Double Award Success for Nutrition and Health
Fri, 25 Jul 2014 10:27:00 BST
Dr Jane Bradbury has been working with Dr Pedro Barra of Kingston University to pilot a collaborative project involving Nutrition students studying similar modules at the two universities, an evaluation of which they presented at the recent HEA STEM conference. Students used PeerWise, which is an online tool that allows students to create multiple choice questions that can be answered, commented upon, and rated by other students, and that tracks student contributions, creating a student ranking based upon “reputation” and “answer” scores. These gaming features have been highlighted as the driver behind PeerWise’s success.
Jane and Pedro wanted to see whether adding an additional competitive element – that of competition between universities – would increase engagement. Both prizes (one year membership of either the Institute of Food Science and Technology or the Nutrition Society) were won by Huddersfield students. Nathan Talbot, who had the highest reputation score, feels that PeerWise was a good addition to traditional lectures. “I had to look through my notes to answer questions my classmates had given and to help me construct my own questions, which helped me to appreciate and understand some of the key concepts we had covered in lectures. PeerWise made revising a little bit more fun, and the competition between classmates and universities added to the excitement.”
Pedro was magnanimous in congratulating Nathan and Alice Kininmonth who achieved the highest score on PeerWise. “I was obviously convinced it would be a Kingston University student. Alas, that was not to be. I can only conclude Jane was more persuasive. I've thus decided to go into denial, ignore the results and pretend that it never happened. Surely a fluke!”
Alice is also celebrating success in the annual Students’ Union Awards, being named as Applied Sciences Course Representative of the Year. As the Course Representative for the last two years, Alice’s role has been to communicate the views of her fellow students to University staff to try to make sure that any issues which students encounter can be resolved as quickly as possible, with the support of the Students’ Union and its STARS training scheme.
Alice commented, “the role has allowed me to develop my confidence, communication skills and ability to listen to others. I am now able to communicate with a diverse range of people and effectively represent their views. I have learnt that it is important to always be impartial and have a professional but understanding approach to any issues that fellow students may have throughout the year.
“I was honoured to be nominated for this award and I am still in shock that I actually won! I would like to thank to everyone on my course, I have really enjoyed these past two years and it has been an absolute pleasure to be your course representative.“
