The OU centre for STEM pedagogy
This project follows on from our previous project1 which focused on a new pedagogical approach (Hall and Rapanotti, 2015) implemented in three post-graduate computing modules for a recently introduced Computing qualification (F66 MSc in Computing), where the students’ own professional context of practice, rather than fictitious case studies, is used to assess their understanding of and ability to apply what is taught in those modules, as well as to develop a wide range of research and employability skills as they progress through the qualification.
The aim of the previous project was a preliminary evaluation of the pedagogical approach and the definition of a framework which could be used to evaluate its effectiveness within the qualification, with particular attention to cumulative effects along different pathways students may take, and culminating in the capstone research project module, where skills acquired through this type of pedagogical approach were assumed to be particularly relevant.
The previous project was successful in achieving the following outcomes:
Moreover, we are in the process of writing the final project report and submitting an abstract to the 6th eSTEeM Annual Conference.
The combination of techniques we have developed and applied to identify, extract and analyse data for this project can be seen as contributing to an overall evaluation framework, which we aim to refine and put to test in this follow-up project, whose specific objectives include:
Outcomes will provide an evidence-based framework with direct benefits to:
The aim of both the previous and this project is to develop tools and processes that enable us to evaluate this new pedagogical approach (and other pedagogical approaches) by looking at the impact on student success – student performance, retention, progression and acquisition of transferable skills.
Hall, J.G. and Rapanotti, L. (2015), Masters-level software engineering education and the enriched student context, in 'Software Engineering (ICSE), 2015 IEEE/ACM 37th IEEE International Conference on', Vol. 2, IEEE, pp. 311–314.