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Case study: A cross-departmental approach to consistency in the VLE for Archaeology

Department of Archaeology
Michelle Alexander and Jess Bates

Michelle Alexander and Jess Bates give an overview of how they approached the transition to Blackboard Ultra in the Department of Archaeology. Some key points they mention are:

  • Consistent Structure - All modules follow a uniform weekly structure marked by common icons, providing continuity from previous approaches and allowing for clear student navigation and accessibility.

  • Collaboration - The transition process has reinforced collaboration practices between module teams and student services staff. Clearly delineated responsibilities ensure core information on policies, procedures, and support is provided consistently across modules and with accessibility in mind, while still allowing customisation for different teaching approaches.

  • Engagement Tools - Tools like Padlet and discussion boards have been integrated to support greater student engagement. Initial findings suggest Padlet is boosting participation notably in undergraduate contexts, while post-graduates seem to prefer discussion boards for deeper intellectual exchange.

Watch their presentation:

A cross-departmental approach to consistency in the VLE for Archaeology (Panopto viewer) (15 mins 25 secs, UoY log-in required)

Transcript

Hello, I'm Michelle Alexander, and I'm director of Learning and Teaching for the Department of Archaeology.

And I'm Jess Bates. I am the project manager for modularisation and semesterisation and I was also part of the VLE Ultra Adoption Group for Archaeology.

So we're going to talk to you today very briefly about our cross-departmental approach to maintaining consistency across all of our VLE modules in our department.

So for this approach, then there are a number of principles that we want to maintain. And this was actually something that we were doing because we were continuing our previous practice where we had all of our modular information on the intranet pages for our department. Of course, when COVID reared its ugly head, we had to change that approach and move everything onto the VLE, which was great, but obviously a lot of work. In order to maintain the kind of positive characteristics of the format we had before, where all the module information was available to all staff basically on that intranet, we wanted to make sure that we were using the VLE in a very similar way, and so we wanted to make sure that everyone essentially was using it with particular templates. This enables us to have a very good parity in the student experience, and this is something we found again and again through module feedback that they really appreciate, and that means that they are more accessible. So when a student clicks into a particular module, doesn't matter what it is or at what point in the degree that they are, they know where to find the information that they need.

This also meant that we could be very consistent with the information for assessments and also the support that was offered via the VLE for those assessment types. And we also maintained links to relevant sections of the undergraduate and postgraduate handbooks, including the grade descriptors for each of our assessments. And this is an area that I've mentioned back down here that the student services team in particular were responsible for. So these modules were both the responsibility of the module leaders, the teaching team who had oversight of all of the modules in the department. So we all could view all of them and also the students as a team who then curated particular sections on say assessment logistics, for example, and support on the VLE and staff did not touch those areas.

And something that that's quite important was we never put deadlines for assessment on any particular VLE page. We just had a link to the handbook which had all the deadlines stated and published there. When we have a basket of modules, so where a student can take a particular option within a - in a module type, we ensure that those templates that are used were more or less pretty much identical for each of those module options because we knew that those modules will work in the same way they'd have week by week activities that will be more or less the same each week. And so that information was replicated across all options.

This doesn't mean that staff didn't put their own spin and personality or flavour onto their own teaching in these modules, but it just meant that we could we could have a very well managed set of essential information that then staff, individual staff could then sort of put the icing on the essential cake, for their particular module.

So I just want to actually walk you through a VLE site from a previous year and you'll see there are some particular characteristics that we were using with the previous version of the VLE. And I will point out to you these various characteristics here, but in particular, of course, we have a weekly breakdown. We're using particular icons to signpost information that our that are consistent throughout all of our modules. We embedded various padlets and different activities and that there's there's quick links to handbooks and assessment information as well in there. And this is where I've also restated this - no deadlines published on individual pages, incredibly important because otherwise you'd have to change the information all of the sites individually rather than updating a link every year. So pushing through then to this module and this is a second module that was running that had a practical component and of course from the previous VLE, you can see that a lot of the navigation was occurring on this left hand side. But each of these kind of titles was the same regardless of what module you were looking at. So we'd have a welcome to the module which had all of the general information on there, and you can see this use of icons in particular to indicate particular items or activities. And of course we used to have and we still do have content notes as well where we have sensitive information.

If I pop along to one of the weekly sections, you'd see that we're using a particular icon or picture at the beginning to give a bit of a flavour to the students about what that week will entail. We had a little to do checklist to indicate what they needed to think about for each week, including pointing them towards the reading and any pre-work that they might have needed to do. The recorded lectures,of course, which were included for us until relatively recently. Information on any workshop, any other videos or resources that are relevant to the students. And this is something that we've heard actually very recently with student feedback that they do appreciate not just reading but also other resources that will help with whatever weekly theme there is. And they particularly like if there are YouTube videos, etc., or podcasts because it allows them to access the information using different mediums. So we have striven to try and achieve that as well, while retaining obviously the reading list primarily as the source of information as well.

And this also module had a Padlet associated with it. You can see here that we move into a laboratory session and we integrated these padlets into the VLE. And you can see here that this padlet was actually used less for student discussion and more for the presentation of information that was relevant to the students on this module that was giving them an insight into, in this case, the journey of a set of samples that were being extracted as part of this module that the students themselves were not perhaps able to view. So this gave them a bit more of an insight into that journey that those samples went on, which can be used for them also to have a look at for their interests and also for the assessment.
Going back to that module then or in fact back to here. I think I'll move on now to Jess in this case.

So in terms of how things changed with our new sort of template that we are using with the new Blackboard Ultra, we have created a template that we've developed with the VLE Team that is across all modules. And if we just go on to the example for post excavations, this is a second year module which can give you we'll give you an example of how we've actually structured the new template. So if you see at the top there, you've got module information and staff have retained this use of icons, although it's not as consistent as consistently developed as it is for as it was for the old system. You can see that staff have used it when it was introduced and we are breaking it down week by week. So each week is packaged away in one of those module folders and students can click on each week and see a breakdown of information for that week. So if we go back up to week one, you will also see that there is a integrated padlet.

So this is something again that staff have retained as good practice from Covid that we've integrated Padlets where we can to try and facilitate student discussion and particularly for these intro sessions, I think they work really nicely and you can see there's been quite a lot of engagement from students looking at placing their favourite object with memory and meaning. And so I think these have worked really well specifically for undergraduates where they may be more anonymous, which is obviously the new VLE Ultra doesn't necessarily allow anonymous discussion.

And on these discussion boards that we'll talk about in a little bit so that you can see a bit of an example that for week by week breakdown. And then with regards to assessment and reading, that's consistent across all of our modules. You can see it just below the assessment, yes - reading and assessment information. And we have an assessment overview and an assessment criteria. And in the assessment overview, there's a specific description regarding each assessment and what they're required students are required to do. And we've retained the use of those tables as a way of trying to clearly highlight the information to students as well. And then they have links to extenuating circumstances and then also to late submissions. And then in the assessment criteria section, that is where students will find links to grade descriptors or marking criteria and so it's a little bit more packaged away than it has been previously. But so far we don't seem to be getting any sort of issues or queries raised by students and the handbooks are all linked in the module overview section.

So it is a little bit more, I guess less, less centralised and as much as it was previously. But again, students seem to be quite comfortable with navigating this. So yeah, in the module overview section you've got learning aims and outcomes and this is a consistent template that we've asked all modules to include. And then you've got a weekly structure to give students an idea of what's happening and when, and also the kind of distribution and timing, so how much contact time they'll have each week for their sessions. And here also you've got staffing issues as well because we have a different staff member teaching different weeks.

It's quite a bit of a complex module. So you'll notice that we don't have week three, four, five, six specifically mentioned here because actually the students might be doing a different workshop depending what group they're in in a given week. But for the vast majority of the rest of our modules, you will see again that specific structure of week one, week two, week three, week four, week five. It's just the way this particular module works where they're put into groups, then they have workshops. That's why you don't see that kind of broken down. And then our assessment submission points are also packaged away in the assessment folder. So this doesn't have an assessment submission yet because they're still doing their formative, which is not and is not a submission - submitted - assessment.

But again, I think we're finding we just need to highlight and really clarify to students where this is located because it is packaged away, students have to click to access things and that is something that I think we, especially with our second and third year, we're having to highlight a little bit more because that is quite a difference from the earlier template or the earlier VLE that we were using. Yeah, that loss of the left hand sidebar for navigation has been quite a challenge, I think, in order to kind of quickly access information because as Jess said, a lot of stuff is hidden in these individual kind of packages here, which then there's actually quite a lot of stuff in here that students will need to read. And quite a few of this kind of general information is provided by the professional services team or student services team.

So staff would only really be looking at putting their own information into reas where there's something specifically module related to academic related. But anything that's to do with policies, procedures or process to do with the department, our student services team would be involved in doing those. And because everything has a similar structure, it's then way more straightforward for us to be able to review all of these before they go out to students. And so the professional services team help with that. They have a look at it. They've got a list of all the modules they check over them and then the teaching team also have a look at those to to make sure that everything has the right and same information that is needed just at a very general level to make sure that students getting that parity of experience.And one thing to note with the assessment - Michelle mentioned with our earlier versions, we didn't actually put in dates or deadlines specifically for the assessments. With this version, with the assessments, as we mentioned, we used the tables in assessment overview. We have a use of the table that you can see and, and in that we have a submission date, but we've kept them general again. So rather than adding in a specific date, we've kept it to a specific week with a week number really. And this is with the hope that with rolling over into next year, we should hopefully retain those submission dates. Although it is worth noting that that has been a bit of confusion about terminology regarding submission points, so common assessment periods, and that has now changed. The university don't call it that anymore. They just call it the the assessment, the assessment period. So with that, something that we've had to again clarify with students to make sure that there's clarity for that. So as Michelle mentioned, we have used module templates previously and we've retained that. So for basket modules such as assessed seminars, we created a set template for these modules and just copied across the same template over all the different types of options that students can take. And so staff went in and filled in some content specific things, but generally they all look exactly the same, and the level of information that students receive is the same, which is what we wanted to achieve.

And then finally, we wanted to share some good practice that we've seen from some of our staff about the use of discussion boards. So as I mentioned, our undergrads, they seem to engage better with padlet because I think there's that anonymity that perhaps is more suitable to some of our undergraduate students. Whereas for post-grad, we've seen a really, really great example of the use of discussion boards here with contemporary issues and museums. And so you can see that we've had 15 responses on this discussion topic alone and some really, really sort of insightful engagement from students and thoughtful engagement from students outside of class about these questions that have been posed by the module leader.

So I think we just wanted to highlight this as a way that discussion boards have been used to really supplement the teaching in a sort of offline environment that seems to be working really well. But I think it does depend on the cohort that you're you're teaching. Yeah, it does seem to be more suitable for master's level teaching in particular, and some of those more discursive topics as well. Obviously Decolonising museums, I think there's a lot of people have opinions about that. So I think with some of those modules it works very well. Obviously for other modules, not so much. And the extra activities that Padlet offers in terms of, yeah, pin your favourite site or pin your favourite artefact, that's a nice way of getting more of an introductory feel. So that's why undergraduates I think probably engage with that quite well.

So thank you very much from both of us, and we'll see you in the session itself. And of course we'll be happy to answer any questions you might have. Thank you. Thank you.