Summary of bids and outcomes to the Humanities Teaching and Learning Funds 2006/2007
The following bids were approved by the Faculty Funding Group on 8th November
Proposer
Elaine Graham
SAHC
Project
Amount bid
for
£4597
Amount
Awarded
£4597
‘Second Life’ for Student Learning: Bringing Urban Geography Fieldwork into a Virtual World.
£1880
£1880
Pilot a project to enhance final year UG Geography teaching. Co-ordinated across 2 existing units,
students will link findings from ‘real’ fieldwork in Manchester to online EBL within a ‘virtual world’.
These provide a simulated, 3-D graphical space that is inhabited by multiple participants represented
by avatars. The environments provide immersive, spatial contexts for shared social activities,
achieved by differentiating ground and sky, granting avatars the freedom to move in different directions
and an awareness of things that are nearby and locations that are distant, and crucially, the capacity to
design their own buildings.
Developing digital content in educational technology teaching
£10000
Decision has
been
deferred until
information
requested
Evaluating the student learning experience of constructivist models of epistemology through the use of
Learning Journals in pedagogies of advocacy.
This model, aims to maximise students' experiental learning of constructivist models of epistemology
by helping them to reflect on the impact of their own standpoint on their learning, to link knowledge
with experience to enable change, and to subject anecdotal evidence to critical and systematic
analysis. Students are thus developing research skills towards level three requirements.
The potential of the Learning Journal as an innovative assessment method of students' experiental
learning of constructivist models of epistemology is not fully exploited. The proposed project will:
 improve the Learning Journal task to enhance the course's learning and teaching approach
 design clear guidance notes and appropriate assessment criteria for the Learning Journal task
conduct an ethnographic evaluation of the intervention based on evidence collected from students
and staff
Martin Dodge
SED
Andrew Whitworth
Education
The project will draw on a range of e-learning expertise within the School of Education, and thereby,
seeks to capitalise on the learning that has surfaced through different university-funded e-learning
initiatives over the last few years (e.g. the Research Methods Resource and distance learning
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development on the MA Ed Tech/TESOL) and to further develop professional skills in the academic
tutors who will be involved in the new MA programme. However, development assistance is required to
facilitate the actual transfer of content.
following a
successful
bid in 05/06
has been
provided.
The following bid was originally submitted in 2005/06 and has been approved in December 2006
Sophie Garside
LLC
Development of a WebCT unit in Hebrew Language
£4390.56
£3039.84
This is an Ab-inicio course, currently delivered through 5 classes per week face-to-face only. The
plan is to develop a WebCT site which will provide an e-learning component to the existing syllabus of
the course. The WebCT course would greatly benefit the students and will provide enhancements of
transferable skills alongside the acquisition of the target language. The WebCT course would provide
a springboard for further development of non-European language courses within Middle Eastern
Studies.
The full
amount was
to buy in
teaching
replacement.
Not all funds
were
provided on
the basis that
course
development
is an
expectation
of academic
staff
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