Summary of Master Classes for 1st years
The pilot scheme was set up to encourage departments to assign academic study leaders to various modules for 1st year students. These academic study leaders will provide extra classes for those students wanting extra support and act as ‘shadow classes’ to the lectures.
Within the School of Sport Health and Exercise Sciences, core 1st year modules already have extra shadow classes, so it was decided that ‘Master Classes’ would be available to 1st year students who feel they want to be pushed or explore the topics raised in the lectures.
It was decided that Master Classes will be held for Research Skills (Sem 2), Human Body (Sem 2) and Psychomotor Behaviour (Sem 2). Training was undertaken by 3 academic study leaders who will each be in charge of one module.
Progress to date for research skills (Sem 2);
1)Training undertaken by academic study leader.
2)The training for the academic study leaders was timetabled quite late into semester 1, so it was decided that it would be better to run the master classes in semester 2. It was also decided that the students would benefit more from the master classes in Sem 2,due to the contest of research skills. Research Skills (Sem 1) is theory based, whilst Research Skills (Sem2) is more ‘hand-on’; calculations and computer based sessions. The focus of the Master classes will therefore be based upon calculations, interpreting data and critiquing research design in published studies.
3)Students have been approached regarding the master classes; for example students identified through tutors that have expressed that the 1st semester did not challenge them enough.
4)An announcement will be made in the next research skills lecture to all students. This will explain the nature of the Master classes and the role of an academic study leader. It will also make the students aware of when the Master classes will be and that they are based on a first come first serve basis, with a maximum of 20 in each session.
5)It is planned that there will be a total of 4 sessions, but as there are 160+ 1st years, if there is a high demand for these classes, this will be reviewed.
Plan of fist session;
1)Introduce myself and aims of the pilots scheme. Discuss the roles of myself as and academic study leader and the roles of the students -5 mins
2)Ice breaker – making sure everyone is included –5mins
3)Group activity – drawing up ground rules; feedback one point from each person - 5mins
4)Topics to be discussed – Explain what topics are going to be covered in the next 4 session – 10 mins
5)Paired activity – Discuss what topics they would like to explore, what they would find useful; one person feedback – 10 mins
6)Paper activity – distribute a paper, in pairs discuss the methods used, what research deign was used, critique the methods and suggest potential alternatives– 15mins
7)Review – explain paper and suggest alternative research designs – 5 mins
8)Discuss what the plan of the next session will be, i.e topics to be discussed; any prep needed to be done – 5 mins
The further 3 sessions will have a different format. Approximately 45 minutes will be spent on a task;the remainder of time will be spent reviewing and discussing further topics.