Pilot: Digital User Guides

Pilot Leads: Caroline Hughes and Dr Stuart Christie

This pilot successfully created a suite of resources that will provide welcome and support to students through their university journey.

Impact:

The resources have freed staff time from answering basic queries, enabling them to focus more on providing students support with more complex issues. This has also meant that students are able to feel more effective themselves, as they can resolve their own questions at a time that's convenient for them. While out-of-hours support could be extended to cover students who are in other countries or studying around employment it is likely that this would be prohibitive in financial terms.

Lessons Learned:

We learnt that it made sense to use the overarching structure to give a greater holistic approach. This allowed students to tell us other areas they wanted, and we realised there were gaps that we have tried to fill.

Read full report here.

Pilot: Incorporating Knowledge-building Analytics

Pilot Lead: Drew Whitworth

Summary:

This pilot successfully studied and evaluated a new paradigm of assessment, based around the principles of knowledge-building.

Impact:

Overall, impact on workload was ameliorated by the use of learning analytics as the basis for feedback. Tutors used analytics to determine student engagement, identifying patterns in who was initiating discussions versus merely responding. Workload did shift somewhat, to earlier in the semester, but room was made for this by changing the nature of ‘contact hours’ in later weeks of the course, substituting online knowledge-building work for lectures, thus giving both students and staff the time needed to conduct this work.

The Pilot has led to improved outcomes and behaviours in the field of Flexible Learning practice. The strategy states that an objective of the FLP is to allow “staff to play to their strengths and balance the demands of research and teaching to maximise job satisfaction and outcomes”. The focus on workload in the Pilot has addressed this issue and shown that an ergative approach, with the help of learning analytics and supported by properly inducted teaching assistants, can be enfolded into the workload of a typical course unit leader on a Teaching and Research contract.  

Lessons Learned:

• Nothing significant, but there’s not been much of a sense of community among Pilot Owners. Information has been fed up the chain, but little if anything has come back down, and we don’t feel we have much of a sense of what the rest of the Flexible Learning Programme is actually up to.
• It has proven difficult to get project staff paid. The Pilot Owner’s ignorance, at the start of the project, of relevant procedure has not particularly been altered by its end, thanks to conflicting advice and guidance provided from a range of different sources. Considering that we very much hope to continue collaborating with our strategic partners in Toronto it does little for the image when pay claims take months to be fulfilled.

Read full report here.

Pilot: Peer Support System for International Students

Pilot Lead: Dr Marianna Rolbina

Summary:

This pilot has successfully tested the viability of creating an online peer support database for international students at the University of Manchester.

Impact:

It demonstrably showed the proposed solution's ability to meet the needs of the main intended stakeholder (international students), and its viability as a pioneering solution for international student support that so far has no analogues in the UK. The focus group has also shown the project's relevance to the secondary stakeholder group (academic staff) as a way to raise emotional intelligence and potential useful information for staff training at programs such as HNAP or academic advisor training. In general, the focus group participants considered the database to be a potentially useful resource for all academics, as well as a way to normalise peer advice among students.

Read the full report here.

Pilot Leads: Dan Jagger and Sharon Gardner

Summary: This pilot evaluated the STEM based assessment tool ‘Graide’ to see whether it increased marking efficiency and consistency by using AI.

Impact:

The pilot determined whether or not Graide would be a valuable addition to the UoM software portfolio. The pilot has improved understanding of some of the current capabilities and limitations in applying AI software to marking and feedback. The pilot provides an excellent basis for approaching the evaluation of AI software and AI additions to existing software in future.

Lessons Learned:

• The IGRR process at the time of the pilot was time consuming, the questions were hard to interpret. It would be beneficial to have additional support from ITS/IGO to enable faster completion.
• There was a considerable up-front work involved for evaluators in setting up the software before they could see benefits.
• In some cases, there were benefits to being able to trial the software on marking without exposing students to it. 
• There was a misconception that the AI was completely marking the assignments, this was not the case, it was supporting faster and higher quality marking by making suggestions

Read full report here.

Pilot: Eating, drinking & swallowing pre-registration competencies and virtual reality simulation: Evaluation of student experience and learning

Pilot Lead: Rachel Purcell

Summary: This pilot investigated whether the use of virtual reality simulation was a viable teaching method for acquiring practical clinical skills for the assessment and management of eating, drinking & swallowing difficulties in speech & language therapy (SLT) education.

Impact:

• The VR simulation was positively received by students and is to be timetabled in the SLT programme in Year 2, semester 1.
• The SLT teaching team will be exploring the development of VR simulation for other SLT clinical populations.

Lessons Learned:

• The scheduling of the VR simulation project was constrained by timings required of the FLP pilots.
• Students found some of the aspects of the simulation reduced their ability to immerse themselves and ‘suspend disbelief. For example, Dennis’s voice lacked some of the qualities we would usually expect in a clinical scenario with a patient at risk of EDS.
• Currently, FMBH does not have a policy or strategy for the use of VR simulation across the faculty. We are aware of other colleagues who are developing VR simulations for healthcare education at the University. A central approach for the sharing of good practice and resources would be beneficial to the longevity of use of VR simulation and likely improve the student experience

Read full report here.

Title: Perceptions, experiences and learning from using an AI tool ‘TeachMateAI to support trainee teacher learning on a one-year primary PGCE programme. 

Pilot Lead: Liz Birchinall

Summary: This project explored the use of TeachMateAI (TMAI), a generative AI teachers’ assistant, in the University's one-year primary PGCE programme, responding to the increasing need for teacher education to adapt to AI technology. Many schools, teaching school alliances, and Teach First already using AI tools like 'TeachMate AI'. This pilot's pioneering approach has national and internal significance, positioning the University as one of the early adopters of AI within Higher Education to conduct rigorous research into AI use in teacher training. 

Impact:​

The pilot's findings directly influenced our programme delivery and curriculum development within the academic year:​

• Academic staff responded to early findings and revised guidance on optional AI use during teaching practice.​
• A semester 2 teaching session on prompt engineering was introduced into our training programme.​
• School-based mentors and headteachers developed enhanced understanding of AI integration.​
• University staff gained skills and knowledge for training teachers in AI tool use.​

Read the full report here.

Title: Developing asynchronous 3 x 5 micro credential series on “Developing Resilience in Turbulent Times”

Pilot Lead: Natalie Cunningham

Summary:

In a world where many professionals face instability, trauma, or crisis on a daily basis, how can we better equip them to cope, recover and lead with strength? 

Impact:

This pilot has provided practical applied lessons learnt and recommendations that can inform the future design and implementation of micro-credentials in the University. It has delivered several reports, not limited to the below:

• The type of learners attracted to this micro credential programme
• Research on trends in micro credentials and offerings by other Universities
• Three individual reports reviewing each micro credential with feedback from each student
• A How to guide and recommendation report – Lessons and Insights from the microcredential

Lessons learnt:

1. Marketing should not be centralised but should be shaped by schools and faculties as targeted marketing can attract the right audience. 
2. Micro-credentials need to be designed based on real needs. The research and needs analysis conducted by GDI identified resilience as a priority. They should also be viewed as part of a larger learning ecosystem. The need for Communities of Practice (CoP) emerged from this micro-credential, providing a platform for leaders and managers to discuss key resilience concepts and form a community of support.
3. Good design ensures student engagement and a positive experience. The design time for an 8-week, 50-hour micro-credential averaged 125 hours for the E-Learning Technologist and 240 hours for the academic.
4. Key andragogy principles should underpin the design of online learning. The six principles of Knowles’ andragogy theory were applied in the pilot, emphasising self-direction, the role of experience, readiness to learn, orientation to learning, the need to know why, and intrinsic motivation.
5. Offering smaller assessments rather than one big assessment allows more realistic deadlines for working professionals, and using competency-based grading.
6. A differential tiered costing structure is suggested, with different rates for individuals, students, alumni, and corporates. Clear policy guidelines and approval processes are needed, and the roles and responsibilities of departments, schools, faculties, and the university must be defined.

Read full report here.