Bothersome Beasties (and how to deal with them!)

The Compendium of Bothersome Beasties (and how to deal with them): A SPLOT tool for helping to build student self-reflection skills. The tool is a free, open source website that students can use anonymously (no log-in required) to reflect and document issues and problems. Redefining the task of self-reflection and helping students to quickly identify areas of concern by turning the problems into ‘beasties, the tool helps students creatively think about these areas and asks them to reflect on how they could overcome them. Students can reflect, build and create their own ‘Beastie’ to help them creatively reflect on the issues they may be facing, whether in general or linked to module and study work. The compendium acts as a guide in which students from across any number of modules can view other student’s issues and comment on them in a helpful way. It also provides a platform for lecturers to view what ‘beasties’ their students are facing, and allows community commenting, to provide support and information directly back to the student. This chapter provides a case study on the tool and how it has been used in a pilot study. The Bothersome Beasties tool can be found here: http://creditcontinue.coventry.domains/beasties/