CogenT A toolkit to empower students to secure an improved academic HE experience?

Evaluation

• Students – UoB and beyond• Academics• Support staff – Learning Resources,

Careers, PAD (Professional & Academic Development)

Task 1 – evaluate toolkit 03/11

Staff initial feedback

• Not intuitive• Insufficient words• Frustrating • Needs to be subject specific• Want to see all levels simultaneously

Students’ initial feedback

• Valuable to first year UGs• Particularly useful for international

Masters’ students• Should be a resource available via the VLE• Show all levels with credit framework

selection

Overall initial evaluation

Task 2 – Describability

• Focus on students• Academic staff• Support staff from Learning Resources,

Professional Academic Development, Employability & Careers

WORDS

useful

Helps identify skills

Not intuitivegood

Plagiarism tool

I need this NOW

Easy to use

confusing

Very valuable

Describawhat? Is that really a word?

Ignorance is a bar to a good student experience

We need more help to understand assessment requirements

Why didn’t someone tell me evaluate isn’t the same at all levels ?

Tools to help students help themselves are essential

International students would find this immensely useful – it was good before but it’s even better now. This should be made available to everyone.

Students

• Please put it on the VLE but can you put your explanation of how to use it on video alongside otherwise I’ll never understand…• Can it be an app?• Are you sure it isn’t just a dictionary?• This is so valuable to translate what I’ve done on my

course for an employer• Prompting me to evidence things is so good• How on earth does this work?• Why didn’t we have this available to us from the first

year?

Vocabulary – support staff

• Yes it’s good but the screen isn’t intuitive and gives no help on using it• Mapping against levels is good• Mapping against frameworks is good• No explanation on limiters you can apply –

what’s the difference between ‘core’ and ‘non core’• Could we link similar words and functions

together?

I want to describe

• Turn off primary school design• Couldn’t get it to work as I assumed it should• Is there a danger of cut and paste rather than

delivering critical reflection and analysis?• ‘write it in your own terms box’ – in my

experience a lot of students will really struggle to paraphrase a single sentence definition and end up plagiarising or losing the meaning

• ‘now how can you prove this’ – how do I know what I’ve typed is valid?

Skills Questionnaire

• Don’t agree with some of the words that come up - ‘knowledge’ or ‘apply’ or ‘use’ could relate to most statements depending on context. How have they been categorised?

• Seems unfinished with potential• ‘I can work well in a team’ – only seemed to

recognise ‘work’• Has real merit for Graduate Impact Statements/

HEAR • Most valuable to students

Writing a course

• Very easy to use• Looked great• Similar to vocabulary section but much

better format

Requirements for success

• Increased content• Clear and unambiguous user guides – video and/or

written• One area for staff and one for students• Improved graphics – dispose of the 1950s

Outcome

The evaluation indicates the CogenT toolkit has the capacity to enhance student academic experience in three ways:

1. As a student tool to aid assessment completion

2. As a tool to empower students to articulate their gained skills/capabilities for employers, future academic careers and for themselves

3. By improving course development