The setting & direction

The team at the impressive Alan Gilbert Learning Commons has on staff around 20 students that work 8 hours weekly and are involved in many projects that help support staff work but they also work directly with students. The staff receive a lot of questions about issues that are related to pastoral care; the students reach out, and the staff within the center direct the students to resources and people who can provide assistance and support. I quite like the idea of having student employees working with development support staff but also directly with students as this can help legitimize a service the wider student body. OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA One common theme that the convenors noted that is an issue of the times - there are continually shrinking resources, but a constant growing demand for support. Students often ask questions that can be challenging, or as one presenter put it ‘how to catch a goat’!Students also ask 'typical' questions related to referencing - how to do it, how to approach it and so on, even though the Library has a lot of resources related to referencing (e.g. guides, tools and so on). Some questions are easily answered, but others can present a challenge. So, it’s up to tutors to find out what the question really is, how best to answer the question, what to use to answer the question (e.g. what resource or resources, which platform) and how to make the answer/resource available to all. So to this end, in the session we did a lot of idea exchange.

Sharing ideas (and solutions) through questions

The first activity attendees did was to come up with questions that academic development/library support staff are often asked by students. To do this, we used different colored stickies... OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA Yellow stickie notes - We noted down what questions students ask us but also questions that we can ask ourselves such as...

In terms of academic referencing...
- Students often ask 'How many references do I need?'
  - This led us to ask...
    - Is a definitive answer needed?
    - How many are really needed?
    - How long is a piece of string?!
  - Some attendees also asked...
    - Can we advisors provide a definitive answer to the question of how many references are needed or are sufficient?
    - Does the effectiveness of the answer to an essay question outweigh how many references are needed or used?
    - Should we learn how to use reference management systems such as Zotero, EndNote, etc?
    - Is it okay to just use Google Scholar for researching?
In terms of dissertation writing...
- Students ask...
  - What they should do their dissertation on...
  - What they should focus on...

Orange stickie notes - here we talked about potential tools that staff have at their disposal to answer students' questions and queries. In terms of some of the answers...

Advisors can get students to think about most issues by asking open-ended questions that allow the student to critically consider their response as opposed to yes/no questioning.
Staff can also make sure there are enough resources to support the student’s investigation and research into a particular topic area. This, of course, might require developing resources (e.g. online resources that could sit within a space like Moodle or YouTube-based mini-guides or tutorials that address some of the most common questions students ask)
Advisors can also point out perhaps if the area the student has appears too narrow.
Students sometimes bring their assignment briefs, which spell out to varying degrees the aims of the assignment and what, if any, references are required, and academic development support advisors should exploit these to a great extent.
- Academic writing tutors are very likely to get students to dissect an essay question in order to understand what the question is looking for in terms of scope, relevance and specific aim. However, some staff who do not teach English for academic purposes or who are not subject-specialists might feel uncomfortable exploiting such resources. That said, this presents a space for collaboration between lecturers and library support staff and/or between academic development/learning advisors and lecturers.
- One attendee noted that we can refer students back to lecturers if we don’t feel comfortable with answering a particular question (e.g. precisely how many references are needed, or which specific texts/key sources to refer to…)
- Another member of staff that it is important to make students aware of tools/workshops that are available and/or online resource can sometimes answer students questions, but that staff should be mindful of precisely what the student seeks or is asking.

A third color - we spoke briefly about potential solutions, and the general consensus appeared to be the following

It's a good idea to have and/or develop resources that staff can refer to students so that they can readily access and exploit these resources in order to find the answers for themselves. At the same time..
It's a good idea to fully understand what the student seeks before addressing the issue. For example, a student may have signed up to a 1:1 drop-in to ask questions about an essay and s/he may have identified key areas prior to the session that they wished to be address... However, from the time that they signed up until the time that they have arrived at the tutorial, their needs might have changed, and subsequently, a tutor who had prepared for 1, 2 and 3 might now be faced with addressing topics 4, 5 and 6!
- One attendee noted that she would likely address 4, 5 and 6 because the student may well have self-addressed the previously identified areas in the meantime. That way students could get the full benefit of having their needs (even 'lately' identified) rather than the tutor sticking to the initial request.

This first activity wrapped up with one common thought: it can be tough to answer questions due to time constraints, lack of resources and unclarity of questions being asked, however staff should strive to identify the needs of students and address those and/or refer the student to the appropriate person or resource timely manner. In this way, not only will students leave a developmental support session or drop-in feeling as if their question has been answered but this will also help to further legitimize the need for such programmes/services within a university, again, where resources are shrinking but need continues to grow.

Talk 1: Answering the question (when you don’t know the answer!)

This talk was presented by Michael Stevenson a Teaching and Learning Assistant of the Teaching and Learning Team. In brief, it was a talk in which Michael presented how the team their online referral process in order to reduce duplication of support while helping students to get their queries addressed by the right team. To help attendees understand why students might need to be referred, we were given a card that had a scenario. A student had come to a support session and asked how he/she could get a better mark as their friend had gotten a very good mark by using an essay from an essay mill... Given the currency of the topic, attendees came up with the following as possible actions to take:

Refer student to academic policies;
Tease out what the student thinks about this in a 1:1 consultation to get them to understand the issues behind using such a service;
Refer the issue to the academic integrity unit of a university;
Explain academically why it’s not a good way to approach assignments;
And others!

The reasoning behind this task was to get attendees to think about the following:

Why should or would awe refer students?

A few reasons were put forth:

Because we just don’t know the answer but we can find the person who would be able to answer this.
We kind of know the answer but we know of experts who can better answer than we can.

However, as the speaker noted, students might want a quick answer and time can be pressing. Perhaps our timetables are full, we have a meeting come up or we’ve created resources online that can help students. The speaker noted that staff don’t want to (and shouldn't really) duplicate the effort though. To address this, staff can find out from students what’s been done by trying to clarify what they’ve done and how they’ve done it, and then staff can proceed to source relevant advice and information in order to give them tips and advice on how/what to improve. That said, as earlier noted, students might sign up with specific questions, but then come and ask different questions that they hadn’t identified, which will take further time away from the session and/or put pressure on the advisor to assist in an area that they hadn’t prepared for. In this case, again, it might be a good idea to address their 'new' queries rather than solely addressing the original ones.Michael suggested that learning advisors’ aims might be to fully support student learning and university experience to ensure that they’re getting the most out of their experience while also using the resources available to them in order to provide students with the best support possible that also empowers them to understand how to address their own needs more independently.

The enquiry system process - a project

Michael went on to present the project process that university went through to develop their online student enquiry system that consisted of a few phases. In brief, they first tested out different systems, assessed existing enquiry systems in place used across the university and profiled the users of the enquiry system and routes that students use.Next, Michael and his colleagues consulted with the university project management team to identify what an enquiry actually is defined as in order to ultimately define the scope of enquiries that the team would be tasked with answering. Through this consultation, strengths, areas for improvement and overlap were identified. Using the 'Lean principles' they aimed to limit the 'waste' in the enquiry systems, i.e. they aimed to ensure students' enquiries were answered appropriately in a timely manner that avoided duplication of effort.In terms of concrete steps taken to improve the enquiry system, self-help resources were enhanced by developing and expanding online resources in order to get students to help themselves by providing them with relevant resources that would foster this process and give them guidance and answers that they could source independently.From what I can understand, these resources were then branded as My Learning Essentials so that staff/students would both clearly understand what resources were available online and what to call them as this could help all parties talk about and refer to the same set of tools. Essentially, it is a clearly signposted, named or branded one-stop shop that allows students to source information sought whether through bookable workshops, interactive activities online, which cover everything from essay writing to self-awareness and wellbeing (!), or through scheduled drop-ins. From looking through the resources offered, it seems that what Manchester offers to students sets a good standard for other universities to work towards in terms of the type of support, whether developmental academically or personally, can be developed and provided.

Challenges during the project

Like any project, Michael and his colleagues faced a few challenges. Some of these included... identifying what staff wanted everyone else to know what to know. A strength of trying to understand this was that each member of the team had their own strengths that they brought to the table.Another included understanding enquiry channels used by students. These included and were used to varying degrees:

Face to face support
Telephone
LANDesk - (the online enquiry management system via IT services)
Email
Library Chat
- This is a live chat tool on the Library homepage; it was not really well used; and it presented difficulties in terms of tracking student usage.
Social media
- Michael noted that the team uses Twitter, but that the university marketing department/unit has tight control over how this is used.

Per the social media challenge, in my own professional opinion and as someone who has read into the usage of and has used social media for learning and teaching, it could be that the marketing team might not fully understand nor appreciate that a department such as their own should never be solely in control of social media for a several reasons:

They might be tasked with protecting the brand and thus limiting what information is/isn't disseminated by limiting who can/cannot do this.
Using social media for student recruitment and disseminating news about a university is one thing, but using social media to develop students' self-awareness as learners and to help them self-regulate their learning is something entirely different and, I would argue, outside the remit of marketing departments unless they are open to working directly with academic support and teaching staff to better understand how social media can be used by learning and teaching staff. There are many opportunities for sharing good practices that marketing specialists can give to teaching staff and vice versa.
Marketing departments are not always aware of how Twitter or Facebook, for example, can be used for fostering and developing learning and teaching inside and outside of the classroom even though research does clearly indicate that engaging students in the social media that they use can actually lead to an enhanced student experience and ultimately retention.

Other barriers

There were other barriers to referral that were brought up and discussed. These included the issue that staff should think about and consider all the different avenues for support. Staff should seek to understand whether they've answered the questions and provided support to students. Related to this, there should be an understanding of whether staff haven’t been able to address a question and/or refer a question onwards, and the reasons for this.Other barriers were more practical. These included not knowing the expertise of a large team or set of teams who can provide support. Working in a large university can present this issue quite naturally. Another included staffing hours. For example, students ask questions all the time, and might want/expect support outside of core hours. In order to address this, staff can help students to understand what expectations are reasonable in terms of when support can be provided, and when to expect an answer. There was also the issue of boundaries. For example, what are we saying when we always say ‘Yes’ to a student’s call for support? In order to address this, providing a distance learning/online provision for developmental support can allow many of students’ queries to be answered outside of core hours, though this type of provision requires some careful consideration as far as what to include, how to develop such resources and so on. Related to this, students and staff require a knowledge of resources. If students are fully aware of what is available to them in terms of resources offline or online, then their queries might be better addressed and answered in a more timely manner.

Questions from the audience

Throughout the talk, students were referred to as customers which is something that is happening increasingly within discourses in higher education. Some attendees asked whether we should view students as customers because this might change how staff provide their services to students and interact with students. Some other questions related to this then came up:

Do students view developmental support services as a service, such as those provided in a bank or cafe? In short, are staff supposed to just provide an answer or set of answers, or are staff in place to provide support to students that allow them to develop into autonomous learners who are empowered with the knowledge, skills and tools in order to formulate their path to success?
Or do students come to these services subconsciously aware of the power dynamics at play - they are asking for assistance or help of others who they may view or hope are experts who can provide developmental support.
Are the same students asking the same questions multiple times throughout the year? This would be useful to know to help identify a gap in the provision or service.

Talk 2: What if students don’t have a question, but still feel that they need help?

The next talk was presented by Claire Stewart, Library & Academic Adviser, and Sandie Donnelly, a Learning Enhancement Manager, from the University of Cumbria. It generated quite a bit of discussion as it touched upon an issue that, I feel, all academic learning advisors and learning developers face on a regular basis. Some common examples that Claire presented included the following questions about academic writing/writing assignments that students typically raise:

Can you help me with my essay?
My tutor told me to come and see you about ....
[in an e-mail] Please give me feedback on the attached document…

Claire noted that students often don’t feel confident in their work and so their first reaction is to ask for support. She put the question to the audience: How do we as advisers negotiated this type of issue?

A hierarchy of academic writing needs

One solution that Claire developed was a hierarchy of academic writing needs from bottom to top, which reminded me a lot of how Bloom's Taxonomy is structured; I've included an image of this from another WordPress blog below.Claire outlines the hierarchy that learning developers could use as follows (from the basis/bottom to the top):

Comprehension
- Identifying student comprehension of the essay question or task at hand
Readability
- Looking at sentences, how grammar and language are used and how ideas are expressed (clarity)
- Highlighting issues with these
Structure
- Looking at paragraphing, overall structure, planning.
- Is there a sensible chain of paragraphs and ideas/logic?
- Is there an intro/conclusion to the essay?
Use of evidence
- Are students using relevant sources?
- What is the quality of these?
- Do they understand referencing conventions and how to reference?
Critical analysis
- Is there evidence showing a development of an argument?
- Are they challenging the sources they’re using or merely describing/retelling what sources say?
- Is there a synthesis of sources?

blooms_taxonomy

Using the hierarchy

Claire suggested that the hierarchy could be used as a personal strategy to identify problems and prioritize objectives. It also can allow staff to direct students to work directly on the assignment while signposting students to self-help resources based upon the areas for improvement that the learning developer has identified. Another potential benefit of such a tool is that staff can use it to scaffold the development of academic skills over a longer period of time, especially if a student regularly seeks advice.

What does critical analysis mean?

Sandie was the next to present on the issue of criticality in students' writing, which is often a common issue that students from across the disciplines struggle with when completing their assignments. Sandie discussed how...

Students often say that they put a lot of sources in their essay, but upon submission of a paper they might receive feedback from their lecturer noting that the essay is not critical or critical enough. This can frustrate students who feel that they have done a lot of hard work to include a lot of references within a paper.
Students ask why lecturers say that they shouldn’t go in depth in describing case studies.
Students report that they can do a placement and enjoy it but don’t get the critical analysis part of writing it up or considering it.

How can non-subject specialists support students’ development in critical analysis and reflective practice?

To answer this in brief, Sandie highlighted that in fact the student is the subject expert. Learning developers can ask them how about their knowledge by getting them to talk about and articulate what they know and understand. Such interactions can help students demonstrate their knowledge and applied experiences (where available). So staff have to identify what works for students in terms of development. In terms of critical analysis Sandie told of her approaches to addressing this.

Mannequins & metaphors

Sandie notes how she was supporting one student and used the idea of a mannequin as a metaphor. The mannequin is seen as a kind of basic structure from which to work (the essay question or assignment task). The student is the expert to design and dress the mannequin and the tools are their resources that they have available to them (e.g. library, books, journal articles and so on). Another example that Sandie gets students to consider are the UK TV shows Crimewatch and Sherlock Holmes. In this case one is highly descriptive of a series of events (Crimewatch), whereas the other one provides a highly critical and analytical set of events. In other words, the latter example is investigatory in nature as it takes a critical eye to detail while drawing or identifying links between evidence that is uncovered and discovered, and attempts to uncover further evidence that may not immediately be seen.In terms of academic writing, this can translate well for those who have seen the shows.Sandie also used the idea of getting a student to describe and evaluate an object in order to demonstrate to students that they actually do know how to analyze and evaluate. Sandie discussed how she showed students various objects of a similar nature (e.g. a chair) and had them describe/analyze which was best and why in order to instill the sense that students do know how to critically evaluate and provide such analysis. Sandie noted that students who lack confidence need to be aware that they can do this, and so using simple, real-world examples can help to illustrate this ability to students.

Further thoughts on criticality and reflective practices

Both Claire and Sandie noted that using metaphors and narrative can provide a path to criticality. These can get students talking and articulate their expertise in practice. Student talk can reveal reflective practice and decision making that they’ve undertaken. In other words, their narrative can translate into what they already know. This narrative process can also help students connect reflective professional practice with academic practice and academic assignments and vice versa (e.g. how to write reflectively vs how to write an academic essay, both of which are very different in terms of what and how discussion proceeds).

Opportunities & suggestions from the audience

Claire and Sandie noted that peer support can be one way of addressing students' needs in a personal way that can help alleviate pressure on resources. They noted that students are generally really good at critiquing others’ work and providing advice, so it is worthwhile using students’ own knowledge and experiences as a resource as it personalizes the interaction and also allows for feedback support in a different way. It can also help students to relax in the sense that they’ll soon understand that the questions, and that they have are shared questions. In short, others have had the same issues, others are experiencing the same or similar difficulties and it’s not ‘hard’ for that one student but actually for a wider range of people than they expect or know, which again can be refreshing in the sense that they might then be much more willing to collaborate with peers.

Comments & suggestions from the audience

One audience member asked whether this hierarchy of academic writing needs could be formalized, which garnered wide support among those present. I mentioned CeDAS's use of use of Connect2 as a means to address student 1:1 sign ups in such a way that it could get students to choose 3 areas of focus that they need help with in their essays. As one attendee noted, however, this presumes that the students actually know what they need or want help with, and so this would be something for me to consider during my own 1:1 sessions with students.Another attendee mentioned how workshops can be used as mini-focus groups in order to better understand what is needed by the students. The idea of reverse outlining was also mentioned. This is a method of outlining that has students first write up their essay and then read it to write an outline after the fact. This can help students who struggle to produce an outline, which might seem constraining given that it demands only main ideas, while allowing them to write freely initially and produce a sample of writing. Again, this approach can help students to achieve focus in a different way where writing an outline first might not work for them. A student prolific with ideas might find this approach particularly useful as it will allow them to write all of their ideas down, from which they can then trim and remove any unrelated ideas or ideas that don't fit neatly into their assignment.Another colleague noted how technology has allowed direct drafting which allows students (and staff!) to easily manipulate text and move around their ideas. This approach, however, has pitfalls. Students might copy/paste a piece of text and place it into a section where it will break the logical flow or perhaps won’t ‘fit’ due to the topic(s) being discussed within that section.

Talk 3: Are staff ready to answer the questions?

For me it was interesting to find out where staff were coming from as far as their backgrounds and roles, so I had asked one of the organizers if attendees could share this somehow. The results were interesting as they showed just how widely student support is cast and set within various universities: OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA The last talk was delivered by academic librarian Emma Thompson, Learning and Teaching Lead, from the University of Liverpool. Emma told of how Liverpool has no central learning development department but it does have excellent support in some subjects but with lots of gaps in others.

Emma stressed, however, that libraries are places where people ask all sorts of questions that go beyond the books themselves. She went on to discuss briefly how the library went on to developed a new program designed to address the needs of students. The library was receiving a lot of requests that were out of their remit and so they proceeded to investigate how to best deliver support by consulting other units that work with students. This allowed them to understand things from a student perspective, which is important to fully understand what their needs and demands are in terms of finding and getting developmental support and support more generally.

The program is called KnowHow and it consists of workshops blending learning development, digital literacies and information literacy. The stakeholders of this program included a variety of departments on campus, the library and...

the Students' Union
Careers
Counselling Service
Computing Services
Educational Development
- ED helped with setting up writing support though initially the unit was for staff rather than students.

Emma spoke of a common question students often asked:

I keep losing marks for poor referencing - can you help?

In understanding how best to answer this commonly recurring question she first asked the following questions of her own role:

Whose remit is it to address this particular issue?
Whose territory is it? Does it matter?

One attendee noted that the policies of their university are very strict and that the definition of plagiarism and potential penalties in place could lead to the student’s removal if he/she makes even small mistakes such as a referencing error. This led to the following questions:

How would you approach addressing this student's issue?
What further questions might you ask?
What kind of online resource or workshop might be suitable for this student?

In terms of a solution to the initial issue, following the narrative approach earlier mentioned, it was suggested that getting students to share what they’re trying to do and what they think needs to be done in relation to the feedback that they’ve received from lecturers might be a good way to initially approach the issue. The lecturer may note that referencing is an issue but the issue could be wider or narrower than the feedback suggests.

Communities of practice as a way to prepare staff to better answer queries

Emma discussed her experience of achieving an HEA recognition. She found the process of recognition helpful as it it evidence what she already did though at times she didn’t necessarily have the words to describe these with. This process also gave her some reassurance of some of her approaches to learning and teaching while allowing her to look critically at other practices (hers/others) and identifying the effectiveness or lack thereof of these. Emma did find it to be a challenging process but it allowed conversations to open up as she was able to learn from other professionals and ultimately build up a community of practice. Emma found the idea of communities of practice (Lave & Wenger 1991) as a very helpful way of learning and developing. It gives a frame around focusing what needs to be done in terms of a common concern or passion for something - in this case, developing her practice - by meeting, sharing and learning through one another how to do it better through this regular interaction. Through reflecting upon her experiences, Emma was able to understand that although some old/established UK universities do learning and teaching well and have clear strategies and policies in place, a lot of newer universities often have these strategies and policies in place and even have learning/teaching units/departments whose remit looks at how best to source and disseminate examples of good practices in learning and teaching whereas older universities may not have these in place. Indeed, some traditionally research intensive universities do not always hold learning and teaching to the same standard as research, however this will likely change given the introduction of the UK government’s Teaching Excellence Framework which will likely force all universities to re-evaluated learning and teaching in relation to the framework, identify gaps and develop these in order to meet the TEF’s aims.An attendee asks about potential difficulties with the HEA recognition process in terms of ‘fitting’ evidence within the realm of teaching for staff who may not explicitly teach (e.g. library staff, etc.) Emma noted that she has found that through joining a community of professionals she has been able to better understand how to approach achieving and evidencing HEA fellowship but also developing her learning and teaching. A community of practice is also about letting go of some stuff and being open-minded to the interactions while looking for common threads and identifying how best to address the learners’ needs in a learner centered way rather than service centered manner while considering on the core values espoused by a university in order to help them thrive.

Wrapping up: a discussion with Jennie Blake & Sam Aston

To wrap up, Jennie, a learning development manager, and Sam, a learning and teaching librarian, asked the audience to think about the talks and how we can apply what we’ve learned to our own contexts. They also left us with some questions to consider:

How can this community of academic learning advisors and learning developers create resources that can be made available and useful for the wider group?
What resources are available for supporting students?
- Where can we source these materials?
- What do the resources address?
- How are the resources licensed? (e.g. creative commons licensed materials)

They also left the audience with an invitation to reuse their own materials from My Learning Essentials, which are freely available on Jorum, and are Creative Commons licensed CC BY-NC. OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

AI and ethical considerations: coloniality of…

Further reading

Generative AI’s suggestions for decolonizing

Reflections from colleagues

Experimenting for creating a course

Below are two GIFs showing chatGPT and Google Bard respectively.

Brief reflections

What you can do

Creating assessment rubrics

Reflections

Creating rubrics specific to your institution

Reflections

Getting ideas for creative assessments

Reflections

Reflections on work

Synergy is key, when enacted

The pandemic and the move to digital

Working in silos: missed opportunities

Introduction

Sweet old grannies

Initial prompts

Representations of Polish and Russian grandmothers

Atmosphere, decor, clothing

Expressions and ethnicity

Representations of grandmothers from the US

Atmosphere, decor, clothing

Expressions and race

Representations of grandmothers from the US racialized as Black

Atmosphere, decor, clothing

Expressions and race

Discussion

Key questions for students/educators

References

What is ChatGPT?

Specific knowledge frames outputs

An example in practice: creating a student induction

Initial prompt and first output

Some reflections

Getting (more) specific

Reflections on the details

Testing ChatGPT for basic biases

Closing thoughts

For further information...

Theories about international students’ transitions and broader experiences

Theories about identity development and the self

Theories about intercultural friendships / relationships

Theories about pedagogies with international students

Theories about international students and the curriculum

Social learning theories

Sociological theories

Decolonial / postcolonial theories

Theories about mobilities

Unique challenges

Practical day-to-day challenges

Hearing people out pays off

Developing pedagogy for digital delivery & communities of practice

Pandemic Pedagogy

Repurposing existing content – thoughts to consider

What to do with existing slide decks from presentations?

Solution: Repurposing existing slide decks

How to structure content for effective delivery online

Developing netiquette & nurturing a community of online learners

What to do with seminars?

Hosting digital seminars

Questions prior to moving to digital seminars

Practicalities

Tips on good practice for online seminars

Traditional online discussions

Tips for successful discussion forums:

What to do with exams?

Online exams – one way to do it

Other tips for doing online exams with Microsoft Forms:

Advantages of using Forms for quizzes/exams

Example of how an exam or quiz looks in Microsoft Forms

Want more information?

Summary & kudos

Selected ideas, guidance and readings for designing for learning online & communities of practice

Social media all around

Students aren't digital natives

New and unfamiliar systems