Talking About Teaching Enquiry Based Learning

1. Talking About Teaching Enquiry Based Learning Ivan Moore Director, CPLA Sheffield Hallam University Karen O’Rourke Academic Developer, Institute for Enterprise Leeds Metropolitan University

2. A starting point EBL represents a shift away from passive methods, which involve the transmission of knowledge to students, to more facilitative teaching methods through which students are expected to construct their own knowledge and understanding by engaging in supported processes of enquiry

3. What is Enquiry Based Learning? • Enquiry Based Learning is a natural form of learning, borne out of our innate sense of curiosity and desire to understand • It is generically applicable, and has grown from modelling learning in a number of subjects

4. Recognisable forms of EBL • Design • Problem Based Learning • Case Based Learning • Field Trips • Dissertations, projects • Research

5. Active, student-centred, authentic, supported • Learning driven by a process of enquiry or investigation • Involves complex, intriguing, authentic, stimuli • Intentional • unintentional • Student-centred • Requires action • Connects theory and practice • Supported process • Develops skills • Social • Enjoyable

6. First group task • Background: A team of academic staff have decided to introduce EBL to next year’s first year intake. They have asked you to design a poster that will explain what EBL is to the students. The poster will be displayed across the University for the first 3 weeks of term • The task: Design an outline poster (draft) • Present your ideas to a panel of students

7. Some ‘drivers’…. • Supports transition into and through Higher Education • Practice in a safe environment • Opportunities for reflection and review • Accommodates different learning styles • Socialises the learning and the learner • Develops lifelong learning skills – information explosion • Inter-professional and interdisciplinary learning • Promotes the links between teaching, learning and research • Autonomy, employability, and professional body requirements

8. Academic skills • Research • Students determine and pursue THEIR OWN lines of enquiry • Large scale enquiries- macro • Small scale enquiries- micro • Information • They build on what they already know • They identify what information they need • They find, evaluate and use the information • They may communicate their learning to others

9. Professional skills • Team working and leadership • Inter-personal skills • Negotiation • Decision making • Handling conflict • Sharing • Communication skills • Presentation, explaining, questioning • Managing projects and meetings • Practical application of theory

10. Professional skills • Team working and leadership • Inter-personal skills • Negotiation • Decision making • Handling conflict • Sharing • Communication skills • Presentation, explaining, questioning • Managing projects and meetings • Practical application of theory

11. Personal skills • Taking and accepting responsibility • Ethics, empathy and tolerance • Encourages exploration, curiosity • Creative problem-solving • Balancing creativity with resilience • Planning • Time-management and organisation

12. Motivation • Authentic • Realistic challenge • Locus of control • Feedback and support • Shared learning • success • Socialises the learning

13. Constructivism and Vygotski • Cognitive theory recognises the importance of the mind in making sense of the material with which it is presented. • Nevertheless, it still presupposes that the role of the learner is primarily to assimilate whatever the teacher presents. • Constructivism — particularly in its "social" forms — suggests that the learner is much more actively involved in a joint enterprise with the teacher of constructing new meanings.

14. Forms of constructivism • cognitive constructivism is about how the individual learner understands things, in terms of developmental stages and learning styles, and • social constructivism emphasises how meanings and understandings grow out of social encounters.

15. Vygotski • Observed that when children were tested on tasks on their own, they rarely did as well as when they were working in collaboration with an adult. • It was by no means always the case that the adult was teaching them how to perform the task, but that the process of engagement with the adult enabled them to refine their thinking or their performance to make it more effective. • Hence, for him, the development of language and articulation of ideas was central to learning and development.

16. Zone of Maximal Development (ZMD) Beyond reach at present ZMD Current state

17. Zone of Maximal Development (ZMD) Cannot do yet Beyond reach at present Can do with help ZMD Current state Can do

18. Zone of Maximal Development (ZMD) The ZPD is about "can do with help", not as a permanent state but as a stage towards being able to do something on your own. The key to "stretching" the learner is to know what is in that person's ZPD—what comes next, for them Cannot do yet Beyond reach at present Can do with help ZMD Current state Can do

19. Making the case (part 1) • Background: the University’s Development Committee has invited academic staff to bid for funding to introduce EBL into first year programmes. Your subject team wishes to bid for this fund. You are required to make a presentation to Development Committee. • You have been asked to scope the presentation: what it needs to include, what evidence or information you need to present, and a two-week project plan for preparing for a rehearsal with your learning and teaching committee • Task: Identify the key arguments and rationales for implementing EBL to your first years. Prepare a 3 minute (max) presentation to LTC, giving a framework for your final presentation to DC. • Identify your arguments, what you know about each, what you still need to find out, and how you will get this information and prepare the presentation in the given timescales.

20. Role of the students • Accept responsibility for their learning • Establish group roles, if any • Analyze the stimulus • Identify learning goals • Determine a plan of activity and agree individual tasks/responsibilities • Report individual findings and collate research • Complete the task (e.g. present findings) • Undertake assessment tasks • Give and receive feedback

21. Share tasks Undertake the investigations Develop a plan Information gap Share the learning Discuss and consolidate What do we know? Refine the problem

22. Share tasks Undertake the investigations Develop a plan Information gap Share the learning Discuss and consolidate What do we know? Refine the problem

24. Enquiry Based Learning as a continuous cyclical process

25. Role of the tutor/facilitator • Prepare the students – benefits and expectations, change of role, working in groups • Devise the stimulus • Carefully crafted scenarios, triggers, problems • Prepare the resources, determine the assessment method(s) and any deadlines

26. Role of the tutor/facilitator • Facilitate the group processes and the learning • Guide lines of enquiry – ask open-ended questions • Support for any difficulties with groups or individuals • Explain clearly the assessment process and criteria • Share the experience • Give and receive feedback

27. Benefits to tutor • Can inform your own research • Livens up tutorials • Encourages participation • Widens teaching experience • Enjoyment!

28. In-class Between classes (1 week) 2-3 weeks 6-12 weeks or longer Resources provided, small scale investigations, may or may not be linked Initial discussion, students find information from different sources. Need to share outside class. Report back week 2 Middle week(s) for ‘catch up’, consolidate, review and plan Large scale investigation, significantly more autonomy, opportunity for in-depth investigation (deep learning) The scale of the investigation

29. Where to begin • Select a topic or theme • Determine timescale for investigation • Allow for induction, presentation and assessment • Pilot over 3 or 4 weeks in a module • Evaluate it

30. EBL scenarios…. • Must engage students and motivate them • Relationship to the ‘real world’ • Encourage students to make decisions or judgements based on information and facts • Move students beyond recall of information • Should encourage collaboration and co-operation • Open-ended, connected to existing knowledge • Compatibility with learning objectives of the course

31. Possible routes to creating a ‘problem’…. • Design exercises • Critical incidents • Real case-histories or patient care-plans • Present and past controversies • Application of important concepts to everyday situations or personal situations • Video-clips, novels, newspaper articles, research papers, cartoons • Re-write a typical exam question as an open-ended, ‘real-world’ problems • Work with colleagues to decide the approach • Test the problems on students

32. Some examples • Occupational Therapy • Electrical Engineering • Computer Science • Dentistry • Venture Matrix

33. First year Occupational Therapy • First year, 10-credit module, first semester • 3 weeks full time, exclusive • Students come with little confidence in Blackboard • See it mostly as a repository for information • Opportunity to involve third year students • Recap on first-year work • Provide support for first year students

34. General outline of organisation • 6 groups of students, 8-10 per group • 3 weeks (short and fat) • 7 hours formal contact per week • 1 lecture (1 hour), 2 EBL sessions (2 hours), 1 workshop (2 hours) • Students are presented with a client referral • One of 3 • E.g. dementia of alzheimer’s type 2 years ago • Fire in flat, unkempt and malnourished • ?progression of dementia? • assess function and future care needs • Provide programme of structured activity to increase socialisation • Year three volunteer students role play (carer, warden, client) • Academic staff role play Multi-Disciplinary Team (MDT)

35. The scheme

36. Consolidation Discussion board on blackboard 3 strands MDT Patient Group decision-making Goldfish bowl 2 reps per group Consultant in centre Rest of group act as supporters/provide information during ‘time outs’ as requested

37. One 12-week module, second semester One year development stage, two years implementation and evaluation 15-20 students Self-selecting groups of 3-4 Opportunities to change group with each new problem Weekly 2-hour facilitated EBL session, weekly tutor-led session in tutor’s office Eighteenth-Century Poetry Final year of undergraduate study

38. Eighteenth-Century Poetry Facilitator available for consultation Week 12 Exam Consultation Weeks 8-11 Resource session EBL session Third problem (choose from range) Written outcome Assessed – 40% Weeks 4-7 Resource session EBL session Second problem (choose from range) Oral outcome Assessed – 20% Non-assessed, oral reports Weeks 1-3 Tutor-led session EBL session First problem

39. Computer Science – Support for first-year Enquiry-Based Learning • Introduction to EBL and skills for effective group-work • Intensive staff consultation and development sessions • Small group sizes (6-8 students) • EBL facilitator is also personal tutor to group members • Students eased into EBL experience gradually through a series of increasingly challenging activities • Regular feedback • Key lectures to inform and inspire

40. First Year Computer Science Build application Demos and poster Group report Individual reflection World-wide what? Group application Presentations and poster Phase 4: 11 weeks Phase 3: 6 weeks Ethics: killer robot Group presentation Select framework Phase 2: 3 weeks Phase 1: 2 weeks Software patents 2 teams in debate Phase 0: 2 hours Expectations, skills and group ground rules A whole-year, ‘phased’ approach

41. Dentistry • Five year programme • Based on 5 years experience of PBL through a common curriculum with Medicine • 120 students • Year themes and academic themes • PBL exercises in two forms: • In-class workshops – 3 hours • 2-weekly problems

43. Making the case (part 2) • Background: the University’s Development Committee has invited academic staff to bid for funding to introduce EBL into first year programmes. Your subject team wishes to bid for this fund. You are required to make a presentation to Development Committee. • You have been asked to make a draft presentation to your learning and teaching committee • Task: prepare and make your presentation (max 3 mins). Information contained in the presentation should be as complete as possible. Identify any missing information, how you will find it and where you will include it in your final presentation to DC in 2 weeks time.

44. Making the case (part 3) • Background: the University’s Development Committee has invited academic staff to bid for funding to introduce EBL into first year programmes. Your team wishes to bid for this fund. You are required to make a presentation to Development Committee. • You have learned that DC wants to know the implications for staff development and skills and would appreciate some examples of what EBL ‘looks like’. • Task: Refine your arguments and ideas on the basis of the feedback and any further information you now have. • Prepare a formal 5 minute group presentation to DC • The committee will make their final decision on the basis of these presentations.

45. ‘I have no special talents. I am only passionately curious’ (Albert Einstein) The cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity.... Dorothy Parker

46. What was the most useful or meaningful thing you learned during this session? • What question(s) remain uppermost in your mind as we end this session? • What was the ‘muddiest’ point in this session? • As a result of this session: • What will you stop doing? • What will you start doing? • What will you continue doing? • What further activities, support or events do you think this group would benefit from?

47. Talking About Teaching Enquiry Based Learning Ivan Moore i.moore@shu.ac.uk www.shu.ac.uk/cetl/cpla Karen O’Rourke k.orourke@leedsmet.ac.uk www.leedsmet.ac.uk/enterprise