Sussex hosts a large group of international students and group work is an excellent way of sharing ideas and experiences from different parts of the world. Successful group work enhances the already rich academic material and facilitates a more holistic understanding.
Student quote from the focus group: Supporting the International Student Experience at Sussex and Beyond 2024
What is inclusive group work
Inclusive group work is designed by a tutor in a course or specific module with ground rules that ensure inclusivity and equality. A carefully designed work plan for a group ensures the inclusion of students who may otherwise be on the periphery of the learning community, perhaps because their characteristics are different from the mainstream cohort.
Group work can be called inclusive when everyone is part of the conversation and can contribute to the output. An inclusive group is designed to ensure that language differences, cultural differences, and learning differences are not barriers to participation. To make group work inclusive, the teacher may need to develop the students’ ability to perceive differences within the group positively and approach any barriers that arise from these differences with an open-minded, reflective, and problem-solving approach. This blog post provides guidance on making group work inclusive. It was co-created by colleagues from Educational Enhancement and the University of Sussex postgraduate students who took part in the project: Supporting the International Student Experience at Sussex and Beyond.
The University of Sussex students who collaborated on the project: Supporting the International Student Experience at Sussex and Beyond.
Why is inclusive group work important?
The University of Sussex has a diverse student population, and group work is an excellent way of sharing different ideas and experiences. Inclusive group work promotes an environment of collaboration, rather than competition, in which students engage with the work process together. Additionally, inclusive group work develops valuable skills such as organization, leadership, cooperation, delegation, effective communication, confidence, and cultural understanding. These skills are hugely beneficial for students when they graduate from university, supporting their future endeavors, whether in employability or social situations. Working effectively in diverse groups can be challenging and rarely happens automatically. To avoid cultural segregation in class and to get students truly collaborating with one another, group work needs to be structured by the tutor. Our guidance and resource below will support you in structuring inclusive group work.
How to facilitate inclusive group work
Inclusive group work involves active participation from all members, clear communication, and a collaborative effort to achieve shared goals. Each member should feel included and valued, contributing their unique perspectives and skills.
Please note that if there is a summative assessment related to this group work, then you may also wish to read the University’s guidance on group work for assessments.
These six steps will help you facilitate inclusive group work:
Assign students to groups to avoid segregation within the class. Please see setting up groups for further information.
Establish group etiquette to help ensure your groups have a healthy dynamic. This etiquette can be co-created with your students. But you may want to use this etiquette guidance as a starting point.
Set an agenda for each meeting to help maintain focus and productivity within the group. We have created an agenda template that you can give to your students for each meeting. Feel free to adapt the template according to your preferences.
Allocate roles for each meeting. To help meetings run smoothly, each meeting should have a chair and a notetaker. The chair will keep the meetings running to time, maintain a focus on goals, ensure all participants can contribute, and summarise the output for the meeting.
Check your groups are inclusive. This inclusivity checklist is a list of factors for you to consider when setting up your study groups.
Speak to your students about establishing and maintaining inclusive groups. Alongside the information you provide about group etiquette, you will also need to speak to your students about how they can ensure their group dynamics remain inclusive. The following information supports students with maintaining inclusivity within their groups.
Supporting literature
Boyd, T., Harz, D. and Besche, H. (2024) “The role of inclusion in collaborative learning,” Medical Science Educator, 34(4), pp. 909–913. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40670-024-02045-5.
Different countries have different ways of doing assessments and it makes a lot of difference to have the academic expectations outlined by the convenors at the beginning of the course or module, so that students can approach their studies accordingly. When students understand what is expected of them in their assessments, they can focus their efforts on mastering those specific skills. Clear expectations reduce uncertainty and anxiety, allowing students to prepare more effectively.A good understanding of expectations enables students to begin assessments from the appropriate starting point and continue in the correct direction.
Student quote from the focus group: Supporting the International Student Experience at Sussex and Beyond 2024
Introduction
The assessments we set for our students are often ones that we are familiar with because they are embedded within our disciplinary practice, of which we are experts. This familiarity can cause us to overlook parts of the assessment that may be confusing or challenging for students. We may forget to be explicit in our assessment instructions because, to us, the assessment process is so obvious. As the quote above highlights, students who are unfamiliar with the UK higher education system won’t necessarily understand the academic processes or expectations required to succeed in their assessments, resulting in anxiety and potentially poor outcomes. It is therefore a matter of inclusivity that our assessment expectations are as transparent as possible. This blog post provides guidance on enhancing the transparency of your assessment expectations. It was co-created by colleagues from Educational Enhancement and two University of Sussex postgraduate students, Tarun Kachhwaha (Sustainable Finance and Accounting) and Serra Ciftci (Engineering Business Management).
Serra MSc Engineering Business Management
Tarun MSc Sustainable Finance and Accounting
Listen to Tarun and Serra explain why clear assessment expectations are important.
Transcript
Tarun: Coming to a different place and being unknown to how you are going to be judged marked. You always have that unknown fear of flunking, unknown fear of scoring less. Because you come with a very good grade – that’s why you have been accepted into the university. The pressure to keep up on the same grade induces that fear, anxiety that what different should I do? Because this is a different examination pattern? What different should I do to live up to that expectation? So. Uh, the clarity in terms of how you are going to be assessed is foremost very important.
Serra (0:40): Your graduation note is so important when you’re looking for a job. So we all want us to want to have higher grades, graduating with higher grades. And as I said, in this university, I am in a very little gap. I’m always having the same grades. There were assessments that I really worked hard and I was taking the same grade, and there were assessments that I really just in a few days. And I had the same grade as well. So to be able to achieve my goals, I need more clarification.
Seven ways to clarify your assessment expectations
One: Outline the assessment expectations via the assessment brief
For each assessment, provide an assessment brief that outlines the aims, key components, and criteria of the assessments. This should be discussed in class to ensure all students understand what is expected. The Assignment Brief Design Project has researched and developed guidelines to support staff across the sector in effectively communicating to students what is required and expected of them in assessment. These guidelines are helpful for writing an inclusive assessment brief. Here are some key recommendations for making your assessment brief assessible and inclusive:
Each assessment brief should be available on Canvas for easy reference. The assessment brief should include key information such as learning outcomes being measured, marking criteria, referencing style, format, word length/duration, academic integrity, and submission guidelines.
The assessment brief should be written clearly. Potentially unfamiliar terms, like ‘analyse’ or ‘critically reflect,’ should be explained.
Discuss the assessment brief during one of your lectures or seminars, allowing students to ask questions and seek clarification about areas of confusion.
Two: Create marking criteria that are clear and streamlined
Before students start their assessment, they need to understand the marking criteria. This will give them the best chance of doing well. Help students understand the marking criteria by:
applying faculty/departmental level marking criteria if available. This provides consistency between modules and makes it easier for students to apply feedback from one assessment to another,
outlining what is expected at each grade level. To help students interpret the criteria, you could create a video demonstrating how to evaluate an assessment using the criteria, differentiating between “excellent,” “good,” “satisfactory,” and “needs improvement” submissions. The video can be uploaded to the assessment page on Canvas for easy reference,
developing a feedback template/rubric that relates directly to the marking criteria, addressing common areas of strength and areas for improvement. This will ensure consistency in feedback and help students understand where they need to focus their efforts for the next assessment,
making space in a lecture or seminar for students to ask questions and seek clarification about the marking criteria. This can also include activities where students apply the criteria to sample assessments.
Three: Allow students to practice and receive feedback before the final assessment
Design teaching activities that provide opportunities for students to develop the skills needed for their assessments and give students the chance to undertake practice assessment tasks and receive feedback ahead of the summative assessment. This feedback can come from tutors or peers in class, formative assessments, or progressive summative assessments.
Four: Break down the assessment task
Breaking down the assessment task is particularly important for students who are unfamiliar with the type of assessment. It can also be helpful for students with certain learning differences. It is likely that students will need less assessment detail as they become more familiar with the assessment and the associated academic expectations. At the start of the students’ study, we suggest:
Outlining the stages of work involved in an assessment task and collaborate with students to establish a timeline for completing each stage.
Providing assessment details that break down the components of the assessment and explain what is to be included in each of the stages. Please see this example of an assessment breakdown , from the University of Sussex Business School.
Five: Use exemplars
Share high-quality examples of past student work that highlight proper structure and formatting. Annotate these exemplars to point out effective introductions, thesis statements, topic sentences, transitions, and conclusions. Explain why these elements are effective and how they contribute to the overall quality of the work.
Share examples of lower-quality work to illustrate what does not meet the criteria. Explain why these exemplars fall short and how they could be improved. This can include annotated exemplars pointing out specific weaknesses and offering suggestions for improvement.
Provide examples of different types of writing required in your module such as analytical essays, research papers, or reflective journals. Discuss why these examples are effective and how they meet the marking criteria.
With regards to presentations, share exemplary presentation slides with students to set clear expectations for their presentations. Highlight key aspects such as clarity, organisation, design, and content. By providing these examples, students can better understand how to create effective and engaging presentations that meet the assessment requirements.
Six: Clarify the acceptable use of AI tools in assessments
Reinforce the importance of academic integrity, linking to the guidance on Skills Hub.
Clearly state what AI tools can and cannot be used for. For example, specify if AI can be used for grammar checking but not for content generation. Outline the boundaries of acceptable use and provide examples of appropriate and inappropriate uses. See AI permission templates, which you can copy onto your assessment page on Canvas.
Seven: Communicate what should be avoided in assessments and provide improvement strategies
Highlight common mistakes to help students avoid pitfalls and achieve higher scores. Compile a list of common errors to avoid and provide this to students ahead of the assessment. This list can include issues such as poor thesis statements, lack of evidence, improper citation, and off-topic content. Explain why these mistakes are problematic and how they can negatively impact on the quality of the assessment.
Offer strategies for avoiding these mistakes, such as double-checking sources, and proofreading. Provide resources and tools that can help students improve their work. Many excellent resources can be found on Skills Hub.
This resource was generated from an Education and Innovation Funded project aimed at closing the international awarding gap. To help understand why this gap exists, ten international students participated in a focus group to discuss their experiences at the University. A key theme from the focus group was the importance of understanding assessment expectations and knowing what steps to take to succeed. Drawing on the focus group discussions, the students then worked hard to develop resources aimed at helping you welcome your students to Sussex. They hope you find these resources useful.
The Learning Matters Podcast captures insights into, experiences of, and conversations around education at the University of Sussex. The podcast is hotsed by Prof Wendy Garnham and Dr Heather Taylor. It runs monthly, and each month is centred around a particular theme. The theme of our third episode is ‘supporting the international student experience’, and we will hear from Simon Overton (Educational Enhancement Co-ordinator) and Sarah Watson (Academic Developer) as they discuss their experiences and outputs from their recent Education and Innovation funded project: Supporting the International Student Experience at Sussex and Beyond.
Simon Overton
Sarah Watson
Over the summer of 2024, Simon and Sarah worked with an excellent team of University of Sussex students to develop resources to support the international student experience.
Welcome to the Learning Matters podcast from the University of Sussex, where we capture insights, experiences, and conversations around education at our institution and beyond. Our theme for this episode is supporting international students. And our guests are Sarah Watson, (Academic Developer), and Simon Overton (Educational Enhancement Coordinator). Our names are Wendy Garnham and Heather Taylor, and we are your presenters today. Welcome, everyone.
All
Hello!
Heather Taylor 0:42
Can you tell us a little bit about the project you worked on to support international students?
Sarah Watson
Yes. So, last year I was part of the Media Arts and Humanities Task and Finish group on supporting international students, and the group generated recommendations for improving the international student experience. One of those recommendations was developing and improving our resources for staff on inclusive and intercultural teaching. So this project was a response to the recommendations that came out of that group and the main aim of our project was to co-create resources with students for teaching staff, on inclusive and intercultural teaching from an international student perspective. But fundamentally these are just resources for inclusive teaching practice, and we believe they’ll benefit all students.
In that group, I met a student race equity advocate who helped co-design the project with us, she was amazing, and we wanted the international student voice to be at the heart of the project.
Before we were able to get the project up and running, we had to apply for funding to pay for our students to work with us. I think we felt when we began the project that we didn’t really think we were going to uncover anything new, you know, in terms of, developing inclusive teaching practice. But what we really wanted to do was put the student voice at the heart of the project, to try and make the resources and the guidance we provide more interesting and more personal. So, for example, if we say to staff, it’s really important to give time for students to respond to you in class. Give longer than you think. Make yourself feel a bit uncomfortable. Right? Like, you know, one minute, two minutes, so people can generate their responses to you in their heads. If you have English as a second language, it can just take you longer to do that. This is not a very complicated recommendation, but we wanted to embed the student voice for saying, why is that important for me? How might [not doing that] ostracize me from the conversation, if you don’t give me that kind of extra time? So, the students were the heart of the project, so we needed the funding. We applied, for the Education and Innovation Fund in April 2024. This is an internal fund to the University of Sussex and towards the end of May, we were delighted to receive almost £5,000 for the project and this was used to pay students for their time.
We worked with 11 students in total. I think one of the reasons we were successful in our funding bid was because the project aims fed into the University’s aims for helping close the awarding gap for international students, at the University. At the moment, at Sussex there’s a relatively high awarding gap between non-EU international students and their home student peers. So that means non-EU international students are less likely to get a good degree, so a 1st or a 2:1, than home students, even when entry levels are taken into consideration.
So fundamentally, the project wanted to listen and work with non-EU international students at the University to hear about their experiences of studying here, and kind of draw on these experiences, work with them to co-create guidance and resources for teaching staff on supporting the international student experience and just inclusive practice in general.
Wendy Garnham 4:05
I think that’s quite difficult actually having the confidence to sort of pause long enough for students to speak up.
Sarah Watson
It doesn’t feel natural, does it? And I definitely fill in quiet spaces, you know. That’s my go to. I have to work against that.
Heather Taylor
You know what, though? This reminds me of something that I when I was doing my PGCert, Tab, you know, Tab Betts, he was doing a session, and he introduced this idea, I think he called it thinking time. And then during the lockdown, when we had these Zoom lessons, I used thinking time. Right? Because we don’t really often give them [students] time to think, you know, so the students are expected to just, I don’t know, have answers as soon as we pose them [the questions].
And I think, actually … I do wait a little while, but it’s something I’m gonna remember to do, I think, again. And maybe even to take the awkwardness out just so we could have one minute thinking time and then you know what I mean? Or two minutes or whatever it happens to be.
Simon Overton 5:12
Yeah. This is something that comes in. So my background was in English as a foreign language teaching, but also international primary education. And, so my approach, with that, for the thinking time, and I think it is a great idea to say we’re going to have 10 seconds, we’re going have, you know, half a minute or a minute of thinking time. It’s also called hands down time in primary teaching. So it’s going be hands down for now, and then you give everyone a chance to think, and then it’s hands up, and then hopefully everyone, more people will be engaging in the question. But for me, that that all comes into, the skills that people have with language. And we tend to assume that everything goes together. So you will quite often have students that who are very verbally fluent, and we tend to assume that they’re also going be great, at writing as well. Or we will have students that are, you know, especially they can listen a lot, they can prepare things, or maybe they submit really good essays, and we assume that they are going to be very verbally fluent, and that it’s not they don’t necessarily go along with each other. My experience in international, teaching has shown me that it can actually be quite profound.
I wanted also just to add a little bit to what, Sarah said. And maybe if I may, to give the sort of, some of the practical sides of what we did. I wanted to mention Abby. She was the student race advocate that Sarah mentioned. So Abby, it was so nice to work with her. Aside from the fact that it took quite a bit of the pressure, or no, no, let’s not say that. We were able to share out some of the, some of the nitty gritty, the rigmarole of getting a project like this off the ground. So that was really wonderful. And she brought an amazing, energy and freshness to it, I think. So that was already really worthwhile, even right back at the planning stage, before we even met any of the other students. Once we had the funding, then we advertised for students across the various networks in the University. And we got ten students to come along and be in the focus group. So we had two groups of five students. And what was nice about that is that we were hoping that they were going to represent, in in some way, the countries of origin that that, many of our students or the biggest sort of cohorts come from. Which as I understand it is, Nigeria, India, China. And we and we did that, and it was kind of lucky. And we had the representation of the schools or the faculties. So we did have some contingency for that sort of built into our plan. Like, okay, if we don’t get anyone from a certain country, then we can sort of advertise again and direct it. But we were lucky we ended up with that.
So we ran the two focus groups. Another practical aspect of it was that we recorded everything. We ran it through some trial software. I don’t know if I’m allowed to mention it. Maybe I’ll do two versions for the edit. Some trial software. Other software is available. And it’s really nice at transcribing. It’s a very powerful tool. And it’s especially suitable for any academic work because it’s quite good at picking up subject specific vocabulary. And therefore, that made a huge difference to us and massively, drastically reduced the time for sort of processing the data, because we didn’t have to transcribe everything.
Abby also, our student researcher, also helped us with that, with drawing out the themes. And then we put them together into the training resources. And this was mostly Sarah actually worked with the students to create these resources based upon the themes that we had identified, in the focus groups. And again, that was really lovely because we were sitting down with them. We were we were kind of planning lessons with them and planning activities with them. And we also did this for the workshops, that we ran.
So it ended up working on lots of different levels. We had the technological level, which is kind of maybe my sort of particular interest, although obviously I have the pedagogical interest as well. But also, there was this this lovely sense of introducing the students, or helping the students, to develop in their research skills as well, which was so nice to do, and so rewarding, I felt. And then on top of that, it was the results that we that we managed to draw from the research that we’d done and, of course the resources that we produced as well.
So it worked on so many different levels and I think it was really rewarding on all those levels as well.
Wendy Garnham 10:23
I guess you might have identified a number of common issues for non-EU international students. So could you say a little more about what those issues might be?
Sarah Watson
In the focus groups the students highlighted some of the potential barriers to learning that they experience when they’re at the University, and one was focusing on the segregation in groups. The segregation in kind of teaching groups, that they spoke about. So often the students would really want to be integrating with home students or international students from other countries, but often this didn’t happen in the teaching space. So when students were maybe put into groups people would go to with people that they knew, and often there might be a reticence for certain students to be working together and that that came up in both the focus groups separately and it was quite sort of stark the way the students were describing it and some students were really interpreting that as actually having a racist element to it. They said, you know, that certain students don’t want to work with us because of where we come from. And so that that shocked us quite a lot, but it also, you know, spoke volumes to us about the potential issues in the teaching space. So, in the focus group, participants talked about how there can be segregation in class, with home students and international students not mixing together, and they spoke about how it would be better for lecturers, or it was really great when the lecturers actually predetermined the groups for the class, mixing international students with home students. They did feel like there needed to be a bit facilitation there, on the lecturer’s part for that. Because, you know, they’re here to study in a different culture, in a different country, and they want to integrate. And they were saying that the benefits of this were being able to get to know people outside of their social circles or people they don’t usually talk to, and this allows the students to learn from one another.
We got some really positive quotes and data of the students talking about how brilliant it was when they were working together with people they wouldn’t normally work with. And it also helps to build a more diverse learning community. So that was one of the largest themes I think to come out of the focus group.
Simon Overton 12:42
And the and what was quite funny and sweet about that is that that really some of the recommendations were things that I would use regularly as a primary school teacher. It was a case, we had, I mean the classic one you do with primary school children is stand in a line from the shortest to the tallest, right? And then from that, now that the students are mixed up, then you can sort of break them up into groups of five. And they’ve been arranged by something other than friendship groups. Now obviously, we’re not going make our university students line up according to their height. But we figured out some other ways of doing that. How many letters do you have in your name? How far did you travel to get here? Or something like that. And this is really basic stuff, and kind of playful, silly maybe.
But that’s actually what people wanted. People wanted to be to be made to stand up, to be made to move around their seats, and to be with other people. Because otherwise you will always end up in a group with the people that you walked in with, who might very well, and reasonably so, be people from your home country or people that you’re already familiar with, or your friends and so on. So as Sarah said right at the start, we weren’t necessarily reinventing the wheel. In fact, quite often we were saying, you probably already know about this. It seems really old fashioned and a little bit silly, but actually it’s quite powerful and it’s what people really want to do.
Wendy Garnham
It does get them talking as well, I suppose, doing an activity like that, you know, in terms of the number of letters in your name. They have to talk to each other to identify where they should go. So it’s quite a useful tool and very fun as well, I would imagine.
Sarah Watson
And I think and the names was another, aspect, wasn’t it, that came out of the focus groups and fed into the workshops. We’ll talk a bit a little bit more about those later, I think. But being able to pronounce other people’s names. So having that activity where you’re introducing your name to somebody else. And saying how you spell it, how many letters there are in the name. It’s all a way of getting to know one another’s names and being able to kind of the beginnings of being able to pronounce them, because often when we have a really culturally diverse group of students, some students might find it difficult to pronounce other students’ names and the lecturer may find it difficult as well. And it’s all about kind of that icebreaker, making it okay to practice and to introduce yourselves to one another and, you know, with the knowledge that you will get it right at some point. Right? But it’s better to try than to not try.
Heather Taylor
And it makes it more memorable, I guess, as well. You know, if you’ve done an activity reading someone’s name, it’s easier you when you see them again to remember that. You know?
Sarah Watson
Because I’m terrible at forgetting names.
Heather Taylor
Yeah. Yeah. I am. Yeah.
Simon Overton 15:25
So the next, common issue and the next theme that we had that emerged from our research was engagement in the classroom. And the participants in the focus group appreciated teachers who actively engage with the class by asking questions to specific groups, creating activities that prompt discussion, going around the room to check or monitor, as we call it, active learning instead of passive learning, and so on.
One really lovely recommendation is to allow lecturers, tutors, and teachers to use different forms of feedback, feedback in class. It doesn’t all have to be verbal and there are lots of ways of doing that. So, and something that we used, in fact, as we were developing the resources was being able to write on post it notes first, get your ideas down. They can either be stuck up on a board, or they can be shared in a group, and you can have one person that feeds back that information, or not. Or it can just be there, then it can be photographed and shared on Canvas, or something like that afterwards.
It’s a bit resource intensive, but I’m quite a believer in mini whiteboards. I think they can be a really lovely way of getting people to feedback, especially if you’ve got a lecture theater that really demands, the sage on the stage to be standing there. The nice thing about whiteboards is that you can write on them and hold it out for the teacher to see. But other people can’t necessarily see it unless they especially turn around to have a look. So it’s a really nice way of getting somewhere in between the sort of privately written note or the anonymous bit of feedback and actually speaking up is somewhere in the middle of that. Obviously, Padlet is a great way of doing that. Getting people to write on the discussion forums that are on Canvas as well. So all of these different ways that you can feedback. It doesn’t have to be sort of hands up, every time.
Sarah Watson 17:21
The next theme to come out of the focus groups were what we’ve called respectful and meaningful learning communities. So I suppose that sort of sense of belonging in the teaching space. Our students wanted to get to know their peers more and they wanted to get to know their lecturers more and we know that content, there’s a lot of pressure for you to deliver your content in eleven weeks of teaching. There isn’t a lot of space, I empathise with that, but the students did talk about the value of staggering the introductions, of making some time to get to know the cohort, and they really appreciated it when the academics did take their time with that, because I think that set them up on quite a good path for the rest of, say, the upcoming kind of ten or nine weeks of teaching.
And there was also talk about differences of opinion coming up in the teaching space and managing that as well. And that can be really challenging, particularly if you’ve got students from different backgrounds. It doesn’t just have to be different cultural backgrounds. They only go in a different background where they might have opposing views. Keeping that quite a respectful and neutral space, a space where people feel brave that they can say and share their ideas, or their standpoint, but can do it in a respectful way so that doesn’t then tread it on anyone else’s boundary of safety. So it’s really hard, I think, to manage that as a lecturer.
But we were talking about the value of producing ground rules or etiquette with students towards the start of term, just to get them even just consciously thinking about what appropriate and not appropriate class behavior is, and really how they’re all responsible for generating positive behavior in the teaching space.
Wendy Garnham 19:07
I think that’s really important for all the students, isn’t it? Just to sort of set the scene of what’s okay and what’s perhaps not so okay.
Heather Taylor
I think it’s well, they never in my experience, they never want to offend anyone, And so you you almost want to save the person doing the offending from that, sort of, accident.
Sarah Watson
And that’s what the students were saying. Well, a couple of them in the focus group that I said something, and it wasn’t taken on board very well. And, actually, I got shut down. They didn’t go into specifics about what was said, but they said they found that a really negative learning experience because they weren’t trying to offend, and it was within a discussion context. And it is really challenging, isn’t it, to manage, that situation?
Simon Overton
Yeah. Absolutely. One thing that I took from that, and this is a very difficult thing to suggest, but, I think it was one of the one, maybe two of the students in the focus groups talked about how their, one of their teachers had a just a little sort of social event. They took one of their office hours and they had a picnic or something like that. And they that they loved that. But it wasn’t because it was a picnic. It was because they were in an informal context. They were able to ask stuff to their lecturer. And everybody else was around and could hear. It wasn’t because I feel a bit like the office hour, I suspect, you you’ve got a smallish office, and that that means that you sort of have people maybe waiting outside, and then they file in. Maybe if you’re lucky, the person behind you will hear the answer. But I suspect that a lot of the questions are repeated things. And for the sake of doing a little social activity, which itself is really lovely, giving people the chance to talk to you, and to and to have everybody listen, and to have everybody interacting in a different space, I think that’s such a wonderful thing to do. I know it might be quite a hard sell for perhaps some teachers that want to sort of finish up and leave it there and, you know, go back home, and they don’t want to go beyond the lecture hall or the or the or the office. But it was something that was really liked by students. And again, it’s another way to engage. It’s another way of allowing feedback to happen, and to generate, as we said here, the respectful and meaningful learning community.
Simon Overton 21:31
We also had some feedback from the students about unclear assessment information. I’ll just go through this one quite quickly. It was essentially that they have different ways, the countries that they’ve come from might have different education systems, and that it’s not always completely clear what is expected. And quite simply, having examples of that, having a list of, you know, this is what you need to say, this is how many words you need to write on it, and something like that. It might seem quite, what’s the word, prescriptive. But my feeling was, well, why not do that in year one? And then in year two a little bit less, and then by year three, hopefully they’ve taken that on board.
I mean, ultimately and the question of rubrics is quite a big one, of course, and probably beyond the scope of this particular discussion. But I really I feel that we are expecting our students to conform to or to approach a rubric or to answer for it in some way. So why not just give it to them? Why not just say, right, this is what you need to do. This is it. Be quite directive about it, and then people know and people have a tremendous feeling of security from that. And then, yeah, sort of wean them off it as the years go by.
Sarah Watson 22:52
The fifth theme was being unfamiliar with university support services. So participants shared that there, well they say there’s a lack of communication about resources and support. I’m not sure that there’s a lack of communication, but I think a lot of the time communication doesn’t get heard because there’s communication overload. It’s almost as though there’s too much communication.
And students were talking to us about, I didn’t know Canvas existed for five weeks until, you know, into the term or I didn’t know the Student Center was actually a physical space on campus that I could go to. Things that kind of blow your mind, but actually this information isn’t getting through to some people. And the students we work with were very switched on students, you know. So you think, well, actually, they’re really engaged students. And there will be some students that, for whatever reason, are less engaged than that and then probably don’t know that these services exist, or these platforms exist. And then that’s only going be to their detriment further. Do you see what I mean?
So I think 1 thing that we learned, that we probably anticipated it at the start was repeat repeat repeat information. Right? Never feel like you’re repeating too many times because actually it is useful even for the students that know a service exists for them to be reminded of it and say, this is here to support you. So these might be things like the Health Center, the Students Union, the Student Centre, information regarding kind of accommodation, all of these sorts of things. The students just wanted to know more about it, but they want to know about it earlier in the term. And they said if our lecturers give us that information, we will really listen. They listen to the academics, right, I think probably more than anyone because you’re in charge of their learning in that in the most direct way. Right? So, we took that on board. We thought that was really interesting.
Simon Overton 24:31
Yeah. And this is very similar to our last theme, which is being unfamiliar with University online resources. So it’s a very similar thing. So we’re talking about, Canvas, Sussex Direct, My Sussex, the library catalogue, and so on. Today, so I’ve been, aside from my normal job, I’ve been volunteering with Welcome Week and helping in the Student Centre. And I spent an hour today with a student, just going through making sure that he could, so just as by way of example, so first of all, getting on to Eduroam, which is complicated. You can’t just log on to the WiFi, you have to download an app. Making sure that he was on Okta Verify, so we now have multi factor verification authentication. So getting him on to that, making sure that he knew about Canvas and Sussex Direct, making sure that he knew that sometimes the information is going be on Canvas, and sometimes it’s going be on Sussex Direct, and it very much depends on the module or the or the teacher. Making sure that he knew how to download the various different apps that he would need, which is through Apps Everywhere, which is itself an app that you need to download. Making sure that he knew the difference between his username and his email address, and all of this stuff that I have actually had to deal with as well as a relatively new staff member. And this is not exactly a criticism. It would be quite nice if we had one app to rule them all. And in the darkness bind them. But so I do get it. But nevertheless, you know, as Sarah quite rightly said, these are these are students who are very switched on, very motivated. Technologically, they’re really up there. They know exactly what they’re doing with the tech.
There is definitely a lot of communication, but for one reason or another, it’s not necessarily getting through. It’s not manifesting. To make it practical, and 1 thing that I really liked very much, and I believe this was a suggestion from a student in the focus group, it was to go for the lecturer to go on to Canvas in the class, up on the screen, and say here’s your assessment information, this is how you get to it on Canvas. Because then it’s right there and everybody’s had a look at it. And to continually do that and not to feel afraid of doing it. This is why I would, as a primary school teacher, call modeling the desired behavior. So you show people exactly what you expect them to do.
Heather Taylor
I think showing people really is important. And, you know when we get told to do things, you know, like the staff and you’ve got an option, it’ll be like follow the instructions or watch the video. I’m going straight to the video because it’s much easier for me, and I think, yeah, that’s really important. And you know what? I do completely empathize with the students having information overwhelm, and having this overload and, you know, getting a bit stuck. But I really hadn’t thought you know, when you just listed all the things they had to do, I thought, oh, my. That’s so many. I’m not surprised they’re overwhelmed. Imagine if we just started here just today and had to do all this In a new country potentially in a new city. It’s like it’s so much. So it’s really important, I think, just to remind, you know, just to remind staff, remind, you know, lecturers that I think even if you’re a few weeks in, don’t get annoyed because there is a lot to take in. They’re not not trying to engage. They just don’t know what to engage with when.
Sarah Watson 28:08
That came out loud and clear, didn’t it? In one of the workshops, one of the students said, sometimes, and this was more about cultural references and content in the teaching, but they were just like, sometimes I have no idea what’s relevant and what isn’t relevant because I’ve got no context for this. Right? They gave a really nice example of, being in their seminar and maybe an academic going, off on a tangent, which is a great thing to do. I’m not we’re not saying don’t go off on a tangent about sort of, maybe an anecdote from them. But they were like, is that part of the course content? Do I need to write that down?
Heather Taylor
I literally had this today. I said I started talking about a paper I’d read once. I said, I’m not an expert on this particular thing, but I read a paper, and then I see him frantically writing it down. I went, oh, you I said, you can write it down if you like, but you don’t have to remember that because I won’t remember that I’ve said it. You know? It just happened to, yeah, it just happened to to come out of my brain. That’s really important, I think, for yeah. Let them know what’s important and what isn’t.
Wendy Garnham
It’s also sort of reflective of their experience before they come to us as well because I think in a lot of, you know, sort of education prior to university, they’re told this is what you need to know, and you just learn that information and regurgitate that information. Whereas, you know, coming to university, it doesn’t work like that. You know, it’s there’s a whole different approach to learning and I think we underestimate that sometimes. We just assume that because we’re so used to it, the students will immediately pick up on that and know exactly how that works. So I do think it’s important to remember that.
Heather Taylor
They don’t know when we’re illustrating a point versus actually making a point that we want them to know.
Sarah Watson
I think that’s why it’s not necessarily that don’t make those anecdotes. Don’t bring in that. Because we want you to bring in the personal aspects of your life that relate to your teaching, and that’s great. But I suppose it is then like you said with your students, don’t worry about that. Say, don’t worry about that. That’s not important. And the students said that, didn’t they? They said, I want to know what I need to focus on first for my assessment. Anything else that’s a nice to have, great. And I will do it if I have the time, but I need it prioritized.
Heather Taylor 30:16
I think this is a brilliant project. It’s really worthwhile. It’s really meaningful, and I love it. You know, you’ve already demonstrated that there’s loads of insights you’ve got from the students, which is just really important for us to know. But if you could sort of pick out some of the key achievements you think you’ve made with this project, that’d be really great.
Sarah Watson
We ran just ahead of welcome week. We ran some workshops with the students focusing on two key areas. So the first one was a workshop for teaching staff at the University on clarifying assessment practice, and the second was on intercultural teaching. And these workshops were co-designed with the students. So they designed the activities and the content and we worked together with them. That was a really fun process to go through. And we delivered them to a relatively small group of people, and we have, you know, the project with the students finished, last week so we can’t work with them anymore. You know, that was our funding. Our funding ran out. But we have got these resources, that we developed with the students so we can continue to run them, which is really nice. And so we’ve got the framework for the workshops, we’ve got the session plans, we’ve got the resources, and we are in conversation with the International Student Officer in the Student’s Union who’s very interested in the project as well and maybe getting other students in, to co deliver those workshops. And maybe, you know, they can tweak them or modify them depending on their own experiences, put their own voice in there. So we feel like these workshops have a future beyond this project.
Simon Overton
That was really lovely. I mean, just to to reemphasize that the students were there with us also presenting and teaching these workshops, which was a really good experience for them. And I think it had quite a profound impact on the participants. I mean, they were able to speak from really to speak from the heart. And I think that that was that was quite remarkable.
You always feel a bit nervous before a workshop, and especially when you’ve got somebody that’s you’ve sort of asked to do it and that maybe isn’t quite used to teaching before. So I was a little bit anxious, but when they sort of stood up there and were speaking so fluently about their experience, it was it was really, really quite remarkable.
Sarah Watson
And just to chip in there, I really noticed that some of the students, actually all of them, they could be quite shy. But when they actually got up in front of people, in front of academics to give their voice and their opinion, they didn’t want to stop. They really loved that. And I thought that was really nice to see because they did feel empowered to be presenting their opinion. They were so well informed, and they had such practical recommendations. It was just so good to work with them on that.
Wendy Garnham
It’s nice for staff as well, I think, to hear it firsthand from students and really sort of hear, you know, firsthand sort of what that experience is like and how different sort of teaching experiences were sort of received by the students. Because I think we make a lot of assumptions. So quite often it’s nice to just hear it straight, you know, how that particular modification was experienced.
Simon Overton 33:23
So we had some, it’s difficult to talk about this that in terms of the feedback because it feels like we’re blowing our own trumpet, but we did get some really positive feedback, in in all different places. So at the at the workshops, we had really great engagement and people coming up after afterwards, and also emailing to say how happy they were, and asking for us to share our resources. We got really positive and kind and encouraging feedback from the different departments that we talked to. And we and we did this ahead of producing, some of the resources, especially the resources that will last a long time, like the videos that we made. Because we consulted different departments. We consulted, people that are involved in English language teaching (ELAS), the comms department, and various other people. And we’re a bit worried. We’re like, oh, I hope we’re not going be treading on anybody’s toes, because it the project is quite, what’s the word – far reaching in its scope, which it should be, of course because it’s about the experience of international students. So we were worried that we might be treading on toes. But they were really, really kind and really cool, and said, wow, this sounds great, and yeah, we’d really like to have a look at this when it comes through, and please share it with us.
And also, what’s come out of this, then I mentioned just now about having some videos. I don’t think we’ve really talked about them quite yet. And to be fair, some things like this have existed in different forms in the past. But as time goes by, this information becomes slightly out of date. So we produced a range of videos with the students presenting them. And now I’m going to try and remember to list them, having spent hours and hours editing them. So we did one about ELAS, an introduction to ELAS. We did the Student Center. We did the Students Union. We did the Medical Center. We did an introduction to My Sussex, and also to Canvas. Yes. And again, these are really lovely, because we have our focus group students. And some of them have got great chemistry. They’re just very funny together on camera and very sweet, talking about that. And it’s very much in their own voice. We did sort of write a script, but they tended to improvise a little bit and to talk about it.
And I think while the preexisting videos were good in their own way, it’s quite nice to have a student introducing these things, and not to just have essentially a voice over on a PowerPoint presentation sort of going through how to how to use, for example, Canvas. So this was really, this was really nice to do. And we, in order to make these resources easy to access, we put all of this into a blog. It’s all properly sort of referenced and linked up with, where relevant, and they are resources that academics can use in the beginning of term or throughout term to tell students about the things that they will need to do. I mean, you would hope that the sort of Canvas, that would be quite near the beginning, but then some other things, maybe Student Center, maybe a little bit later on, and they can be introduced at different times.
Sarah Watson
So that blog was a response to the students saying, we want our academics to tell us about the key information. We thought, well, academics probably don’t have the time to go and find out about all of the different sort of services at the institution, but we have made videos, and an accompanying slide deck with just a bit of text on it as well if they just wanted to share that, that just explain the respective sort of student services that the students will find very useful for their time at Sussex. So we hope we’ve made a resource for academics to share with their students that’s really easy to use and it could just be played in lectures or uploaded onto Canvas, and will be one way of signposting students to relevant support services or tools and platforms that they’re going to need throughout their studies. And just very briefly, we are still in the process of finalising some web-based resources around the respective themes that we discussed. So we’ve got the workshops and we, created the welcome week blog post welcoming your students, to the University. And we’ve also got, web resources on clear assessment practice, building academic communities, inclusive student groups, and the last one, engagement in the classroom. So diversifying engagement in the classroom for diverse student groups. So there are four resources that will be finalized in October, and we’d like to share those across the sector as well. We don’t just want to have those across Sussex, and they are embedded within that is a student voice of the students to help co create those resources in their language, sorry, in their own words and it’s also got some great videos of the students talking about why maybe inclusive group work was important or why respectful learning communities was important. We really wanted to embed the student voice in there and not lose that when we stopped working with the students.
Simon Overton 38:45
Yeah. And another little practical aspect of this, which perhaps can have quite much wider applications, something that we got from one of the departments that we that we talked to during the process was that as Educational Enhancement, and our particular role, that is mine and Sarah’s department that we work for, it allows us to sort of take the side door into the lecture room a little bit, figuratively speaking. So that if, for example, we have a resource or a blog or a video that we share, quite often when other departments or other schools, are trying to produce something or trying to get some information to students, it goes in from the top at the at the school level. And they hope that maybe it will be, what’s the word, cascaded out. And I’m sure that is a very good way of working, and I’m sure that that does happen. But there is the potential for that not to happen, I suppose. And therefore, because we can sort of go in through the side, and because we can be enhancing, as it were, the education and say, well, look, why not try this? Why not show this resource? Why not, use this teaching method? That allows us to get in there in in places that we wouldn’t normally be able to. And I think that speaks to the impact, that this project has had and that other similar projects could have.
Wendy Garnham 40:18
So it sounds as though, this project has already started to have quite an impact on the international students. So I guess if we’re looking at advice for people listening, what’s one piece of advice you would give to anyone working with international students or thinking of applying for funding such as the Education and Innovation Fund for projects like this? Any ideas what advice you would give? What would you be your one piece of advice?
Sarah Watson
It’s like a cautionary tale. So we worked with ten [students] in total, eleven students over the summer, but one of our students had to leave early because they got a job – yay. So really ten students over the summer. And that was a great sort of breadth of perspective, students from different countries, but it was a huge amount of work managing the time and the contracts and ten different people, particularly in such a short time frame. I feel like we make August the longest month ever, don’t we? Everything we can’t fit into the rest of the year goes into August. Incredibly foolish and short sighted of me. And so I think if I did it again, I would have taken more time with the project. We were limited by the fact that we were working with postgraduate students, so they finished study in September. So we did only have a limited amount of time. Perhaps I would have maybe worked with different students. I’m not quite sure how we would have done it, but I think we did squeeze quite a lot into a short time frame. So on reflection, I would have taken longer over certain aspects of that work. But I do think we did spend quite a lot of time in the group, even though we didn’t have a lot of time getting to know the students. We ended up it ended up being a really nice space, didn’t it, where we I really felt like I did know all of them individually. And just as our guidance says, when kind of teaching students, do make making that time to get to know them and building a rapport with them if you can. It’s really difficult if you’re in a really large teaching space, but ten was a really nice number for us. And we did manage to do that. So I think that was a really valuable part of the project. And I don’t think we would have created the resources that we have so well if we hadn’t built that rapport with them and taken our time to get to know them and for them to get to know us as well.
Simon Overton
I think the for me the one piece of, advice, would be to engage with the other departments and the other people that you know, or even that you just think might be involved in the project that you are proposing to run. That was such an eye-opening thing to do. People did not feel like we were treading on their toes. They were overwhelmingly positive and encouraging about the work that we were planning to do. And we were so it’s funny to think back how nervous we were about approaching these different departments and thinking, oh, no, they’re going tell us to get lost, and that, you know, we’re overstepping what we should be doing. But they weren’t like that at all. And that was a really, really worthwhile thing to do, and something that I would really, really recommend, anybody running a project like this, to do. And I think specifically for the Education Innovation Fund.
Sarah Watson
So the application for the Education Innovation Fund, it’s quite a long application. I think that a piece of advice I would have is to make the project potentially a stand-alone project in itself. Though, as I say, for this project now we are going to be working with the International Student Officer in the Student Union. It has got longevity beyond the project, you know, over the summer, and the time frame that we worked within, but it is also a standalone project as well, where we developed outputs that can kind of last beyond sort of the project running, if that makes sense. But I think often for the Education Innovation Fund, I think people want to put in bids for projects that would then need further funding year on year on year on year. So I think the fact it is a stand-alone project does benefit in terms of being successful for the bid. And I also think I’m I think I mentioned this towards the beginning of the podcast is, if you can, dealing with an aspect of the student experience that does potentially feed into strategy, that it is relevant and it is timely. I’m sure that most people who are putting in bids are doing this as well, but even if you might be doing a project, you might be really interested in one aspect of student learning, but perhaps haven’t articulated why it feeds into the strategy. But I think making that point really clear is really good for getting, funding bids.
Heather Taylor
I would like to thank our guests, Sarah Watson and Simon Overton.
Sarah and Simon
Thank you. Thank you.
Heather Taylor
And thank you for listening. Goodbye.
Wendy Garnham
This has been the Learning Matters Podcast from the University of Sussex, created by Sarah Watson, Wendy Garnham, and Heather Taylor, and produced by Simon Overton. For more episodes as well as articles, blogs, case studies, and infographics, please visit The Learning Matters Forum.
Adnan Fakir is a Senior Lecturer in Economics at the University of Sussex and is currently the Course Director for BSc Economics. Adnan received his PhD in Economics from the University of Western Australia and MSc in Economics from the University of Sussex. His research interests are in development economics, focusing on health, political economy, labour, and gender. Adnan has a decade of prior teaching experience as a lecturer at BRAC University, Bangladesh, and the University of Western Australia. He has also worked as a consultant for the Mind, Behaviour and Development (eMBeD) Unit, the Social Protection & Jobs Global Practice, and the Education Global Practice at The World Bank, focusing on social safety nets, social registries, and female empowerment in Bangladesh.
What I did
As is common in Higher Education, students in my postgraduate module, Econometric Methods 1, are assigned scholarly articles to read in preparation for teaching sessions. I sought to enhance these readings for students by providing them an accompanying podcast. Each podcast consisted of an interview with the author of the paper during which we explored the main themes of the article.
Why I did it
A common problem that teaching staff may face is students’ lack of enthusiasm for reading assigned research papers and is one of the factors that can lead to instructor disappointment in students’ comprehension of assigned readings. This problem has been explored extensively in the literature (see: Doolittle et al., 2006; Khusniyah and Lustyantie, 2017; Kulhavy and Swenson, 1975; Starcher and Profitt, 2011), however most of this focusses on reading comprehension rather than encouraging reading in the first place.
From speaking with my students it seemed that the human element was lacking and that providing this component and further context would enable them to engage more fully with these resources.
Some (selected) quotes from students:
“I understand how the readings are important but they are immensely dry.”
“…All these numbers and graphs in the reading make me feel like we are turning people into numbers.”
“…I am thinking about what I read and am cognitively involved but I don’t feel the discussion.”
“The readings are great but would love to know more about what the authors thought about when doing the study and what was their motivation. What is their story?”
How it works
The process began with selecting papers that aligned with the syllabus and utilised relevant economic methodologies. After selecting the papers, the next step, coordinating interviews with the authors, proved to be the most challenging as many of the authors were located across different time zones.
I approached the interviews with a dual perspective, thinking not just from my point of view but also anticipating what questions my students might have. I invited students to submit questions beforehand, which allowed me to tailor the interviews to their interests, and added a layer of personalisation to the podcasts.
The interviews themselves typically lasted around an hour, during which the authors discussed both the technical aspects of their research and the broader implications of their work. The editing process was time-intensive, often taking 6 to 7 hours per episode. The episodes were then uploaded to YouTube, where they were made available not just to my students but to a wider audience.
I also dedicated the final 15 minutes of selected seminars to a live Q&A session where students could directly interact with the authors whose papers they had studied. During these sessions about 60% of students’ questions were technical, however the remaining 40% were personal questions about the authors’ motivations and experiences. This direct engagement brought the research to life, humanising the academic content and significantly increasing student participation and enthusiasm in class discussions.
Impact and student feedback
The impact of this approach was noticeable in student engagement. While previous discussions around assigned readings were often subdued, the addition of podcasts significantly increased participation. Students were not just listening passively; they became curious and asked a broader range of questions during seminars.
Interestingly, the podcasts gained unexpected traction, particularly in India, where several of the featured researchers were either from or had ties to. This allowed the series to extend beyond the classroom, making economic research accessible to a much broader audience in an accessible format.
Future plans
In response to the feedback, I plan to extend this project by incorporating a more diverse range of papers and authors, particularly from regions like Sub-Saharan Africa. The goal is to make the papers more relevant to the students’ backgrounds while providing a wider perspective on development economics.
Another improvement I am considering is better timing for author-student interactions during seminars. Currently, these interactions take place at the end of the class, which leaves little time for reflection. Moving this discussion to an earlier part of the session would allow for more dynamic conversations, and possibly, more immediate reflection from students. I also intend to shorten future podcasts to around 15 minutes, given the natural engagement drop-off I observed at the 20-minute mark on YouTube.
Top tips
Focus on human stories: Bring out the human element in the research to increase engagement. Students are more likely to connect with the material if they can understand the real-world impact behind it.
Know your audience: Tailor the content to your students. Conducting a pre-course survey can help you align the material with their backgrounds and interests.
Integrate networking: Including opportunities for students to interact with researchers not only improves engagement but can also help students build valuable professional networks.
Sam Hemsley, Academic Developer, discusses the pedagogical perspectives on high stakes final examinations:
Generative AI has, understandably, led to calls from many academics for a return from online to in-person exams. My role, along with my colleagues in the Educational Enhancement (EE) Team, is to provide pedagogic advice and support for curriculum design best practice and innovation in teaching, learning and assessment. Decisions about when and where in-person exams are permitted, and the resource and infrastructure to support them, are not ours in EE to make. What we can do, however, is provide insights from the pedagogical literature to help colleagues make research informed decisions about how best to assess their students.
An overview of the pedagogic literature
A 2024 paper in the journal Higher Education by French, Dickerson, and Mulder, titled ‘A review of the benefits and drawbacks of high-stakes final examinations in higher education’, provides a useful summary of the pedagogic evidence across seven common themes: memory recall and knowledge retention; student motivation and learning; authenticity and real-world relevance; validity and reliability; academic misconduct and contract cheating; stress, anxiety and wellbeing; and fairness and equity. These themes are expanded on at the end of this post where a summary of the pros and cons against each theme is provided.
In summary, French et al’s scoping review identifies that, while high stakes unseen exams can be shown to have certain pedagogic benefits, such as enhancing memory recall, motivating some students, and ensuring academic integrity, the benefits are often outweighed by significant drawbacks related to student well-being, and surface learning strategies. The authors also raise serious questions around the validity and reliability of high stakes exams due to their potential to generate academic inequity owing to differential performances based on gender, socio-economic status, race and ethnicity and disability. They conclude that:
“...heavy reliance on high-stakes final examinations in many university subjects is poorly justified by the balance of empirical evidence, and that traditional examinations (closed-book, individual, invigilated, time-constrained, summative, final, and high-stakes) have limited pedagogical value.”
(French et al, 2024, 908)
Of course, alternatives to exams are not perfect. Nevertheless, against many other measures, coursework, even when high stakes, has been shown to reduce awarding gaps, improve student satisfaction and pass rates and the consistency of marks across types of assessment (see Compton 2023 and sources therein). Also, a review of the literature on coursework versus examinations as end of module assessments (Richardson 2015), identified that, although larger class sizes can be seen to correlate with lower average student attainment, this is only the case with assessment by examination. In contrast:
“…the adoption of assessment by coursework appears to attenuate the effect of class size, and the exclusive adoption of assessment by coursework appears to eliminate the effect altogether.”
(Richardson, 2015, 443)
If we return to the more recent summary of the literature by French et al, they conclude that:
“While effective exam design and delivery measures can reduce cheating opportunities, academic integrity concerns alone do not provide compelling grounds for maintaining an overreliance on high-stakes examinations. Educational institutions should explore a broader range of assessment methods that better align with the evolving challenges of academic misconduct in the digital age.”
(French et al, 2024, 906)
This suggests that, high stakes examinations should be used sparingly and in-person assessments used to assure programme level learning outcomes only where other forms of assessment cannot. Such a whole course approach then enables the planning of curricular and assessments so students’ skills and confidence are developed over their degree. This might include, for example, building student skills and confidence in undertaking oral assessment such as vivas (which has, for example, been used in Life Sciences for many years ) or delivering presentations of their work (either in progress or the end product) and responding to questions from the marker.
Provided below is a summary of the key points raised in French et al (2013) and research discussed therein. Note that observations about fairness and equity are woven throughout.
Memory recall and knowledge retention
In-person exams can improve memory recall and retention of information, known as the “testing effect” or “test-enhanced learning”. Studies in cognitive psychology indicate that testing, rather than just studying, produces greater retention of knowledge.
However, the format of high-stakes exams, usually as end-of-term assessments, does not align with the most effective ways to enhance long-term retention. Regular, low-stakes tests or quizzes are shown to be more beneficial for knowledge retention.
Student motivation and learning
High-stakes exams can motivate students to study and prepare more diligently, which can lead to better learning outcomes. The pressure to perform well on significant assessments can drive students to engage more deeply with the material.
Nonetheless, this type of motivation is often extrinsic, driven by the desire to achieve high grades rather than intrinsic motivation for learning. This can lead to surface learning strategies focused on memorisation rather than a deeper understanding of the material.
Validity and reliability
When well-designed, in-person exams can provide a reliable (i.e. internally consistent and accurate) measure of student achievement and knowledge. They can be standardised and invigilated to ensure fairness and consistency in assessment.
However, the literature highlights the validity (i.e. whether it measures what it is supposed to) and reliability of high-stakes exams is undermined by considerable evidence that they have the potential to generate academic inequity due differential performances based on gender, socio-economic status, race and ethnicity, all of which intersects with impacts on wellbeing and student learning, and the limited ability of exams to measure higher-order thinking skills and real-world application.
Academic Integrity
In-person, invigilated exams are believed to reduce opportunities for academic misconduct and cheating compared to other forms of assessment. The controlled environment of in-person exams can make it more difficult for students to engage in dishonest practices.
Despite this belief, empirical evidence suggests that academic misconduct can still occur in in-person exams, and alternative forms of assessment can also be designed to minimize cheating.
Anxiety and wellbeing
There is substantial evidence that examinations cause elevated distress and anxiety which some studies suggest can promote study and preparation and improve performance in some.
Although the impact of examination anxiety on student performance is inconclusive, the proven adverse effects of examinations on student mental health and wellbeing is concerning, as is the fact that stress can also demotivate learners and lead to surface learning and poor memory retrieval.
Authenticity and real-world readiness
Proponents argue that in-person exams can mimic real-world situations where individuals must recall information and make decisions under pressure without external aids, which is relevant in fields like medicine and law.
However, the artificial nature of exam conditions often does not reflect the complexities and collaborative nature of real-world tasks, limiting the authenticity and real-world relevance of such assessments.
Acknowledgment: The key points from French et al provided above are edited from an initial summary generated by a private ChatGPT4 Enterprise.
French, S., Dickerson, A. & Mulder, R.A. (2024) A review of the benefits and drawbacks of high-stakes final examinations in higher education. High Education 88, 893-918. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10734-023-01148-z
Richardson, J. T. E. (2014). Coursework versus examinations in end-of-module assessment: a literature review. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, 40(3), 439–455. https://doi.org/10.1080/02602938.2014.919628
Smith, C. (2011). Examinations and the ESL student–more evidence of particular disadvantages. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, 36(1), 13-25. https://doi.org/10.1080/02602930903173959
Dave Smalley, Senior Lecturer in the School of Psychology and winner of a 2023 ‘Inclusive Sussex’ Education Award, explains his approach to encouraging reflection and building a sense of community and supported collaboration in the classroom.
What I do
My approach to teaching and learning is, wherever possible, to make my teaching as interactive and engaging as possible. I also try to take my students in a learning journey, through which they are encouraged to draw on their own experiences to develop insights into the relevance and applications of psychological models and approaches.
How I do it
My final year module, Educational Psychology, is taught primarily through large workshops with half the cohort at a time (so I do have to double teach) and includes what I like to refer to as ‘pseudo-experiential learning’ although it’s probably better described as retrospective reflections. Students are encouraged to reflect on their experiences of education, family and mental health as children. The idea is that they apply an understanding of psychology theory and research attained through the prep activities/readings and tutor-led delivery of content workshops to make sense of their childhood experiences. For example, we can apply an understanding of self-presentational awareness to understand why being in a lower set for maths is demotivating. Eventually, they will learn to apply their understanding of psychology research and theory by applying professional frameworks (much as an educational psychologist would) so pedagogically, we are using student reflections to develop important employability skills for those wishing to become applied psychologists.
So how does this create community and collaboration? Firstly, the process of reflecting and sharing one’s experiences with others acts as a form of disclosure which develops intimacy and connectedness among students. Every student’s experiences are listened to and valued without judgement, and students are reminded that this is about considering a range of different perspectives, not about arriving at the ‘right answer’. The approach is particularly influential when working with students from a range of nationalities. Secondly, students are encouraged to reflect on what they valued in teachers and learning experiences in the past and to consider why they valued said teaching/learning experiences. Typically, students come to the same conclusions as the evidence supports – learning is most effective when the learners are treated like individuals and as collaborative learners, which of course is exactly what the teaching approach emphasises, so the students really get on board with it. Thirdly, the whole experience feels very relatable and relevant for students and gives them a shared goal which is key for collaboration. I often see a group of students highly motivated to ‘fix education’ as a team! An ambitious goal, but an excellent learning mindset nevertheless!
Preparing students for assessment
The reflective tasks during teaching sessions model the approach that I want students to take in their reflective portfolios. They are to identify something relevant to the topic covered in each week that is especially important to them, then seek some evidence to support/refute their position (thus promoting independent reading). This portfolio encourages continuous engagement throughout the module and scaffolds students in working at the intersection of research/theory and professional practice, something that is then assessed in the end of year exam. At the end of the module, I can guarantee that every student will have something meaningful and personal to say about every topic covered which is a fantastic outcome.
As well as the in-class activities, I provide prompts for reflection on the Canvas pages dedicated to each workshop. I also ask students to maintain their portfolios on One Note which means that I can dip in, identify some great examples of reflections and share them with the class.
Student feedback
I have been incredibly fortunate to receive a number of Education Award nominations from students over the years which suggests I’m doing something right! Nominations for my 2023 Inclusive Sussex award included:
“Dave’s Educational Psychology module stood out from the rest of my lectures as there was a real sense of community and collaboration in these lessons. Not only were we learning content but we were able to put what we learning into practice and see first-hand how others were able to tackle the same task. “
“an engaging and friendly lecturer, connecting with his students so that they feel heard and recognised. His teaching style is fun and informative, always opening up the lecture hall to ask questions and interact with the content. Im never bored or tired of his teaching, its a real pleasure learning from him and feeling like a worthy student in his class.”
Top tips
If you want to do something similar:
Consider what encourages you to work effectively in small groups and try to bring those features to your group working activities. Relatedness, relevance, and the absence of a ‘correct answer’ work really well for me.
Prioritise ‘interesting to students’ over ‘important academically’. The academic understanding will soon follow!
Portfolios are an amazingly effective way to integrate group working activities into assessment and to scaffold students learning as the module progresses. They are a great example of assessment for learning so I strongly recommend you consider bringing them into your assessment if you want to apply a similar approach in your class.
Dr Rona Hart is a Senior Lecturer in Applied Positive Psychology in the School of Psychology at the University of Sussex and is the Course Leader for The Psychology of Kindness and Wellbeing at Work.
What I Did
In January 2023, I began integrating AI tools into student assignments in my Level 6 and Level 7 modules at the School of Psychology, University of Sussex. The initiative aimed to expose students to AI technologies in a structured, educational context. My goal was to enable students to explore these tools, providing them with the guidance needed to use AI both effectively and responsibly.
Why I Did It
The primary motivation for allowing students to use AI tools in their assignments was to provide them with the opportunity to engage with these technologies in a structured and supportive academic environment. As AI continues to develop, I believe it is essential for students to gain direct experience with these tools, while also receiving the necessary guidance and training to maximise their benefits and mitigate potential risks. My goal is to equip students with the knowledge, skills, and understanding required to navigate AI technology effectively. By encouraging a critical and informed approach to AI, I aim to enrich students’ learning experiences and prepare them for a future where AI will likely play an increasingly prominent role. Furthermore, the University had set guidelines permitting module leaders to decide on AI use in assignments, therefore offering module leaders a reliable, well-considered framework to introduce these tools responsibly.
How It Works
The process started with a review of the University’s policies regarding AI usage. Although no formal policy existed at the time, I made sure our approach adhered to emerging guidelines. The next step was to assess the suitability of assignments for AI integration. This included testing various AI tools, such as ChatGPT and Gemini, to ensure that assignments couldn’t be easily completed by merely inputting the questions into the AI.
For example, in my Level 6 module, students are tasked with writing a book review of a relevant book of their choice. To ensure the assignment’s integrity, I imposed several restrictions on this choice:
The book must be an academic work authored by academic professionals.
The publication date should fall within the last five years (2019 to 2024), ensuring the selected books are less likely to be included in AI tool databases.
Students are required to discuss content that is unlikely to be found in existing book reviews or automatically generated by AI tools.
The assignment requires students to include specific sections that require students to break the task down, and use different prompts for each section to generate meaningful responses from the AI tool.
Additionally, students are required to include a reflection on their use of AI as part of their submission. This segment is graded but does not contribute to the overall word limit.
Clear guidelines were established, including the mandatory AI statement for assignments, guidance on how to use AI tools, and instructions how to reflect on their use of AI tools in their work (the text for these can be found in the Resources section of this post). To complement this, I also created a short AI training video covering the following elements:
An overview of AI tools and guidelines on how students are permitted to use them.
A demonstration of using ChatGPT with various prompts, including some that produced low-quality results. In the video, I showcased these problematic prompts and the resulting text from ChatGPT, followed by a review of the output to highlight its weaknesses and errors. For instance, I used examples to raise awareness of AI hallucinations and fictitious references by showing prompts that might lead to such issues.
A demonstration of how to generate higher-quality responses, while emphasising that even improved outputs still contained inaccuracies that needed to be checked, scrutinised, and used carefully.
An introduction to additional techniques, such as idea generation, creating essay outlines, shortening sections, and rephrasing contents.
Alongside the use of video, during the assessment guidance session, students were encouraged to experiment with an AI tool of their choice in small groups. They discussed the advantages and limitations of using AI tools and shared ideas on how to effectively engage with these tools in relation to the specific assignment.
Impact and Student Feedback
The initial implementation of AI in assignments produced mixed yet insightful outcomes. Approximately 72% of students utilised AI tools, with ChatGPT being the most widely used. Many students noted that AI enhanced the structure, coherence, and overall quality of their work. ESL (English as a Second Language) students, in particular, found AI helpful in improving their written English. However, a small proportion of students became overly reliant on AI, resulting in repetitive or superficial arguments, and in some cases, the inclusion of fictitious references.
Student feedback also indicated some apprehension, as certain students opted not to use AI due to concerns about its accuracy, potential bias, and the risk of it overshadowing their original work. Despite these concerns, many students valued the opportunity to experiment with AI, acknowledging that it enhanced their understanding of how to use these tools effectively.
Top Tips
Evaluate different AI tools to ensure that assignments can’t be easily completed by simply inputting the questions.
To maintain the integrity of the assignment, set clear limitations, such as restricting the selection of materials or topics. This ensures students engage thoughtfully with the task.
Develop clear and structured guidelines outlining how students are permitted to use AI tools. A mandatory AI statement in assignments, coupled with explicit instructions on appropriate usage, can help guide students and align expectations.
Create opportunities for students to experiment with AI tools in a supervised setting. Offer demonstrations highlighting both the strengths and limitations of AI-generated content.
Include a reflective component in assignments where students are invited to evaluate their use of AI. This encourages responsible usage and helps students think critically about how AI impacts their work.
Resources
AI statement
As required by the guidelines, an AI statement was included on the assignment pages in Canvas:
“In this assignment, you are permitted to use AI tools. You are encouraged to experiment with different AI tools while completing this assignment.
While AI tools offer multiple advantages and can help in terms of efficiency, it is critical to approach them with a discerning eye.
Students should therefore:
Verify the accuracy of information generated by AI, as these tools can sometimes produce incorrect information, incomplete coverage, and repetitive content.
Be aware of potential algorithmic biases and experiment with different prompts to better understand how the tools function.
Use AI tools to complement and enhance your work, rather than allowing them to dominate your work.
Avoid relying too heavily on AI for analysis, depth, coverage, opinion, or critical thinking, as these are known limitations of AI tools.”
The statement permits the use of AI tools but also emphasises their known limitations. Additionally, this statement, along with a more detailed discussion of the advantages and disadvantages of AI tools, was presented during the essay guidance session.
AI reflections
Students were provided with the following guidance regarding their reflection on the use of AI tools:
“Describe which AI tool you used, why you selected it, and the prompts you experimented with.
If you chose not to use AI tools, explain your reasoning.
Reflect on the advantages and challenges you encountered while using the tool.”
The following resources were co-created by colleagues from Educational Enhancement and ten non-EU international students at the University of Sussex.
The University of Sussex students who collaborated on the project
Familiarising your students with the University
The students we worked with spoke about the value of having key University information highlighted by their lecturers in the first few weeks of term. They stated that students are often unaware of these services, even if they have been introduced to them during welcome week. We know that students are most likely to listen to the academics who are teaching them, which is why it is important that this information also comes from you. One student stated:
It is important to remind students of the services available at the beginning of the semester as it enables them to get the right information they need to excel academically and break any form of confusion in blending into the UK education system.
Student quote, from the focus group: Supporting the International Student Experience at Sussex and beyond 2024
These slides highlight some key services and tools related to living and studying at Sussex. We recommend that you share the slide in class so that students are reminded of the support available.
Here is a breakdown of some of the key the information on the slide. We have highlighted this information as we realise you may wish to signpost to certain services and tools, rather than sharing the slide as a whole.
Canvas
The students continually praised the University’s use of Canvas. They appreciated that it stored all course and module information in one place and that it was often used as a space for class cohorts to come together and connect. However, many students commented that at the start of their course, they didn’t know how to navigate Canvas and weren’t aware of the excellent content it contained. One student commented:
I think Canvas is really helpful. It has everything from – well I think it’s going a little overboard if I say everything, but it has, I think, a lot of things that a student needs to navigate throughout the course. But there’s this one thing that I feel is lacking, that’s making students acquainted with what Canvas really has. It took me some time to navigate throughout it and to understand all the resources that it has got, and it has plenty. But I think many people find it difficult. In fact, most of them don’t even know the resources that they have access to and what the privileges that they are getting through Canvas.
Student quote, from the focus group: Supporting the International Student Experience at Sussex and beyond 2024
To help students become more familiar with Canvas, this video highlights the tool’s key features, and introduces students to Sussex Direct too. You can share this with students by linking the video on your Canvas site, or simply by playing the video to students in one of your classes. We hope you find it useful.
ELAS
If students have English as an additional language, English Language for Academic Study (ELAS) provides free workshops, tutorials, drop-ins and time to write sessions to develop knowledge and understanding of academic language, skills and culture. Learn more about ELAS through this student video and students can enrol via the ELAS webpage. ELAS is based in the Department of Language Studies in Arts A. Find Arts A circled in red on the campus map.
The Student Centre
The Student Centre unites all the student support services at the University. Students can contact the Centre if they have questions or concerns about living and studying at Sussex. Find out more about the excellent services that sit within the Student Centre via this student video. Find the location of the Student Centre circled in red on the campus map. The welcome desk is open 8.30am-5pm, Monday-Friday or call 01273 075700, 9am-4.30pm, Monday-Friday.
Skills Hub
The Skills Hub is an online resource that helps students to develop the academic skills that are essential for studying at Sussex. Learn more about the benefits of the Skills Hub in this student video.
My Sussex
My Sussex is an online tool that offers personal and academic support. Find out more about the services contained in My Sussex in this student video.
Health Centre
The University has an on-campus NHS health centre. Find out why it is important to register with the health centre in this student video. Students and staff can register as a new patient online and can find the location of the health centre circled in red on the campus map.
The Students’ Union
The University of Sussex Students’ Union exists to make student life better. Find out the different ways the Union can support life and studies while at Sussex in this student video. The Union is located in Falmer House, which you can find on the campus map.
The importance of getting to know one another
We recognize the challenge of fitting all key content into modules and courses. However, the value of staggering your introductions in seminars and creating space for students to get to know both you and their peers cannot be underestimated from both an academic and a wellbeing perspective. Getting to know your students’ backgrounds can shed light on factors that may impact their learning, such as living situations, learning differences, cultural backgrounds, finances, relationships, independence, and work. While you can’t amend your teaching to best suit everyone’s circumstances, having an understanding of the multitude of backgrounds that comprise your cohort can help build an empathetic, inclusive, and diverse learning environment. Spending time getting to know one another will also facilitate socializing among students. Despite a desire to integrate, it can be challenging for students to mix with others, especially those from different backgrounds. One student commented:
There’s the whole culture clash between different kinds of international students, as well as the home students, as well as between the different ethnic groups of one country. So, yeah, sometimes socialization is in a bubble … your social life is often limited to either international students within your country or something even a specific ethnic group within your country as well. So yeah, socialization is a huge challenge.
Student quote, from the focus group: Supporting the International Student Experience at Sussex and beyond 2024
Here are some suggestions for getting to know one another
Introductory slides. You can make a shared folder on OneDrive for seminar groups, and encourage students to create a few introductory slides about themselves. You could upload your own as an example. The slides could contain images or short videos representing students’ backgrounds and interests. For example, flags of countries they have lived in.
Knowing, and pronouncing, one another’s names. An important part of getting to know one another is taking the time to learn how to pronounce each student’s name. This practice serves as a great equalizer! When taking the register, read out each student’s name and ask them to repeat it back to you. Explain that this helps you ensure correct pronunciation. If needed, repeat their name back to them with the correct pronunciation. This approach demonstrates to the class that it’s okay not to pronounce every name correctly on the first try, and with practice, everyone will be able to pronounce each other’s names accurately. For more guidance, see our resource on pronouncing Chinese names.
Get students working in groups. Getting students working together is a great way to build academic and social connections in class. See our guidance on facilitating inclusive group work.
In-class polling. The initial teaching sessions hold significant importance for both you and your students. It provides an opportunity to share expectations and clarify any doubts that your students may have about the course/module. If possible, get to know your students in class. While this is challenging in large lectures, it can be achieved through in-class polling. You can ask students to share something about themselves, their interests, concerns or questions about the course or module.
This resource was generated from an Education and Innovation Funded project aimed at closing the international awarding gap. To help understand why this gap exists, ten international students participated in a focus group to discuss their experiences at the University. A key theme from the focus group was the importance of feeling welcomed into the institution, particularly through getting to know lecturers and peers in teaching spaces, and understanding key University support systems. Drawing on the focus group discussions, the students then worked hard to develop resources aimed at helping you welcome your students to Sussex. They hope you find these resources useful.
In this Case Study, Doran explains how he combined his interests in neuroscience, contemplative practices, and science communication to design and run a final-year outreach project for Life Science students, and what he learnt from the process. A fuller account of Doran’s pedagogic rationale and approach can be found in his June 2024 paper published in the JUICE (Journal of Useful Investigations in Creative Education) special issue on contemplative pedagogy.
For their final year projects, Life Science students can choose between an experimental, data analysis, literature, or outreach project. I designed and supervised a final-year outreach project during which I guided six students to plan and prepare for a two-day outreach event in collaboration with the University’s Wellbeing team. The event was themed around mental health — specifically, how breathwork techniques, such as resonance breathing (a type of slow, regular breathing), can affect heart rate variability (HRV) and reduce stress.
At the start of term, the project students were each given a wearable heart rate monitor and invited to try out a couple of breathwork techniques at home in the weeks before the event. They installed the free app EliteHRV, which guided them through the techniques and gave them live feedback on their HRV during the breathwork.
After much planning and poster printing, the event was held at the Student Centre on campus in Autumn term 2023 with the aims of:
Educating participants about the science of stress, including the role of the autonomic nervous system in stress and HRV as a physiological correlate of stress;
Engaging participants by inviting them to participate in a “citizen science” experiment to compare how two breathwork techniques affect HRV and stress levels;
Introducing participants to practical tools to support their breathwork practice in the future, such as breathwork/HRV apps and a wearable heart rate monitoring device for HRV biofeedback.
During the event, the students were actively engaged in guiding participants through the breathwork techniques with the help of the app, building on their own first-hand experiences in the weeks before. The students collected both experimental “citizen science” data about the impact of breathwork, as well as questionnaire feedback from participants about their experiences of the event, which both contributed to their assessed project work.
Why I did it
I designed this project to make good use of my expertise in neuroscience, contemplative practices, and science communication. I offered it as a way for students to learn not just about the theoretical science of stress, but to have the opportunity to explore the effects of the breathwork techniques experientially. I wanted to find out whether supporting students to make connections between their lived experience and theoretical learning could deepen their motivation and engagement, depth of understanding, and invite fresh thinking and new perspectives. I also hoped that it would help them to benefit the mental health of the wider student community and foster a space for compassionate discussion around these issues.
The project provided a creative container for exploring broader themes of interest to me, such as mind–body interactions and novel approaches to stress and mental health. It was a “light touch” first try at incorporating first-person, experiential modes of enquiry into my teaching, which are typically de-emphasised in university-level science education. In the future, I hope to develop on what I have learnt, perhaps by inviting students to write a reflective journal on their bodily sensations before and after the breathwork techniques and linking this to theoretical knowledge about the autonomic nervous system in group meetings.
Impact and student feedback
Following the project, I collected feedback from the project students, which demonstrated how the experiential learning opportunities of the project helped students to develop their confidence, communication skills, team-work and creativity, along with enabling them to experience directly how their personal and scientific understanding can benefit the wider community.
For example, a prominent theme discussed by students was confidence, as well as the perhaps related themes of communication and a compassionate motivation to help others:
“I am truly grateful for being given this opportunity to use my neuroscience background knowledge to help others to benefit their well-being. Not only has this event boosted my confidence in speaking to strangers, it has also taught me the importance in bringing awareness to topics such as mental health and overall well-being.”
Students also highlighted the theme of community or collaboration, recognising the value of learning both as a team of project students and also in relationship with the wider community of participants at the event:
“We conducted a research project focused on scientific outreach, hosting an event on campus to educate students about heart rate variability (HRV) and introduce scientifically proven breathing techniques for HRV improvement … This experience not only fostered collective learning within our team, but also enabled us to take the participating university students and staff on the journey of learning together with us.”
Top tips
Start simple – doing the outreach activity on campus can make it a lot easier to arrange.
Consider organising the project for a team of students if possible — this allows them to support and motivate each other, whilst providing opportunities for each to contribute their unique talents to the project.
Give the students a week-by-week plan to follow — this is especially important if you need ethical approval, as this needs to be in place well before the event.
Don’t shy away from a project design that needs ethical approval — the ethics application can be an effective focus early on in the project for the students to concretely plan what the event will be about and how and when it will run.
Make sure you plan time for a pilot event — this will allow the students to practice their roles and get valuable feedback from the guinea pigs (normally their friends)!
Think carefully about which kinds of lived experience you ask or encourage students to draw on (e.g. by keeping the focus on common, everyday experiences such as stress) — avoid topics that are likely to be overwhelming or triggering for some.
Doran Amos has been a Lecturer in Neuroscience (Education & Scholarship) at the University of Sussex since 2022. Prior to becoming a teaching-focussed lecturer, he pursued a career in academic research, beginning with a PhD, which he completed in 2011 at University College London under the supervision of Prof. John O’Keefe. His doctoral work focused on how spatial navigation and memory are supported by specialised “place cells” in the rodent brain. Following this, he continued with post-doctoral research on these topics in humans, before joining the University of Sussex in 2016 to investigate navigation in ants with Prof Paul Graham and Prof Andy Philippides.
In addition to his interests in neuroscience, Doran has a long-standing passion for contemplative practices such as mindfulness, which he has engaged with primarily through the Plum Village lineage of Zen Buddhism. He lived for 15 months in Plum Village monastery in France before moving to Brighton in 2016. He also loves writing and has worked freelance as a scientific writer since 2016, creating scientific blog articles and social media posts for a variety of audiences.
Mirela Barbu is a Senior Lecturer in Supply Chain Management, who joined the Business School in 2019 following the completion of her PhD in Economic Geography at the University of Sussex in 2013. Transitioning from teaching geography to engaging with a diverse and international student cohort in a business school has been a stimulating and enriching experience. This new environment has provided Mirela with the opportunity to innovate her teaching methods, fostering collaboration and promoting cultural exchange among her students. One of the most rewarding aspects of her role has been the unexpected challenge of teaching management consulting, leveraging her decade-long experience as a consultant at the institutional level.
What I Did
This unique and innovative teaching approach leverages collaboration with areas of our university which are not usually involved in education. Instead of the usual research-heavy approach, I developed a consultancy assessment for the module Business Analysis and Consulting, a masters level module in the Business School which provides students with hands-on experience in management consulting. Over the years, I’ve collaborated closely with the university’s Estates and Facilities Division, particularly with Helen Power-Hosking, to create a real-world consulting environment for students.
Why I Did It
The idea behind this assessment came about somewhat serendipitously when Helen Power-Hosking, Head of Commercial Services, knocked on my office door by mistake. This chance encounter led to a conversation about my work, and soon after, the consultancy report was born. The primary motivation was to offer students a practical, hands-on learning experience that would prepare them for the real challenges of management consulting. I wanted to create an environment where students could apply their academic knowledge to solve real problems, thereby enhancing their employability and soft skills, which are often not fully developed in a traditional classroom setting.
How It Works
The consultancy report is a group-based assessment where students work with a real client, in this case the Estates and Facilities Division. Each year, the client provides a brief on a particular issue, such as improving campus services or understanding student energy consumption patterns. Students are divided into teams and tasked with collecting data, analysing it, and presenting their findings to the client. The process is designed to mirror a real consulting environment, complete with client interactions, data collection, and final presentations to senior management. The top-performing teams even get the opportunity to present their work to the division’s management as a reward.
Impact and Student Feedback
The impact of this assessment has been profound, both for the students and for the university. Students often describe it as the most challenging yet rewarding experience of their academic careers. They appreciate the real-world application of their skills and the opportunity to work on something that feels genuinely important. The assessment pushes them to develop critical skills like teamwork, communication, and time management. For the Estates and Facilities Division the report provides valuable insights and data that they wouldn’t otherwise be able to gather, making it a mutually beneficial endeavour.
Future Developments
Looking ahead, I plan to continue refining and developing this module. Each year brings new challenges and opportunities and I’m always looking for ways to improve my students’ experience. The assessment’s success relies heavily on the enthusiasm and cooperation of our client, particularly Helen Power-Hosking. As long as we can maintain these strong relationships, I believe the consultancy report will continue to thrive. We are already discussing potential briefs for the next academic year and I’m excited to see where this journey takes us.
Top Tips
Embrace challenges When faced with a new or unfamiliar task, like redesigning a module, consider it an opportunity to innovate. This mindset can lead to unexpected and rewarding outcomes.
Build strong partnerships The success of this assessment hinges on strong, collaborative relationships, engaging with an enthusiastic stakeholder, and seeing the mutual benefits of working with students.
Focus on real-world application Designing a project that mirrors real-world scenarios can significantly enhance students’ learning experiences and better prepare them for their future careers.
Be flexible and supportive Allow students some degree of freedom in how they approach the assessment. This flexibility helps them feel more invested and encourages them to take ownership of their work.
Prepare students gradually Building the necessary skills for such a demanding assessment should start early. Integrate skill-building exercises into your module from the outset to ensure students are ready when the time comes.
