Category Archives: Uncategorized

(Poster) Using the Moodle Glossary to create shared learning resources

Christine Penman and Sibylle Ratz (School of Marketing, Tourism & Languages)

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This poster will provide an overview of the ways the Glossary function of Moodle was used during the 2013-14 academic year at Edinburgh Napier University with different cohorts of language students (learning German and French) to create student-generated and tutor-mediated shared vocabulary resources.

The poster will be divided into a number of sections:

  • brief theoretical considerations of how Moodle Glossary fits in a collaborative approach of learning, outlining some of the decisions to be made by the teaching teams
  • an overview of how the Glossary function was set up in selected German and French modules (‘rules’ issued to students to place new entries including the provision of a contextual example and the activation of the tutor editing function). This will also include reference to formative and summative assessment for different cohorts. This section will be illustrated by examples of student inputs.
  • an analysis of student feedback on the use of this resource for vocabulary building based on student questionnaires and a focus group
  • reflections and ideas for future developments

This poster will summarise pedagogical research undertaken by Sibylle Ratz for her PG Certificate and a conference presentation by both authors at the LLAS 9th annual e-learning symposium in January 2014.

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(Poster) How we support articulating students

Melanie Kinchant, Carole Mooney, Kate Heighington and Tom Campbell (Student & Academic Services)

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Highlighting transition support for articulating students.

Pre-entry workshops:
‘Get set for Uni’ (managing expectations)
‘Signposts to Success’ (academic skills)

Induction workshops:
‘Getting Started’ (orientation & support)
‘Coming from college’ (online resource)

Student articulation advisers assigned to individual schools (academic skills workshops and one-to-one support provision)

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(Poster) Ambitious evaluation: fostering an internal dialogue between students

Ana-Maria Zeron-Rodriguez and Sharon Homan (Student & Academic Services)

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Evaluation in education enables the empowering process of learning, changing and taking action towards success; yet it is often seen as an imposed and external judgement. The Edinburgh Napier Recruitment Assessment Centre (RACE) provides the opportunity to foster an internal dialogue between students, Edinburgh Napier job providers and the Careers Team on graduate job application and recruitment. While participating in an Edinburgh Napier Recruitment Assessment Day, ambitious students are evaluated through a competency-based framework that mirrors current recruitment practice and then receive a complete feedback on their performance. The SD&W Evaluation Team collects – via surveys – the students’ evaluation on the RACE practice. This dialogical reflection on each other’s performance aims to guide students’ ambitions to succeed in their job applications, build high expectations in their future career and continuously work towards excellent student support service. This mutual engagement through evaluation of the students and the service provider is critical for both parties to support growth and success.

The poster will show the dynamic process of how reflective practice empowers the ambitions of both students and staff.

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(Poster) Student e-mentoring: addressing the challenges

Caroline Moffat and Ewa Dzieciol (Student & Academic Services)

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The Student Peer Mentoring Programme at Edinburgh Napier University has run for the last 10 years and helped new students to make a successful transition to academic study and university life. On the back of this successful programme, we have expanded the student mentoring we offer by developing two new e-mentoring projects.

The first project “Ask an experienced student” was piloted in August 2013 and targeted students from specific wider access backgrounds (care leavers and SIMD20 students) in the two weeks prior to starting at the University. These students were matched with experienced student mentors who communicated with them via email.

The second project “EN-linked abroad” will be piloted this September, and will match exchange students studying abroad with trained Edinburgh Napier student mentors who have previous experience of studying abroad.

This poster provides more information on these to new projects, and looks at the benefits of e-mentoring to the University, the student mentors and the student mentee, and also explores some of the key differences between face-to-face and e-mentoring.

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(Poster) Employer Mentoring Programme @ Edinburgh Napier University

Kirsty Summers (Student & Academic Services)

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This poster will demonstrate the development of the Employer Mentoring Programme over its five year life-span. The EMP matches third and fourth year Scottish domiciled students with a professional person in a career area which is of interest to them. It allows students to build a sustainable professional relationship and to learn first-hand from someone who has built a career in an area of work which they might aspire to. The poster showcases the successes of the programme and explains the evaluation processes utilised to ensure robust feedback is obtained and the programme evolves inline with student need.

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(Poster) Associate students in SEBE: out of sight but not out of mind

Alastair William Stupart (School of Engineering & the Built Environment) and Julia Fotheringham (Office of the Vice Principal, Academic)

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SFC’s Associate Student Programme started in 2013-14. Key features are first year further education college students registering as ‘associate students’ at the University they aim to attend; with a personal guarantee of a place subject to achieving the agreed academic entry requirements. For SEBE this involved 54 students from four colleges; with the aim that they will start studying in September 2015 on one of three Edinburgh Napier engineering courses.

A series of ‘interventions’ were undertaken with these students and their classmates (many of whom could also become Edinburgh Napier students). Interventions ranged from: an induction day, lectures/practicals and college visits by Academic Services to teach study skills, referencing etc. The relevance of the interventions has been assessed (principally by student feedback) and evaluation data is presented. This analysis was undertaken to shape the student/university contact in 2014-15. This is both for the existing associate students in their HND (second) year and for the first year students starting next September. Successful interventions are important to ensure (as far as is possible) that the students do as planned attend Edinburgh Napier; and that they are well equipped when making this move (from the different and more directed learning environment of a further education college).

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(Poster) Research-teaching linkages: bringing evidence-based practice to life for students

Catherine MacFarlane and Wendy McInally (School of Nursing, Midwifery & Social Care)

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A key Scottish Quality Enhancement Theme identifies research-teaching linkages as essential to promoting the graduate attributes of students (Quality Assurance Agency, 2009). With this in mind, the Child Health team endeavoured to embed Evidence-Based Practice (EBP) and research into their programme in a manner that would be meaningful and engaging for students, as there had previously been minimal focus on this subject until third year.

The Year 2 EBP and Illness and Injury modules are continually developed and designed to be run concurrently, combining EBP with the pathopyhsiology and care of a range of childhood illness and injuries. Typical scenarios include the child and young person with an acute exacerbation of asthma and the infant with bronchiolitis, where students compile an extended care plan of treatment and nursing management and source relevant, up-to-date evidence to support the care of the infant, child or young person and their family.

These modules provide an excellent example of how students, early on in their programme, can develop sufficient knowledge, skills and understanding of EBP and research to apply to real-life illness and injury scenarios, and in doing so enhance their fitness to practice and ability to provide high quality nursing care.

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