Results from 24 April 2nd Year 1 Study Day evaluation

These results are based on 150 completed questionnaires. I have processed the write-in questions through Wordle, to give some impression of the priorities attached to some of the comments and requests (there is no significance to any of the arrangement other than the relative size of the words).

Evaluation results from 24 April

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Presentation on Threshold Concepts from Study Day 24 April 2010

Here is an annotated version of the Study Day presentation, without the bells and whistles!

But the video can be seen embedded in here (part of a series of pages on TCs, coming at them from different angles--if you didn't get the idea at the Study Day itself, we hope they will help).

The video of the presentation, including the part after the break, will be around soon--we'll notify you via this blog.

The evaluation report should be available by the end of the week, but no guarantees. Introducing Threshold Concepts

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And I'm kicking myself--I refrained from mentioning a very important TC indeed. I didn't put it in the first part because I hoped one of you would come up with it, but no-one did and I forgot. It's the evolution of species by means of natural selection (Darwin 1859, and of course Wallace 1858), the threshold concept which revolutionised and underpins modern biology. And it is still being argued about!

A couple of people asked about the references; the major TC publications are;

• Meyer J H F and Land R (eds.) (2006) Overcoming Barriers to Student Understanding: Threshold Concepts and Troublesome Knowledge London; Routledge.
  
  
• Land R, Meyer J H F and Smith, J. (eds) (2008) Threshold Concepts within the Disciplines Rotterdam; Sense Publishers

and I also referred to;

• Hattie, J (2009) Visible Learning; a synthesis of over 800 meta-analyses relating to achievement London; Routledge.

The pages on the Doceo site also includes links to further reading beyond the site.

Many thanks to everyone for their contributions to a really good day.

Briefing for Second Year One Study Day

Click on the heading to download the Briefing Paper for the next Study Day on 24 April.

Newsnight special education iissue

Peter has asked me to draw your attention to Wednesday's special edition of Newsnight (BBC2); the BBC site says;

A special programme dedicated to education. Newsnight politics editor Michael Crick examines why education - not a make or break issue for parties in recent elections - is set to be a key battleground in the weeks to come.

We look back at Labour's education legacy. Have they delivered on Tony Blair's famous 'education, education, education' pledge?

Justin Rowlatt asks what is education for, and we'll also be examining choice and cutbacks.

Jeremy is joined in the studio by Ed Balls, Michael Gove and David Laws, as well as people from the teaching profession, a businessman and a former children's Laureate to debate the big issues.

 Click on the heading link to watch it again on i-Player for the next week.

From the Year two Study Day 6 March

Thanks to everyone for their contributions to the Study Day on Saturday!

Here are the processed results from the group-based exercise; I must apologise for the fact that some of the charts I showed at the plenary were wrong, for technical reasons (i.e. I cocked up). I have re-processed them, and I'm confident with these.

Given my personal prejudices, I am delighted to see that the cumulative cynicism about ICT comes out tops for the "win-win" scenario (although I must confess that the wording of that item was not entirely neutral), but it seems to be the only case in which there is real synergy between the two criteria.

Having It Both Ways

And here are stats from the evaluation, although they don't actually show as much as they may appear to. The response rate was only one-third, so unsurprisingly the views of the more local centres are over-represented (and there was only one from Grantham and apparently none from Tresham, for some reason.) What kind of bias this represents, I don't know...

Basic Stats From Evaluation Of 2nd Study Day

And for those of you who wondered about the cool, non-PowerPoint introduction to the presentation, check out http://prezi.com (although if everyone gets in on the act it will soon become as routine as .ppt)

New address for Unit 2 blog (for the University cohort)

Sorry! I did promise to put a link to the new url here a couple of weeks ago when the blog migrated but I forgot--so apologies to anyone who hasn't found it. And thanks to Jill for reminding me.

Guidance on Academic Writing

You may well find the linked blog post, and its follow-up at http://www.autonoblogger.com/cooltools/academic-writing-part-2/ useful both in informing your own practice as an academic writer on the course, and perhaps with supporting your students. The fact that the author is in the specialised position of teaching English as a foreign language (EFL) at a Japanese university does not actually make his points specialised.

Note too the links to useful sites, particularly--if you don't have time to read Autonoblogger's post and follow up yourself--the link to Andy Gillett's very useful site on Using English for Academic Purposes.