Making IT Resources Work for Your Students

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Importance of Theme “Making IT resources work for your students”

The theme “making IT resources work for your students” is important as it ensures that students are able to access relevant material for their course. By making IT resources work for your students it also encourages students to practice their IT skills.

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Dr Phil Race, Addressing Student Satisfaction – adopted from material published in Making Teaching Work by Phil Race and Ruth Pickford, London: Sage, 2007).

How to ensure that students have access to general IT resources ?

• Maximise the efficiency with which your students use the IT resources. You can do this partly by demonstrating in large-group sessions how you expect them to go about particular tasks, and providing clear written step-by-step instructions so that limited resources go further.
• Consider the possibility of staggering the demand. For example, give a large class three IT resource-based tasks using different resources, with a suggested timetable indicating in which order different students should undertake the respective tasks.

How to ensure that students have access to specialised equipment, facilities, or rooms ?

• Make sure that any specialised equipment is really needed by your students. In other words, the use of specialised equipment or facilities should relate very strongly to your students’ achievement of one or more particular intended learning outcomes.
• Devise relevant alternative tasks for your students to do at times when they are waiting for their turn to use the specialised equipment or facilities, so that they do not feel that their time is being wasted.
• Use specialised equipment and facilities in small-group activities, so that the availability of resources will stretch further with your students.

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The theme is also significant in relation to the National Student Survey and the Higher Education Academy Fellowship.

National Student Survey

The theme has been taken from the National Student Survey question “I have been able to access the general and specialised IT resources when I needed to” under the category Learning Resources.

In the recent 2014 NSS results 87% of students at Swansea University agreed that I have been able to access the general and specialised IT resources when I needed to.

Higher Education Academy

The theme is also important in regards to the United Kingdom Professional Standards Framework (UKPSF) as “making IT resources work for your students” contributes to Core Knowledge K4 the use and value of appropriate learning technologies.

For more information on the UKPSF follow the link https://www.heacademy.ac.uk/professional-recognition/uk-professional-standards-framework-ukpsf