On the 14th November, members of LTSN Bioscience traveled
to the beautiful Beckett Park Campus of Leeds Metropolitan University
to launch the Centre with the learning and teaching community of the North
East. The themes of Plagiarism and Teaching Problem
Solving Skills were covered.
Plagiarism
In the morning, following an introduction to LTSN Bioscience, Prof. Robert Slater
(University of Hertfordshire and co-ordinator of the LTSN
Bioscience Special Interest Group (S.I.G.) in Plagiarism) introduced this
topic, asking for ideas and discussion from the audience. Terry McAndrew from
LTSN Bioscience then introduced a real-life scenario from the University of
Leeds in their pilot of Turnitin.com.
Robert poised a number of questions to the floor:
- What is plagiarism?
- Do students always understand what plagiarism is?
- What are we trying to achieve in dealing with plagiarism?
- How do different institutions deal with plagiarism? How should the academic
community deal with these differences?
- What strategies could we use against plagiarism?
- Does Bioscience present any specific problems?
Robert has kindly agreed to make his powerpoint
presentation available for download (as a pdf)*
He also specifically pointed the audience to a number of websites that may
be of use:
namely http://Plagiarism.org/
which houses the user portal to Turnitin.com and provides the latest information
on online plagiarism,
and http://www.cheathouse.com/uk/index.html,
which is a site for students who wish to plagiarise- it is as well for academics
to be aware of such sites.
Following his introduction and discussion from the floor, Robert introduced
a number of objectives for the S.I.G. in Plagiarism:
- To identify sources of opportunity
- To survey approaches taken by departments
- To provide advice and examples of best practice
- To look to the future with respect to teaching and assessment methods
If you are interested in the S.I.G. in plagiarism, please contact the centre
at heabioscience@leeds.ac.uk
Following Robert's introduction to the issues of plagiarism, Terry talked specifically
about a pilot project run at the University of Leeds which looked at the possible
use of Turnitin.com in the management of plagiarism. Terry gave a live demonstration
of Turnitin.com and he has also made his Powerpoint
presentation available for download (as a pdf)*.
The url for the Turnitin website is http://www.turnitin.com/
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Teaching Problem Solving Skills
In the afternoon, Prof. Ed Wood, Director of LTSN Bioscience, opened with a
discussion on Teaching Problem Solving Skills, and the issues that the audience
had with this theme. The overheads used in this session are available
for download (pdf)* . Issues regarding the use of Problem Based Learning
were also touched on.
In his introduction, Prof. Wood considered the skills that are
involved in problem solving:
- Making judgments/ critical skills
- Analytical skills
- Decision making skills
- Collecting information
- Planning
- Creative thinking
...... and asked- do you survey your new intake of students on their key skills?
e.g.
- During the past two years, have you been involved in any activity, whether
inside or outside school/college, in which you critically reviewed an idea,
concept or theory?
- During the past two years, have you been involved in any activity, whether
inside or outside school/college, in which you questioned or cross-examined
someone to extract some information?
- During the past two years, have you been involved in any activity, whether
inside or outside school/college in which you identified the information needed
to solve a problem?
This led to a discussion with the audience regarding issues in the teaching
of problem solving skills. The points of discussion are summarized as follows:
- Do different types of problems (e.g. numerical, open-ended text (PBL type))
require different kinds of skills?
- Do we teach students specific skills or strategies for solving problems?
- If the latter is true, does this mean students develop their problem solving
through experience alone? Does this have implications on student confidence
and motivation?
- In addition, if the process and skills involved are not explicitly taught
and/or explained, can students become fixated on the answer rather than the
process involved...?
- Which leads nicely on to assessment- do you assess problem solving through
the answer, or do you assess for the process? i.e. skills rather than outcomes
- In Bioscience, problem solving is often taught in a lab context, and often
through group work. This has implications on assessment and student motivation.
- In addition, as with other scientific subjects, there is an issue between
balancing content with key skills.
- How can we help students develop confidence in their skills?
and finally
- Does Problem Based Learning actually work? (phew, that's a tough one....)
The audience where then corralled and encouraged to consider their own problem
solving skills through a short activity. Overheads detailing the activity are
available
for download (pdf)*
This led us to consider the process of problem solving (with acknowledgement
to George Polya and his book 'How to Solve It'). What stages do we go through
when we attempt to solve a problem?
- Engage: I want to and I can
- Understand the problem: define
- Plan a procedure to solve the problem
- Collection of required data and knowledge
- Select preferred solution: use and evaluate
- Reflect on the process
Further notes on these processes can be found on the overheads for this session
(available
for download (pdf*))
In summary, a number of points (although not necessarily answers) came out
of this session:
- Do you want to teach explicit problem solving skills to your students?
- Should such skills be totally or explicitly embedded in your subject, or
should they be taught in a parallel fashion as key skills?
- Students will have differing attitudes to problem solving dependent on how
it is taught and how it is assessed
- How do you solve problems? Can you teach problem solving skills if you do
not understand your own process?
- How do we assess such skills?
- How can we balance content coverage with key skills- and is too much emphasis
being placed on key skills?
Finally
Would you be interested in co-ordinating a S.I.G. in Problem Solving Skills?
If this is an area that interests you, we will be putting a call out for another
round of S.I.G. development. Please contact the Centre if you are interested.
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*Copyright over this item sits with the author.
Any person wishing to use this presentation for any purpose must first approach
the author via LTSN Bioscience.
