Tag: Higher Education

Categories
Digital

#LTHEChat: Managing Negative Use of Social Media and Cyberbullying

#lthechatThis Wednesday, at 8pm (GMT), join the #LTHEChat conversation on Twitter as we discuss the topic of “managing negative use of social media and cyberbullying”.. a topic that pretty much everyone I meet has an opinion on. Read the introduction to the topic (and after the event, the collected storify) on #LTHEChat.

This was the most difficult chapter to write for Raising Children in a Digital Age, as there are no easy answers to what is perceived to be one of the biggest problems online. In fact, I reduced it to a section within ‘Relationships (online)’, because I wanted to echo something that Nancy Willard had said:

Nancy Willard, who runs many cyberbullying workshops in schools, emphasizes that it’s important to understand that not “everybody does it”, nor is this just a “stage of life” that children have to survive. The media suggestion that there is a cyberbullying epidemic tends to encourage children to think that they can send hurtful messages because “everyone else is doing it”. Willard argues that the evidence is that at some point in their life 20 per cent have been either a victim or a perpetrator of cyberbullying. There’s a real need to collect more information about constructive behaviour online, and share that around, to help young people understand that the majority of people behave positively online. (p116, Raising Children in a Digital Age).

So, much of what I’ve written and shared about has been in relation to (school) children online, but we’ll be looking at bullying in general (what does it look like online/offline?), thinking about the particularities of bullying in Higher Education (I’m thinking of recent examples that I’ve seen, including the use of anonymous apps such as Yik-Yak, where students can be incredibly harmful comments about lecturers, potentially influencing groupthink), looking at the positives of aspects such as anonymity and disinhibition online, and means of managing bullying, thinking about our own and organisational responsibilities, and how tech can help provide solutions rather than always being seen as the problem.

I look forward to adding some more links below:

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Academic

[WEBINAR] What are undergraduate students telling us this year about their learning and teaching experiences?

Introduced by Helen May, HEA

https://www.heacademy.ac.uk/workstreams-research/research-and-policy

https://www.heacademy.ac.uk/research/surveys

https://www.heacademy.ac.uk/research/surveys/ukes-uk-engagement-survey/take-part-ukes

Presentation by Jason Leman

https://handouts-live.s3.amazonaws.com/293fba2d124a403da0d35e9703389223?sessionId=2586471732310502412&participantId=200009

  • Application of methods not really changing so it’s a change in perception
  • Confidence in asking questions, language barriers – expect less questions in STEM subjects
  • Staff accessibility is important, identity other routes of communication, e.g. email, especially regarding language fluency. Not just about fluency but about cultural factors (especially feeling that they can question the tutor’s judgement).
  • How do we encourage students that they are spending more time on their studies – clear correlation between time spent on task (not just in the classroom) and learning outcomes. Typically those with more extra-curricular activities were even more engaged (see more applicability?) – more structured life and clearer end-goal appear to be clear factors – too many ‘drifters’.
  • Not unexpected to see the number of amount of those undertaking 10+ hours of independent learning increasing by the third year.
  • Questions about whether the classroom context is the best place for delivering the outcomes.
  • Many of these graphs are perceptual, rather than ‘reality’, but perception needs to be dealt with.
  • Once the survey becomes more embedded institutionally, there’ll be a higher response rate, and the data will become even more useful.
Categories
Academic

Fears for the Humanities in British Universities.

mgtjVvI

Interesting article in the Guardian this weekend – always lots to think about when we think about the purpose of the humanities and/or the way it is funded:

Currently fixed in the crosshairs are the disciplines of the humanities – arts, languages and social sciences – which have suffered swingeing funding cuts and been ignored by a government bent on promoting the modish, revenue-generating Stem (science, technology, engineering, maths) subjects. The liberal education which seeks to provide students with more than mere professional qualifications appears to be dying a slow and painful death, overseen by a whole cadre of what cultural anthropologist David Graeber calls “bullshit jobs”: bureaucrats hired to manage the transformation of universities from centres of learning to profit centres. As one academic put it to me: “Every dean needs his vice-dean and sub-dean and each of them needs a management team, secretaries, admin staff; all of them only there to make it harder for us to teach, to research, to carry out the most basic functions of our jobs.” The humanities, whose products are necessarily less tangible and effable than their science and engineering peers (and less readily yoked to the needs of the corporate world) have been an easy target for this sprawling new management class.

Read full article.

Categories
Digital

Traditional Lecturers replaced by Online Mentors?

commercial-internet-database-1024773-mI’m not sure if the following is dystopian or utopian… I really hope that universities still value the skills of their staff and reward appropriately – and recognise what works online and what doesn’t:

Traditional lecturers may soon be replaced by networks of online mentors working for several universities, a new study predicts.

In the report, titled Horizon Scanning: What will higher education look like in 2020?, the Observatory on Borderless Education suggests that academic staff are likely to be employed part-time by several universities – often working remotely via the internet – rather than relying on a single employer.

“Changes in job structures may come with the embrace of the online revolution,” says the report, due to be published on 25 September, which is based on interviews with senior academics and university leaders.

Read full article.

Categories
Academic

Large Class Sizes Affecting NSS/Assessment Grades?

Lecture Theatre
http://www.sxc.hu/photo/667182

Professor Graham Gibbs, who I worked with whilst working on the FASTECH project at Winchester – writing a series of pieces for Times Higher Education – this one on class sizes – worth reading:

Average school class sizes are used in international league tables as indicators of national commitment to education. And school classes of a similar size to those in UK higher education are rarely found outside developing countries.

The effects of class size are greatest for younger pupils and are least, but still substantial, for those aged 18 or over. Studies of what goes on in higher education discussion classes as they get bigger still reveal a predictable pattern of fewer students saying anything, and the little they do say being at a lower cognitive level (checking facts, for example, rather than discussing ideas).

Students in larger classes have been found to take a surface approach (attempting to memorise) to a greater extent and a deep approach (attempting to make sense) to a lesser extent. Higher education students judge teaching to be less good in large classes – even those led by teachers who gain good ratings when they teach smaller classes. So if managers hope to improve National Student Survey scores by rationalising course provision, they have their work cut out.

Read full article. Makes me think about the increased personalisation expected in education – and technology – often touted as enabling larger numbers, but actually allowing greater personalisation! I’m looking forward to reading more, as the situation is clearly not hopeless.