University of Wrocław professors report on the results of the first Arqus Joint Summer School on Teaching Innovation

The first Arqus Joint Summer School on Teaching Innovation was dedicated to “Enhancing students’ learning using appropriate assessment strategies”. It took place from 18^th to 21^st June 2023 in Puvočiai, Lithuania. This event marked the inaugural summer school for teaching staff organized within Arqus, providing an invaluable opportunity for participants from diverse partner universities to convene for three days of learning and exchanging ideas about assessment in higher education. Thirty educators from six Arqus universities attended the Summer School. Now, academics from the University of Wrocław who participated in the event tell us their experiences and main learnings.

The University of Wrocław was represented by scientists Prof. Barbara Łydżba-Kopczyńska from the Faculty of Chemistry, Dr. Magdalena Zagalska-Neubauer from the Faculty of Biological Sciences, Dr. Elwira Wachowicz from the Faculty of Physics and Astronomy, Prof. Alina Bieńko from the Faculty of Chemistry, and Prof. Renata Duda from the Faculty of Social Sciences.

As Prof. Barbara Łydźba (Department of Analytical Chemistry, UWr Faculty of Chemistry) said: “I was surprised by the topic. After so many years of work, I didn’t know there was so much new to learn about marking. Everyone has experience with final marking – we ask questions, we give marks, we do exams, students beg for every point to get a higher mark, and it turns out that’s not the most important thing. Much more time should be spent on it, and it would be good if we had time to focus on other forms of assessment. Assessment helps students to master the next stages of knowledge.

We can also check and evaluate whether what we are giving them is understandable to them, whether they understand what we are talking about and what we expect of them. And another important thing – evaluation, which is itself a form of learning. We are used to the evaluator being the teacher, but the evaluators can be students. Not only can they evaluate us – the teachers – whether the classes are interesting for them, but they can also evaluate themselves and point out what can be improved. It can be a form of learning – both for the students and for us – the trainers.

At the Summer School, we learned how to motivate students through evaluation. For me, it was a different perspective on didactics. What surprised me the most was the artificial intelligence used to prepare lessons, to create questions, not necessarily exam questions, to create tests and to support the evaluation of teaching progress. I was told that even if I make small changes to the way I teach, it could be the start of a big change”.

“I teach a course in Physics for Applied Computer Science at the Faculty of Physics and Astronomy, one part of it is a lab on the application of Matlab in physics, using MatLab we try to teach them physics. MatLab is a programming language. This year, for the first time, my colleague and I gave the students a group project”, said Dr. Elwira Wachowicz (Department of Surface Physics and Nanomaterials, Faculty of Physics and Astronomy).

“I decided to involve the students in peer review. Normally they would be bored during the presentation. They were given short questionnaires asking what they liked, and what advice they would give to the students to improve their presentation. On the boards, they wrote marks in three categories for the presentation. It seems to me that, firstly, it was a lot of fun and, secondly, the students learned something more than just physics”.

“For me, it was a great challenge and experience. It was a very intense and inspiring time”, recalls Prof. Alina Bieńko (Department of Chemistry Didactics, Faculty of Chemistry).

“The main topic was the evaluation process. The role of evaluation was discussed in great detail. For me, it was very important to exchange experiences with other academics from Europe who, like us, combine didactics and research in different studies. These discussions were extremely valuable, even behind the scenes.

After the Summer School, the courses that I am teaching at the Faculty of Chemistry have been modified to include a method, namely student co-evaluation. This method allows us to follow our teaching process and to find out whether our teaching process is effective or not, and whether the knowledge has been imparted by us understandably and effectively.

We want to share the knowledge and experience we have gained and we plan to organise a series of meetings to share what we have learnt in practice, and what has been most valuable to us, and to present contemporary digital working tools that make evaluation easier.

We do not evaluate for the sake of the teaching process itself. We evaluate to improve our teaching process but also to improve the students’ acquisition of knowledge. The measure of any university’s greatness is its well-educated graduates”.

Watch the interview in Polish here:

The next Arqus Joint Summer School on teaching innovation will take place from 17^th to 19^th September in Padua. The Summer School will focus on how to bring Artificial Intelligence (AI) in the university classroom.

Original news.