Brenda Smith

500 Tips on Assessment

1. Putting assessment into context 2. Exams of various sorts 3. Specific assessment formats 4. Feedback and assessment 5. Involving students in their own assessment 6. Assessing group learning

Research, teaching, and learning in higher education

Part 1 Theoretical perspectives: introduction research into student learning research, teaching and learning - a symbiotic relationship the importance of applied research on improving learning processes research and learning in HE effects of funding

Keeping Your Training Sessions Going

This chapter is mainly about training session processes, though we have anticipated our discussion of many of these already in this book. We start by reflecting on the importance of active learning and designing training sessions around what participants will actually do rather than around things we may tell them!

Evaluating your Training Sessions

The main way we get better at things is by finding out more about what goes right and what goes wrong. It is all too easy to be so busy planning our next training sessions that we shelve the task of really finding out how our last ones went. We often go as far as collecting feedback, but never really analyze it.

Using Things Around You

Our suggestions in this chapter are mainly about training resources and the training environment. We start by looking at the importance of the accommodation that participants themselves will use during training sessions. and the effect of this environment on how they feel and how they perform during the sessions.

Looking After Yourself

In this chapter weve collected suggestions which are mainly designed to help you! Of course, all of this book is meant to help you one way or another, but here we particularly wanted to offer ideas for keeping your sanity and dignity. Most things in this chapter we learned by getting it wrong at some stage. We are particularly pleased to include in this chapter about 30 suggestions contributed by our friend and colleague Sally Brown (who has conducted training sessions across the planet, and is therefore particularly appropriate for giving tips for international trainers).

Planning and Preparation

In this chapter we take a look at things to do with planning and preparing your training sessions, and also include suggestions for putting into practice your planning when running training sessions. Several of the ideas we introduce in this chapter are expanded on in suggestions in the remainder of this book. We have discovered how dangerous it can be to imagine that weve run a particular session so often that we can afford to skip some of the detail of preparing the ground in advance.

Getting Participants Going

Especially when running training sessions for people you dont already know, theres no second chance for you to make a good first impression! Its also important to set the tone well in the way you introduce yourself to your participants. Its also a good idea to help participants to get to know each other in a way that will help them to interact productively in your sessions. Therefore our first three sets of tips in this chapter are all about getting your training session off to a good start.