1. Sophie Rutschmann Talking Teaching, 17 January 2018
Professional Skills let’s be strategic
Sophie Rutschmann

2. Rationale behind the new sessions
Linear reading
Understand the structure to use it strategically and improve efficiency
Varied UG background
Criticality
Assessment
Share our experiential knowledge
Engaging & hands-on sessions

3. What did that translate into?
Two days of sessions based on our experiential knowledge to provide our students tools to read and present data efficiently right from the start of their MSc
The settings
4 MSc from the Department of Medicine
91 students from all over the world
12 tutors
Programme administrators, e-learning technologist
Blackboard
1 Lecture theatre, 4 seminar rooms

4. Thank you Wayne Mitchell Jeffrey Vernon Gabriela Da Silva Xavier
Agnieszka Malisz-Virtanen
Gabriela Da Silva Xavier
Michael Mc Garvey
Paras Anand
Mick Jones
Celeste Miles
Deborah Jones
Alicja Pastuszek
Jason Bennett
Nikman Bin Nor Hashim Conor Horgan
Motasim Masood
Marina Natoli
Anwar Sayed

5. Preparation Before: 4 days of lectures each lead by one MSc
Initial course directors meeting, negotiations, consensus
After: 2 days of lectures & 2 days of “professional skills”
Designing, organising, booking, explaining
Learning Outcomes (identifying, using a strategy, analysing, generating)
Sessions plan, presentations
Developing activities on material that suits all 4 MSc
Tutors (times, discussing sessions) and dividing students in groups
Room booking
Printing, uploading onto BB folders

6. Timetable
A week before, students were sent paper 1 with prompting questions
Wednesday
Anatomy of a Paper
Thursday
Abstract and Figures
Lecture theatre 1
Pair discussion of pre-session on paper 1
Presentation: structure of a paper
Pair work on paper 2
Presentation: structure of an abstract
Individual writing of paper 3 abstract
Peer feedback
Presentation: structure of a figure and its legend
Lunch
LT1 and Seminar rooms
Individual reading of paper 3
Group critical discussion with tutors
Final thoughts and feedback
Group analysis of experimental data
Pair preparation and presentation of a figure, group feedback with tutor

7. Pre-session reading
A week prior to the sessions, students were given Paper 1 to read individually.
Prompting questions
What is the paper about?
What are the three main claims?
Do you think the authors convincingly demonstrate their claims?
What, in your opinion, is the most important figure of the paper?
If any, what is the biggest technical/experimental issue?
If you were the lab conducting the study, what experiment would you do next?
How long did the reading/answering the questions take you?

8. No right/wrong … what do they actually think?

9. Cover to cover reading takes time!

10. Anatomy of a paper Where to start? Title Authorship and contribution
Abstract
Introduction
Material and Methods
Figures + link with Results
Discussion
Writing comments and critical appraisal
Using Paper 1 (that students knew from the pre-session reading) and a few other examples, we went through these rubrics one by one.

11. Paper 1 introduction Background: innate immunity Procedure Results
Background: link with T1D
Rationale for the study
“[MDA5 polymorphism and pIC], none have explained how these influence the risk of T1D”

12. Strategic tips: criticality
My notes from looking at the figures BEFORE reading the results is the starting point for my critical appraisal

13. Hands-on activities
-1- Strategic reading: 30 min to go through Paper 2 and identify main sections of introduction and discussion, dissect one figure and relate to corresponding part in results. Pair discussion.
-2- In mixed smaller groups with tutors: Paper 3 with original prompting questions. Wider group discussion with tutor.
-3- Write Paper 3 abstract. Peer assessment based on prompting assessment criteria (structure, wording, precision, reference most data in the paper, exciting)
-4- Create a complete figure from original data and present it, group discussion.

14. In action!

15. Anatomy of a paper (day 1) (n=69) Abstract/Figure (day 2)
Feedback
Item
Anatomy of a paper (day 1) (n=69)
Abstract/Figure (day 2)
(n=45)
Overall session useful or very useful
96%
Pre-session work difficult or too difficult
46%
N/A
Pre-session work at right level
52%
Peer work useful or very useful
90%
87%
Group session useful or very useful
78%
Working with tutors useful or very useful
94%
82%
Pace fast or too fast
32%
13%
Pace just right
61%
73%
Documents used: complicated or too complicated
45%
24%
Documents used: right level of complexity
54%
69%
“[ ], a big plus as well for starting at 10:30!”

16. Feedback for improvement
“Unfortunately I thought the content of the papers often stood in the way for me to get the most out of the activities.[ ]. This also affected the amount I could contribute in the pair and group activities and left me a bit discouraged Thursday afternoon. I think "easier" papers or papers that contain less field specific content could have been better for these activities.”
“Maybe setting the papers for reading in more diverse subject matter.”
“Not enough time at all for writing the own abstract.”
“Because we were given two tasks to do for two days in row (Including Dr Gavier's work). I found limited in time to prepare answers for the question”

17. Show of hands
Would you use the new strategic approach for reading during your MSc?
“I found it useful when the lecturers gave tips on how to read an article - giving us advice on how we can read it in a non-linear manner. This has been very useful and I feel the way I read papers now is much more effective.”  (MSc student, January 2018)

18. Conclusions Hurdles Adapt the content to all 4 different MSc
Timing of various activities
Teaching space
Cater for 91 students for two days
Work with 12 tutors
Resistance to change in teaching
Required time for initial development but hopefully only needed once!
However
Rewarding
Fun
Entertaining
Students are the ones doing the work during the sessions
Easy to teach as it is our expertise

19. Conclusions
Any questions?