“Student feedback in both learning community forums and the successive national student surveys revealed that the office hour system had for many years been a source of tension between staff and students. At the start of each academic year staff would allocate 2 hours (or two one hours slots) in which they would be available in their offices for consultation by students. Perceived advantages of this system for staff are that they could protect their research, administration and teaching preparation time from interruption. From the student perspective it in principle guarantees that a faculty member will be available at specific times. But because timetables change from year to year, and staff teach at different times, office hours vary from one staff member to the next and so the student must seek out information about individual staff availability. Therein lies a key source of tension. Often, staff members would leave a note on their door about their office hours. From the student perspective since they are at the door, why not just ‘knock and try your luck.’

“The move to an open door policy had been requested by students for many years but became policy as one of a number of recommendations in a five-year school review. In 2011 the school of psychology moved from the office hour system to an open door system. This was closely followed by a working from home policy which required staff to be available for student consultations for the majority of their working time but with some ‘out of school’ working time protected.

“The effect on students of office hours is being evaluated as part of a PGCHE project by Drs Harriet Allen and Angie Swali (Biosciences). Dr Allen came to Nottingham from a school that was moving somewhat ironically in precisely the opposite direction – to an office hour system requested by students to guarantee that staff would be available for consultation. Although this research is on going, preliminary analysis suggests that students often did not observe office hours when choosing when to visit staff and were often frustrated by not being able to see staff when they needed to.

“The perceived effects on staff are variable and reflect the wide range of arguments that were originally made for and against the change. A common feeling is that the change made little or no difference. As one colleague put it, “Under the previous policy students never paid attention to my office hours, but I never used to turn students away outside office hours either, so it’s made no tangible difference to my life.” On the other hand, open doors can be problematic for staff who teach on very large modules, particularly in the run up to examinations. Similarly from a student perspective it can be uncomfortable to interrupt tutorials or meetings. An insightful point made by one colleague is that it would be appropriate to formalize a policy that also included boundaries on email communications between staff and students.

“We have in the ended adopted a pragmatic approach in which some staff make their calendar available to students, a greater use by some staff to use an appointments system, and many use boards to indicate their availability at any particular time. The overwhelming response from students and many staff is that the change has been positive. This perhaps because many colleagues already adopted a flexible approach according to their needs and to the student’s needs. Perhaps the most significant aspect of this change in policy is that staff are more communicative with students about their own timetables, and about how we try to strike the balance between their roles as teachers and as researchers.”

Prof Richard J. Tunney,
School of Psychology

“The Students’ Union Education Network have embarked upon an extended research project with the Learner Engagement Team in IS to gain knowledge of what students find useful in Moodle, what’s not so beneficial to their learning, and if there were no barriers, how would they like to see Moodle used. In addition to this, the project aims to deliver insight into the true learning benefits of current practice – not only the fact that some particular activity may be useful, but why it is useful and to what extent it helps them learn as individuals in ways which weren’t possible under WebCT or other systems.

“Part of this is also about mapping current practice – Moodle has been in place across all campuses since September, but it’s not known what the uptake has been like, the baseline criteria students reasonably expect to be made available, and from academics’ point of view, whether baseline criteria would encourage more content to be made available and more activity or discourage exceeding what may be seen as “the minimum”.

“At the other end of the spectrum, the project aims to establish a ‘wish list’ for the Learner Engagement Team to take forwards as changes which can be made either to Moodle itself of the widespread use of the environment.

“What’s most interesting for the Education Network is students’ current use of the environment, how this relates to staff use, and where it may be possible to bridge the gap to ensure that staff aren’t focusing resources on areas which aren’t beneficial to learning experience, and students’ reasonable expectations are being met through using the VLE to its full potential.

“We’re all still in the unknown on how students’ expectations are affected by £9,000 fees, if at all, but one thing we do know is that each year our freshers are becoming more tech-savvy and growing up in an environment increasingly revolving around technology, and they will expect the same from their educational experiences. The research results from China and Malaysia may be of particular interest at the end of the project for similar reasons.

“Hopefully we can celebrate the amazing work that many teachers and support staff are implementing across the institution, as the project has incredible potential for sharing best practice both within Schools and Departments and also across the faculties and disciplines.”

Matt Styles
SU Education Officer

“I am writing this having just been told that I have been promoted to professor on the Teaching and Learning track. It is difficult to express the pride I feel and the sense of personal achievement. But it is also a clear signal that the University values and rewards teaching. I hope this will encourage and inspire others.

“How did I achieve this? I can’t claim to have had a plan or blueprint. It has been more a case of interest and attitude. I am always positive and I’m happy to put my hand up for new challenges.

“I am lucky enough too be in my dream job, being a teacher at this University. From 1970-73 I studied here for a degree in the Department of Politics. I loved the course, the campus, the friendly interaction between staff and students. I had a fantastic time. To teach here became my ambition. Lack of funds and the logistics of being a wife in the armed services made undertaking doctoral research untenable. After a variety of teaching posts, raising a family and moving around the country we returned to this area in the 1980s. I took the opportunity to return to my studies part-time and gained an MA and a PhD here. In the last year of my PhD (1994-5) I undertook tutorial teaching in the School and have remained here ever since, my status changing from part-time tutorial assistant to temporary full-time teacher, to permanent university teacher, associate professor and (as of 1 August) professor.

“Realizing my ambition has been partly due my own effort and determination but it has also been due to the inspiration, support and confidence I gained from those who taught and advised me. I have tried to inspire students in a similar manner. I’m always open to new ideas and use SETs, SEMs, comments from peer reviewers and observations of others, to reflect on my own teaching. I experiment with new techniques and adapt to new technologies.

“My teaching philosophy is to try to excite and inspire the love of learning in students. Politics is fascinating and relevant. I try to convey my own enthusiasm for study, and in particular for learning about politics, by making ideas and concepts accessible, by challenging accepted beliefs and encouraging students to think critically. I help them to make links between theoretical perspectives and examples drawn from their own experience. The rapid increase in both the diversity and number of our students has provided new opportunities. It has made me think about how to integrate students from different cultures and different backgrounds and to enable them to participate in class. I want students to find me approachable and accessible. I like to help them to develop a ‘can do’ approach to both their studies and life in general.

“I am committed not only to doing my best for the students I teach, but also to contribute in various ways to School, Faculty and University activities designed to promote teaching excellence. For 12 years I convened a Teaching Development Seminar. This forum provided a combination of staff development and mutual support for part-time teachers in the School. It recognized the importance of their contribution; it promoted learning through peer discussion and inducted them into the procedures and good practice in the School.

“A grant from the Centre for Integrated Learning allowed me to undertake work across the faculty of Social Science to promote a conversation about teaching and learning. This included organizing some of the following events: getting smart with smart boards; getting students to participate; assessment and feedback; what can we learn from internationalization?

“I also undertake a variety of work for the Professional Development team, including assisting with the PGCHE in the following ways: video facilitating; observing teaching; assessing portfolios; delivering workshops on classroom management. Watching other people teach has been a constant source of inspiration. This work has provided a valuable opportunity to observe the styles and methods used by new teachers across all the university’s disciplines.

“My role as University Senior Tutor has enabled me to lead the Grand Tutoring Challenge designed to improve the quality of student support across all our campuses. It has given me an opportunity to get to know many colleagues here and in Malaysia and China. I visited our overseas campuses in the autumn. I recommended everyone to visit them if you get an opportunity, the journey is long but it is well worth it.

“For me, teaching is about excitement, enthusiasm, energy . . . and of course preparation. Teaching is being lucky enough to do a job I love and now also to receive recognition and reward in the form of promotion to professor.

Prof Sue Pryce
School of Politics and International Relations

So, Information in and Questions out:

“No answers as yet, but it is important to keep these inventive cross campus activities to the forefront as we identify the needs of the University as part of Student Lifecycle, especially as they are a need which is unique to this institution.”

Ellen Salway
Academic Services
In March this year, about 50 colleagues gathered to hear from Don Giddings (Engineering), Julie Greensmith (Computer Science) and Duncan Shaw and Mohan Avvari (NUBS), all of whom have experience of teaching across campuses in the UK, China and Malaysia.

Recordings of the event are available at:
http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/teaching/event/iccrosscampus.aspx

“What I learned was that there are some very dedicated, charismatic, academic staff who are committed to developing excellent teaching and learning resources across the university. The 3 very different presentations showed me that communication, and true collaboration is key when developing common modules with peers across Nottingham, Malaysia and China. It demonstrated that enthusiasm and expertise can solve the problems of differences in time and culture with a lot of thought, hard work, a working internet connection, international travel, and sometimes the sharing of a meal! I also learned that sharing module design and delivery can give you added value – professional and personal – because sharing gives you time, a peer mentor, an academic partner, more students and the opportunity to learn more about another culture. A win – win situation.

“I have come away with the commitment to find a partner programme in another university in order to develop some understanding of the provision of health and social care.”

Prof Kirsty Hyndes
School of Nursing, Midwifery and Physiotherapy

In March this year, about 50 colleagues gathered to hear from Don Giddings (Engineering), Julie Greensmith (Computer Science) and Duncan Shaw and Mohan Avvari (NUBS), all of whom have experience of teaching across campuses in the UK, China and Malaysia.

Recordings of the event are available at:
http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/teaching/event/iccrosscampus.aspx

“Two teams of QAA reviewers comprising four members of staff and five peer reviewers visited a number of different institutions in China from 26 November to 7 December 2012, ensuring coverage of a number of different types of collaborative provision. The visit to the Ningbo campus lasted 1.5 days, and took place on 3 and 4 December. The QAA team, including Professor Jeremy Bradshaw from the University of Edinburgh and Dr Sylvia Hargreaves, formerly of Nottingham Trent University, met several groups whilst at Ningbo, including students (some of whom were on exchange programmes from the UK and Malaysia campuses), senior management, as well as teaching and administrative staff.

“The role of the QAA is to safeguard quality and standards in UK universities and colleges, in order to ensure that students have the best possible learning experience. In addition to carrying out reviews of institutions in the UK in order to fulfil this remit, the QAA also reviews the partnership arrangements that UK higher education institutions have made with organisations in other countries to deliver UK programmes and includes overseas campuses of UK institutions. The QAA has previously visited the Malaysia Campus (in 2009) and institutions with which the University has a collaborative arrangement in Singapore. All reports are available on the QAA website.

Chris Bexton,
Head of Quality and Standards,
Academic Services Division

If you’d like to find out more about this, please contact Chris.
christine.bexton@nottingham.ac.uk

“As a tool of teaching, Professor Mumford had listed a number of advantages in his handout (written in Mumford method). He also recommended using this method in assessment, particularly at level 1. Compared with full-prose essays, Professor Mumford claimed that this method can assess the learning outcome and has successfully distinguished the weak and strong students (it is not an easy task to write a one-page planning of thoughts). Academic staff members could be relieved from the pain of heavy marking load particularly when there is a tight deadline to submit the marksheet.

“My only concern is the potential difficulty in implementing this method in assessment for a 20 credits module at level 1. The University introduced minimum levels of assessment by credit value. Although a colleague in Academic Services replied that the University criteria are just guidance, we still need to carefully justify how learning outcomes are properly assessed when submitting module specification for approval if we want to adopt Mumford method in assessment.

“Although it was not possible to attend all the parallel sessions, I benefited from some other talks including Dr John Holmwood’s new pathway structure in curriculum development in Sociology and Dr Neil Sinclair’s case studies in subject integration.

Dr Jing Zhang
School of Contemporary Chinese Studies

Recordings of conference presentations are available from:
http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/teaching/event/cr-conference.aspx

“The outcome of this curriculum review is that both students and staff are now much clearer about the aims of every session, this has improved student motivation, encouraged independent learning and helped to improve feedback.
All of our modules have learning outcomes associated with them but Kay’s talk made me realise the importance of re-evaluating these often and considering using these as a framework for curriculum development.

“In another presentation Max Wilson from Computer Science described activities he’d arranged to engage students with the school. He set up a peer mentoring scheme in which first year students were put into groups and given a second-year student ‘Guru’. The purpose of the scheme was to introduce the first years to their tutors, help them with the transition to University and take them to social events. After week 1 the mentoring gradually tailed off but it was maintained for students who were still benefitting from it. Max also set up competitions for fun which saw students taking part in ‘hackathons’ overnight, and travelling to similar events in Europe. These ideas have given me a totally different perspective on engaging students, we always focus on engaging students in each individual module but perhaps by having additional activities which are just for fun could really help improve the engagement within the school.”

Dr Anna Bertram
School of Chemistry

Recordings of conference presentations are available from:
http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/teaching/event/cr-conference.aspx

Visit the University’s Studying Effectively website for more on learning at University.

Visit the University’s Studying Effectively website for more on learning at University.