Author: Fiona A Wilkie

Study Skills for UCL Medical Students (Study Skills for UCLMS); identifying the need and how to meet it?

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THE TEAM

Lead staff: Dr Emma Kelley, Dr Carys Phillips.
Lead students: Philip Marshall-Lockyer, Nicole Tay, Anais Deere, Dhivya Ilangovan.

DEPARTMENT

UCL Medical School

 

WHAT HAPPENED?

Study skills are understood to be key to medical education [1] and help shape students into effective learners both at medical school and beyond. A recently published article in RUMS review (medical student-led) raised the concern from medical students about the lack of Study Skills teaching available at UCLMS. Following this, ‘study skills clinics’ were offered to undergraduate medical students to discuss a specific study skill issue they were having for which there was a high uptake. The several recurring themes noted by the staff facilitating the clinic lead to two group forums being set up for students based on these themes where there were ongoing comments from students that there is a desire for further study skills support. As a result, it was essential that these concerns were investigated to improve students’ confidence with their study skills. Through focus groups and a questionnaire, we identified what study skills medical students at UCLMS felt they needed support with, how they would like it delivered and what resources the medical school could provide. We now hope to utilise this data to provide feedback on the state of study skills teaching and inform recommendations for improvement moving forward. Although we still have a lot of work ahead of us, we have high hopes for the future and are already in the process of creating a new Study Skills Moodle page to improve the accessibility of the resources available. [1] Dwarika-Bhagat N, Sa B, Majumder MAA. Does study skill matter? A descriptive study on undergraduate health profession students in the University of the West Indies. Education in Medicine Journal. 2017;9(2):27–40. https://doi.org/10.21315/eimj2017.9.2.3

WHAT ADVICE OR ENCOURAGEMENT WOULD YOU GIVE TO SOMEONE THINKING OF DOING A CHANGEMAKERS PROJECT?

Setting informal deadlines for tasks to be completed is a great way of motivating yourself to keep on track, particularly when other commitments get in the way. It also means the rest of the team is more aware of how the project is progressing, even if they are not involved in every aspect of it, leading to greater coherence within the group. Therefore, it is also important to let your team know when you have other commitments to prioritise, so that such deadlines can be planned around this and nobody is left overloaded with work.

Changing the story: A storytelling approach to visualising the impact of PhD research around the world

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THE TEAM

Student lead: Haoyue Guo
Support students: Cristina Garcia-Maurino Alcazar, Reshmi Mukerji, Alma Ionescu, Ana Correa Ossa (treasurer).
Staff leads: Professor Kholoud Porter, Professor Nigel Field
DEPARTMENT
Institute for Global Health
WHAT HAPPENED?
The project is about generating an interactive online platform for students to share their research and its impact using storytelling. The idea was to inspire thinking and learning around research impact through a fun way of storytelling, and to convey research impact from the perspective of the public. PhD students are able to create fictional avatars, who represent people affected by their research, on a world map and are to explain their research in terms of how it might directly impact them (e.g. my research will give a voice to women like Mrs A, who lives in India, has HIV, and has faced domestic abuse, in order to inform changes in the socio-legal framework impacting her life). They are also be able to link to other avatars to form a series of research stories that flow around the world. This will help students conceptualise their research impact, and provide an innovative mechanism to showcase the diverse research done by more than 50 doctoral students at IGH. We plan to run this department-wide first for PhD students, with the potential to expand faculty-wide and include staff research.

WHAT ADVICE OR ENCOURAGEMENT WOULD YOU GIVE TO SOMEONE THINKING OF DOING A CHANGEMAKERS PROJECT?

We would strongly encourage others to apply to a Changemakers project. The most important thing is to have a clear objective and a clear idea of the impact that your project will have on students and staff. Also, if you’re planning something technical (in our case, making a website), it is better to have someone on your team with relevant experience, which should allow you to have more control over and flexibility with the output.

Stronger Foundations / Academic Skills Assembly

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THE TEAM

Supervisor Staff – Caroline Garraway
Lead Student – Anqi Tang
Supporting Student – Lena Shaiakhemetova

DEPARTMENT

Anthropology

 

WHAT HAPPENED?

The “Stronger Foundations” project was initiated to understand why some undergraduate students face significant academic skills-related struggles in their studies, and to offer practical solutions to help alleviate them. Although we had initially proposed to find workshop-based solutions, focus groups suggested that there were many intersecting social factors, some of which were exacerbated by the COVID-related remote studying format which had affected students’ sense of belonging, which in turn had affected their perceived and actual academic competency. The project came up with a series of recommendations/ project ideas to take forward for the next academic year which included activities/initiatives relating to improving study skills, increasing student’s sense of belonging and looking after students’ mental health. These recommendations were discussed in a wider staff/ student group which resulted in agreeing a significant increase in academic skills provision and support for undergraduate students 2022/2023 including: Doubling the number of academic skills tutors; working more closely with transition mentors; having timetabled academic skills sessions for all incoming first year UG & PGT students; increased academic skills tutor office hours; and supervised ‘shut up and write sessions throughout the year. The final part of the funding enabled the project to trial run an end-of-year mug painting social. It was a popular event with over thirty students, where we learned about the types of social activities that students prefer that we can do more of in the future. Overall, I found the most rewarding part of this project to be working in a relatively large group of students and staff. Just knowing that there are so many passionate people who wanted to use their experience to help others was rewarding in itself. Also, every part of our communication was a collective ideation exercise that allowed the voices of many voices in the community to be heard at once.

WHAT ADVICE OR ENCOURAGEMENT WOULD YOU GIVE TO SOMEONE THINKING OF DOING A CHANGEMAKERS PROJECT?

Make sure to communicate your ideas with others as much as possible – not just with people who are directly involved in the project, but also everyone around you. It’s rewarding to bounce ideas off others, and you learn a lot in the process. For me, the most daunting part was anticipating and trying to raise the level of student engagement. The important thing to remember is that there is no perfect solution, and just try things if you think they will work. If they don’t, at least you have tried your best. Sometimes, things turn out better than you can ever expect too!

Career support for Undergraduates’ Engagement with Services (CUES) Study

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THE TEAM

Staff lead: Dr Keri Wong

Student lead: Henry Wang

Support student: Chloe Wang

 

DEPARTMENT

Psychology and Human Development, IOE

 

WHAT HAPPENED?

The CUES project investigated undergraduates’ access to UCL’s careers support and development services. Low student engagement with careers workshops and appointments (18.1% and 10.2%, respectively) at the IOE relative to UCL (24.6% and 15.3%) in 2021 has fuelled our investigation into how BSc Psychology with Education undergraduates from the Department of Psychology and Human Development (IOE), are engaging with the career resources offered. In listening to student’s feedback, we hoped to co-design timely solutions to increase student engagement with departmental and UCL careers services. We captured student voices across year groups (year 1, 2, and 3) through online semi-structured focus groups of three students. We explored student’s understanding of employability with at least ten participants from each year group. Study results highlighted six reasons for low engagement with UCL career events; these are: 1) professionalism, 2) undergraduate stage of life, 3) interpersonal factor, 4) cultural factor, 5) personality, and 6) personal characteristics. Additionally, participants’ expectations of university career services were related to ways of introducing career support, individualised support, types of career events, and diverse support. Opinions differed for each year group. This study yielded in-depth, new perspectives on BSc Psychology with Education undergraduates’ ideas and demands for career support. Aligning career support resources more effectively with student needs – better student-staff partnership – will enhance student’s future access to UCL career services and, in turn, maximise students’ employability and overall university experience.

The link of CUES Study Results Highlights Video: https://mediacentral.ucl.ac.uk/Player/46ebcE0F 

CUES Results Posters_Chloe Wang CUES Study Poster_Chloe Wang

 

WHAT ADVICE OR ENCOURAGEMENT WOULD YOU GIVE TO SOMEONE THINKING OF DOING A CHANGEMAKERS PROJECT?

– Always think about your potential stakeholders
– Always keep your supervisor updated about your project and communicate with others
– Always work as a team and try your best to stick to the timeline
– Think creatively about developing solutions for students and staff

IEHC inclusive curriculum student engagement project

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THE TEAM

Staff: Dr Anne Peasey & Dr Rebecca Lacey

Students: Whitney Wells (lead), Wen Wang (support), Sicheng Hu (support)

DEPARTMENT

Institute of Epidemiology and Health Care

WHAT HAPPENED?

To support efforts piloting the decolonising curriculum toolkit on a module in IEHC, we led a changemakers workshop to gather student perspectives on how to foster a more inclusive learning environment. This project was led by three students from the MSc Social Epidemiology programme, with an initial focus on one of our modules, Health Inequalities Over the Life course (IEHC0049). Our goal was to follow an iterative process based on student feedback and perspectives as the foundation. We started with a student workshop to brainstorm challenges and suggested solutions, then discussed the themes and topics that emerged with the academic leads for the module. Academic leads then reviewed the challenges and solutions identified by students and met to brainstorm their feedback and suggested solutions for staff to take student suggestions on board. We then reviewed all the feedback and ideas that had been brainstormed to create a guide for each pillar in the decolonising curriculum toolkit. Next we aim to share this output with the students who originally input into the process and to capture their feedback before circulating more widely to academic leads across the institute and the changemakers team. During the course of the project, we found that the results we got apply not only to one module, but can be taken on any modules to enhance curriculum decolonisation based on student perspectives. Then we build a guide that can be shared across the institute with tangible actions as the result of this changemakers project. We hope this guide will be an invaluable resource for improving efforts to decolonise the curriculum across the IEHC.

WHAT ADVICE OR ENCOURAGEMENT WOULD YOU GIVE TO SOMEONE THINKING OF DOING A CHANGEMAKERS PROJECT?

It is helpful to have a team of students who can support and who are also eager about the goal, to keep the momentum going.

Improving Accessibility of Teaching for Neurodiverse Students

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THE TEAM

Student leads: Harriet Hunter, Navya Malik, Shannon McCann, Ritika Sukhani

Treasurer and staff project lead: Dominika Dykert

DEPARTMENT

Psychology and Language Sciences

WHAT HAPPENED?

Our project originally arose from neurodiverse students bringing up suggestions on how small practical changes within the classroom could have a large impact on improving inclusivity and the learning experience of neurodiverse students. The project aimed to explore the learning experience of neurodiverse UCL students and gain further suggestions on how other changes could be implemented within the classroom environment to accommodate all learners. The experiences of neurodiverse students were gathered through various means (focus groups, interviews, qualitative questionnaires) all answering the same questions focusing on their overall learning experiences and face-to-face classroom / online learning experiences. Through thematic analysis we narrowed down many similarities between students about difficulties they faced and suggestions of how their learning experiences could be improved. These themes highlighted the importance of: clear organisation within the course; the accessibility of course materials; support from staff and the physical classroom environment, which can have a large impact on the learning experience of neurodiverse students. These themes were then presented in our workshop with staff members at the Anna Freud Centre whereby we worked together to discuss solutions and identify which of our themes could be feasibly incorporated into the everyday classroom environment within the Anna Freud Centre. Although our project was small through the information gained from the staff and student partnership we will be creating and distributing a leaflet summarising our findings and the suggestions we wish to continue to incorporate within the Anna Freud Centre to make it an inclusive environment for neurodiverse students.

WHAT ADVICE OR ENCOURAGEMENT WOULD YOU GIVE TO SOMEONE THINKING OF DOING A CHANGEMAKERS PROJECT?

Sometimes things in your project may not go as planned. For us we experienced set-backs which had a domino effect on our recruitment and led to us changing the format of how we gathered information (We went from focus groups to using interviews/qualitative questionnaires). So, our advice is to be flexible on how to approach these problems and not get too shaken by them especially when you’re strapped for time. Also, your staff partners can be a life-saver to minimise these setbacks when they arise.

BARC0132 Indeterminate structures – Developing student’s intuition on structural engineering

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THE TEAM

Staff Lead and Module Coordinator: Fabio Freddi
Lead student: Marjorie Luque
Support students: Cying Wang, Max Ostroverhy

DEPARTMENT

Civil, Environmental & Geomatic Engineering (CEGE)

WHAT HAPPENED?

This project aimed to offer academic support to students in order to improve their learning experience in relation to indeterminate structures, which involved topics that were typically perceived as complex. The main advantage of the project was the involvement of Y3 students, who having faced the same challenges the previous year, were able to understand where the difficulties might arise and based on that advise Y2 students. This also meant that Y2 students were exposed to a variety of teaching styles from a student perspective. Through these sessions which focused on practical work, Y2 students cleared out their doubts and could keep engaged in the module. Also, the cooperative environment created an effective communication channel between Y3 students, Y2 students, and teaching staff.

WHAT ADVICE OR ENCOURAGEMENT WOULD YOU GIVE TO SOMEONE THINKING OF DOING A CHANGEMAKERS PROJECT?

Considering the challenges I faced last year while undertaking the module, this project focused on developing the worked examples in a very detailed manner while including useful tips that could help students improve their understanding of the topics. In order to make the project successful, it was key to prepare the sessions in advance and to organise weekly meetings with the teaching staff.

Peer-led critical reading workshops

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THE TEAM

Staff: Dr Alex Elwick

Lead students: Mellissa Seow, Li Diya, Meichen Lu.

Support students: David Curtin, Lin Zilin, Monica Loa Romo, Kathryn O’Brien Skerry, Christina Pham.

DEPARTMENT

Curriculum, Pedagogy and Assessment , IOE

WHAT HAPPENED?

As masters level students, we’re all told that we must write critically. However, many international students who are not native English speakers struggle with even understanding some of the articles, so it’s harder for them to be able to respond critically to what they read! Our project was a peer-lead reading workshop, which offered a small and safe space where students could ask their peers for help in the essential readings of one of our core modules – What is Education (WIE). Peer tutors were selected from the Term 1 cohort of WIE students to assist students in the Term 2 cohort, where tutors could break down complex sentences, explain foreign concepts or impart strategies and tips for reading critically. Our project recruited 4 peer tutors and had 20 students sign up as tutees. It ran for three weeks in Term 2.

WHAT ADVICE OR ENCOURAGEMENT WOULD YOU GIVE TO SOMEONE THINKING OF DOING A CHANGEMAKERS PROJECT?

If your project satisfies a real need amongst students or staff, then it will be impactful! Don’t be afraid to ask questions and clarify. Whenever we had doubts, we would ask Dr Alex Elwick or each other – talking through our queries and doubts helped to refine the ideas of our final project. We also approached Dr Lesley Price from the AWC – looking at situating your project within the wider context of what’s already going on is a great way to ensure its success.

‘I Spy’ & ‘Many Faces of UCL’

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THE TEAM

Student head: Nanaki Maitra

Staff lead: Dr Alvina Lai

 

DEPARTMENT

Institute of Health Informatics

 

WHAT HAPPENED?

At UCL IHI, the PhD students have a tradition of playing the games’ hangman’ and ‘I spy’ on the kitchen whiteboards, so we decided to continue this tradition and expand our audience by using Twitter as the game platform. We photographed areas around the UCL Campus and London to evoke a sense of community and nostalgia to increase our post-engagement. The games were a big success resulting in the UCL_IHI twitter getting an overall boost of 3711% in tweet impressions, 469% increase in profile visits, and 705% increase in mentions! We then launched the ‘Many Faces of UCL’ interview series to increase opportunities for interactions between students and staff, especially those new to the IHI. We interviewed 8 individuals from IHI, including students and staff, to share their experience working at IHI and their advice for prospective students. Over the 7 days, we received 14K impressions on the tweets, with a sharp increase in engagement rate. These interviews will soon be posted on the UCL IHI website for all to see. The UCL Changemakers funding allowed us to rebuild a sense of community at the IHI through our projects, and it has been a very fulfilling experience.
WHAT ADVICE OR ENCOURAGEMENT WOULD YOU GIVE TO SOMEONE THINKING OF DOING A CHANGEMAKERS PROJECT?
If someone has an idea that can help improve the UCL community on any front, academic or social, I believe they should pitch their project to UCL Changemakers. I would advise keeping the project as feasible as possible, as even the seemingly small projects, like my Twitter game, can have a big payoff. I received a lot of constructive feedback from the UCL Changemakers team during the development of our project, which eventually helped in the project’s execution. As a first-year PhD student, the UCL Changemakers project was a fantastic opportunity to connect with many people in my department, so I highly recommend others to go for it too!

Developing international perspectives on the curriculum for the MA Early Years Education programme

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THE TEAM

Students: Iba Beyza Yuanyuan Dai (project lead student) Chunjing Li Kateryna Tyzhuk

Staff: Jennifer Chung Eirini Gkouskou Joseph Mintz (project lead staff)

DEPARTMENT

Learning and Leadership, IOE

WHAT HAPPENED?
In this project we worked with staff and students on the MA Early Years cluster (MA Early Years Face to Face, MA Early Years Online and MA Primary) to develop an understanding of how we could approach developing a more international perspective on the programme. Our objectives were to consider how the programme could better draw on the personal and professional experience of all students and their understanding of their own local contexts in their home countries, and further consider how this could be translated into curriculum developments. We ran focus groups with staff and students on the programme as well as a student survey. Based on analysis of this feedback we developed two exemplar resources for two units on two modules, illustrating how an international perspective could be developed in the programme. We also came up with a set of recommendations. One of the best things about the project was that we gained a real sense of what students thought was important – for example that student diversity was a real resource for learning that could be made more use of in the curriculum for the programme. We also understood better the challenges perceived by staff – in particular the need to avoid tokenistic approaches and instead to focus on deeper learning that made use of staff diversity and the full staff knowledge base on international perspectives.
WHAT ADVICE OR ENCOURAGEMENT WOULD YOU GIVE TO SOMEONE THINKING OF DOING A CHANGEMAKERS PROJECT?
So a key thing we learned was that students and staff can work together and learn together as equals. One student noted, “..the whole process we were treated as equal members of the research team, whose insights were always seriously considered. As a result, it had an immense (positive) impact on my self-esteem as a novice researcher.” Another student said, “”definitely do it because It is an excellent opportunity to develop some research skills, improve your network and experience the program from a different perspective”. Adopting a co-production perspective from the start is really important but at the same time working initially to understand the strengths and limitations across the whole team and how we can work to support each other is also really important