Originally published by Active Learning in Political Science on 12 April 2023. A few weeks ago, many of you visited the ISA conference in Montreal. Unfortunately, I couldn’t attend myself, but I was able to read up on some of the many interesting discussions on teaching and learning that you seemed to have had. Indeed, this blog and others (I also shamelessly promote our own) are my go-to places for learning about and engaging with such discussions, just like I always attend dedicated teaching and learning conference panels and days (for instance, during the annual UACES conference) and enjoy attending teaching staff professionalisation workshops here in Maastricht. In fact, I coordinated and organised quite a few of those before taking on my current role of associate dean for education in September of last year. The value of these forms of exchanging experiences and ideas cannot be overestimated. In fact, I think that they should even be emphasised and pursued much more in a time in which teaching and learning seem to be gaining importance in academic careers in at least some places. For instance, in the Netherlands universities are now starting to implement a programme called Recognition & Rewards, which is all about valuing different academic careers (read more about how this is being implemented at Maastricht University here). At the start of this year, I had my best exchange experience so far. I was fortunate enough to be able to spend two full weeks at the University of Leeds on an Erasmus+ mobility grant. Leeds has embarked on an ambitious programme that I wanted to know more about, called ‘Curriculum Redefined’. But I also used the opportunity to shadow my friend Simon Lightfoot, who’s in a similar position as I am, but has much more experience than I do. Those two weeks have been among the best and most inspiring of my time in academia. I talked to many students and colleagues from a whole range of disciplines, attended super interesting events and workshops, and hosted two workshops on problem-based learning myself. I learned a lot and brought home many new ideas on issues such as assessment, decolonisation, and the hidden curriculum. But it also became clear again that the grass is not always greener on the other side; not only do we encounter similar challenges, but sometimes the solutions for these challenges back home are not that bad at all.
I also was reminded again that words matter and that a sense of belonging is important, for students and teaching staff. In fact, one of my key take-aways is the need to “find your own people”, as a participant in one of the workshops put it. I think that this blog is one way of doing so, just like attending teaching and learning events and workshops. Yet, when it comes to developing and reflecting upon your own experience nothing beats spending a little bit more time in another place. I have already decided that I want to do more of this. I’m not quite sure yet how to finance it, but, ideally, I’d want to spend one week at another university each year. Perhaps connect these visits to conference attendance? Frame it in the form of a project? Something that I will still have to explore further. But in my experience, it is equally rewarding to welcome colleagues here. Just the other month, Christopher Huggins visited us from the University of Suffolk to learn more about Maastricht University and problem-based learning. We had many interesting discussions and I’m looking forward to contributing to an online Suffolk event in July to continue those discussions. In short, while I may not be stating anything new to the converted teaching and learning geeks who read this blog (‘my own people’), do feel free to view this post as an invitation for you to get in touch to see if we can arrange a visit to Maastricht!
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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. Co-authored with Talischa Schilder and Johan Adriaensen, originally published by Wonkhe on 9 March 2022. The Covid crisis has both highlighted and challenged the marketisation of universities. Students have gone on rent strikes demanding a reduction of their tuition fees – as customers, they are not satisfied with the service that they have paid for. An important aspect of the marketisation of universities is how these institutions generate their income. After reforms by David Cameron’s cabinet, government funding has become principally linked to the number of admitted students, further raising the bar of tuition fees. Consequently, UK universities compete on the education “market” for a higher number of enrolled students or a quality premium for their services to generate more income. So what may help to entice student-customers to pay such high fees? Have it your way Many argue that the incorporation of elective or module choice into a programme is a strategy that will attract a higher number of enrolled students. The thinking goes that students are responsible for their learning experience and are thought to be rational-thinking individuals, capable of choosing what suits them best. In this framing, freedom of choice creates a sense of autonomy that attracts student-customers. In other words, the student is the customer, and the customer is king. Curriculum flexibility is supposed to not only raise student satisfaction ratings, but also an institution’s brand strength, ranking and reputation. These factors, in turn, boost the number of student applications and ultimately the institution’s revenue stream. But is that how it works in practice? Back here in the real world We have analysed ninety-three undergraduate programmes in Political Science and International Relations across the UK. In the figure below, we have plotted the programmes’ flexibility (percentage of credits that are electives) against student satisfaction as measured by the National Student Survey (NSS) UK. If there was a connection, we might expect to see data points clustered around a linear upward-sloping graph, but the data is scattered. We acknowledge the widely voiced criticism on the validity of NSS metrics, in particular the Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF). However, the theory holds that such statistics are quintessential in the public construction of reputation and brand name. We can conclude that curriculum flexibility does not increase student satisfaction nor TEF ratings. Another important feature of the marketisation of universities is the focus on rankings and reputation as integral to the institution’s brand. Such statistics can serve as a quality guarantee to potential students thereby directing their choice of university. In theory, older and higher-ranking universities are less exposed to the workings of the free market because their strong brand generates a steady influx of students along with external funding regardless of any marketing strategy. The hypothesis would then be that younger and lower-ranking universities offer a higher degree of flexibility in their undergraduate programmes to attract more students. Upside down But in reality, our research indicates that the higher-ranking universities lean towards a free-elective system. It doesn’t matter if we select the QS Global Ranking, the Times Higher Education World Ranking or the rankings in the Guardian League Table 2020 – lower-ranking universities with a weaker brand name offer relatively rigid undergraduate programmes in comparison to the elite institutions. How do we explain these contrasting results? Older and higher-ranking universities are known to enjoy larger financial resources. Therefore, these institutions are able to provide a study programme with more free electives and specialisation courses in comparison to younger and lower-ranking universities. Deeper pockets enable a higher staff – student ratio. It enables senior academics to teach electives on their field of expertise, leaving the prescribed subjects to the teaching assistants. Within the academic debate, curriculum flexibility is associated with the marketisation of universities, which could lead to the pursuit of revenue as primary interest at the cost of the quality guaranteed in a prescribed curriculum. However, our research suggests that the incorporation of elective / optional courses / modules into undergraduate programmes is better understood as a premium, “luxury” service.
While “develop your own curriculum” is a catchphrase on many university websites to woo the potential student-applicant, curriculum flexibility is not associated with higher student satisfaction. Instead, it is an organisational trait associated with (past) wealth that is actively marketed. Considering the financial constraints under which (smaller) universities operate, and more specifically the tenuous position of Political Science programmes, we caution against emulating the flexible curricula employed by higher ranking institutions. It is not the silver bullet many may be looking for. Originally published by the FASoS Teaching & Learning Blog on 4 November 2021. When our BA European Studies (ES) started in 2002, I embarked on a job as teaching assistant at FASoS. A crazy time, but also a fun and rewarding one. I was the only teaching assistant back then. Today, teaching assistants (usually recent MA graduates) play a central role in BA level teaching, and, in contrast to what the job title suggests, they teach the full course, are responsible for the proceedings of their tutorials, and are engaged in course assessment.
I’ve just started teaching and coordinating two courses in period 2. One of these is a first-year BA ES course that I’m teaching together with seven colleagues, all of whom are teaching assistants, and six of whom have only just started work at the faculty. In my experience teaching assistants often do a wonderful job. Nevertheless, there are also important drawbacks: for them, because in a problem-based learning (PBL) environment teaching is a team effort and a balanced team of young and experienced colleagues stimulates development and sharing of best practices; for coordinators, because the heavy reliance on teaching assistants ups the stakes for coordination. This situation now arises every first year in the BA ES and is also increasingly having an impact at the other end of the programme. Last August I had to assign no less than 26 new BA thesis first and second readers because some teaching assistants had found another job, but many more simply were at the end of their contract. Given our reliance on teaching assistants and with another ‘Erkennen & Waarderen’ (Recognition & Rewards) event just around the corner, it’s high time we talk about the future of teaching assistants at FASoS. To me ‘Erkennen & Waarderen’ is all about valuing different careers in academia; something that is more attuned to reality at many universities. But most of the discussions so far concern staff who have obtained a PhD (or are in the process of doing so). But what about teaching assistants? Each year FASoS hires new teaching assistants on temporary contracts to replace others who often have become excellent teachers with a wealth of experience and valuable insights into PBL, but whose contracts have expired. Isn’t that a waste? The argument for temporary contracts is usually twofold: teaching assistants can’t stay in academia without a PhD, and ‘we’ don’t want to determine their careers for them. The latter I find most puzzling. Some teaching assistants may actually have the ambition to teach, so is it then up to us to end contracts after 3-4 years? This argument also presupposes that teaching delivery is the only thing that they can do. But is that really the case? Teaching assistants already coordinate courses in our BA programmes and even the PBL & Tutor Training for new staff. I have co-developed course materials with teaching assistants, but they can also help improve assessment and develop innovative practices – after all, teaching assistants follow the University Teaching Qualification (UTQ) programme which prepares them for such tasks. Perhaps they could even assist in teaching and learning research; find relevant literature, gather data, even publish together with FASoS staff who are already engaged in such research (who knows, this may eventually turn into a PhD after all!). Of course, constantly fluctuating students numbers require a degree of flexibility. But wouldn’t we want to keep the best teaching assistants, for instance by having one vacancy every year or every second year? This offers security and a chance to build a strong CV, even when they want to move on after a few years – by all accounts it can be quite challenging to find another job after 3-4 years of teaching. We would, of course, have to determine what criteria ‘the best’ would have to meet, but there is lots of literature that could help in designing such career paths and the accompanying training. I know that there are quite a few of you who share my view, but some of you might consider this to be the death of academia as we know it. But do teaching assistants need a PhD to teach in our BA programmes? Course evaluations certainly suggest that this may not be the case – not a surprise given that teaching in PBL is about more than substantive knowledge only. And wouldn’t we all benefit from holding on to the best ones? Experienced teachers can also contribute to coordinative and research duties. This would alleviate pressure on coordinators in our BA programmes, but also save others time and effort to continuously train new staff. Time and effort which are not acknowledged in SOLVER hours, but which would decrease demands on research time. Finally, shouldn’t we also recognise teaching assistants’ substantial contribution by rewarding them with a different job title? They don’t just ‘assist’. Indeed, the task description for tutors on our intranet does not distinguish between teaching assistants and other teaching staff. The PBL & Tutor Training and UTQ also prepare them to do the same work as the rest of us. So perhaps instructor, teacher or simply tutor are more fitting job titles? Originally published by Active Learning in Political Science on 17 November 2020. The ongoing Covid-19 crisis has forced us all to rethink our teaching, but not all innovation has to start from scratch. For instance, when you feel uncomfortable with recording a video for your lecture, you can also simply use the narrated slides option in your presentation software. And when you want to stimulate student engagement and interaction during an online talk, existing audience response tools, such as GoSoapBox, Kahoot!, Mentimeter and Wooclap are ready for online use. I’m a frequent user of Wooclap myself, but also have experience using GoSoapBox and have trialed some other options too. My choice for Wooclap is partly one based on its user-friendliness – though the additional perks that come with Maastricht University’s subscription are welcome too. I’ve been using Wooclap offline for quite some time already, and I’ve continued using it when we went online. Wooclap functionality Wooclap comes with an easy-to-use, clutter-free interface, minimising possible distraction for you and for your audience. It is also easily accessible, regardless of the device that students are using. The weblink is short, plus you can generate a QR-code. The existence of different types of questions and various ways to present results is really helpful. You can ask multiple-choice and open questions and conduct polls. You can have students fill in blanks or locate something on an image. When you want students to actively work together, you can opt for the brainstorm option. Issues can be sorted or you can ask students to prioritise what they would like to discuss. Answers can be given in writing, but you can also ask students to make a meme and upload it. Even when you decide to only use multiple-choice and open questions, you can choose to present answers to the latter as a word cloud instead of a list of answers. This presents a nice and useful overview, because with a big group you’ll never be able to read every answer. It is very easy to reorder questions and to integrate slides – though the later comes with potential limitations when you are a savvy user of funky slide transitions and other moving bits and pieces. Other useful options include a timer for answering questions and allowing audience members to ‘like’ each others answers. One option I haven’t used yet, is gamification, which allows you to rank participants – and hand out prizes – adding a fun element to your talk. But one which can also create a sense of unease among your audience. What I also find particularly useful is the ease with which you can copy polls and questions; convenient when you want to re-use polls while keeping existing data. Indeed, you can also export results, so you could for instance look at differences between cohorts of students. Online vs offline use
To me, the offline usefulness of Wooclap is evident. It is a really simple and fun way to involve your audience in an active way, individually and in groups. I have for instance used Wooclap during interactive lectures on Euroscepticism, academic skills, you name it. You can ask students to ‘define Euroscepticism’ but you can also ask them what type of resources they’ve consulted for their research paper. When I write “really simple” I do not mean that it is self-evident. You’ll still have to explain what the purpose is of using Wooclap. Sometimes additional instructions are needed, in particular when it comes to brainstorming – talking to each other may be easy, but how do you succinctly contribute to an online brainstorm? – but you may also want to take the time to explain your questions. This is where integration of slides comes in handy. Using Wooclap in an online setting requires additional planning. Two challenges are noteworthy. First, you may have to switch between several screens, sharing one screen, stop sharing it, and moving on to the next. As I mentioned, the integration of slides goes a long way towards solving this challenge – but comes with its own limitations. Second, in a lecture theatre it is relatively easy to get a sense of how engaged students are with your Wooclap tasks. Yet, not being able to see your online audience it is easy to fail to engage audience members. These limitations should, however, not stop you from considering using Wooclap. A good plan for your talk is a must. I recommend either having a few short questions at the beginning of the lecture to, for instance, gauge students knowledge of a topic, or to have them mid-way to, for instance, see whether you are getting your point across. If you plan to have several questions – I’d say anything above five – best to distribute them across your talk instead. Because, while Wooclap is a fun and useful way to engage your students, you can also overdo it, with students ending up asking for its purpose. 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! Written with Afke Groen and previously published by Active Learning in Political Science on 13 February 2020. We are going to be honest with you from the outset: this blog is not concerned with our teaching experience, but rather with an ongoing research project that we are working on with our colleague Johan Adriaensen and our student assistant Caterina Pozzi (both also Maastricht University). And it gets worse: this is a blog that ends with a cry for help.
We are working on a research project studying undergraduate curriculum design in European Studies, International Relations and Political Science. Surprisingly, there is relatively little research on actual curriculum design within the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, in particular when it comes to such broad fields. Sure, there has been a debate about what curriculums in these fields should look like. Some of our colleagues have, for instance, asked whether there is, or should be, such a thing as a core curriculum in European Studies, while others have looked at interdisciplinarity in the field of Politics. Similarly, at the policy level there have been some attempts to flesh out benchmarks and standards in European Studies, and International Relations and Politics. But what is missing is a thorough attempt to build a database of programmes in European Studies, International Relations and Politics, and to compare the characteristics of these programmes. This is where our ongoing research project comes in. The project builds on previous work by Johan and us, published in the Journal of Contemporary European Studies and European Political Science (in production). Both articles concern the training and monitoring of generic skills in active learning environments. Our new project takes a broader perspective on skills and methods in curriculum design. We conduct a meta-study of undergraduate programmes offered by the member institutions of APSA, ECPR and UACES. We particularly explore three key themes: (1) the teaching of skills, practical experience and employability; (2) the degree of interdisciplinarity; and (3) the flexibility and coherence of the programme. All in all, we hope to provide (1) a unique and comprehensive database of how curricula are organised in practice. On this basis, (2) we will distinguish various types of curriculums and evaluate their advantages and disadvantages. Our final objective is to (3) formulate best practices for university teachers and programme developers. As such, the database also promises to be a useful resource for university policies, in particular in light of challenges such as the constantly changing objects of study in European Studies, International Relations and Politics and an increasingly diverse and international student body. Although we are still in the phase of gathering data, we can already share a couple of interesting observations with you. For one, while some universitiesseem to think that programmes in European Studies, Politics and International Relations are no longer really necessary, it is good to see that this has certainly not meant that future students cannot choose from a wide array of such programmes. Indeed, the curriculums that we have coded so far look quite different. For instance, our own BA in European Studies seems to pay much more specific attention to methods and skills development through separate courses (and many of them). Another striking difference between programmes, is the extent of choice offered to students; while some programmes consist of large, compulsory courses mostly, others include a wide array of electives or ‘tracks’ from diverse fields of studies (sometimes with over 100 or even 200 optional courses!). The latter is also one of our main challenges: it is not always clear what exactly constitutes a programme’s curriculum. Often, the respective websites are not very clear – generally university websites are rather dense – and it is impossible to find core programme documents that might help us here. This is particularly the case for Eastern European and US programmes, which often revolve around a major/minor set-up. Hence, we need your help! If you are based at a university and/or are teaching in a programme that is a member of APSA, ECPR and UACES, your input would be very welcome. If there is any documentation that you think might help us code Eastern European and US programmes, we would be very grateful if you could send it to [email protected]. We do offer something in return. First, we will keep you posted through Twitter and blogs. Second, we hope to organise panels and workshops on curriculum design at conferences, such as during this year’s European Teaching & Learning Conference in Amsterdam. If you would like to contribute to such get-togethers, do let us know. Finally, our aim is to eventually provide colleagues with access to our database, starting with those of you who help us move the project forward! This post was originally published by Active Learning in Political Science on 6 December 2019. I’ve always considered myself an approachable teacher; someone students can come to with questions or worries or just for a talk. And from what I hear, I amconsidered to be approachable. Still, I am noticing something that worries me. I have been having open office for about 9 years now, but fewer students have been showing up. Weeks go by when no one comes, even in periods when I am teaching and coordinating courses. I know that I am not the first one raising this issue. It is even the topic of students’ research! But I still believe that students can learn from meeting with us for input and feedback, whether this concerns a relatively simple question or my assessment of their paper. So, why does no one come and talk to me anymore? Turnout during open office hours again was low during the first weeks of this year, when I coordinated and taught a first-year course on academic research and writing. At the end, students write a short paper. These are randomly distributed among teaching staff, myself plus 10 other colleagues – together we teach 25 problem-based learning groups of about 12 students. As soon as results are out, all students, whether they have failed or passed, are invited to meet with the person who marked their paper to discuss the assessment during scheduled open office hours. This year I asked colleagues to inform me about the number of students that had shown up. The table below shows the data for those who failed the course. Interestingly one colleague had to do her open office hours via Skype; no less than 7 out of 9 students showed up. Yet, there is some research that suggests that using technology does not make a huge difference. Why did so few students show up?
I decided to ask some simple questions to the students themselves during a session in our mentor programme. The approximately 100 students who attended (out of nearly 300) might not be representative of the group of students that does not turn up in my office. But I still learned something interesting. Of the 86 students completing questions via an online survey tool, 36 had failed the course and 29 had attended the open office hours. Those who attended, generally did so to get clarification regarding their paper’s assessment. Of those who did not attend, some simply stated that they passed the course and saw no need to discuss the feedback. Others referred to having been sick, stressed and/or busy with the new courses – when asked, quite a few of these students did not write to staff to ask for another appointment. Asked why they thought others had not come, some answered that these must be lazy students or that they missed motivation because they knew what they had done wrong. But quite a few answers touched upon something that we might all too easily overlook, namely students’ expectations regarding feedback opportunities. These answers did not just concern not knowing what to do with feedback. For instance, one student wrote that students who did not show up might be “insecure and/or uncomfortable with getting feedback”. Another student wrote that “you have limited time with the tutors and tutors often have a lot of work and not much time for you”. Could it be that low attendance during open office hours is due to barriers to students’ engagement with feedback or, more generally, a lack of feedback literacy? This is something that I want to explore in more detail. I have already briefly discussed this with our academic writing advisor, and we may want to see whether we can specifically address this issue in a forthcoming curriculum review. But what about solutions for the here and now? There are many ways in which open office are organised, but what works best? One colleague suggested changing times. Admittedly, my open office hours are Wednesdays from 08:30-09:30, but this never was a problem – and the feedback open office hours during the aforementioned course were scheduled in the afternoon. Elsewhere in cyberspace people have been suggesting other solutions, including a rethink of faculty office space. I’d love to squeeze in a couch, but my office is rather tiny. On Twitter someone suggested that the wording ‘open office hours’ is unclear to students and that ‘student drop-in hours’ may make more sense. So, the name plate next to my door now mentions my student drop-in hours and so does the syllabus of an upcoming course. Let’s see what happens. I hope students will come and talk to me again. The door’s open, simply turn up at the stated time! 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 by Active Learning in Political Science on 11 July 2019. Last week Simon discussed the need to reflect on our teaching and learning, in particular also on what’s notworking. This made me wonder, are we actually able to reflect on our strengths and weaknesses? We all know how difficult self-reflection can be. I personally remember a management training during which I was asked to evaluate my own actions in a difficult situation of my own choice – and struggling to openly critique myself and reflect upon my behaviour. I recently witnessed how some of my colleagues find it easy to talk about teaching and learning, whereas others seemed to be struggling. Active learning is in Maastricht University’s DNA, with problem-based learning (PBL) being used across its programmes. But often PBL does not come natural to teaching staff; we are expected to take a backseat role and focus on process rather than on content. Hence, good teaching staff training is essential. New staff are introduced to PBL and need to follow a more detailed teaching training trajectory after a year of teaching. Events such as my faculty’s annual Education Day also play a role in this, through the exchange of experience and best practices. In the run up to this year’s Education Day I was asked to talk about a new teacher staff development programme, called Continuing Professional Development. This programme is aimed at stimulating further development of teaching staff and at further enhancing the university teaching community. Since it is not yet fully clear what kind of activities staff can do in this context, I planned two exercises that should give me an insight into colleagues’ needs: a bingo and a generative interview. The first exercise I have already discussed in more detail in a post published in November: a bingo. The bingo I used this time is pictured here: I explained to my colleagues that the aim of this exercise was a) to experience how easy it is to discuss and share teaching and learning ideas and best practices and b) to come up with some first ideas concerning their own training needs. This is also why I asked everyone to make sure to at least complete the box on the bottom left. The exercise worked well – and this time I timed it well too. People found it easy to talk, also because of the variety of topics to be discussed. The second exercise was one that I picked up during the recent Joint International Teaching and Learning Conference in Brighton. During the conference, Colin Brown (Northeastern University) hosted a workshop on teaching peer review in which he made use of generative interviews. We worked together in groups of three: one interviewee, one interviewer and one observer. Interviewer and observer together try to find out the interviewee’s views on a certain topic and formulate these views for them, which helps to actually more clearly formulate those views. Roles rotated. This was an interesting exercise and I decided to try it during the Education Day. I explained to my colleagues that this exercise was meant to get a more detailed understanding of their teacher training needs. While I participated in the Bingo, I decided to only observe my colleagues during this second exercise. Interestingly, where some immediately started talking (as I experienced myself during the conference workshop), others started to focus on details of procedure. I noticed that those colleagues who I know to be very involved in teaching and learning, seemed to find it much easier to do this exercise. They sometimes ignored the procedure, but they did eventually end up filling in the main part of the form pictured here: Colleagues less eagerly involved in teaching and learning were the ones who seemingly found it difficult to talk about themselves, their strengths and their weaknesses. Instead, they spend lots of time talking about the form and the procedures.
This shows that Simon’s call to speak out about our mistakes and our weaknesses may come quite natural to those of us who think about these issues on a daily basis (the readers of the ALPS blog or my faculty’s own teaching and learning blog). But this seems quite different for those colleagues for whom teaching does not come naturally or is rather viewed as a thing they have to do (instead of something they like to do). Staff training will hopefully get more teaching staff to reflect on what works and what doesn’t, but, as Simon writes, academia unfortunately encourage us instead “to big ourselves up, to represent a bold vision of progressive and successful practice.” PS During both exercises I played music to create a good atmosphere on a day that temperature went well above 35 degrees. You can find the playlist here. |
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