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What was the context for collaboration?
Programme leaders (Sports and Exercise, Oncology, Immunology, Biomedicine, AMS, and Nutrition) had expressed a desire for additional support for students writing their research projects.
This was to help students in producing clearer, better structured projects, and as a useful addition to what programme leaders felt was already a high caliber of project writing.
We agreed that the most beneficial time would be towards the end of Term 2 once most students had gathered data and before the Easter holidays when it was assumed the bulk of writing would take place.
What did we do?
The ACC lecturers met with module leads to find out what the strengths, perceived needs and expectations were for the current cohort of students. They also outlined the collaboration process and explained the interactive nature of ACC teaching.
At this point, module leads provided access to their Moodle pages, research project criteria, a general overview of their departmental timetables with draft deadlines, data collection periods and scheduled supervisor support.
In addition, all departments provided a range of sample projects with lower and higher scoring samples to help tailor the provision and provide useful points for analysis.
We agreed, where not already public on Moodle, that these samples were only to be used by ACC lecturers for reference.听
Out of these discussions, suitable provision was agreed. This included whether the provision was offered for a single programme or if two programmes should be grouped together, whether sign up would be optional or the provision would be embedded as mandatory in the timetable, whether the provision would be on campus or online, and the session length.听
Workshops were developed for all the Medical Sciences iBSc programmes (including some Y3 UG programmes), with some teaching on campus, at the Royal Free site, and some online.
Each session typically focused on:
- effective writing strategies
- narrative within the research project and cohesion
- planning and organising
- criticality and synthesis
- paragraphing and tips for editing and proofreading.
What factors made this an effective intervention?听
The intervention came at an opportune moment when students were beginning to plan and draft their research projects.
The session allowed space for reflection, confidence building, encouragement for drafting听and guidance and support with structuring and organising.
The interactive nature of the session enabled students to articulate and share their research.
The input of the programme leaders was critical in making this an effective intervention. They not only engaged in the process of developing the workshops, but provided previous research projects to be used as subject-specific examples in teaching, and attended the final part of some of the workshops to address specific questions raised by the students.
What our staff and students say
鈥淚t was really helpful and the interactive nature was great鈥�鈥�
鈥淭he session has been invaluable in helping me make a start鈥�鈥�
鈥淚t was inspiring and informative鈥�鈥�