by Jasper Shotts

1. Jasper Shotts- Dean of Lincoln Academy of Learning & Teaching- University of
Lincoln
Matt East- Learning Technologies Lead- Talis
Talis Elevate- Making Learning Visible

2. About the project
• Aims
•Develop a new digital tool to support
pedagogical development.
•Trial Talis Elevate product in different
disciplines (HSC,History, LIBS)
•Work in partnership with student groups
to gather any evidence of impact Student
digital survey Jan 2018 demonstrated
that most common student digital task
related to assessment.
Pilot process elsewhere
• 3 HEI in UK
• 1000+ students this year
• 20+ academics
• Varying schools/disciplines
• DL/F2F/WBL

3. Lincoln usage
• School of History and Heritage (7 academics)
• School of Health and Social Science (1 academic)
• Work Based Learning/Face to Face
• Levels 4-7
• >200 students
ARU usage
• Multiple departments in Science
Faculty
• 12 academics
• >1000 students this year
• Levels 3-7
• Face to face and DL

4. Developing more transparent pedagogy
•6 years experience in the flipped classroom – wanted to
understand student digital experience better and also
communicate expectations more explicitly. Teaching challenge of
how to understand and accommodate diverse learners
effectively.
•Key findings from student insights service 2018 report as focus
for further innovation;
•1) Students want more support in collaborating with other
students
•2) Students are asked by teachers to spend increasing
proportion of their time studying online but say they do not
have enough support in this.

5. Developing student to student collaboration
•Survey of student assessment experience revealed that
students felt least confident about handling a case study
in the assessment task.
•Therefore chose to make case study interactive in order
to plan sequence of formative activities which use
students posts as basis for organising groupwork tasks
•Facility for anonymous posting encouraged high levels
of student engagement, including students who
identified themselves as quiet learners.

6. Acquisition
Discussion
Practice
Production
Enquiry
Laurillard (2012)
}
}
}70%
20%
10%
Jennings (2013)
Learn
through
experience
Learn & Develop
through others
Through structure
and teaching
Adapted from Toro-Troconis (2018)
Talis
Elevate
}
Why?

7. What is Talis Elevate?
• Putting discussion at the
forefront of resources
• Connecting content across
multiple resource types
• Personal note taking tool
• In depth- granular usage
analytics

8. Jasper- Approach and findings

9. •Comment on student posts both online and also in classroom activities
•Use student responses to structure student-student collaboration in
class
•Using powerful Talis analytics to inform adjustments to teaching delivery
•Create a dialogue with students to understand how to make safe spaces
for students to post comments and work collaboratively together
•Capture student examples from different stages of module delivery to
enhance peer learning by sharing examples across cohorts

10. Used for diagnostic assessment

11. Results
•High levels of student attendance engagement and active participation
•Improved attainment for a cohort of distance learners from mean average
score of 51% in 2017 to 63% in 2018
•Several students identified themselves as ‘quiet learners’, and that they
greatly preferred choice in how to collaborate with other students
•Student attendance and active learning were significantly improved
•Interactive approach and use of analytics enabled me as teacher to
learn much more about student digital experience and be much
better informed about how and when to adjust teaching and
assessment activities to suit learner groups.

12. Other Usage

13. Part of assessed activity- History
24 students
19 resources
474 class comments (200+ personal notes)
10h per student over semester
“Both the analytics and the discussion that takes place work well together in getting a real picture of
students approaches to learning objects, understanding, and the cohort approach to learning.
Using Elevate as a diagnostic tool allows me to make iterative adjustment to the delivery based on what the
data and discussion shows about their engagement and understanding”

14. How are students engaging?
In some cases…
• Reading key content
just before/in the
lecture ONLY
• Bunching of reading
• Assumptions on
resource usage proved
wrong
• Not bothering at all..

15. Co-creation of knowledge
• Case studies
• Peer review
• Government papers
• Video/media
“When I don't completely understand the reading, seeing other people's
comments can help me gain a better understanding of it through their
thoughts. Also, being able to make comments helps to better process the
reading and makes it more memorable so it can be discussed in seminars.”

16. Adjusting delivery based on student preference
• Delivered content in a number of different mediums (research/video/
lecture notes)
• Found MSc cohort engaged more with primary research (L4 more
lecture notes)
• Adjusted content and formative activity to build this preference into
the teaching based on analytics and feedback
• Positive student response overall
“I found out early on that my students weren’t looking at the lecture notes, but really interested in the
supplemental primary research I included on my module. This has been hugely helpful for me; I’ve
now built more tasks around the primary research and increased physical/virtual engagement
because of this. The students picked up on this too. I wouldn’t have known any of this without Elevate”.

17. Problems/challenges

18. • Willingness to speak up/
out
• Course culture
• Scarily low level
engagement
• Environment for
learning
• Level of criticality in
discussion

19. Newman, Beetham & Knight (2017)
Alignment with JISC findings

20. HOWEVER
“Of all the ways that digital technology might enhance their
learning experience, students were least convinced that it made
them feel more connected (either with other learners or with
their lecturers/tutors)”
Newman, Beetham & Knight (2017) “I’ve delivered sessions to this group before and
really had to pull answers out of the whole cohort.
On this module, I could see how the students were
working through the reading thanks to their
comments. When it came to seminar activity, the
cohort were much more open to leading discussion
and generally more animated about the subject
matter.”
Librarian, University of Lincoln

21. Overall

22. • Qualitative insight equally (if not more) valuable than quantitative insight
• Adjustment of activities based on interaction is recognised and supported
• Setting the scene/expectations/community of practice essential
• Co-creation of knowledge is hugely valued
• Access on mobile devices doesn’t align with depth of learning
• Note taking direct in the LMS is appreciated and used
• A simple change in approach can make a big difference

23. ?
Any questions?

24. References
• Ferguson, R., Coughlan, T., Egelandsdal, K., Gaved, M., Herodotou, C., Hillaire, G., Jones, D., Jowers, I., Kukulska-
Hulme, A., McAndrew, P., Misiejuk, K., Ness, I. J., Rienties, B., Scanlon, E., Sharples, M., Wasson, B., Weller, M. and
Whitelock, D. (2019). Innovating Pedagogy 2019: Open University Innovation Report 7. Milton Keynes: The Open
University.