Detailed look through assignment

I inherited an assignment from my predecessor James. Before I could ask the students to do it, I of course had to do it myself. And I thought it was brilliant! He had basically taken a sediment core, and given the students loads of information about it; the core log, some core scanning records, two radiocarbon dates, and two dated ash layers. With that you can build up a good chronology of the core. And he then would ask them to do a practical in which they would establish the abundance of a species of foraminifera that pretty much exclusively lives above the Polar Front. And then he asked them to interpret that record. Where was the Polar Front with respect to the core site over the time period is the foraminifera samples spanned? I liked it!

I have done a lot of tweaking that assignment; the biggest change was that I threw out the practical. I am the only foraminifera person in the School; it is too much work to supervise a practical on your own. I just use a record that an earlier cohort had produced. And I must admit I tried to make it a little bit easier. The students tend to struggle!

I tend to have drop-in sessions in my modules, and they tend to be used by students who have questions about an assignment. This year was no exception. I also had a drop-in session after the deadline, but of course there are always some students who have an extension and can submit a bit later. And several of these appeared to talk it through. These were pretty much all students who have things such as dyslexia, dyscalculia, ADHD, or any of those characteristics. And when the drop-in session was over, there were two students who still needed some support.

The assignment is set up as a narrative. It is not just one question after another. And it turned out that these students struggle with that. They also struggled with the fact that in the questions, I send them to external sources to look things up. I direct them to several journal articles in which they can look up the things they need for doing the assignment, and I send them to a website where you can calibrate your radiocarbon dates.

Screenshot from the assignment 

These students were not so keen on the narrative form. They just want a very clear list of questions you can just tackle in one go. I had never really discussed this assignment in that much detail. For next year, I will make a structured equivalent. I am sure that there will still be some who appreciate a narrative form, but for the other ones I will make a version that is a bit more bullet-list-esque. A brief introduction with what the assignment encompasses, and then guidelines on what sources they should have ready at hand when they start. And then just a concise list of the questions. And maybe then footnotes associated with each question, guiding them to further information if they need it. Maybe then it will be a bit easier for them to keep the momentum going!

In the end, most students somehow get it and it isn't badly done. But I am glad I now have had a deep look into how a particular demographic of students deals with an assignment like that. There is no reason why I can't have two versions that do the same thing, but just presented in different ways. I'm glad we put time into it! And I won’t have time to sort this out right now, but before the next academic year shouldn’t be too difficult. Let’s hope that means fewer students will struggle…