Enhancing your unit – Take your unit beyond the basics.
Dave Hunt and Debbie Holley share ideas, good practice and examples from across the faculty and beyond
2. Context
Consistency of the
student learning
experience
Enhance the quality
of teaching delivery
and assessment
Promote staff digital
literacy
Brightspace with
associated digital
tools
Increase the
opportunity for
students to enhance
their digital skills
Active engagement
with digital learning
tools in their unit
3. Reminder! Building Out Your Units
Add unit handbook and assignment brief
Copying content
Add an introductory Video Note
Use an html template
Look at date restrictions / creating checklist
Make the default Discussion live – ideas on how to get
engagement with it
Making use of the Intelligent Agents to monitor engagement
– how to make live
4. What students think staff need to do
Expectations. Set clear expectations at the start of the course
Quality. ‘take action against poorly designed assignments and bad demonstrators and
lecturers’
Skills. More confident in using technology
Support and understanding. Need to be better at supporting and communicating with
students. ‘Regular 1-to-1 support’. ‘Check in on each person, their well-being and work
load’. ‘Understand that not all of us work at the same rate/retain information at the
same time’, ‘Be aware that some students have familial or other responsibilities away
from the course and this makes it more challenging’. Support for group-based activities
Build relationships. ‘so many [staff] seem so unapproachable - focus on lecture job not
just be there for the pay check’. ‘I would find it helpful if lecturers took the time to get
to know students’
Student contribution. Staff do not take into account the valuable knowledge that
students can offer
Recognition. More recognition of good student performance
Responsiveness. Respond quickly to student requests
Link to research: Holley and Biggins (2021)
5. In Todays Session: Enhancing your unit
Digital badges
Mentimeter
Padlet
Quizzes
Panopto
Discussions
Video Note
6. Digital badges
Lots of evidence about how digital badges can motivate learners
These have been used to 'badge' meaningful micro credentials & recognition schemes
Listen to leader Dr Doug Belshaws podcast
Need careful consideration and design
Use sparingly!
Brightspace Link here
Example from Association of learning technologists - I used some of these to build my
professional accreditation
7. Mentimeter
Mentimeter is available to staff and students, you can setup an account using your BU email address
Mentimeter is an online polling tool which can add an interactive element to a lecture, presentation or
recorded session.
Question types include Multiple Choice, Ranking, Scales, Word Cloud and Open Ended, among others
Mentimeter is all online and uses a bring-your-own-device approach.
Mentimeter is completely anonymous – the anonymity can sometimes encourage quieter students to answer
Get an overview of where your group might be struggling, or common misconceptions
Do the whole presentation in Mentimeter (talk to anyone on IPL unit last year)
Mentimeter research articles collated
Demonstration
Using Mentimeter
8. Padlet for formative and summative, F2F
and online
Staff can login to Padlet at https://bu.padlet.org/ and click Log in
with Microsoft.
Collaborative class and group activities
Synchronous / asynchronous
Anonymous by default
Students can create a Padlet account by going
to https://padlet.com/ , clicking Log in and then Log in with
Microsoft.
https://bu.padlet.org/dhunt35/9r208n9kn939e3z3
10. MCQs for
formative
and
summative
(see ref list
on how to
write good
ones!)
Brightspace quiz tool
Multiple question types
Auto-grading (MCQ & multi-select)
Question library and sections
Randomization of questions
Feedback options
11. Panopto
Panopto is an easy to use desktop and lecture
recording tool and video hosting platform.
Whether you wish to record lectures, perhaps for
students to access during revision or to create bite
size recordings to create a learning module for a
topic, Panopto allows you to capture your screen
along with video and audio and then make the
recording available within Brightspace for your
students to view, all in a few simple steps.
Key features of Panopto include:
Existing video content is streamed so that it can
be played back instantly online
Can be viewed and uploaded from mobile devices
Pre-recorded video files can be easily uploaded
Video content can be edited online via a browser
Flexible video sharing and permission
management
Captured PowerPoint slides automatically create
an in-built video navigation menu
Analytics show how video is being viewed
Search functionality is able to locate content that
is spoken or displayed as text during recordings.
12. Discussions
The Discussions tool provides an area for
collaboration allowing learners to post, read, and
reply to messages on different topics, share thoughts
about course materials, ask questions, share files, or
work with your peers on assignments.
Use the Discussions Tool in your unit to:
Encourage users to share thoughts on course material
with their peers
Set up forums for users to ask questions
Pose a question for the class to debate
Discuss the answers to an assignment
Create forums for groups to work on group
assignments
Take a look at the following video from Dr. Anne Luce
demonstrating Discussion Boards in action: Ann gets
100% student satisfaction on her unit, all discourse
based
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Teira769Gj4
13. Video Note
Video Note allows you and your students to record and
embed videos of up to 30 minutes within Brightspace units.
Video Notes can be embedded within Announcements,
Content pages and Discussion Boards. They can also be used
to provide short video feedback on Assignments.
Video Notes are a great way to connect with your students,
particularly in between face to face sessions and at distance.
They may be used to deliver a quick welcome to your unit and
also to frame particular activities.
Using a quick video note (3-5 mins to welcome your students,
to update them or add additional information as your uit
develops
To record a Video Note you will need a webcam and a
microphone. Most webcam cams will have a built in
microphone and most laptops already have built cameras and
webcams.
https://brightspace.bournemouth.ac.uk/d2l/le/content/18315/v
iewContent/725216/View
14. • Powerpoint karoke – students prepare
short story using images, then another
group interprets
• Pairs work – students can chat to each
other by mobile, especially if wifi flaky
• Lots ideas ALT community resources
• I love jamboards Maha shared this at
an online conference Maha Bali is an
Associate Professor of Practice at the
Center for Learning and Teaching at
the American University in Cairo, Egypt
Pushing boundaries?
15. Further Resources
• Further guidance on using Brightspace can be
found in the Brightspace Staff Resources area
• FLIEFlix 'boxsets'
• Digital Pedagogies Framework
• Faculty Learning Technologist
16. References
Ashwin, P., 2015. Curriculum: What is to be taught and learned? In: Ashwin, P. Reflective Teaching
in Higher Education. London: Bloomsbury Academic, 153-177.
Biggs, J.B. and Tang, S.K., 2011. Teaching for Quality Learning at University: What the Student Does.
4th edition. Maidenhead : McGraw-Hill/Society for Research into Higher Education/Open University
Press.
Holley, D; Goldsmith, B & Fevyer, D (2021) Inspiring learning through technology (chapter
5) in Pokorny, H. and Warren, D. eds. Sage. Enhancing Teaching Practice in Higher Education. 2nd
edition. London: Sage, 11-52.
Warren, D., 2021. Course and learning design and evaluation. In: Pokorny, H. and Warren, D., eds.
Enhancing Teaching Practice in Higher Education. 2nd edition. London: Sage, 11-52.
Douthit, N.T., Norcini, J., Mazuz, K., Alkan, M., Feuerstein, M.T., Clarfield, A.M., Dwolatzky, T.,
Solomonov, E., Waksman, I. and Biswas, S., 2021. Assessment of Global Health Education: The Role
of Multiple-Choice Questions. Frontiers in Public Health, 9.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8339563/
Notas do Editor
Debbie
Units live 19/07 - live by default, available to students 1 week prior, ULs add staff (can't add HODs)
1. Mention assignment boxes and grade columns – PSO role
2. Copying content to include: being selective, good housekeeping,
Most of these comments relation to staff – student interactions and interpersonal relationships. Almost no comments on course structure, content, knowledge of staff
DPF now on BS
Changes and recommendations based on reporting
2. Pull out some nice practices that people in different areas have used in designing their units.
There is no right answer - your layout will be determined by your subject discipline, how the unit is taught; how large your cohort is, how many people are in the teaching team
Hopefully give you some ideas that you can take away and apply to your own units, maybe share with colleagues to have a unified approach to your unit design
3. Spend some time demonstrating some of the things we’ll show you in the examples. Have your units to hand and you can follow us onscreen or ask us any questions as we go along. Put Qs in the chat
1. See 'Preparing your Units for 2022/23
Hide learning materials whilst being developed but have a welcome announcement up
Guidance is all there
2. Some of the most popular support offered by FLIE in a boxset format – some of the same information but laid out more from a pedagogical perspective
4. Faculty mailboxes