Post on 26-Dec-2015
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Technology supported literacy and numeracy enhancement workshops for trainee teachers
• David Longman and Kerie GreenUniversity of South Wales
• 4th Annual TEAN Conference, Birmingham, May 2013
Contact: Dr Kerie Green: kerie.green@southwales.ac.uk
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Assessment Development GroupSchool of Education
Dr Kerie Green kerie.green@southwales.ac.uk
Barbara Kurzik barbara.kurzik@southwales.ac.uk
David Longman david.longman@southwales.ac.uk
The Assessment Development Group is a pragmatic working group of educationalists at the School of Education. It develops pedagogically embedded computer-based tools that support student learning through structured feedback guided by data.
• A merger of two existing universities launched on April 11, 2013;
• Now one of the largest universities in the UK and the largest university in Wales (33K students) ;
• Five campuses across South Wales.
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University of South Wales - the background
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Initial Teacher Training: background
• Many of our BSc students are from the South Wales region; parts of this region are on the extremes of European social indicators;
• This carries risk, e.g. that without effective support retention goes down.
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Initial Teacher Training:
• Our current learning and teaching strategy notes that a “widening access strategy [will] include a stronger focus on helping those who access HE to successfully complete their learning objectives”.
• Teaching and assessment methods must provide accurate and useful feedback on learning and be flexible and adaptive to meet the needs of ‘non-traditional’ students.
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Previous Project: enhancing participation in UG mathematics
Display question
Wait for all student clickers
Display graph of responses
Group discussion
Reveal correct choice
Respond-Discuss-Reveal (RDR)
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Previous Project: some outcomes
• Changed social conditions of classroom learning & increased confidence and engagement.
• Purposive teacher questioning.• Promoted focused whole-class discussions.• For mathematics, highlighted the role of language in
understanding.• Patterns of responses used to highlight areas of difficulty
and to critique question design.• Response data guides tutor's formative judgments in
directing teaching appropriately.
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Current Project: Policy context
• From Sept. 2013 entry qualifications raised to GCSE grade B in English and Mathematics;
• Welsh Govt. requirement to test ITT candidates at interview and to be accountable for standards as a condition of QTS;
• To monitor, track and maintain standards at recruitment, during training and as outcome for QTS;
• UCET Cymru developing all-Wales literacy /numeracy interview tests. Pilot complete. Issues of definition etc. continue to be explored.
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Current Project: Course Context
• Regular lit. and num. audits as component of Professional Development Planning (PDP);
• New focus on monitoring and maintaining standards;
• Issues of target setting, improvement and consolidation;
• Issues of efficiency, cost effectiveness etc.;• Targeted on those undergraduates identified in
need of support for literacy and numeracy based on PDP audits.
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Initial samplesSample selected: <65% in audit (in any of 3 sections)N=33
Shape, Space, Measure(Total score = 18)
ID Score %ageN1/L1 11 61%N4 11 61%N5/L7 11 61%N7/L9 11 61%N8 11 61%
Number(Total score = 23)ID Score %age
N2 14 61%N10/L12 14 61%
Data handling(Total score = 14)
ID Score %ageN3 9 64%N9 9 64%N10/L12 9 64%
Lexical (Total 27)ID Score%age
L3 15 56%L4 15 56%L5 17 63%L9/N7 14 52%L10 17 63%
Grammatical (Total 40)ID Score %age
L1/N1 25 63%L2 22 55%L7/N5 23 58%L8 23 58%L9/N7 16 40%L10 25 63%
Punctuation (Total Variable)ID Score %age
L6 33 37%L11 51 63%L12/N10 53 61%
Numeracy Sample9 students
Literacy Sample12 students
4 students in both samples
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Procedure
• Questions sampled from categories covered by Literacy or Numeracy audits;
• RDR slide shows created.• Two sessions in each plus final summary
sessions;• Different questions per session 10 for
numeracy; 15 for literacy;• Data collected: responses to questions plus
feedback survey.
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Immediate feedback to student via mail merge
Dear KerieHere are your responses from the Maths session on 17th October.
The lower case 'i' indicates an incorrect choice, 'c' a correct choice.
The detailed description of the questions and choices is in the large table below.
Qu. Response1 A c2 B c3 D c4 A i5 D c6 A c7 C c8 A c9 A i
10 C cPoints 8
Percent 80%
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Final resultsVariable attendance
Literacy Session 1(15 qu)
Literacy Session 2(15 qu)
Literacy Final Session(16 qu)
ID Audit Points %age ID Audit Points %age ID Audit Points %ageL2 55% 12 80%L2 55% 9 60%L2 55% 9 56%L3 56% 8 53%L3 56% 8 53%L4 56% 12 75%L4 56% 10 67%L4 56% 8 53%N3 73% 9 56%L5 63% 7 47%L5 63% 8 53%L5 63% 10 63%L9 46% 8 53%L9 46% 8 53%L9/N7 46% 9 56%L10 63% 7 47%L10 63% 10 67%N9 74% 7 44%
Numeracy Session 1(9 qu)
Numeracy Session 2(5 qu)
Numeracy final session(8 qu)
ID Audit Points %age ID Audit Points %age ID Audit Points %ageN1 61% 5 56%N3 64% 5 100%L2 83% 3 38%N2 61% 5 56%N4 61% 3 60%L4 75% 3 38%N3 64% 6 67%N9 61% 2 40%L5 72% 2 25%N5 61% 6 67%N10 61% 3 60%L9/N7 61% 4 50%N9 64% 6 67% N3 64% 5 63%N10 64% 6 67% N9 64% 6 75%
Red Improved >64%Green ImprovedBlue DeclinePink No sig change
(Note Student L9/N7)
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Student feedback (i)
Positive elements:• “Being able to discuss … why we were getting the wrong
answers greatly helped with my confidence … seeing why I was getting it wrong helped.”
• “In the literacy session it was good to show divided opinion about answers. It more understandable why certain things should or shouldn't be the case.”
• (In numeracy) “…the immediate feedback from lecturers and peers helped to discuss incorrect and correct methods how to answer particular questions. A few I got wrong all the time so the discussions were helpful to see why…”
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Student feedback (ii)
Suggestions for improvement:• Could be earlier in the year;• Could be more closely linked in time to the audit
process;• Wider coverage of content;• Embed in professional studies.
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Conclusions
• Similar positive comments by students to first project about the process and participation in session but …
• … quantitative data inconclusive (at best) in terms of scores.
• Issues: test design - simple retesting with same tests probably not a robust measure of consistency, of maintaining standards.
• Freedom to test is more of a headache than it appears!
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Thank you for listening
Questions?