1. Amanda Jefferies With the valued support of the CS CABLE team

2. One of our CABLE project aims in 2009-2010: ...improving the overall student learning experience through offering prompt feedback and regular student support across a teaching team What we did:  Weekly podcasts to engage students beyond the delivery of the material  Incorporated regular podcasts into a busy lecturer’s timetable to keep the students on the course engaged, regardless of who was teaching that week

3. Each week the students could access a podcast which was one of the following types: ◦ A regular message to engage students with the weekly course content ◦ A full-class lecture ◦ Staff feedback from the past assignment ◦ Suggestions to support their work in the next assignment ◦ An ‘in-the-news’ feature, to update students on recent research findings in strategic information systems

4.  Why not just a recording of the lecture? ◦ important for the students to attend in person ◦ engage in the discussions from the sessions ◦ used a ‘feed-forward’ principle for planning the next assignment  The weekly commitment was less than 20 minutes to: ◦ record and check recording ◦ upload onto StudyNet But planning what to say would take a little longer!

5.  Online polls via StudyNet to gauge reactions  Questionnaire in a lecture to all students inviting quantitative and qualitative responses I’d like podcasts of all my lectures !

6.  Did the students listen online? ◦ Yes, many did download them regularly, although numbers accessing the podcasts dropped off towards the end of term ◦ 92.5% (N=40 students) said the report writing recording was helpful  What the students said… Podcasts were easy to find and available 24/7 Listening again to recorded lectures was good for taking notes Podcast was helpful with the 2 nd assignment

7.  Their online presence gave the students a certain security week by week that the module leader was engaging with them  They allowed a large module team to have a point of focus for the online presence on a regular basis with the students  Feedback from classroom discussion sessions and from assignment material could swiftly become part of the next week’s podcast to feed-forward into assessment.

8.  Podcasts proved timely and useful and were appreciated by the majority of the students  They proved  Easy to compile  Straightforward to upload  Cost-effective in getting a regular message out to keep in touch with students  Their use supported some of Chickering and Gamson’s 7 principles - ◦ Ensures feedback leads to improvement ◦ Focuses on student development

9. Thank you for listening Any Questions? Amanda Jefferies a.l.jefferies@herts.ac.uk