Opus: Online Publications Store

Abstract

At the beginning of the 2008/2009 academic year and led by the e-Learning team, the University of Bath embarked on a pilot of an Electronic Voting System (EVS). With the intention of improving the assessment and feedback cycle or loop (Sadler, 1989; Nicol and MacFarlane-Dick, 2006), the EVS has been embraced by a number of lecturers to support and enhance their face-to-face teaching. <br> During the pilot year, there is clear evidence of a sustained change in the way that some individuals teach when they use the technology. The key questions being addressed within this poster are: <br> * How has the use of EVS led to lecturers being more creative in the ways that they teach? * How is this being rewarded through increased student engagement and positive feedback? * In what ways has any good practice been effectively disseminated to impact on other lecturers? <br> We detail four short case studies about how the EVS has been used by lecturers to further develop e-Learning practice within academic departments. As well as enhanced feedback to students, a key feature of these studies are where the EVS has been used to encourage both increased participation and deeper learning by students, and to facilitate in-class debate and discussion. The likely longer term success of this institutional implementation will be illustrated through applying the 4-E Model (Collis, Peters and Pals, 2001). We also consider how use of the EVS can result in increased innovations in teaching methods, and whether this might lead to a longer term change in academic practice.