Post on 13-Jul-2020
Stepping up to Honours
School of History, Classics and Archaeology
Institute for Academic Development
Stepping Up to Honours
School of History, Classics and Archeology
& the Institute for Academic Development
November 2018
Stepping up to honours: 5 key
elements
My new
Honours
course
‘stuff’
1. Understanding the
new Honours learning
and teaching
environment
3. Reviewing my
approaches to study
management
4. Planning my own
personal development
2. Reflecting on my
current scholarship
skills
5. Building new peer
networks
Stepping up to Honours
Workshop Format
Part one. Review and reflect on your Honours
experience so far (questions/issues/worries?)
Part two. Level 8 – level 10: what does this
mean in practice?
Part three. Developing your current
scholarship skills
Part four: Reviewing your approaches to study
management
Part five: Your own personal development plan
In pairs, discuss:
• How has your 3rd/4th year been so far? Is it different
to what you had been expecting?
• Are you finding anything difficult?
• What would you like to get out of this workshop?
• Is there anything you would like to ask us/tell us
(either HCA or IAD)
Answers on post it notes to share with the group.
Level 8- 10
What does this mean in practice?
SCQF Level 8 – 10
In five areas (characteristics):
1. Knowledge and understanding
2. Practice: applied knowledge, skills and
understanding
3. Generic cognitive skills
4. Communication, ICT and numeracy skills
5. Autonomy, accountability and working with others
The shift up: from “common understanding
to complex problems”
Level 8 Level 10 3.Undertake critical analysis and evaluation
within the common understandings in your
subject
3. Critically identify, define, conceptualise and analyse complex/problems and issues and offer professional insights, interpretations and solutions
4. Use and evaluate numerical and graphical
data to measure progress and achieve
targets
4. Interpret, use and evaluate a wide range of numerical and graphical data to set and achieve goals/targets
5. Work under guidance with others to
acquire an understanding of current practice
in your area
5. Work with others to bring about change/development/ new ways of thinking
Honours in HCA
Marking descriptors per Subject Area:
https://www.ed.ac.uk/history-classics-
archaeology/information-current-
undergraduates/your-studies/assessment-
and-feedback/school-s-regulations/grade-
descriptors
Check these for your courses
Question to get you thinking . . .
Statement: The more information I remember, the
better my grades will be in my assignments
Discuss with your neighbour
Scaling the pyramid of learning
Remembering and understanding is an important first step in learning but it does not guarantee the level of learning and higher processing that you need to demonstrate as an Honours student student
BLOOM B, S. (ed.) (1956)
Creating
Evaluating
Analysing
Applying
Understanding
Remembering
“the practice of []… does not consist simply of learning ‘facts’. It
involves manipulating idea and interpretations, testing
hypotheses, acquiring skill” (Mabbett, 2016 p.2)
Scholarship skills
When we mark an essay, we look for four things
above all:
• factual knowledge of the subject;
• an understanding of those facts;
• the ability to develop a coherent and well-argued
case on the basis of that understanding;
• the ability to communicate those ideas in clear,
well-organised prose.
(Classics Honours Handbook)
Scholarship skills
Include:
• Critical thinking
• Active reading
• Developing an academic voice
• 6 critical thinking skills? (Facione, 1990 on next slide)
Interpretation
Analysis
Evaluation
Inference
Explanation
Self-regulation
CategorisationClarifying meaning
Examining ideasIdentifying and analysing arguments
Assessing claims and arguments
Querying evidenceConjecturing alternatives
Drawing conclusions
Justifying proceduresPresenting argument
Self examination, self correction (reflection)
The relationship between active
reading and academic writing
Active reading helps you to:
• Consolidate your knowledge
• Develop your own written answer to the
assignment question as you read
Active reading helps you not to simply tell your
reader what other people have said, but to
communicate your own critical evaluation of this
Active reading
All the time you read you must be constantly thinking
about and refining the questions to which you want
the answers. Your studying is an active process.
Remember the paragraphs you read were not
designed at every point to answer the question you
are asking. Therefore, you will need to probe and
assess, picking out what you need and rejecting the
rest”. (Mabbett, 2016 p. 27)
Active reading
Think about the verbs that assignment questions
often contain . . .
analyse argue
differentiate discuss
classify
evaluate
explain identify outline produce
examine
demonstrate
Gimenez, (2011) p. 7.
Creation of an academic
product: what does an academic
voice sound like
• formal
• objective
• balanced
• evidenced/ verifiable
• tentative
• concise
• well reasoned
• logical
• scholarly
Best way to practice scholarship
skills?
• Reading academic literature in your area
• Regularly writing in an academic voice little and
often (especially summarising)
• Practice critical thinking
• Act on feedback
• Check your stance is justifiable and reasoned
• IAD workshops and online resources
A few questions to start us thinking
about approaches to studying and
learning
Statement: the longer you study the better your
results
Discuss with your neighbour
Learning: what the research shows
The longer you study the better your results:
Not necessarily
Effective learning depends on how you study not
how long you study for
You do need to put time into your studies, and
new students often underestimate the time needed
for assignments, but length of time alone does not
guarantee results
Chew, S. L. (2010)
Effective studying, what works?
Effective studying at Honours level requires ‘high
quality learning’.
High quality learning includes: systematic, well-
organised, self-regulated studying.McCune and Hounsell (2005) p. 257
But, what does high-quality learning look like in
practice? First of all, we need to ask . . .
Learning . . .
We spend hours on end doing it, but do we actually
know what it is?
What is learning? How do you know it is happening/
has happened? Has happened well?
Learning: a four stage process
Thinking of the stages of learning helps us to map
effective study stages to each stage:
• Encoding
• Consolidation
• Retrieval
• Generation
Doyle, T. & Zakrajsek (2013)
What does this mean for me as a
student?
• Stage 1 to stage 2 takes time: allow for this in your
studying practice and planning
• Stage 2 to stage 3 requires motivation and goals
(develop intrinsic motivation goals)
• Practice generating your own stage 4
• If you only focus on stage 1 and imposed stage 4
(i.e. exams) your learning is unlikely to be deep,
long term and meaningful
High quality learning (HQL):
practical examples
moving from passive active learning, e.g.
Ineffective Effective
Reading without making notes Reading and summarising and/or
relating this new information to
someone else
Highlighting text without writing key
points in your own words
Highlighting and evaluating the
strengths and weakness of the text in
your own words
Looking over lecture notes Synthesising material into a conceptual
mindmap and practicing self-testing
Passive style of learning (taking in
knowledge and reproducing it without
adding your own analysis)
Demonstrating a higher level of
criticality by testing concepts and
connecting new knowledge to prior
learning
HQL
HQL strategies support long term memory formation,
boost critical thinking skills and help to prevent the
fluency illusion:
“students who study by rereading their texts can
mistake their fluency of a text with possession of
accessible knowledge of the subject and
consequently overestimate how well they will do on a
test”
(Brown et al., 2014, p.117)
Learning: what the research tell
us
“Several studies have shown a deep approach to
relates to a high quality of learning outcomes and a
surface approach to qualitatively inferior results”(Nieminen et al., 2004, p. 392)
Component Reproducing orientation Meaning orientation
Approach to learning Surface approach Deep approach
Conception of learning Intake of knowledge Construction of knowledge
Conceptions of knowledge Dualism Relativism
Regulations of learning External regulation or lack
of regulation
Self-regulation
Learning: Question
Statement: good students don’t find their studies
difficult
Discuss with your neighbour
Learning: what the research tells us
“When students think about why something is wrong, new synaptic connections are sparked that cause the brain to grow. . . [this] suggests that [we] should value mistakesand move from viewing them as learning failures”
Mistakes have the potential to be turned into learning achievements
Boaler, J. (2013)
‘Neurons’ by Mike Seyfang (2008, Flickr
Creative Commons )
https://www.flickr.com/photos/mikeblogs
/3101400087/
Watch out for
Procrastination Perfectionism
Image by Seaternity, CC by 2.0
https://flic.kr/p/oPm9cq
Image by Valerie Falling Leaf CC by 2.0
https://flic.kr/p/ptvo19
Some final words of advice
Expect to put in more hours and . . . and use the time wisely*
I think the biggest thing for me is just having confidence that you can do it
because if you don’t think you can and you’re sort of knocked by past
experiences like bad exam results in the past, I just think that affects you
massively if you do have that mindset
Yes. I guess the thing is the attitude should be willingness to learn . . . at
the beginning I didn’t understand very well but then I was willing to learn
more and I paid more attention to the course. So a willingness to learn and
not be afraid about things being difficult
Dissertations: “it is not like jogging along a track; it is more like finding
one’s way across unknown terrain with minimum navigational aids:
historical orienteering” (Mabbett, 2016 p. 27)
* quotes from interviews with fourth year
students of mathematics at the University of
Edinburgh (Shovlin and Docherty, 2017)
My own personal development
plan
Guiding principles: the 4 Ps
• Practice, patience and persistence : you are not
expected to be good at everything/understand
everything immediately
• Perspective: key for critical thinking and balance. A
balanced perspective can keep both perfectionism
and procrastination in check.
Developing: it’s an ongoing process
KNOWING
Do I have realistic expectations? Do I know what
is expected of me
LEARNING
How am I learning? Is it helping me to do well and be
well?
REFLECTING
What can I learn by looking back at my experiences and
evaluating them?
DEVELOPING (1)
What are my strengths?Which other strengths would I
like to develop?
DEVELOPING (2)
What key changes do I want to make? How can I make plans
to achieve this change?
Doing
well at
Honours
Activity: most important
messages for me?
Time: 5 minutes, write your answers on post it notes to share
with the group
References (1)Boaler, J. (2013) ‘Ability and Mathematics: the mindset revolution that is reshaping
education’, Forum, 55 (1). Available at: http://www.youcubed.org/wp-
content/uploads/14_Boaler_FORUM_55_1_web.pdf (Accessed 18th August 2015)
Bloom, B.S. (ed.) (1956) Taxonomy of Educational Objectives, the classification of
educational goals – Handbook I: Cognitive Domain New York: McKay
Brown, P.C., Roediger, H.L. and McDaniel, M.A., (2014) Make it stick. Harvard University
Press.
Chew, S. L. (2010). ‘Improving classroom performance by challenging student
misconceptions about learning’. APS Observer, 23(4), 51-54. Available at:
http://www.psychologicalscience.org/index.php/publications/observer/2010/april-
10/improving-classroom-performance-by-challenging-student-misconceptions-about-
learning.html (Accessed 18th August 2015)
Cottrell, S. (2014) Dissertations and Project Reports: a step by step guide. Palgrave
Macmillan
References (2)
Doyle, T. & Zakrajsek, T. (2013) The new science of learning: How to learn in harmony
with your brain. Sterling, VA: Stylus.
Facione, P. (1990) Critical thinking: A statement of expert consensus for purposes of
educational assessment and instruction (The Delphi Report). Available at:
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/242279575
McCune, V. and Hounsell, D. (2005) ‘The Development of Students' Ways of Thinking
and Practising in Three Final-Year Biology Courses’ Higher Education, 49 (3) pp. 255-
289
Mabbett, I. (2016) Writing History Essays. A Student’s Guide. Palgrave Macmillan:
London
Nieminen, J., Linblom-Yanne, S., Lonka, K. (2004) ‘The development of study
orientations and study success in students of pharmacy’. Instructional Science (32) pp.
387- 417
References (3)
Schweinsberg, S. and McManus, P. (2005) ‘Exploring the Transition Coursework to
Research-Based Study in the Geography Honours Year’ Geographical Research March
2006 44(1):52–62
Scottish Credit Qualifications Framework (SCQF), available at:
http://scqf.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/SCQF-Revised-Level-Descriptors-Aug-
2012-FINAL-web-version1.pdf
[Accessed 3rd October 2016]
Shovlin, A. and Docherty, P., (2017). ‘This is Not Something You Solve in Week One of
Third Year’: Applying a Transitions Perspective to Honours Learning and Teaching in an
Undergraduate Degree Programme. Journal of Perspectives in Applied Academic
Practice, 5(3).