Where we are now

Listened to the recorded webinar on the interim reports synthesis this morning and found it useful to hear what the other project team's thoughts on it were. The discussion points will also help us to think about our priorities for the next 6 month period. As mentioned last entry we had discussed the report earlier this week and it had already prompted us to think about putting some more detail on the evaluation strategy particularly around seeking the learner perspective.

In the meantime, we have an eye on maintaining an ongoing engagement with our stakeholders. A meeting with our Disability Officer this week will keep this moving forward, as will a meeting with the academic student union representative (a meeting in the making).

Next week three of the team (Jon, the project director, Francesca and myself) are off to Birmingham to a JISC meeting where we are also meeting Lisa Grey for the first time (well first time for Francesca and myself). It will be nice to put a face to the name, feels like I have had many new names, places and projects to get used to since joining the iTEAM project.

Karen and Liz have been meeting with all the Schools about their progress with EVS and to ask what kind of support they feel they need at this stage. As a result of these discussions a workshop for 'Getting Started with EVS' will be developed as will one for designing MCQs which many teachers have also asked for.  The team has agreed that wherever possible work will be carried out jointly with Schools to ensure shared owenership and to capture local experiences and expertise.

Finally, a meeting about the Dashboard pilot with some of the interested schools and our own QMP training both planned for May will see us moving into the next phase of work which is good timing as the new team start to bed-in. It will also be a good time for Peter, our critical friend, to meet the whole team. His next visit is planned for early May, a welcome opportunity for us to share where we are and to get some objective and expert comment on our progress and plans.

Looking forward to our team meeting on Wednesday, first time for whole team around the table, big agenda!

Julie

Just read this (About Eric Kandel's contribution to our understanding of memory and learning) http://donaldclarkplanb.blogspot.co.uk/search?q=Kandel and it struck me as linking directly to our ideas about using EVS to build knowledge accumatively across a module/programme.

Here's a snippet:
'Now that we have strong physiological, cellular and molecular evidence for the difference between short and long term memory, we can apply technology to enhancing learning through spaced practice. At a very basic level, recording all lectures for repeated access to the content by students is just one of many changes one could implement in education. Improving attention, feedback and reinforcement to improve the move from short to long term memory by avoiding cognitive overload, with better elaboration and deeper processing is surely what technology promises to deliver'.