The remote practicals playbook

Since the suspension of face to face teaching at the University of Sheffield, like many other Higher Education institutions across the world, MEE has had to consider how to deliver our practical engineering education remotely without sacrificing learning outcomes. At the time we were denied access to our laboratories we had over 600 scheduled sessions remaining in the students' timetables to translate from an in-lab format to a remote format. This provided us with a broad collection of different tactics adopted by all of our staff. After some reflection, myself, Joanna Bates, Stephen Beck and Adam Funnell determined that we could identify six categories of approach to delivering remote practicals and wrote a paper on the subject which is available in pre-print. This has formed the basis for a resource we are referring to as the remote practicals playbook

When designing or redesigning any teaching activity, the starting point should always be to consider the method to most effectively fulfil the learning outcomes. This is no different when developing remote practicals or converting existing in-lab practicals to remote delivery.  The objective of the playbook is to align the six categories of remote practical with learning outcomes that may want to be achieved from a practical activity. 



The idea is that educators looking for a starting point can identify the learning outcomes they are hoping to achieve, refer to the playbook and gain inspiration about methods that may be effective. I have delivered a number of webinars on the subject recently and there appears to be significant interest in this idea. So for anyone wanting this resource, I can announce that it is now live here:

https://sites.google.com/sheffield.ac.uk/remote-practicals-playbook

Now for the caveats:

This is not designed to be a definitive set of answers to all problems, or a silver bullet for delivering perfect teaching. It is merely a collection of methods that we have used or considered using that may prove a useful resource for anyone struggling for ideas. It is also neither finished nor comprehensive. My intention is that we will add to it over time and as our experiences increase in a post-pandemic world. Finally, we are open to suggestions. MEE has expertise in practical engineering education, but we aren’t the only ones. If you feel that something useful has been missed or there is something you would like to see, do get in touch. We would love your feedback. I can be reached at a.garrard@sheffield.ac.uk.

Comments

  1. Hello Andrew, the link https://sites.google.com/sheffield.ac.uk/remote-practicals-playbook does not seem to work for me. Is this just me? Thanks, Regards, Aziza

    ReplyDelete
  2. Sorry for this issue - the link should now work:
    https://sites.google.com/sheffield.ac.uk/remote-practicals-playbook/home

    ReplyDelete

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