News about innovations in teaching and learning at the UT. Contents: peer feedback in groups using a self-developed tool, and information about ShakeSpeak (a voting tool).
Project review – peer feedback in groups
Encouraging students to be active in their learning during class is a good way of improving understanding of the topic being taught.
It was with this in mind that we started a project (with financial support from SURF) in 2015 within the Creative Technology programme (for module 8) at the University of Twente. The objective: to use group peer feedback as a teaching tool. Our hypothesis was that if students give each other feedback in groups, this would improve their learning. So we integrated groupfeedback in the module for achieving learning and also to find out if groupfeedback could be used for peergrading.
The project started off by investigating if we could use an existing software tool. There is a large range of peer feedback tools available. But we couldn’t find a single tool that allows individually submitted work to be assessed by groups. So we developed software that would allow us to do just that. We tested this software (which is called Groufty) and the process with different assignments. We found out that
- the right way to use group feedback is not so easy, and
- the peergrades do not correlate with the grades given by the teachers
- most students are highly involved in the peer review debates
- peer reviewing others helps students to get ideas how to improve their own submissions
- most students agree that receiving reviews from a group improved their learning
- students like to see each other submissions
One of the main conclusions from this project could be that marking is only a means for achieving learning. That’s why we must focus on the quality of learning it brings about, not only on the quality of marking itself. So, more work to be done!
If you are interested in applying group feedback, or peer feedback, please get in touch with us.
You can read more on this project in a blog post from Karen Slotman on the SURF website.
Solution spotlight – ShakeSpeak
Have you ever thought about making your lectures more interactive and more lively? Would you like to re-inforce the most important points from your lecture? Then probably you could make use of the Shakespeak software.
ShakeSpeak is a voting tool that can be used during lectures to interact with your students. With ShakeSpeak you can add questions to a Powerpoint slide. During the lecture, you invite the students to respond using their mobile phones or laptops. They can ‘vote’ on multiple choice questions or type in answers to open questions.
Reactions come in (anonymously or not, that's up to you) via SMS or internet, and are published real time on the main screen.
Interested? ShakeSpeak is available free of charge for every lecturer at our University. Please see how it works on our website.
Upcoming workshops
As TELT team we deliver workshops and training sessions for you to become more familiar with using technology for learning. There are two courses that are scheduled for the next months:
· How to create an instructional video, on 21 Feb 2017 and 13 June 2017, and
· How to blend your education, on 9 March 2017.
We also have a course on How to create a microlecture in a professional studio. This course is available on request.
Announcements
We would like to point out to you the “stimuleringsregeling” of the Dutch Ministry of Education (OCW). This is open for proposals right now. The closing date is 15 December 2016. Two lecturers of our university (Henk van der Kolk and Pepijn van Passel) received grants in a previous round of grants, as you might have read.
We will gladly help and advise you in drafting a proposal for the next round. Do not hesitate to get in touch with us. More information on the Stimuleringsregeling is available at SURF (only in Dutch).
More information
If you want to learn more about our expertise, please visit http://www.utwente.nl/telt or contact us directly through email telt@utwente.nl
The TELT team
Members of the TELT Team are Laura Bergmans, Martin Bosker, Eduardo Hermsen, Wytze Koopal, Ard Kosters, Marloes Luttikhuis, Bé Meerman (who is the coordinator), Chris Rouwenhorst, Karen Slotman, Dennis Vierkant, Martine ten Voorde-ter Braack and Petri de Willigen.
