Moving from optional additions to required assessment Live field broadcasts Moving from optional additions to required assessment Trevor Collins, Julia Cooke, Philip Wheeler, Kadmiel Maseyk and Julie Robson Email: trevor.Collins@open.ac.uk; julia.cooke@open.ac.uk TC & JC

Introducing fieldcasts Environmental Science (S206) module Interactive field broadcasts One week student-led field investigation Monday: Topic and hypothesis Wednesday: Study design and data collection Friday: Data analysis and conclusions Supported by VLE discussion forum Live broadcasts also available as replays Data and supporting resources on VLE TC

Immediate wordle and chatbox feedback Hope you do more activities like this, have found it really helpful! You feel like your more involved too. Good fun, looking forward to more of these! thank you all great fun and very informative Thanks, the field casts have been brilliant. Can we have more? I wish we had more fieldcasts like this too - I find it a really great way to support the course texts. Thanks again everyone TC I cant get to field school, so this was FANTASTIC.....second the "more" chant !! * May 2017

Delayed interview feedback Engaging “… it felt like you were kind of there, it was a live film cast. It felt like you could have been standing in the field …” [Student 1] “Yes, someone else is hands-on, but you’re watching over their shoulder” [Student 2] Interactive “… the biggest thing was the interaction, where you could put your thoughts in and you could practise basically what you have learnt” [Student 4] “Yeah, felt really good … I think I wouldn’t have found it so good if we didn’t have that interaction with it, you felt like you were part of things rather than just witnessing it.” [Student 5] Does it feel different when you watch the reply? “It does, your not participating you’re an observer again.” [Student 3] TC * July 2017

Delayed unsolicited feedback (SEaM) “… the field casts were absolutely brilliant. I think there should be plenty more like this!” “The field trip tutorial webcast in particular was interesting and effective.” “The collaborative live fieldcast was exciting and really consolidated my learning.” “The environmental field cast was very informative.” “Being able to see people carrying out the experiments was invaluable then also being able to see in the lab.... I thoroughly enjoyed them.” TC “… a few more tutorials out in the field somewhere, would have been my preference. … not all students could get to them all ... but with modern technology, perhaps some sort of in-field tutorial could be considered?”

Student engagement Optional (additional) activity Relatively low attendance (around 10% module cohort) Users May 2016 May 2017 Fieldcast 1 Fieldcast 2 Fieldcast 3 During event users 34* 16 17 30 26 21 Interactive users 14 28 25 JC Numbers of live participants relatively stable, numbers of watching recording drops off quickly. * Including some inquisitive staff

Moving from optional to assessed TMA 06 Field investigation reports (summative) 25% of mark (75% exam) Based on Residential school group project reports Virtual field trip and self- directed project TMA 04 Fieldcast investigation report (formative) Watch and participate live, or watch the video recordings Write up fieldcast investigation as a mini-project report Practice at scientific report writing Feedback for improving skills for TMA06 JC

Impact of assessment on participation Aims of fieldcast Consolidate learning Improve confidence in the scientific method Increase enthusiasm for field investigation Aims of assessment Report writing experience with formative feedback Anticipated impact of assessment Increase engagement with fieldcast Additional contingency for technology and weather Past recordings (two previous sets of videos and data) Video transcripts for replay recordings JC

Moving from optional additions to required assessment Live field broadcasts Moving from optional additions to required assessment Trevor Collins, Julia Cooke, Philip Wheeler, Kadmiel Maseyk and Julie Robson Email: trevor.Collins@open.ac.uk; julia.cooke@open.ac.uk TC & JC