Session 3 - Reflection

My session was the first one here, and it seemed pretty good. Was happy we got 37 given it was the last session before the conf. dinner and Gilly Salmon was speaking at the same time as us (I think she is a keynote next year). We discussed the use of private blogs for encouraging reflection. Seemed well-received (no one left for instance), but hard to tell as most people trapped in awkward lecture theaters anyway.

Second session - University of Hertfordshire - STRIDE - Something abouT Riting In your Dissertation, Eh? (Ok, that was not the real acronym, but good enough). It was all about some videos they created where tutors and past students discuss what it's like to create a dissertation, and different strategies to take when you are stuck/scared. Session started off well with a bit of interactivity even, but went downhill towards the end when we had to watch about 7 minutes worth of video of the students and lecturers talking. I think this is a classic mistake people make when discussing video projects - showing too much of the video. It is much better to just show a little bit so we get the idea than show an entire video of something the viewers are not interested in. In general the students liked having the videos, though they wanted it inside the VLE or on demand. Someone in the audience suggested having audio instead as all the video was just talking heads. Seemed like a good idea to me. Other criticism was that it was too descriptive - not prompting reflection in the students but just helping them deal with tough emotions.

Third session (bit of an exodus before this one) - Open University - This was the closest I have seen anyone come to putting enquiry-based learning into an automated format. Nursing students are given a case study (lady with an infected leg), and have to make a decision about one of three treatment options. They are given the patient's lab results, information about each of the treatments, past patient history, etc. The choice they make leads to something happening and then another set of choices, lab results, etc. There are five levels of choices in the maze, and eventually one of three outcomes happens (the worst being the lady being checked into hospital - not her leg getting amputated or something). The students were given a second chance if they wanted to, and are given a score sheet at the end and a summary of reflections they have to provide at each choice about why they made it. Students who did a second time - 70% improved their score. The tool seemed helpful enough for this sort of thing, but my fears were the amount of time taken to create the materials (they managed one case study in a year) would be the slow part (which they confirmed). The software is connected to OpenMark, the Open University's marking system and is not available for anyone else to use. In fact when the OU goes to Moodle soon they are not sure the case study will work for awhile until it gets converted. So not very good in terms of reusability for anyone else...