Trialling Live Marking in the Foundations of Statistics unit
We as a team – Martin Wright, Tim Fewster and Ksenia Shalonova – did live marking for the Foundations of Statistics data analysis reports (1,000-1,500 words). We present two blog articles: the first gives a brief description of the background information and summarises both the advantages and disadvantages of using live marking, whereas in the second, Tim Fewster shares his personal experience about using live marking for the first time. We hope that Tim’s blog article will inspire you to use live marking … in particular, will inspire those of you who are reluctant to use it in your sessions and for your subjects – as we as a team (the three of us) enjoyed the whole process.
Should you give societies a chance?
by IFP student Camila Bena Mejia
For many of us, Bristol was totally unknown before moving here. I didn’t know anything about British culture apart from the famous ‘bland’ food and great music like the Beatles. I was on the other side of the world away from my home, and my ‘to do’ list included learning how to cook, making friends, and going to class. To learn how to cook I bought a cookbook – an easy solution; to go to class I simply learned to wake up on time (I still struggle with it some days). But to make friends there isn’t a guide. (more…)
Freedom in the Classroom
by Nick Boden
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| Mafalda sees an even smaller child and goes over to speak to them. | Mafalda: Hello! You’re really small! What’s your name? |
FREEDOM … the child replies. |
Mafalda doesn’t reply. After a beat, the child says …
Reached a conclusion yet stupid? The whole world reaches their own stupid conclusion when they meet me. |
| Mafalda ‘Freedom On the Beach’ Mafalda Digital, Quino (1970). Available at: https://x.com/MafaldaDigital/status/1769836759280468016?mx=2 [Accessed 24 Feb. 2025]. | |||
The Bristol Curriculum Framework (2025) highlights the importance of creating an intellectually stimulating environment that is multidisciplinary, creates a sense of belonging, contributes to personal development and inculcates a sense of global and civic engagement. These are ambitious goals for practitioners in a world saturated with information. Given this context, it is essential to consider how students engage with content as this can be beneficial to meet these challenges. (more…)
Inside the Teacher’s Mind: Podcast 1 With Tom Willis Jones
Respecting and Responding to the International Student Experience (RISE)
by Kevin Haines
One of the ways in which CALD makes itself visible across the institution is by sharing its expertise on Teaching international students. For several years we have done this by delivering workshops on Learning and Teaching in the International Classroom for BILT as part of the CREATE scheme. During the past academic year, we have also worked with colleagues across the university to develop guidance for academics on their teaching of groups consisting of both international and home students. The findings of the RISE project have been written up as a Guide and represented as a Poster. My blog post for BILT brings together these components and describes how I have been able to incorporate the RISE material into the workshop. Click here to read on. (more…)
Embarking on a PhD: how I got here
A PhD is obviously a huge commitment, so an understandable level of consideration ought to go into a decision like that. Typically on hearing that yours truly is doing one, I’m inevitably asked: what I’m doing; why I decided the PhD was right for me; and how I got to this point. This blog is an attempt to answer those questions and hopefully provide some insights for those considering doctoral study. (more…)
Depth of Understanding
I had a bit of an epiphany earlier this year when I was observing some of the subject tutors on our International Foundation Programme. I was trying to conduct some research into engagement, scaffolding and Bloom’s Taxonomy when I realised that I was asking the wrong questions. While I was looking at how subject tutors used scaffolding in line with Bloom’s Taxonomy, the tutors scaffolded for depth and complexity of understanding.
It is a subtle difference, perhaps best explained by Daisy Christodoulou (2024), a former secondary school teacher who has written widely about education and whose critique of the progression statement (what we’d call Intended Learning Outcome) discusses how being able to “infer characters’ emotions from explicit details in the text” is a different skill when the text under consideration is Winnie the Pooh rather than Pride and Prejudice. Both tasks might sit on the same level of Bloom’s Taxonomy, but one is considerably more complex than the other. (more…)
Open Education Resource: Seeking Transparency in AI
by Kerry Boakes
This post introduces a resource titled Seeking Transparency in AI – From Black Boxes to Radical Possibilities (ed.ac.uk) to my colleagues at CALD.
Perceptions of Autonomy
by Rachel Wall
Last year, I embarked on a series of research projects which led me on a merry dance through the avenues and rabbit holes of autonomy. They led me to question my own practice and the precarious balance of appropriate scaffolding; dive into the baffling world of Legitimation Code Theory (LCT); experiment with coding; observe the language choices of my fellow tutors; design surveys and observation instruments and fundamentally left me wondering if autonomy can ever really exist. I’m not going to lie: the process ‘flawed’ me on many occasions – in both senses of the homophone – and forced me to rethink my own approach to life, as both a tutor and a citizen of this luscious planet. (more…)