How to tweak your science assignments to improve communication skills of your students Dr Louise Kuchel Rebecca Mills School of Biological Sciences The University of Queensland UQ T&L week 2017 TARGET AUDIENCE FOR THIS WORKSHOP Authors of assessment items (especially in the Sciences) People interested in assessment design/communication
Workshop Overview In today’s workshop you will: Learn strategies that help develop and improve your students’ abilities to communicate effectively Apply those strategies to science assignments (your own or an example)
Improving Science Students’ Communication Skills WHY? Approximately 30% of assessment tasks in the BSc at UQ are written or spoken assignments yet many of us complain that our students do not communicate to the standard we expect. [UQ BSc review 2015] Employers complain too Recent research shows that many core communication skills are implicit or absent from science assignments [Mercer-Mapstone & Kuchel 2015]
Teaching communication in Undergraduate Science GOALS Students develop basic proficiency in communicating science by: Using disciplinary specific norms Adapting it to a variety of contexts So what should our studetns learn/what should we teach?
Improving Science Students’ Communication Skills HOW do we achieve those goals? Focus on developing and improving students abilities, not just assess them. Embed high impact activities such as timely and meaningful feedback Make the process of communication explicit and support students in learning how to improve each stage of that process Give students a conceptual framework in which to organise their thinking so they can recognise patterns across different contexts and transfer their learning
Your Experience THINK (jot notes) What is the best assignment you have given/seen that develops students’ communication. What did the students need to do that made it so good? PAIR - Discuss your answers SHARE - With the group Handout handouts for key principles and ideas bank
Improving Science Students’ Communication Skills THE GOOD NEWS Existing assignments can easily be tweaked to enable our graduates to develop and improve their communication, and learn to transfer their learning to different contexts.
Improving Science Students’ Communication Skills In the assignment, be EXPLICIT about: Genre Audience Purpose Fill in the G.A.P!
Improving Science Students’ Communication Skills Be EXPLICIT about the process of communication: Implement meaningful lead-in tasks
Improving Science Students’ Communication Skills In the marking criteria, EXPLICITLY assess communication skills: Genre Audience Purpose Organisation of Ideas Mechanics of Writing Match task instructions with marking criteria. Louise says you need to GAPOM! Mention that there are a few different ideas on your handout
Tweaking Science Assignments Modelling the process for an already great assessment piece: Fill in the G.A.P. in the task instructions Support the Process with a lead-in task G.A.P.O.M. in the marking criteria Handout model example.; This is already a really good assignment. Going to model how you can tweak it. Purposely chosen already good assignments.
YOUR TASK – in table groups Choose one of the provided sample assessments or an assessment brought in by one of the group members. Edit the example assignment using the using the yellow handouts to: Fill in the GAP in the task instructions Identify or design a lead-in task to highlight process GAPOM in the Criteria Nominate a speaker to summarise the changes you made to the assessment piece. Show of hands if anyone has brought their own assignment – work in pairs with someone at their table
Summary To develop and improve communication skills of science graduates, and help them transfer their learning to different contexts, tweak your assignments by… Filling in the G.A.P. Implementing lead-in tasks G.A.P.O.M. in the marking criteria Contact Louise or Rebecca in the School of Biological Sciences… Louise Kuchel l.kuchel@uq.edu.au Rebecca Mills r.mills@uq.edu.au