Presented at LILAC 2008

1. Helping the Podders at
Bedfordshire
Alan Bullimore and Peter Godwin
University of Bedfordshire

2. Helping the Podders at
Bedfordshire
 Who we are and where we are
 A new curriculum in the Business School
 The first year of its delivery
 How Information Literacy fits in
 Information Literacy for other Business
students
 Lessons and Conclusions

3. /
http://www.flickr.com/photos/plentyofants/203275559
Alan Bullimore and Peter Godwin
University of Bedfordshire

4. The Pods at UB
Project Hall Staff Room
IT area
Relaxation lounge
Brainstorm room
Boardroom

5. Curriculum delivery in the Pods
 Curriculum delivered in a
“modern office” learning
space
 The learning space or
pod is for 50 students
who stay together as a
cohort throughout the
year.
 Main space or project
hall facilitates group
working in teams of five.
 Groups are altered
periodically.

6. Curriculum delivery in the Pods
 Student learning is structured around
substantial projects
 These aim to achieve learning outcomes
within a “real-life” context and with
involvement of external organisations.
 Other inputs include occasional lectures and
workshops which are aligned with the tasks.
 Replaces previous skills unit.
 Professional behaviour expected

7. Curriculum delivery in the Pods
 Gives experience of office environment
 Real-world tasks encourage student
engagement, assist monitoring and
improve retention
 Group work is fundamental
 It’s a constructivist learning
environment

8. Learning in the Pods : all the
buzzwords!
Active
Constructivist Collaborative
Intentional
Complex
Contextual
Conversational
Reflective

9. First Year Business Students in
the Pods
 Five cohorts in 3
hour sessions
 We participate for
about an hour with
each cohort at
relevant times in the
project-driven
curriculum

10. Vauxhall Recreation Club
 First piece of work was a collaborative
venture with Vauxhall Recreation Club
 Students were given the task of
attracting more members
 The club is a partner of the University
and provides sports facilities for
University students

11. What we did …
 Short presentation in Project Hall and working with
groups
 Add context to the assignment, by looking at the
broader picture
 Recommend students to use electronic Key Note
Reports about Leisure and Recreation Centres
 Talk them through a SWOT of the market and
encourage them to relate it to the specifics of
Vauxhall
 Make the most of government statistics ( local area
health stats )

12. Explore Adventure Holidays
 Students tasked with
finding a market for
an adventure holiday

13. What we did…
 Short presentation in Project Hall and
working with the groups
 Advised on sources giving broader
picture for Adventure holiday market
 Use of full-text databases ( e.g. Business
Source Premier )

14. Music Industry
“Are writers, musicians and
other creative artists
worth their pay?”
3000 word essay

15. What we did…
 50 minute lecture to over 200 students
about scoping the topic
Worked with groups in the Project Hall :
 Formulating 5 sub-topics related to the
question
 Keyword selection, and finding
information
 Importance of different sources

16. PLAN
RECORD
REFLECT
ACT
The research
process

17. Future developments in the
Pods
 More use of the separate rooms to work with
individual groups
 Web access in the Brainstorm Room
 Work with academics to reflect on what worked
and how to improve the student experience
 Pod active learning will spread to other years
as the whole curriculum is re-shaped into
longer, larger modules and terms.

18. Opening the Pods, 18 Feb 2008
“The skills and talents that students
are developing here using the business pods
will be highly
sought-after by prospective employers."
Bill Rammell

19. Support to other Business
students
 Management project framework requires
us to work with small groups in order to
help them focus on their topic and use
the best sources

20. Management projects
 Final year undergraduate dissertations have
been replaced by a 5,000 word project
 Students are assigned a question and one
journal article to get them started
 They work in small groups ( about 6/8 students
initially ) for 3 weeks and after 12 weeks
submit a final individual piece of work

21. Example Question…
“ You can’t learn to be Alan Sugar at
business school. You are either an
entrepreneur or you’re not. Discuss”

22. Logistical issues this term
 450 students in groups of up to eight in 6
hours teaching time, using the Social
Learning Space in our LRC
 We have needed to involve all available
subject librarians
 Information Assistants have helped ferry
the students into our Social Learning
Area…

23. What we did

24. Discuss and
select
keywordsAdvise on type
of
information found
Demonstrate
databases
Search tips

25. Lessons from our experiences
 Forced us to review our purchasing priorities,
as learners require access to journal articles
and data rather than books
 Led to new database purchases
 Blurred boundaries between academics and
LRC staff
 Moving from formal teaching toward
facilitating student learning, using more
‘improvised’ techniques

26. Conclusions
 Enables us to work with first year students in a
project based curriculum
 Advantages of small group contact in a flexible
environment
 Building block approach to skill development ( e.g.
getting used to accessing databases through the
library catalogue )
 Use of databases in one project may encourage use
in others
 We’re moving toward changing habits, creating a
way of thinking, rather than imparting a set of skills