Fifth workshop from the New Techniques and Technologies for Text-Based Disciplines coaching programme, at the JGU, Mainz, held on 9th May 2014.

1. Workshop 5: Techniques II
Dr Thomas Hunt and Dr Jamie Wood

2. Introductions
• Briefly say
– your name
– what you study/ teach
– something you can remember from an earlier
workshop

3. Aims
• To develop understanding of different kinds of
learning
• To think more about the role the following in
learning:
– assessment
– creativity
– process and product
• To learn by doing and discussing together

4. Plan for today
• 30 mins: deep and surface learning (JW)
• 1 hour: assessment: from the hidden
curriculum to the creative curriculum (TH)
• 1 hour: lunch
• 1 hour: the creative curriculum (TH)
• 30 mins: Pedagogy, process and product:
inquiry-based learning and student as
producer (JW)

5. Approaches to Learning
Students take an approach to learning:
A ‘surface approach’ means that students intend only
to complete the task requirements. Characteristics of a
surface approach are that the student will memorise
information for assessment, will treat the task as an
external imposition, will fail to relate different aspects
of the course to one another and will often forget
material soon after the assessment.
A ‘deep approach’ means that the student organises
and structures content into a meaningful whole and
sees the relations between parts, relates previous
knowledge to new knowledge, relates knowledge from
different courses and sees the broader significance of
the course.

6. Approaches to Learning
In pairs:
a) Identify a time when you adopted a surface
approach to learning and
b) Identify a time when you adopted a deep
approach to learning.
What factors do you think influenced the
approach that you took in each instance?

7. Approaches to Learning
Students take an approach to learning:
A ‘surface approach’ means that students intend only to complete the
task requirements. Characteristics of a surface approach are that the
student will memorise information for assessment, will treat the task as
an external imposition, will fail to relate different aspects of the course
to one another and will often forget material soon after the
assessment.
A ‘deep approach’ means that the student organises and structures
content into a meaningful whole and sees the relations between parts,
relates previous knowledge to new knowledge, relates knowledge from
different courses and sees the broader significance of the course.
A ‘strategic approach’ means that the student attempts
to understand the demands of the task and adopts an
appropriate approach to meet those demands.

8. Deep or surface learning?
Read the excerpts on the handouts and discuss
with a partner.
Are the students taking a deep or a surface
approach to the task? Why?

9. Why might students choose one approach
over another?
• Habit: previous approaches to learning (successful
and unsuccessful)
• Perception of workload
• Motivation/interest/enthusiasm
• Assessment: Is it assessed? How is it assessed?
• Cues from the tutor
• Perception of the purpose of (higher) education and
the discipline
• Ability to see relevance of learning across and beyond
courses
• Anxiety

10. Consequences of
assessment:
from the hidden
curriculum to the
creative curriculum
Dr Thomas E. Hunt
Newman University
t.hunt@newman.ac.uk

11. Assessment?
Essays; examinations; presentations; etc.
Summative: after teaching
Formative: ‘… indispensable to teaching …’
(Biggs and Tang, 2007)
The difference between summative and
formative assessment …

12. What is assessment for?
What is the most important thing that
comes out of the process of assessment?
For the students?
For teachers?
What do our students think is the most
important?

13. An assessment dilemma
Three days before.
2000 word limit.
2800 word essay submitted.
What do you do?
A: Draw a line after 2000 words and assess those words only.
B: Hand it back and tell them to rewrite it before the deadline.
C: As for B, but apply a penalty. What should the penalty be?
D: Hand it back unassessed. (As a non-submission? A fail?)
E: Assess the essay but deduct marks. (How many?)
F: Something else.

14. How we frame assessment shows …
… our own conceptions of what we do; ‘disciplinary
unconscious’ (Decoding the Disciplines).
… our understanding of what ‘knowledge’ is
(quantifiable; what is known can be declared with
precision…)
… our understanding of what a university education
should look like (separation of highest from lowest
scorers).

15. The Hidden Curriculum
Snyder The Hidden Curriculum, 1971.
Gibbs, Improving the Quality of Student Learning, 1992.
‘If you are under a lot of pressure then you will just
concentrate on passing the course. I know that from
bitter experience. One subject I wasn’t very good at I
tried to understand the subject and I failed the exam.
When I retook the exam I just concentrated on passing
the exam. I got 96% … I still don’t understand the subject
so it defeated the object, in a way.’ (Gibbs, 1992, quoted
in Gibbs,2006, p.25)

17. What do these remarks tell us
about our students?

18. ‘Backwash’
Assessment defines how the students
understand and approach our curriculum.
Learning and
teaching
Intended
outcomes
Outcomes
Assessment
Assessment
Teacher’s
perspective
Student’s
perspective
From Biggs and Tang (2007, p.169).

19. Before lunch
Idea: the post-submission questionnaire.
– What do you think it deserves?
– What do you think it will get?
– What will the feedback say?
– What would you do differently next time?
– What have you learned about the subject through doing
this assessment?
– What have you learned about yourself?
Idea: the ‘real life’ problem.
– Bain 2004.
– Continuous project work as assessment.

20. Questions?
Lunchtime task:
Think of a class you are teaching (or thinking of teaching).
What easy thing can you do to
(a) include a ‘real world’ problem in the course design
and/or
(b) revise (make better) how you assess that class?
Write your thoughts down on a post-it note. Stick it up.

21. • Please come back for 13.10

22. So, the problem – the solution
Students are not achieving deep learning …
(partly) BECAUSE
… our assessments don’t encourage it …
SO
… how can we design assessments that encourage
deeper learning?

23. Case study 1: LIPA
Paul Kleiman (2005
and 2008)
A lack of coherence in how
creativity is understood.
HE assessment now
structured around ILOs and
alignment which constrain.
LIPA and its peer review
model.
Liverpool Institute of Performing Arts. Source:
wikimedia
Potentially emancipatory.
Renewal of curriculum

24. Case study 2: The imaginative
curriculum
Norman Jackson (2008)
Creativity is a ‘wicked
problem,’ unique and
complex.
But it is recognised as
essential for economy
and society.
Curriculum that
focusses on process;
on negotiation with
the students; on
continuing ‘lifewide’
curriculum.

25. A turn to ‘creativity’ in the curriculum
What do you understand by creativity?
Is you job a creative job?
Is teaching creative?
Is learning?

26. Some pedagogic justifications from
different perspectives
Bloom’s taxonomy (revised
Anderson and Krathwohl)
Gammon and Lawrence (2005)
University of Luton.
Csikszentmihalyi’s concept of
flow.
Student engagement in designing
assessments; pre-hand-in and
post-hand-in.
Focus on student experience and
anxiety levels.
Image source: http://steve-
wheeler.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/bloom-reheated.html

27. Against value in the
Humanities
www.heacademy.ac.uk/as
sets/.../Winner_Univers
ity_of_Sheffield.pdf
An interesting assessment
http://honoriartist.livejour
nal.com/622165.html

28. The doing
What would you do to develop
(improve?) the assessment in this
class?

29. A wrap up
Assessment echoes and structures how students
learn.
Assessment therefore is not just important at the
end of the module but all the way through.
This means innovative and new ways of
approaching curricula and assessment.
But also that even small changes can make a big
difference.

30. Summary

31. Next session
• Workshop 6: Developments, Reflections and
Conclusions
– When: 10th June, 10-12 and 2-4 (note change of
timings)
– Where: 10-12 (Philosophicum, room P 108) and 2-
4 (Georg-Forster-Haus, room 02-741)
– Who: Prof. Hugh Pyper (Biblical Studies, University
of Sheffield)

32. References (1)
• Bain, K. (2004) What the Best College Teachers Do. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University
Press.
• Biggs, J. and Tang, C. (2007) Teaching for Quality Learning at University. Maidenhead: Open
University Press.
• Decoding the Disciplines
• Gammon, S. and Lawrence, L. (2006). ‘Improving Student experience through making
assessments ‘flow’’, in Innovative Assessment in Higher Education, edd. Bryan, C. and Clegg, K.
London: Routledge.
• Gibbs, G. (1992) Improving the Quality of Student Learning. Bristol: Technical and
Educational services.
• Gibbs, G. (1999) ‘Using assessment strategically to change the way students learn,’ in
Assessment Matters in Higher Education: Choosing and Using Diverse Approaches edd. Brown, S.
and Glasner, A. Maidenhead: Open University Press.
• Kleiman, P. (2005) ‘Beyond the Tingle Factor: creativity and assessment in higher
education,’ paper presented to the Economic and Social Research Council seminar, Strathclyde.
Source.
• Kleiman, P. (2008) ‘Towards transformation: concepts of creativity in higher education,’
Innovations in Education and Teaching International 45: 3, 209-217.
• Jackson, N. (2008) ‘Tackling the wicked problem of creativity in higher education,’ Source.
• Snyder, B. (1971) The Hidden Curriculum. New York: Knopf.

33. References (2)
For a general overview of issues related to teaching in HE:
• Paul Ramsden (2003). Learning to Teach in Higher Education(2nd edition). London: RoutledgeFalmer.
• John Biggs (1999). Teaching for Quality Learning at University. Buckingham : Society for Research into
Higher Education : Open University Press.
How students learn:
• Jennifer Case and Delia Marshall (2004). “Between deep and surface: procedural approaches to learning
in engineering education contexts”. Studies in Higher Education, 29 (5) 605-615.
• Mary Lea and Brian Street (1998). “Student writing in higher education: an academic literacies
approach”. Studies in Higher Education, 23 (2) 157-172.
• Trevor Habeshaw, Graham Gibbs, & Sue Habeshaw (1987, 2nd edition 2012). 53 Interesting Ways of
Helping Your Students Study. Plymouth: Harper and Row).
• More on deep and surface approaches:
http://www.learning.ox.ac.uk/media/global/wwwadminoxacuk/localsites/oxfordlearninginstitute/document
s/supportresources/lecturersteachingstaff/resources/resources/Student_Approaches_to_Learning.pdf
• Learning styles (which are different to approaches, and describe how a person prefers to learn):
http://www2.le.ac.uk/offices/careers/pgrd/resources/teaching/theories/honey-mumford
• Jan Meyer and Ray Land (2003). Threshold Concepts and Troublesome Knowledge: Linkages to Ways of
Thinking and Practising within the Disciplines. ETL Project Report, no. 4.
http://www.etl.tla.ed.ac.uk/docs/ETLreport4.pdf