Co-authored with Anna Harris. Originally published by the FASoS Teaching & Learning Blog on 23 June 2022. One of the key characteristics of Problem-Based Learning (PBL) is its emphasis – or even dependence – on active student engagement. One way of activating students in such a context is the use of games. On 7 June 2022 we hosted an interactive Continuing Professional Development (CPD) workshop aimed at exploring the possibilities that games offer in a PBL context. We knew of examples such as large scale simulations used in year 1 of the Bachelor in European Studies, the use of a card game to teach observational skills and that many of were using short ice-breakers to get discussions in our groups going, but we had a sense that there were many more examples in our midst. So we set up the workshop in a Skillshare Workshop format, with the aim to take time out and share experiences with games in teaching (if any), learn new skills, brainstorm ideas, build resources and connections, and have a lot of fun in the process. In spirit of the latter, we also started the workshop with a paper plane icebreaker. Participants received a sheet of A4 paper to write down a question they would like to discuss during the workshop. They were then asked to fold the paper into an airplane and toss it into the room. Another participant then answered the question and once again tossed the airplane into the room. We repeated this process three times, with the aim of gathering some first questions and responses to shape the rest of the workshop. Ahead of the workshop participants were asked to bring games they tried on students, games they want to think with, games they’d like to try on colleagues and any other materials. After the airplane bonanza we asked participants to share their experience with playing games to map options and get a sense of how games are used. Karlijn Haagsman, Alexandra Supper and Anna each brought games to the workshop and discussed their experience. Others such as Vincent Bijman talked about their experience using icebreakers, with Eli Sapir and Patrick bringing in the example of using bingos. Our colleagues from the History department gave further context to debate, noting that games have been present in teaching and learning for a long time. Manuel Stoffers even brought a 500-year (!) old card game to the workshop – read about the card game here. This first discussion and sharing of ideas already was testament to the fact that many colleagues already use game-like elements in their teaching. One of the key issues raised in this context was that games should be used as a tool to improve learning, not as a means in themselves. And what better way to test this then to actually play games! We opted for UNO with Alexandra, Codenames with Karlijn and Pandemic with Anna. Alexandra uses UNO to practice participatory observation. Her reason to choose UNO is that most people will know this game and its rules, which makes focussing on the pedagogical goals easier. Karlijn uses Codenamesto have students engage in concept learning and discussion. This game also comes with an online version, which may be particular useful in today’s learning environments. Finally, Anna brought Pandemic because it inspired a (pre-COVID) exercise in designing a PBL assignment that resulted in an assignment centred around a fictional pandemic. Both the assignment and the game stimulate reflections on decision-making in interdisciplinary groups. Everyone had a chance to get a taster of all three games before we moved on to the last part of the workshop, which was aimed at a broader reflection on the questions formulated earlier. During the workshop, participants voted with star stickers on the paper plane questions they found most relevant to them, and the most important to discuss further. This generated five central questions:
While we did not have immediate answers to these questions – discussions focussed on practical issue such as the need for a games library and for (SOLVER) hours for meaningful integration of games – we think that ending this blog with them might help to continue the debate and give you an insight into what to take into account when considering to introduce games in your courses. If you are interested in exploring the possibilities of using games in your teaching, why not check out the following resources?
About the authors Patrick Bijsmans is Associate Professor in Teaching & Learning European Studies and faculty CPD coordinator. He teaches BA and MA level courses in European Studies, where he has used bingos and other forms of icebreakers to activate students. Anna Harris is Associate Professor of the Social Studies of Medicine. She teaches in the Bachelor of Arts and Culture and is involved in several research projects at the Faculty looking at the role of the senses and materials in learning.
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Co-authored with Arjan H. Schakel, originally published by Active Learning in Political Science on 25 March 2022. In one of his recent contributions to this blog, Chad asks why students should attend class. In his experience "[C]lass attendance and academic performance are positively correlated for the undergraduate population that I teach. But I can’t say that the former causes the latter given all of the confounding variables." The question whether attendance matters often pops up, reflected in blog posts, such as those by Chad and by Patrick’s colleague Merijn Chamon, and in recent research articles on the appropriateness of mandatory attendance and on student drop-out. In our own research we present strong evidence that attendance in a Problem-Based Learning (PBL) environment matters, also for the best students, and that attending or not attending class also has an influence on whether international classroom exchanges benefit student learning. Last year we reported on an accidental experiment in one of Patrick’s courses that allowed us to compare the impact of attendance and the submissions of tasks in online and on-campus groups in Maastricht University’s Bachelor in European Studies. We observed that that attendance appeared to matter more for the on-campus students, whereas handing in tasks was important for the online students. This year the same course was fully taught on-campus again, although students were allowed to join online when they displayed symptoms of or had tested positive for Covid-19 (this ad-hoc online participation was, unfortunately, not tracked). We did the same research again and there are some notable conclusions to be drawn. In the first-year BA course that we looked at, students learn how to write a research proposal (see here). The course is set up as a PBL course, so it does not come as a big surprise that attendance once again significantly impacted students’ chances of passing the course. Figure 1 displays the impact of the number of attended meetings on the probability that a student will pass for the course. Not surprisingly, the impact of attendance is large, a student who attends only one meeting is quite certain to fail (35% to pass) whereas a student who attends all meetings is quite certain to pass (70%). Notes: Shown are the predicted probabilities and their 95% confidence intervals. The results are based on a logit model whereby 175 students are clustered by 18 tutor groups and that includes the attended number of meetings and the number of tasks that were handed-in and their interaction. All the differences between the predicted probabilities are statistically significantly different from each (p < 0.01). Figure 2 displays the impact of the number of tasks that are handed-in on the probability to pass for the course. The impact of the number of handed-in tasks is also large, a student who hands in only one task is quite certain to fail (34% to pass) whereas a student who hands-in all tasks is quite certain to pass (76%). Comparing the impacts of attendance and handing in assignments we observe that attendance matters as much as handing in assignments, but a significant interaction effect signals that both strengthen each other. In Table 1 we display the impact of attendance and handing-in tasks on the probability to pass for the course. Most students (112/175 = 64%) attended 4 to 6 meetings and handed-in 5 to 7 tasks. Hence, we zoom in on these students to disentangle the separate impact of attendance and tasks handed-in. Notes: Shown are the predicted probabilities and their 95% confidence intervals. The results are based on a logit model that includes an interaction effect between the attended number of meetings and the number of tasks that were handed-in and whereby 175 students are clustered by 18 tutor groups. All the differences between the predicted probabilities are statistically significantly different from each (p < 0.05; except for when the number of attended meetings is 4: p < 0.10). The differences between predicted probabilities for 5 and 7 handed-in tasks ranges between 8% when a student attended 4 meetings to 15% when a student attended 6 meetings. This impact is significant but also a bit smaller than the impact of attendance. The differences between predicted probabilities for 4 and 6 attended meetings ranges between 13% when a student handed-in 5 tasks to 20% when a student handed-in 7 tasks. An important take-away message from Table 1 is that attendance and handing-in tasks reinforce each other. That is, the impact of attendance is larger when a student hands-in more tasks (i.e. from 8% to 15% is 7% increase), and the impact of handed-in tasks is larger for students who attend more meetings (i.e. from 13% to 20% is 7% increase). Notes: Shown are predicted probabilities and their 95% confidence intervals. The results are based on a logit model whereby 175 students are clustered by 18 tutor groups. The model includes the attended number of meetings (att) and the number of tasks type I and tasks type II and their interactions. All the differences between the predicted probabilities are statistically significantly different from each other for tasks type-I when a student attends 5 or 6 meetings (p < 0.01). None of the differences between the predicted probabilities are statistically significant for tasks type II. We further explore the impact of handing-in tasks by looking at the impact of the type of tasks (Figure 3). The first group concerns general writing tasks that were specifically discussed in class, but students didn’t receive written feedback from tutors (tasks type I). The second group concerns writing tasks that directly prepared for the final course research proposal. These tasks were not specifically discussed in class, but students receive extensive written feedback from tutors (tasks type II).
Whereas one may expect that tasks type II mattered most given that they prepare for the final exam, we actually find that their effect was negligible. At the same time, handing in task type I assignments – those discussed in class, without written feedback – did have a positive effect on chances of passing the course. We explain this striking result by one of the core elements of PBL, namely effective learning occurs through collaboration. While discussing a wide range of students’ assignments in class (tasks type I) students do not only learn and reflect on their own assignment but also from those of their fellow students. This increases their understanding of what is good academic writing and what is not. These striking results also raise interesting questions regarding writing assignments, staff feedback and workload and how these issues should be dealt with in an active learning environment such as PBL. Perhaps writing assignments – in different forms – can be integrated more into class discussions, decreasing the workload that normally comes with giving feedback on individual writing assignments? Originally published by Active Learning in Political Science on 23 April 2021. I was recently asked to test a new touch screen to check its potential contribution to teaching after the Summer. While we’re all hoping to return to on-campus teaching by then, I used the test to get some additional insights about equipment and hybrid teaching. After all, if there’s one thing we’ve learned these past few months, it’s that it’s difficult to predict the development of the pandemic. The new screen is vast, as you can see from the pictures below (and especially so in that relatively small room). It offers all kinds of options, including a decent hand-writing functionality (including a ‘pen’) and opportunities to add additional apps and equipment. This includes, for instance, the use of airplay to connect your Macbook, but also adding dedicated cameras, mics, etc. But did the screen have an added value? I first gave a lecture using the screen. Here its added value was quite apparent to me. I was much less bounded by screen and camera than I would ‘normally’ have been by my (home) office set-up. This is despite the latter coming with a fairly large screen, plus a height-adjustable desk. I could easily move around and use much more body language. And when students’ faces popped up on the screen for questions, I had the feeling that we were less detached from each other due to the life-size images. The only drawback was that the screen was hooked on to an ethernet cable, which meant that I could not wirelessly connect my Macbook. But I’ve been told that this is going to be solved soon. So far, so good. I also organised two hybrid tutorial sessions in one of our first-year undergrad courses, each with 3 students accompanying me in the room, while the rest were online.* Students were informed in advance that this would be a small pilot. I also informed them about some of the possible complications that we might run into, such as those discussed by Chad last June. You should know that in Maastricht we tend to work with student discussion leaders and notetakers. I specifically instructed the discussion leaders to maintain a connection between online and on-campus students. In addition, I arranged to have an online discussion leader with an on-campus notetaker in my first group, whereas in my second group the discussion leader was on-campus and the notetaker online. This would allow me to see if there is a set-up that works best. So, how did it go? I asked students to complete a short survey afterward (20 out of the 24 attending students completed the survey). As expected, they had different views on how the hybrid setting impacted the quality of the discussions as compared to our regular online meetings. Out of six on-campus students, five completed the survey and all thought the experience was better. As one of the students put it, “it was so good to have a class with real people and not through a screen”. All five referred to enjoying the discussions with their fellow students in the actual room. They noticed that not everything went well – some sounds issues, in particular, but also at times a disconnect between on-campus and online students. Yet overall, the on-campus students felt that discussions went better and were more lively, also with the online students. The online students were less impressed. Plus they all virtually gave the same feedback, whether in the group with the online or the on-campus discussion leader. First, quite a few commented on the sound quality. On-campus contributions to the discussions were not always audible. Second, the on-campus group wasn’t always fully visible to the online students, which was party due to the camera angle and partly due to the need to keep a distance. The size of the room also didn’t offer space for a different seating arrangement. And, thirdly, there was the reoccurring disconnect between on-campus and online students. One online student referred to sometimes feeling like a spectator, which, another student wrote, was partly due to “the participants in real-life not looking at the screen all the time”.
None of this really came as a surprise to me. Yet, unfortunately, I was also unable to prevent these issues from occurring. Clearly the fancy screen with lots of trimmings also did not matter here. But, more importantly, this again raises questions about the viability of hybrid teaching. In my opinion, it is probably better to have separate on-campus and online groups – even though, as Arjan and I wrote before, this too comes with its own challenges. But these can be solved. The potential disconnect between on-campus and online students in a hybrid setting to me is more problematic, as it may result in unequal learning opportunities. * A huge thank you goes to the students who attended the sessions: Jill Bartholmy, Emma Begas, Jeanne Brunhes, Adam Ceccato, Noah Chebib, Carl Colonius, Boti Czagány, Jos de Heij, Lilian Giebler, Vincent Halder, Xavier Heck, Sanne Hocks, Julia Hufnagel, Leila Kahnt, Anna La Placa, Carolina Lean Santiago, Liam Lodder, Arianne Michopoulou, Mayanne Pagé, Simone Palladino, Emili Stefanova, Mae Thibaut, Tessa Urban and Victoria Wenninger. Co-authored with Arjan Schakel, originally published by Active Learning in Political Science on 10 February 2021. Students and staff are experiencing challenging times, but, as Winston Churchill famously said, “never let a good crisis go to waste”. Patrick recently led a new undergraduate course on academic research at Maastricht University (read more about the course here). Due to COVID-19 students could choose whether they preferred online or on-campus teaching, which resulted in 10 online groups and 11 on-campus groups. We were presented with an opportunity to compare the performance of students who took the very same course, but did so either on-campus or online. Our key lesson: particularly focus on online students and their learning. In exploring this topic, we build on our previous research on the importance of attendance in problem-based learning, which suggests that students’ attendance may have an effect on students’ achievements independent fromstudents’ characteristics (i.e. teaching and teachers matter, something that has also been suggested by other scholars). We created an anonymised dataset consisting of students’ attendance, the number of intermediate small research and writing tasks that they had handed in, students’ membership of an on-campus or online group, and, of course, their final course grade. The latter consisted of a short research proposal graded Fail, Pass or Excellent. 316 international students took the course, of which 169 (53%) took the course online and 147 (47%) on-campus. 255 submitted a research proposal, of which 75% passed. One of the reasons why students did so well – normal passing rates are about 65% – might be that, given that this was a new course, the example final exam that they were given was one written by the course coordinator. Bolkan and Goodboy suggest that students tend to copy examples, so providing them may therefore not necessarily be a good thing. Yet students had also done well in previous courses, with the cohort seemingly being very motivated to do well despite the circumstances. But on closer look it’s very telling that 31% of the online students (52 out of 169) did not receive a grade, i.e. they did not submit a research proposal. This was 9.5% for the on-campus students (14 out of 147)[1]. Perhaps this is the result of self-selection, with motivated students having opted for on-campus teaching. Anyhow, it is clear that online teaching impacts on study progress and enhancing participation in examination among online students needs to be prioritised by programme directors and course leaders. We focus on students that at least attended one meeting (maximum 6) and handed-in at least one assignment (maximum of 7). Out of these 239 students, 109 were online students (46%) and 130 on-campus (54%). Interestingly, on average these 239 students behaved quite similarly across the online and on-campus groups, they attended on average 5 meetings (online: 4.9; on-campus: 5.3) and they handed-in an average of 5 to 6 tasks (online: 5.0; on-campus: 5.9). We ran a logit model with a simply dummy variable as the dependent variable which taps whether a student passed for the course. As independent variables we included the total number of attended meetings and the total number of tasks that were handed-in. Both variables were interacted with a dummy variable that tracked whether students follow online or offline teaching and we clustered standard errors by 21 tutor groups. Unfortunately, we could not include control variables such age, gender, nationality and country of pre-education. This would have helped to rule out alternative explanations and to get more insight into what factors drive differences in performance between online and offline students. For example, international students may have been more likely to opt for online teaching and may have been confronted with time-zone differences, language issues, or other problems. Figure 1 displays the impact of attending class on the probability to pass for the final research proposal. The predicted probabilities are calculated for an average student that handed-in 5 tasks. Our first main finding is that attendance did not matter for online students, but it did for on-campus students. The differences in predicted probabilities for attending 3, 4, 5, or 6 meetings are not statistically significant (at the 95% confidence level) for online students but they are for on-campus students. Students who attended the maximum of six on-campus meetings had a 68% higher probability to pass compared to a student who attended 3 meetings (89% versus 21%) and a 52% higher probability to pass compared to a student who attended 4 meetings (89% versus 37%). Figure 2 displays the impact of handing-in tasks on the probability to pass for the final research proposal. The predicted probabilities are calculated for an average student that attended 5 online or on-campus meetings. Our second main finding is that handing-in tasks did not matter for on-campus students, but it did for online students. The differences in predicted probabilities for handing-in 4, 5, 6, or 7 tasks are not statistically significant (at the 95% confidence level) for on-campus students but they are for online students. Students who handed-in the maximum of seven tasks had a 51% higher probability to pass compared to a student who handed in four tasks (69% versus 18%) and a 16% higher probability to pass compared to a student who handed-in five tasks (69% versus 53%).
Note that we do not think that attendance does not matter for online students or that handing-in tasks does not matter for offline students. Our dataset does not include a sufficient number of students to expose these impacts. From our previous research we know that in general we can isolate the impact of various aspects of course design with data from three cohorts (around 900 students). The very fact that we find remarkably clear-cut impacts of attendance among on-campus students and of handing-in tasks for online students for a relatively small number of students (less than 240) reveals that these impacts are so strong that they surface and become statistically significant in such a small dataset as ours. This is why we feel confident to advise programme directors and course leaders to focus on online students. As Alexandra Mihai also recently wrote, it is worth investing time and energy in enhancing online students participation in final examinations and to offer them many different small assignments to be handed-in during the whole time span of the course. This is not to say that no attention should be given to on-campus students and their participation in meetings but, given limited resources and the amount of gain to be achieved among online students, we think it would be wise to first focus on online students. [1] The difference of 21% in no grades between online and offline students is statistically significant at the 99%-level (t = 4.78, p < 0.000, N = 314 students). Zooming into online teaching and learning: An interview with Marisa Mori and Mirko Reithler2/6/2020 After weeks of online teaching and learning, you may be totally Zoompt and perhaps you have even developed a case of Zoomophobia. Inversely, you may have become a Zoomophile who looks back at the pre-Zoom age with a smile. In both cases it remains important to reflect on what we are currently going through and to learn from each other’s online teaching and learning experience. A few weeks back I wrote that I would be sitting in with tutorials of Marisa Mori and Mirko Reithler. I observed two tutorials with two great tutors. Everything seemed to work pretty well. But I also noticed a few differences in the way Zoom was used and integrated in the tutorial. So, I asked Marisa and Mirko a few questions. Marisa is MM, Mirko is MR and PB is me. PB Overall, from what I’ve seen, things actually seem to work relatively well given these strange circumstances. Why do you think this is the case?
MR So far, online tutorials have been going amazingly well. The main reason is that we are blessed with students who are intrinsically motivated, who know how to work independently and are great communicators and team players. MM I agree, most students are quite adaptable. A lot of the time, the concerns are even the same, such as focusing too much on the whiteboard worker, or certain students speaking more often than others. These issues are perhaps more confronting online though, for instance if the note-taker is sharing his/her screen, or there is the virtual version of an intake of breath before someone wants to speak – an unmuting – that might get overlooked. PB So, have you seen students struggling? MM Some do, yes. Some dislike staring at the screen for “so long” or find it much easier to get distracted in their own spaces; some have also mentioned that they feel less of a responsibility to the group in terms of showing up and participating because they don’t feel they ‘know’ the others if they didn’t really know them in pre-Zoom life. MR Plus, there are some students who are facing challenges like unstable internet connections, increased anxiety, being stuck in Maastricht without a job or at home with parents and siblings. PB I noticed that both of you tried to communicate with students in a non-verbal way. Do you think you sufficiently manage to do so, given the screen as a possible barrier? MM Not really. I still use a lot of facial expressions and now seem to gesticulate a bit more, but I have very little sense of who actually sees these. Sometimes students react with clear signals, such as nodding or shaking their heads, or giving thumbs up, but when there is silence, it’s not really possible to nudge the group along non-verbally. The chairs often seem to struggle without non-verbal feedback, too. As a result, one of my groups has opted to be more directive and have the chair ask a specific person to start answering a learning objective. This seems to work well for the more factual information questions, and then the structure loosens up a bit for the discussions. MR In my experience, the limits to non-verbal communication in an online setting can be quite frustrating. Particularly because it usually can be very helpful to invite and encourage hesitant group members to participate in the discussion. As a tutor it is so much part of what I am used to doing, that I automatically find myself smiling and nodding all the time. Like Marisa, hand gestures like waving hello and goodbye and thumps up have now been added. PB Do you have any other tips to try and make online teaching as personal as possible? To support students who may be struggling. MR Students have created WhatsApp groups to be able to stay in touch with each other outside of group sessions. There are weekly open office hours and students can always email questions and concerns. Arrangements like these are more important now, to make up for the loss of opportunity to meet and speak informally and personally during breaks or before and after meetings. MM Another thing that seems even more important now is making sure there is space for a feedback round. Since there is not really a ‘standard operating procedure’ in the current situation, this gives students a chance to discuss what they’re having trouble with individually, what they find challenging, and what else we can try as a group in order to make the best of the circumstances. I’m also trying to make up for the lost informal moments by starting the groups early and highlighting the option for students to ‘stay in the room’ during breaks. In any case, I always start by asking them how they’re doing. Also, as part of the introduction round at the start of the period, I asked them to tell the group where they were and to show us something funny, weird, or meaningful from the room each of them was in. This not only provided some fun insights, but it was also helpful to know of different circumstances that might affect the students, such as being in a different time zone, or as Mirko mentioned earlier, staying with a particular relative or parent, or in a student house with five other people trying to Zoom at the same time. PB When observing the tutorials, I noticed that Marisa had a student taking minutes, whereas Mirko opted to take minutes himself. Could you explain why you decided for the respective options? MM I’ve tried to keep as much to PBL as possible, including it being student-led. Notetaking is something that students do anyway, so I didn’t feel the need to take over this responsibility. MR My expectation was actually that the tutor might need to do some more moderating to ensure that the online tutorials would be efficient. Taking notes on the whiteboard allowed me to bring together input from the group while indirectly providing some feedback and guidance without having to speak. After three sessions, students volunteered to take over notetaking, and they do an excellent job. PB Related to this, whereas Mirko used the Zoom whiteboard, Marisa used Google-docs. How do you consider the integration of online tools to work? MR Apart from occasional glitches, Zoom has been working smoothly. Managing multiple screens simultaneously is tiring, but I am getting used to it. One student uses the Microsoft whiteboard application via screen sharing and that works beautifully. MM I actually didn’t find the Zoom whiteboard very handy, and there’s much more versatility in sharing one’s screen since it’s possible to share whatever is useful, which is usually a Word or Google doc, but could also be slides, webpages, or a mind map app. I find screen sharing needs to be purposeful and brief, however, especially during the post-discussion. For the pre-discussion – which I’ve heard some have opted to skip online – it is helpful to have someone to share the screen, but for the most part, there seems to be better communication when students are able to see each other in Zoom. Then perhaps they have a shared document open in a different window or device, but they can still engage with the group. PB That’s interesting. Are there also other benefits to online teaching? MM It’s easier to share content, for example, by quickly sharing a link to a news story. It’s also been useful to highlight to students how tutorials can be more discussion-focused, even in heavily fact-based courses, such as EU Politics, which I am currently teaching. Students seem to find less value in just reporting and actually focus more on their questions or points they want to discuss. MR Some features are convenient, for instance, showing slides, text passages and other materials through screen sharing, distributing files through the chat, flexibility to rearrange notes on the whiteboard, names of every participant being visible to everyone at all times. One benefit would be that we can all add ‘experience with productive online teamwork’ to our resume now. PB Is there anything else we can take away from this that we should take into account when ‘normal’ teaching resumes? MR For me, the online adventure has shown how important it is to have well designed courses, with clear intended learning outcomes, engaging assignments and interesting readings and a healthy balance of fixed content and space for students to find their own way. MM It’s perhaps a bit early to tell… but to build on what Mirko said, it’s also important to reflect on how these components work differently when we design ‘normal’ courses versus (deliberately!) online courses. About Marisa and Mirko Marisa Mori is a member of the faculty’s Politics department and mainly teaches in the Bachelor in European Studies. Mirko Reithler is a member of the Department of Society Studies and mainly teaches in the Bachelor in Arts & Culture. Both can now add ‘experience with productive online teamwork’ to their resumes. DISCLAIMER: this interview was conducted in writing rather than through Zoom, because perhaps we do not need to organise online meetings for everything? This blog was first published by the FASoS Teaching & Learning Blog on 17 April 2020. One of the few good things about the the need to stay at and work from home, is that we’ve managed to get a lot of work done in the garden. We’ve enlarged one of the borders, planted a tiny forest consisting of native trees, shrubs and herbs, and have started preparations for putting in a wildlife pond. Last week I’ve also finally sowed the first flower and vegetable seeds in the greenhouse. I’ve also started sowing the seeds for my online teaching this period.
I am organising a series of webinars on online teaching and learning and am learning a lot from listening and talking to colleagues. For instance regarding technical issues, such as how to best make use of breakout rooms while being unable to see what happens in them, or how to use screen-sharing to produce collective notes. But also regarding group dynamics, which can be less dynamic due to more limited online attention spans, but which can also be improved due to the increased importance of letting someone finish their contribution. Or regarding the role of the tutor – taking over the note-taking role from students can help to offer much-needed structure. But my own experience has so far been limited. As I wrote before, I am not teaching any tutorials, only lectures and supervision of BA and MA theses. My experience using Zoom for meetings with my BA and MA supervises (and with colleagues) has been quite good. I’ve utilised breakout rooms, screen sharing and the whiteboard to support discussions and allow detailed discussions. As always, some students are more engaged than others, but interestingly enough these divisions mirror students’ normal in-class behaviour. The screen doesn’t seem to matter too much here. Even though I will not be teaching any tutorials, I’ve nevertheless asked two colleagues – Marisa Mori and Mirko Reithler – if I could join one of their online tutorials. I want to experience online tutorials for two reasons. First, to see how things are going – how students and colleagues translate PBL to an online environment – and to learn from Marisa and Mirko. Second, since it may be possible that online teaching and learning continues into the next academic year, I might as well be prepared. But even when normality resumes as of September, I expect to still be inspired to rethink some of my regular teaching. I’m also going to join online lectures of two other colleagues – Andreea Nastase and Anna Herranz-Surrallés – both in our BA-level EU politics course. Here my interest is more evident, as I have to give a couple of lectures in May. One of these lectures will be on Euroscepticism and will be in the same EU politics course. I’m currently considering doing a mixture of knowledge clips and/or podcasts plus online discussions, not that different from your normal flipped classroom. For two other lectures in our BA European Studies mentor programme I am considering making them completely asynchronous. These are lectures in which colleagues and myself present BA students with some need-to-know information about their upcoming second or third year and some of the important choices to be made (e.g. concerning elective courses, Erasmus exchange, internship). Here, we’re probably going to update existing slides and accompany them with short matter-of-fact videos from colleagues and experience videos from senior students, plus a short instruction on how to best view this material. For our third-years we’d normally do a final session in which we review the whole BA. I’m not yet quite sure what to do here. Yet, given that my experience using Zoom for larger groups (staff webinars) has been rather good, I suspect that we’ll reenact a more standard think-pair-share setting. So, the seeds are sown. But obviously additional efforts are needed to make sure that they’ll germinate. I’m seeing some first succes in the greenhouse; now to translate this to my online teaching. This blog was originally published by the FASoS Teaching & Learning Blog on 23 March 2020. It’s been just over a week since Maastricht University decided to move all teaching online. I’ve been lucky because my teaching from last week onwards was going to be centred around individual meetings anyway, so it’s been relatively easy to adapt. Lots of respect to everyone who has already moved teaching to online platforms in the midst of an ongoing period; we can learn so much from your experience! I’ve been working from home for a week now. I usually work at home two days a week to focus on my research. And I have a comfortable home office with a view of the garden (which I can also use when the weather allows) and an adjustable desk (allowing me to do some work while standing). Still, this week has been very different from my usual days working from home. For one, all my meetings have gone through Skype or Zoom, without any problems, including my online student ‘drop-in’ hour. All students I spoke to (nearly 20 in two days time) had a working connection, which in most cases included video. I asked all of my students to carefully prepare; my Research Master students, in particular, did a great job doing so. All my students also were a bit apprehensive about this new challenge – one of the reasons why we drafted tips for students. But all of them were healthy too, as were their parents, which is most important. Communication with colleagues went through email, Skype or Zoom. This is challenging for some colleagues; some have kids running through the house, and all kinds of other stuff to be taking into account. As far as email is concerned, I’m getting less emails! And most people who do email, sent shorter messages. Perhaps we can learn from this that meeting face-to-face (in real life or in cyberspace) is more efficient than endless email conversations? All of this has been rather tiring, though, and I’ve been absolutely knackered at the end of a series of online meetings; something John also mentioned in his recent post on providing individual feedback via Skype. This – and the simple fact that all of this takes time getting used to – has gone at the expense of research, but I hope to catch up this week. But I sense a lot of sympathy and understanding towards each other. And we can use technology to still do things together, like watching an online movie to support your local independent cinema or listening to the same Spotify playlist, like my friend Afke and I were doing on Thursday. In addition to trying to keep up with normal work, I’ve also been introducing myself to online teaching, because let’s face it: for most of us this is something we have never done before. Yes, I’ve had Skype meetings before. I’ve also once designed a short, narrated PowerPoint lecture. But this is different. We cannot just record a lecture or do a group meeting like we would normally do. And did you ever consider the difference between asynchronous and synchronous activities? I certainly did not.
Emilie’s blog on using videos in teaching was a great starting point, my friends from the Active Learning in Political Science Blog have published lots of insightful posts, and I have enjoyed following the first webinars offered by the Dutch Open University. While I’m still far from knowing exactly how to shape online teaching and learning, here are a few takeaways that I will keep in mind during the next couple of weeks and months.
Challenging, I know, but I’ve decided to seize the opportunity to try developing some novel teaching material. And, really, my only obstacle right now is that I’m sometimes unable to grind coffee beans because my partner is in an online meeting at the kitchen table. So, I’ll manage. No, we’ll manage together; we can do this! This post was co-authored by Arjan Schakel (University of Bergen) and originally published by the FASoS Teaching & Learning Blog on 30 September 2019. The abolishment of minimum attendance requirements at FASoS just over two years ago has been a recurring topic of discussion. Literature on students’ persistence and results often highlights attendance as important, because absenteeism would increase the risk of dropout. Intuitively, one would expect attendance to be even more important in programmes with an active learning environment, such as PBL. Research finds that active learning environments have a positive effect on students’ study success, yet few studies have looked at the importance of (non-)attendance in such learning environments. In 2018, we published an article in Higher Education that addresses this gap. In this blog, we provide new data to contextualise the discussions on attendance, and present options for further research and refinement of the faculty’s attendance policy. Compulsory attendance and study success In our 2018 article, we investigated the effect of course (non-)attendance on study success of three BA ES cohorts (2012/2013, 2013/2014, 2014/2015). We looked at two forms of study success: retention, namely differences in attendance between students who passed the threshold of 42 ECTS of the binding study advice (BSA) and those who did not; and grades, namely the effect of attendance on students’ grade point average (GPA). We divided the 1059 students enrolled at the start of the three years in three sub-groups: (1) 650 students who attended all courses; (2) 548 students who also passed the BSA threshold; (3) 326 students who also attended the minimum number of required meetings at the end of the year. Controlling for a range of factors, including gender, age, nationality, pre-education and GPA of the previous period, we found that attendance has a clear additive impact beyond “active engagement” or “commitment to PBL”. Doesn’t this depend on the nature of PBL or on students’ overall commitment? Could certain rules, like minimum attendance requirements, stimulate desired behaviour? Or could the results be due to some level of endogeneity, given that the best-performing students tend to attend more meetings? Our data enabled us to differentiate within the group of students. Even among the committed students – those who met the minimum attendance requirements in all courses – we found that higher attendance has a substantial impact on the amount of ECTS obtained and the end-of-year GPA. Non-compulsory attendance and study success We have continued to collect data on attendance and study success since the abolishment of minimum attendance requirements, superbly supported by the exam office. Below we present data for all first-year BA ES and BA AC students in the academic year 2018/2019. Figure 1 shows cumulative attendance of students for period 1 until period 5. BA ES students attend more than 80% of tutorials, while BA AC students attend just below 80% after period 2, 79% in period 3, and 78% in periods 4 and 5. But overall, attendance among FASoS students is quite good. However, the number of students who miss one or more courses increases dramatically for BA AC students. Figure 1 displays cumulative attendance for those students who attended allcourses. Yet, whereas of the 276 BA ES who started in period one, 227 students (82%) had attended all courses by the end of period 5, of the 103 BA AC only 42 students (41%!) had done so. We believe that the low cumulative attendance of BA AC students is worrisome, because our research clearly reveals that attendance is strongly associated with GPA. Figure 2 displays the impact of cumulative attendance at the end of period 5 on the GPA at the end of the year. Figure 2 shows that students who attend 80% or more of the total meetings receive a cumulative GPA above the passing grade of 6.0. The whiskers indicate the 95 confidence intervals around the average, meaning that we are pretty sure (95% confident) that the estimate lies within the boundaries of the whiskers. The lower bounds of the whiskers do not cross the 6.0 line when cumulative attendance surpasses 80%, except for BA AC students, as the number of students on which the estimates are based is quite low: 25 instead of 143 for the BA ES.
Final thoughts Our new results strongly indicate that FASoS should strive for at least 80% attendance among students. As Gump writes “[s]tudents who wish to succeed academically should attend class, and instructors should likewise encourage class attendance”. We do not claim that attendance per se has an impact on study success, because our findings may very well be driven by intrinsically motivated, well-prepared, and therefore well-performing students who also attend more tutorials. Can we stimulate students to attend without resorting to external incentives such as obligatory attendance? Other policies are possible, including incentive schemes and showing students how (non-)attendance affects their results. During the past two years we used the latter in the BA ES, presenting attendance data during meetings of the mentor programme. However, this data was not always available. Pursuing this policy would require faculty commitment to rigorous data collection and analysis. In addition, it is not just attendance that matters in PBL, but also preparation and participation. Since FASoS data is administrative in nature, we cannot reflect on these and other factors, including motivation, self-efficacy and whether or not we sufficiently tap into students’ intrinsic motivation to attend tutorials. The faculty should therefore also commit to a thorough qualitative study regarding students’ perspectives on the importance of attendance. This post was originally published on the FASoS Teaching & Learning Blog on 5 February 2019 and was co-authored with Afke Groen. It has been a year since we started our Teaching & Learning Blog! And what better way to celebrate than with a blog of our own about the importance of sharing teaching experiences and best practices.
Over the past year, through our blog, we for example learned that a good supervisor offers reassurance, a good tutor realises that she is not omnipotent, and a good mentor does not wait for students to come to himbut acts when he signals something. Two contributions also stressed the relation between Problem-Based Learning (PBL) and academic writing: both in terms of the latter as a tool to support the former, and the former as a tool to support the latter. And while some argued that PBL is more relevant than everin times of complex problems, others noted that some of PBL’s core ideas are under pressure. A big thank you to all of those making these contributions! And a big thank you also to those reading these blog contributions. Because indeed it is not just sharingexperiences that we want to stimulate, but also listeningto them and reading about them. This is rooted in our belief that becoming better teachers at university requires us to talk to each other about our teaching; about our experiences with teaching and our different approaches to it. Afke, for instance, has started to use the whiteboard to take note of students’ doubts and unanswered questions after Sven Schaepkens and Patrick’s blog about whiteboarding. And after Michael Shackleton’s blog about the expert lecture, she has become even more aware that a good lecturer does not explain concepts to students, but illustrates them with the dilemmas and experiences of researchers and practitioners. Patrick has become more sensitive towards the diversity of students and staff and the challenges they encounter. He has made changes to the courses that he coordinates, for instance through updating assignment texts to generate more discussion (keep an eye on the upcoming contribution by Sven Schaepkens about problem design in the humanities and social sciences). He has also invited some of our contributors to share more of their invaluable experience with colleagues in the University Teaching Qualification (UTQ) trajectory. Of course, we hope that more people will contribute to and read our blog over the next year. Not just to further the debate about teaching and learning and learn from each other, but also because there are some policy changes on the agenda that we need to discuss – and in light of which we need to discuss our teaching practices. At the national level, there are discussions on how to value good teaching in academia more prominently than is the case now. Such debates about the desirability of teaching careers in higher education are also increasingly relevant outside of the Netherlands. In addition, as of September 2019 Maastricht University will launch the Continuous Professional Development programme, which will require all UTQ-certified teaching staff to continue their development as teachers. Finally, a university-level steering group currently discusses the university’s third main research theme, Learning & Innovation, in which research into teaching will play an important role. A conference dedicated to this theme will take place on 12 June this year. As such, there are many developments that will impact on teaching and learning at this faculty. Yet, while there are all sorts of workshops, books, articles and blogs about improving your research, academics seem much less accustomed to learning about teaching. All the more reason to continue with the FASoS Teaching & Learning Blog. And we have a couple of blogs in the pipeline already, on topics such as:
If you want join the debate, please do not hesitate to contact us with your idea for a blog. You can find the requirements on our website. You can also simply react to existing blogs by leaving a comment below the blog. We look forward to hearing from you! This blog was originally published by Active Learning in Political Science on 20 November 2018. During last September’s annual conference of the University Association for Contemporary European Studies (UACES) in Bath, Simon kicked off the teaching and learning afternoon gathering with a teaching and learning bingo. I enjoyed this a lot. It was nice, active, fun. I got to meet new people and learned new thing about teaching and learning. Based on this (perhaps somewhat subjective) experience, I decided to hijack Simon’s idea and use it in two similar, but different settings. This is what happened. Problem-Based Learning workshop Bolzano Maastricht University is known for its application of Problem-Based Learning (PBL). New staff have to attend a PBL introduction training session upon starting at our university. All teaching staff also need to complete the so-called University Teaching Qualification (UTQ) trajectory (this, in fact, applies to all higher education institutions in the Netherlands). One of my duties is to coordinate UTQ at my home faculty. And it was this – plus my teaching experience – that lead me to being invited to convene a workshop entitled ‘Tutors in problem-based learning from distant facilitator to approachable coach’ at the University of Bolzano early October. Since I did not know any of the people there, I thought this would be a great opportunity to use the T&L bingo. I adapted Simon’s bingo to my own needs. The instructions are relatively straightforward and the items of a diverse nature, including more light-hearted ones. It worked surprisingly well. I got to know the participants, plus they got to know each other a bit better too. It also provided me with some input for the workshop (‘The one thing they’re hoping to learn more about today’). Considering it was a day-long workshop, this helped me to focus on specific points and also, towards the end, to check if everyone thought that we sufficiently covered their needs. University Teaching Qualification workshop Maastricht I already wrote that I coordinate UTQ at my home faculty. This year 13 colleagues have to complete the trajectory. The group of participants is very diverse in terms of disciplinary backgrounds and teaching experience, and included teaching assistants, PhD students and a professor. Not everyone knew each other, so once again the bingo seemed like a good idea. And once again, I thought I could use the input for the workshop.
This time too, I adapted the bingo to the setting,with specific questions about the topics that we were going to focus on during the day. Even though there was some hilarity as to whether this was really a serious exercise (see this tweet),participants actively engaged in it. As they will be working together throughout this academic year, it was important that they got to know each other – the usual round of introduction is a bit boring, especially because it usually does not result in new information. Once more I included a question that gave me specific input as to the expectations for the day (‘Your colleague’s personal learning goal for today’). What I learned The good: after a bit of hesitation everyone got really involved. Some colleagues did their utmost best to talk to everyone; others decided for a longer talk when the issue at hand was interesting. Reason enough to do it again, though I’d probably want to explain the exercise better in order to avoid awkward moments at the start. The bad: timing is an issue. In both cases, we took much more time than I had anticipated, as everyone really got into it and because I had encouraged them to try and talk to everyone. Next time I might consider using a timer or buzzer. Or perhaps offer a prize to the person who gets most boxes filled within a set time. The ugly: I enjoyed it so much that I also got completely carried away. And subsequently lost track of time… As such, a timer is definitely needed! Someone needs to keep track of me too. I might ask one of the other participants to be in charge of time instead. What’s next I’d love to try this exercise with students. I think it would make a great course opening. I mostly teach in a programme with +300 students, so they do not always know each other despite changing tutor groups every 8 weeks and every course. Plus it would be a great way to have them discuss a course topic in a more informal setting and get to know more about the course’s intended learning outcomes. Obviously, I would have to adapt the bingo to the course itself. I would include a debriefing so that we all get to know more about students’ pre-knowledge about the topic and our expectations of the course, the group and the tutor (i.e. me). And, you know; I already have a course in mind. |
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