By Student Digital Learning Associates: Paula Bennett Ortega (Biomedical science) Akash Ali (MA Sociology) and Mohammad Askari (Aerospace engineering)
Core is defined as the minimum digital education experience that students should expect across all university programmes. The ´Core/Enhanced Symposium’, showcased six different case studies of Core and Enhanced Digital Education practice across the academic departments. We would like to share a small overview of the case studies and how they resonated with us as students.
Digital Accessibility
Dr Richard Steadman-Jones and Sarah Peacock shared during their presentation that they have introduced Digital Accessibility as one of their priorities within the Faculty of Arts and Humanities.
To do so, they have collected feedback from disabled students through surveys, making their digital accessibility goals ‘student centred’, something that we think should be done in every department.
They also have evaluated their accessibility statements annually and have organised workshops and drop-ins for academics on Digital Accessibility.
As they mentioned, accessibility is a legal and moral obligation, and therefore we feel that Digital Accessibility should be a priority in every department.
Digital Core in the programme
Professor Chris Stokes from the School of Clinical Dentistry planned a variety of Dentistry courses with Core in mind:
The school have used standardised Blackboard templates for module designs and added a portfolio to track the students’ progress, as well as implemented simulation based training using haptic VR and 2D/3D goggles for accessibility.
They ran internal programmes to support staff on using the different digital software available and have organised lectures for students to understand how to use the Virtual Learning Environment (VLE).
Historically, it has been a less diverse department, but they have been having internal discussions regarding how to support a diverse range of students and making sure that content is inclusive.
They have incorporated accessibility statements and used Blackboard Ally to ensure that content is accessible.
Mohammad: Having noticed a similar trend in aerospace, with less focus being given historically to promoting values of equality, diversity and inclusivity within the curriculum, the recent change of electing student representatives to work with staff for this purpose seems to have encouraged more discussion, and made room for improvement within the design of the course.
Accessibility
Jennifer Read and Dan Smith from SchARR have been using the feedback report generated by Blackboard Ally to make their online courses more accessible to students.
Through clever use of the Blackboard Ally system and it’s data retrieval, modules could be identified by colour coding, to indicate areas where major improvements were needed.
For example, using the Ally system’s scoring method, it was found that Powerpoint presentations and PDFs from older parts of the course scored lowest for accessibility, and needed to be removed. After these issues were identified, the accessibility scoring increased significantly.
Accessibility is important, it ensures that content is accessible to students that may not have an official diagnosis, and would still benefit from the changes being made to their courses.
Going beyond core, some of the case studies highlighted the disparate ways digital education can be used to ‘enhance’ education and the wider student experience.
Group work for assessment
Dr Anne Bjerre & Jesrine Clarke-Darrington from the Health Sciences School have been using a different approach to assess their year 2 students. Instead of doing an essay, students now work in groups to create a Google Site. They use Blackboard tools to track and evaluate each other’s contributions and meet-up online.
Image: Examples of Google sites created by students at the university
Based on feedback, students liked working on Blackboard groups as it was easy to use, and there was increased usage of it in 2021-2022, even though there was the option of meeting face to face.
Paula: In our course we had to do a similar assignment which helped us become more employable. Talking about the experience of creating a website helped me secure a year-long placement. It also further developed my team-working skills.
Mohammad: From an engineering perspective, the adoption of asynchronous sessions and progress forms in group meetings has streamlined online teamwork, and made the course a lot more attractive to both students and future employers as a result.
Active Classroom Learning
Professor Louise Robson has been engaging students during her lectures by using Echo360. With this software, she can create polls, Q&As and interact with the students via a chat box.
Paula: I have attended Prof Robson’s lectures over the years and I have always wished more lecturers would incorporate this method of teaching in lectures because it allows students to:
understand what parts of the content we are struggling with and get real-time feedback from the lecturer
interact with the lecturer even if someone is shy or scared to ask questions in front of the class
360 Content – VR Technology
Dr Tom Pering from the Geography Department, shared how he has been incorporating VR technology into his sessions, where students can use headsets to virtually explore landscapes all around the world.
One of the things he mentioned was the ‘Wander App’ where you can drag and drop yourself in any landscape and walk around it virtually. Students can then start to interpret the landscape around them based on prompts from other students.
Akash: VR would be useful for students in Social science courses e.g. for visiting museums virtually, or as part of a unit we did on refugees and asylum seekers, VR could be used to visit refugee camps virtually.
Mohammad: Even in engineering fields, being able to physically view objects in 3D space, from air flow simulations to manufactured components undergoing stress tests - the applications seem widespread and massively useful for improving student understanding.
With the case studies listed above, we can see how digital education is continually being enhanced across the different departments, which will hopefully create solid foundations for module leaders to use, and improve students’ experience of higher education overall.