Alison Hayes Independent Learning Materials March 2012

Background Language modules comprise: 26 hours contact time including tutorials 24 hours SOL 150 hours of independent learning

The original project To encourage students to make better use of allocated SOL hours Foster independent study Encourage reflexion and self-evaluation

The materials Packages of materials for students to study on or off campus (via Moodle) These consisted of listening/ reading / vocabulary / grammar exercises suggestions for further study + weblinks encouragement to self-assess details of work for inclusion in portfolio including formative assessment activities

Limitations The SOL packages only covered weeks 1-5 by way of a trial (since extended to whole module) l The software is only licensed to myself and to Alison Organ

The software Articulate Presenter to create package Articulate Quizmaker and Engage to convert paper exercises to electronic

Collaboration Mainly with E-learning (Daniel Mackley) Colleague (Alison Organ) had problems with software – see below Module now co-taught in semester 2 so Head of Languages (Liviana Ferrari) involved in demonstrating materials to students

Additions to the project A weekly study guide pdf to explain how language learning theories are relevant. Topics included: What makes a good language learner? Listening / reading / writing strategies Good language learning habits to acquire Language learning tip of the week - brief message sent as Moodle announcement Trialled e-marking with two written assignments (formative assessment)

Creating the materials Very time-consuming! Had to rethink some existing exercises to fit Articulate format Used software to create additional and better exercises – more challenging, testing more skills, allowed for differentiation

Issues and challenges Time constraints RSI Student access of materials from home Software new to Daniel Mackley as well as myself Problems adding video to slides – sabotaged Alison Organ’s plan for use of materials

Feedback from students Only 5 students provided feedback – more had accessed materials Used Articulate questionnaire feature to gather feedback – problems accessing results Feedback was not anonymous – will use different programme next time

What the students thought - SOL materials “They were great practice as they had exercises from all areas eg listening, reading etc” “A good support for learning outside of the classroom, clear and engaging” “The exercises were OK, sometimes too easy, but I didn’t like the programme” “Some worked and some didn’t. There seemed to be quite a few where the submit button was off the bottom of the screen… the ones that didn’t have this problem were useful”

What the students thought - pdfs of Learning Tips “Clear and easy to access in your own time” “I already had my learning strategies” “They helped to find different methods of learning the language…might have been easier to read in a powerpoint form”

What the students thought - Learning Tip of the Week “It helped to make you think about the homework in a second light taking on the advice given” “It was good to get some additional pieces of information”

What the students thought -e-submission and e-marking “…good because it is much easier than rushing into uni and also saves money on printing, however there are a lot of technical problems…” “Everything was fine. It was really fast and easy” “Great tool, easy to go back to and much clearer over written marking” “… amount of feedback appropriate to writing work, easy to understand which points of essay was good, which not”

What the students thought - did it make you a more independent learner? “They gave me a good platform to go from being a new Spanish learner and were fun to do as well as helping with understanding of the language not just learnt vocab” “They were good practice but I needed extra resources to help me learn such as worksheets and basic repetition of information”

What the students thought - paper or electronic? “I preferred the electronic as more attractive and engaging. One major advantage being you could go back to where you started from easily” “The paper ones were easier to complete and there were also answers given whereas in the SOL activities I could not find the correct answers easily”

Snags to sort out Work out how to add video so Alison Organ can make package of independent materials for Advanced Language and Culture module Work with Daniel and IT to eradiate issues of students not being able to open materials off-campus

Plans for the future Continue creating exercises for remaining weeks of module Include much more feedback so students know where they are going wrong (already underway) Create materials for other levels of Spanish course

Summary A much more all-encompassing approach to language learning Definitely a work in progress – many more aspects of the software to exploit Huge potential