Student Experience Proceedings (LJMU)
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Case Study Increasing Tutorial Attendance and Engagement through Assessment Design
No full textOverview:
This initiative involves assigning a percentage of module marks (e.g. 10%) to a "tutorial portfolio" component focused solely on attendance and engagement in tutorials. The goal is to incentivise student attendance and participation in tutorials, which cover key module content.
Implementation:
Embed the tutorial portfolio component in core modules across all program levels (e.g. levels 3-5).
Allocate set percentages for attendance (e.g. 1%) and engagement (e.g. 1%) respectively per tutorial.
Allow students to miss one tutorial without penalty to account for potential absences.
Have tutors track and submit attendance and engagement marks to the module leader.
With tutorial groups capped at 8 students, attendance verification has not been an issue or cause of student complaints about unfair marking.
Despite a cultural move away from providing marks solely for attendance, there has been little philosophical objection among staff about incentivising attendance through this assessment design.
As this initiative is still in the early stages of implementation (second year), the programs have no plans to significantly develop or modify the tutorial portfolio assessment in the near future.
Impact:
Anecdotally, the initiative has driven an improvement in tutorial attendance rates.
Very few students fail modules solely due to not attempting the tutorial portfolio component.
Over time, the familiarity between students and regular tutors supports increased participation.
Assigning marks for attendance and participation has increased the perceived importance and value of tutorials for both students and staff.
Considerations:
Can require additional coordination for tutors to track and submit marks.
Needs clear communication to students on tutorial importance and portfolio assessment.
Reasonable adjustments may be needed to accommodate student absences due to illness etc. 
Case Study: Using Panopto for Live and Recorded Lectures and Q&A sessions
No full textPanopto is a lecture recording platform which can be used to pre-record lectures or to host live lectures after which the recording will be made available. Panopto includes a number of features that enable students to interact with content and the lecturer as they might in a live, face-to-face lecture environment. Some of these features are an enhancement on what might be possible within a traditional lecture environment. Shane has used Panopto in a number of ways for both live online delivery but also recording of lectures, but highlights some of these particular features:
In Panopto viewer, lecturers can time-stamp/bookmark sections of the lecture to help break it up into shorter clips that are more digestible. These bookmarks can be used to quickly navigate to the relevant slide/audio-visual recording.
In Panopto viewer, students can also use Notes to annotate sections of the lecture in a similar manner, but these Notes are only available to the individual student. Students can use these Notes to indicate a point of particular interest/relevance and/or to identify a point for which they need further clarification. These Notes are time-stamped according to the exact point in the lecture (commentary and slide position) so that students can easily refer back, if needed.
For lectures delivered live through Panopto, students can raise questions/comments through the Discussion feature. These questions will be available for the lecturer and other students to see, and so it may be desirable to concurrently avail of platforms that facilitate anonymous questions such as Padlet or Vevox.
Encouraging student engagement
Another way in which Shane has used Panopto is for pre-recording lectures. Students will have continued access to this recording, that they can watch and re-watch as needed. Using the Notes feature, as described, they can highlight parts of interest or that require further clarification. A number of days post-release of the recording, Shane runs Q&A sessions where he will respond to student queries prompted by the recording. Students can post questions publicly (via Panopto) or anonymously (via other freeware such as Padlet. Vevox would work well, too). Allowing questions to be posted anonymously is seen to make students feel more comfortable with asking questions that they might not otherwise be happy to do in a large classroom environment. These questions can be answered using Panopto in the context of the lecture recording (audio-visual, slides, Notes, and other bookmarks) making it easier for students to synthesise information compared to when questions are answered across multiple channels (e.g., one-to-one, via email, during office hours, Canvas Discussion threads, or Canvas inbox messages).
Shane sees particular benefits for student engagement in providing Panopto recordings that include both video and audio of the lecturer alongside the slides. Whilst it is important for content to be well prepared in advance, as would be the case for a live face-to-face lecture, there is no need for recorded lectures to be over-rehearsed or too scripted. In an online learning environment, it is important that the personality of the lecturer comes across to students; overly scripted or rehearsed lectures may diminish engagement of the student with the lecturer. Delivering a continuous video with the facility for time-stamping may be a useful way of ensuring the lecturer can let their personality shine through, while providing both staff (using bookmarks) and students (using Notes) with the option to break a lecture up into sub-topics
Case Study: Peer Reviews and Reflective Discussion Boards
No full textDetails of Process
Clare is the module leader for a Research Methods module. She\u27s been using a variety of technologies and media to reach out to students and engage them. These include discussion boards quizzes and an activity using a system built into canvas called peer review. This short write up will concentrate on the peer review and the discussion board activities.
The Peer Review Activity
This was a formative task and it was completely up to the students as to whether they wanted to take part or not. Clare promoted the ideas and benefits of peer review particularly as a transferable skill for employment. She also provided some links to resources that would help students understand this process. She also highlighted how this task would help them read more efficiently and effectively. However, she did note that a number of students were underconfident about their abilities to complete this task and did not undertake it.
The peer review activity was a real time live session where she asked the students to read the same article and write up a short paragraph that summarised it within an hour as an individual task. The students then submitted this to canvas and Clare used canvas to organise the distribution of those submissions so that every student had two submissions to peer review.
The article was of a generic nature talking about how researchers approach the idea of culture. She selected that article because she didn\u27t want to exclude any students that may have less knowledge of the wider curriculum she was teaching and which linked to their forthcoming assessment. The students were encouraged to leave annotations on the paper and comments using the actual marking criteria for the module assessment. All feedback was anonymized although the tutor did have an overview of who had written what for whom. Clare followed up the activity by providing feedback via Canvas for all those involved which included helping the students to understand the students’ comments. The students’ comments were overwhelmingly positive but many of them found suggestions to help their peers improved their own writing.
Feedback from the students highlighted how they found this useful in understanding the process of marking, thus giving them a better understanding of this process and their role within it. The feedback from the process also included comments about how daunting it was for students and how some of them found that this put them in a position of power which some found difficult as they believed that they were not worthy of passing comment on another student’s work. All the students agreed that this had changed their viewpoint on the assignment process. They enjoyed the challenge of being asked to write academically early on in the semester. So, they appreciated it but also hated being put on the spot. The students that took part would like more of these activities and Clare is already working on an idea for an annotated bibliography task in a similar way.
Reflecting on this Clare believes that what can help improve this is for the students to know each other better and form greater levels of trust, providing more information for the students to highlight the benefits that this could bring them and reduce the anxiety it may be causing them.
Discussion boards
Clare has used a number of discussion board activities so far on this module, these tend to be tied to some type of activity around the theme for the lecture that week. The resources she offers the students to interact with are carefully selected to include something to read, something to listen to and something to watch. This is to maximise the medium by which the students can gain an understanding of the topic. They are not expected to engage with all of the resources but to pick the one which will help them the most.
An example of this would be a podcast she shared with students around building a research project. The students listened to somebody describe their research project design and were encouraged to discuss in the discussion board what questions they would ask this particular person. Students offered up questions, and this generated wider discussion with many students posting to each other.
Clare uses the discussion board setting that prevents students from reading the posts without first making a contribution. However, she did find that some students got around this system and didn\u27t write more than a single word. Having said that it is still encouraging that students wanted to read each others’ contributions.
Clare spends a small amount of time each week following up on these tasks dipping in and out to offer up comments and encouragement. She finds now that she is used to the system that this is not over burdensome, as it helps her get an idea of how her students are doing and to make improvements to the sessions that follow each activity. Clare recommends talking to the skills@ljmu team, as they have many useful resources that can help the students improve their learning. Clare would like to continue with this process and improve it and has seen the possibility of offering a variety of methods for students to engage in the course as helping everyone
Case Study: Building Assessment Literacy Through Scaffolded Peer Review:: Transforming First-Year Lab Reports into a Deeper Learning Opportunity
No full textThis case study examines an innovative approach to first-year lab report assessment that addresses the dual challenges of developing assessment literacy and managing large cohort marking loads. Dr. Gemma Miller has developed a sophisticated scaffolded peer review system in a Level 4 Exercise Physiology module that transforms traditional lab report submissions into multi-stage learning experiences. Through a carefully designed sequence of activities including calibration exercises, structured peer review sessions, and reflective writing, students develop critical evaluation skills while developing meaningful feedback on their own work. The approach demonstrates how traditional assessment challenges can be transformed into powerful learning opportunities.
Session 2: Empowering students: the story of our mentorship scheme
No full textSession overview:
The Students\u27 Mentorship Scheme is now in its third year running in the Department of Mathematics. It started with only one student, and now, on average, about ten students per term work as mentors. We now have mentors providing individual support, mentors working in tutorials with large groups of students, and mentors assisting students through a booking system in the Mathematics and Programming Centre in the School of Computer Science and Mathematics.
On paper, the idea is very simple: more senior students (including, and in fact mainly, undergraduate students) help junior students academically. However, it comes with many challenges and doubts. After all, they are undergraduate students. They might get stuck on the same problems as their mentees.
This talk will provide the story of the scheme—from the days when it seemed impossible and against regulations to now, when mentors are the first academic contact for a group of students, second only to their main lecturers. I hope the talk addresses the concerns and questions that colleagues from other departments might have and encourages them to harness the immensely powerful and beneficial potential of students.
Key learning points from this session:
Audience will learn how the Students\u27 Mentorship Scheme evolved from a single mentor to a structured, multi-faceted support system. Key takeaways include the benefits of peer mentoring, challenges faced and overcome, its impact on student learning, and how similar initiatives can be implemented to enhance academic support in other departments.
Empowering students: the story of our mentorship scheme PowerPoint. Only LJMU staff and students have access to this resource
Session 5: \u27Finding space for me’: exploring the benefits of reading and writing for wellbeing at university
No full textCurriculum Enhancement Internship Project funded by the Teaching and Learning Academy
Session overview:
The Bibliotherapy project at LJMU incorporates Reading and Writing for wellbeing workshops, with a related Bibliotherapy book collection (and wellbeing space) in both university libraries. Over the past three years students and staff have benefited from the workshops, and we have anecdotal evidence of the sometimes transformative power of reading a book that resonates with our state of mind, or the cathartic power of emptying our thoughts onto the page guided by creative prompts.
Funding from the Curriculum Enhancement scheme allowed us to employ three student interns to help us dig deeper and find out how the Bibliotherapy project is perceived and experienced. In our presentation we will share findings and reflections gathered by the interns to provide an overall evaluation of the project. By mid-June, the project team will have spent five months talking to students, academic staff, personal tutors, librarians and professional staff exploring, discussing, and reflecting on the three strands of the initiative: reading for wellbeing, writing for wellbeing, and the bibliotherapy library space and books. Our hope is that these insights will help us to develop ways of improving and developing the Bibliotherapy initiative, to ensure wider reach and participation.
As part of the Curriculum Enhancement project, interns were invited to develop creative methods to evaluate the Bibliotherapy project. We look forward to sharing these stories with you!
Key learning points from this session:
This session hopes to showcase the Bibliotherapy project for those not familiar with it, highlighting the benefits as well as the challenges of taking time for ourselves within the day to day busy-ness of university life.
We will describe the three strands of the Bibliotherapy initiative so that audience members gain a good understanding of what we do in our workshops (Reading and Writing for wellbeing), as well as gaining insight into our wellbeing book collection and how to make use of it.
\u27Finding space for me’: exploring the benefits of reading and writing for wellbeing at university PowerPoint. Only LJMU staff and students have access to this resource
Session 11: We’re going on a book hunt! Reflections on an intern-led children’s literature book club
No full textCurriculum Enhancement Internship Project funded by the Teaching and Learning Academy
Session overview:
This presentation will reflect on a level 4, internally funded, intern-led project for Education Studies and Primary (BA Hons) students. A children’s literature book club, enhanced students’ subject knowledge and provided a social opportunity for the cohort. The club aimed to build on key student outcomes and experience measures such as continuation and completion and progression.
Allen and Nichols (2017) identify that often students have little voice or agency in creating interventions. The promotion and content of the club, such as weekly themes and activities were developed by interns (with support from the project leader). Themes and texts were selected for positive representations of diversity and to offer ‘Windows and Mirrors’ (Sims Bishop, 1990) into children’s (and students’) lives.
Our student cohort explore diverse roles within the children’s workforce during and after their degrees (e.g. Teaching Assistants, Teaching, Social Work, Children’ Mental Health Support). Our students are often asked to select and discuss a children’s text for PGCE interviews. However, within children’s literature, some childhoods are under-represented. For example, a survey with over 58.000 children found many children did not see themselves in the books they read (Best et al.,2020). Amongst these were children from ethnically diverse families, low-income families and children with disabilities. Therefore, our school resources, and the themes selected for focus by the interns, aimed to provide positive and diverse representations within the texts explored. These themes include: mental health and well-being, poverty and disability.
The presentation will explore student voices in relation to the value and challenges to the club and consider a rationale for the importance of diverse children’s literature. Key areas for discussion include belonging, the value of attending, and potential benefits beyond the project. The presentation will also consider the benefits of a children’s literature book club for wider groups of students.
Key learning points from this session:
This presentation will reflect on a level 4, internally funded, intern-led project for Education Studies and Primary (BA Hons) students. The presentation will explore student voices and key areas for discussion include \u27belonging\u27, the value of attending, and potential benefits beyond the project such as a children’s literature book club for wider groups of students.
We’re going on a book hunt! Reflections on an intern-led children’s literature book club PowerPoint. Only LJMU staff and students have access to this resource
Session 17: Writers are readers and readers are writers
No full textSession overview:
How can we get more students reading — critically and creatively? Why is it important to do so? In what ways might having an open-minded approach to reading harness net positive effects on the wider student experience and sense of cohort identity? Addressing worrying national trends in diminishing numbers of young people reading for pleasure (National Literacy Trust, 2024) this session asks what our responsibilities are as literary citizens.
A collaborative session between a lecturer and two students, we will ask and explore: how and why we read; the ways in which good reading habits underpin and strengthen good writing practices; and how developing these pedagogies might be put at the heart of an Arts & Humanities renaissance, celebrating our subjects and all the positive attributes they bring to the culture and economy of a city-region. As the educator and philosopher Paolo Freire said: ‘Reading the world always precedes reading the word, and reading the word implies continually reading the world.’
Stemming from work undertaken on the new Writers Are Readers level 4 module at LJMU, the students will explain how their reading passions and interests were foregrounded while they were simultaneously challenged to read in new genres and areas, and what this has meant for their budding practice as writers. Students will give accounts of beginning to explore Liverpool’s literary ecology – from the Picton Reading Rooms to Dead Ink Books – and they will illustrate the ways in which the module gave them agency and autonomy to pursue critical-creative research projects.
Key learning points from this session:
A demystification of what Creative Writing students do and why it’s relevant
Module and programme leaders, as well as students, in other disciplines might learn from best practice, especially in terms of engaging with the city
Practical tips and advice on how to be more focused and attentive close readers
Writers are readers and readers are writers PowerPoint. Only LJMU staff and students have access to this resource
Session 26: Clues-in-the-cues: how to improve student experience through a better understanding of their non-western socio-cultural backgrounds
No full textSession overview:
This session will help attendees to better appreciate how the socio-cultural backgrounds (values, norms, worldviews, etc.) of ethnically diverse students - which shape the way they learn, socialise, respond to challenges, and seek support - differ from those of the West, and how the socio-culturally informed behaviours and approaches (cues) of such students could, therefore, be misunderstood/misinterpreted (wrong clues) if rationalised using the lens of the Western culture, leading to unpleasant/inadequate student experience and poor outcomes.
The session is relevant to academic and non-academic staff within the university. It will:
Present a range of scenarios of non-Western cues, discuss what they mean and the impact on student experience if they are misinterpreted, and suggest best approaches for addressing them.
Include case studies and narratives of personal experiences from ethnically diverse individuals.
Present the results of LJMU-funded Clues-in-the-Cues Project that developed an evidence base for the experiences of ethnically diverse students.
Deploy animation videos (made through the project) and quizzes to illustrate key scenarios.
Signpost attendees to further resources to improve their awareness.
Discuss the implications of the issues for individual staff and organisational practices and how findings from the project could help improve the inclusiveness of academic, pastoral and professional services support for ethnically diverse students.
The session will present useful learning to support the implementation of a range of institutional strategies and goals, including with respect to enhancing student experience, Employability, EDI, Race Equality Charter, Widening Access Programmes, and Access and Participation Plans.
Key learning points from this session:
Attendees will appreciate the challenges ethnically diverse students face as a result of staff being unaware or misinformed of how the students’ socio-cultural backgrounds, different to the Western culture, influence how they learn. Attendees will obtain guidance on how to address this problem and thus provide inclusive support.
Clues-in-the-cues: how to improve student experience through a better understanding of their non-western socio-cultural backgrounds PowerPoint and EDI Animation Project recording. Only LJMU staff and students have access to this resource
Session 27: Video feedback: student perspectives
No full textSession overview:
This presentation will report on the key findings from a small case study conducted on a foundation year academic study skills module where a mix of written, audio and video feedback was provided for a portfolio of tasks relating to sourcing literature, reading, synthesisng and paraphrasing information, and Harvard referencing etc. Students were also given autonomy to select their preferred feedback method for each task after an example of each type had been first provided. Feedback can have a powerful influence on student learning and development (Hattie and Timperley, 2007). Given that video feedback has received significantly less scholarly attention than audio and written feedback (Matthews et al, 2019) and the new video feedback feature in Speedgrader, we were keen to understand student and staff perspectives of this type of feedback method, especially in conjunction with more traditional feedback formats such as written and audio feedback as well as preferences relating to modality of feedback. For this presentation, we report on student views of video feedback particularly, how they engaged with feedback and reflections on their own preferences. These were collected through a qualitative questionnaire sent to students towards the end of the module. While Video feedback can take a range of formats including: ‘screencast’, ‘talking head’ or ‘combination screencast’ (Matthews et al, 2019), combination screencast feedback was utilized in this study as the recording included a video of the marker with a screencast of the marker’s computer screen as they annotated the student’s work.
Key learning points from this session:
The presentation will provide an overview of students\u27 perspectives on video feedback, how they engaged with feedback and their reflections on having autonomy in relation to the type of feedback (audio, video or written) they received. It will also provide a brief overview of how to carry out video feedback.
Video feedback: student perspectives PowerPoint. Only LJMU staff and students have access to this resource
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