Freshers' group-working activities for fun, learning and prizes

Green, Stewart; Yang, Rong; Plant, Nick

Abstract

The Computer Science and Creative Technologies Department at the University of the West of England has a history of running group social events for multiple awards during induction week. The main aim of these fun events is to help new students to make friends and thus to settle into their courses quickly. Last year we added a new aim: to relate event activities to aspects of the students’ courses. Consequently, new activities involved teams of five competing for book tokens on tasks involving communication skills, problem analysis and problem solving skills, abstract modelling skills and practical modelling skills. In addition, during a 30 minute interval in the three hour event, three ten-minute speed-networking sessions enable students to meet and chat to more new peers. Feedback from the students was overwhelmingly positive. One said: “I enjoyed this event a lot. This is actually where I made some of my closest friends”; and another told us: “I found the speed networking extremely useful. For some strange reason many computer people are not the most extrovert and this was a really good icebreaker”. We also received from them constructive suggestions on how to improve the event. From the organisers’ point of view, the event was cost-effective: around two hundred students participated, but only six staff were required to supervise and mark activities. We feel other subject areas could easily adapt these activities for their own subject areas by either replacing the activities we used for problem analysis and problem solving, communication, abstract modelling and practical modelling, or by replacing one or more of these categories of cognitive and practical skills and then choosing appropriate activities to support each category.

Citation

Green, S., Yang, R., & Plant, N. (2014, July). Freshers' group-working activities for fun, learning and prizes. Presented at 1st National Student Induction Workshop

• Presentation Conference Type: Other
• Conference Name: 1st National Student Induction Workshop
• Start Date: Jul 10, 2014
• End Date: Jul 10, 2014
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Keywords: student induction, induction group-work, academic learning during induction, induction as preparation for academic life
• Additional Information: Title of Conference or Conference Proceedings : 1st National Student Induction Workshop