Supporting students

Evaluating community-focussed Informal Workshop Sessions as improvement to the tuition strategy on a core Level 2 Physics module (S217)

The purpose of this project is to investigate how offering informal workshop sessions can improve a sense of community within tutor groups on S217, with the goal of improving student grades and retention on the module.

Exploring timeliness, positivity and collection rates of TMA feedback

This project is designed to extend the recently concluded project “Improving student use of feedback on marked TMAs” to analyse in more detail three areas.  The aim and the sub questions we will seek the answers to are set out below.

Use of OpenLearn materials to improve satisfaction and retention on Degree Apprenticeships in the School of Computing and Communications

Background

I am the Qualification Lead for the Applied Software Engineering Degree Apprenticeship in Wales (R40)¹ and the Staff Tutor managing the associated team of Practice Tutors.

A personal tutor scheme to enhance student retention and improve success

Student retention and continuation are key drivers for this project.

Innovation in online student support

Due to the increasing popularity of the Data Science degree, MST224 student numbers have increased significantly.  This has resulted in the employment of significant numbers of ALs, and we would like to use the resultant increase in tutorial time to offer innovative tutorials and enhanced student

Assessment and Feedback on Introduction of Group Work on M140

The aim of this project is to assess the impact on M140 of introducing group work, gain feedback from students and tutors and learn from this experience before rolling this out to all students.

Team Based Learning tutorials in S248

This project seeks to improve student engagement in tutorials in S248 Chemistry in life: food, water and medicines.

Ecoanxiety and environmental education: stories, conversations, actions

Ecoanxiety – the distress related to climate and ecological crises – is increasingly recognised in learners by educators (Hickman et al, 2021), in the media (e.g., BBC Ideas 2021, Rannard, 2022) as well as through programmes of advice and education (e.g., Wright, 2022).

Improving retention through small interventions: The U101 postcard project

This project aims to improve student retention on U101, Design thinking. U101 is a gateway Level 1 design module and part of Q61 in Engineering and Innovation (E&I).

Building a sense of community in a core 2nd level Physics module (S217) and investigating qualitatively its effect on retention

Retention on S217 (Physics: from classical to quantum) is a problem, with 30-40% of student withdrawing over the course of the module. Initial analysis of historic data (15J to 21J) shows that nearly half of the official withdrawals happen before Christmas (wk 10/11 of the module).