HERDSA 2010 program: Concurrent session four
What’s the difference between campus and distance students’ use of a learning management system?
John Milne, Mark Brown, Jan Charbonneau and Terry MacPherson
Massey University, New Zealand
The mode of study is an important factor in course design. Ideally teachers use a thoughtful blend of approaches based on the needs of the students. This paper examines campus based and distance students’ use of a learning management system. It is based on feedback from 461 students who responded to an anonymous online questionnaire. The number of respondents who took campus based courses was roughly equal to those studying at a distance. While students in both modes value the learning management system there are differences between modes. For example campus based students use discussion forums less than distance students. The campus students who did not use forums told of perceiving less value in them, as they prefer other approaches such as talking directly to staff or other students. Student perceptions in the open ended responses provide an insight into the differences and indicate how to refine the design of the learning management system based on the needs of campus and distance students.
The benefits of using social networks to increase student engagement – Not so obvious?
Jason Lodge
Queensland University of Technology, Australia
Student engagement is an important factor in the retention and success rates of students in higher education. Disengaged students are more likely to perform poorly academically and are less likely to persist with their studies. The opportunities for students to engage with their discipline, the institution and each other are becoming limited due to the increase in flexible delivery of courses and use of e-learning technology. The present showcase highlights an initiative where social networking was used as a tool for increasing student engagement in a virtual environment. This initiative used the social networking site Facebook in an attempt to develop an online discipline-specific community at a campus of a regional university. Despite students reporting that they were ambivalent to the university having a presence on Facebook there was evidence that students were using the site as a mechanism to get to know their peers. Social relationships are crucial to student engagement and retention and this initiative, as part of a broader student engagement project, appears to have contributed to a substantial increase in student engagement and retention. Social networking therefore appears to be a valuable tool in assisting students to develop relationships with their peers that help support them through their studies.
Learning to lead curriculum design to enhance the student experience
Peter Kandlbinder and Katherine Gordon
University of Technology Sydney, Australia
For a majority of academic staff curriculum development is an annual review of key features of their subject. When an opportunity to design a course or program arrives most academic staff would have little experience of working with others in cross-disciplinary teams. Yet the success of any innovation will depend on commitment and involvement of all stakeholders; students, academic and professional staff and senior management. In this paper we discuss a curriculum design project that tackled these challenges by putting peer learning of curriculum design teams at the forefront of the course change. We describe how academics were given the space to discuss the curriculum and the lessons we learnt by putting academic staff learning as a key part of the curriculum design process.
Perceptions on senior executive leader behaviour and leadership effectiveness in Malaysian public universities
Kwang Sing Ngui
Swinburne University of Technology, Malaysia
Kian Sam Hong, Siew Ling Gan and Hasbee Haji Usop
Universiti Malaysia Sarawak, Malaysia
Rujhan Mustafa
Ministry of Higher Education Malaysia, Malaysia
Existing leadership frameworks have proposed a range of leadership behaviours that are deemed to define an effective leader. The present study focuses on leadership behaviours that underpin effective leadership in the context of Malaysian public universities. It proposes that senior executives in universities adopt distinctive sets of leadership behaviours when undertaking their roles in different aspects of academic leadership. Empirical findings showed that leader behaviours of relating to people, leading change, managing processes and producing results have significant positive relationships with academic staff perceptions of leadership effectiveness. Furthermore, an emphasis on relating to people and producing results are found to be the dominant predictors of senior executive leadership effectiveness.
Having it all – Creative, interdisciplinary teaching and learning while saving the planet! Towards developing sustainable cross faculty education for sustainability
Teresa Capetola, Rebecca Patrick and Sonia Nuttman
Deakin University, Australia
Explain, Sustain, Remain (ESR): securing the future for a climate changed world was a pilot, innovative, inter and multi disciplinary education for sustainability program developed and delivered by cross faculty teaching staff to over 100 students representing all four faculties of Deakin University. A key component of the program included students working in small multi disciplinary enclaves as they journeyed on metaphorical “boats” to 2030 visiting the “ports” of: water, waste, built and natural environments, energy and food. Qualitative and quantitative data was gathered from participating students and staff pre and post program. Research processes, including limitations, will be explained in the presentation. Overwhelmingly the most common element reported on by both staff and student cohorts as having high appeal was the interdisciplinary component of the program. Hope, enthusiasm, purpose and trust were the much prized products of the inter-disciplinary endeavour, reflecting the adage that “the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.”
A climate of interdisciplinarity: A teaching collaboration for enhancing interdisciplinary student learning about climate change
Kristin Warr, Emma Pharo, Aidan Davison, Sara Booth, Melissa Nursey-Bray, Colin Jones and Erik Wapstra
University of Tasmania, Australia
It has long been observed that many crucial social and environmental problems often transcend the disciplinary boundaries that organise academic labour (Klein, 1990; Rittel & Webber, 1973). In this showcase, the problem of climate change is highlighted as an area of study that could reap the benefits of cross-disciplinary integration, which have been discussed since the late 1960s, particularly in relation to the need for more holistic forms of knowledge (Cullen, 2003; Nowak, 1970). This showcase highlights the experiences of a cross-disciplinary teaching network at the University of Tasmania (UTAS) in reinvigorating and integrating curricula around the shared concern of climate change. The network, which included participation from the disciplines of Geography and Environmental Studies, Zoology, Education, Management and Marine Conservation, collaborated to develop a series of problem-based learning activities delivered in semester long classes, or units, across these six different disciplines. The showcase outlines how problem-based activities allowed students to achieve discipline specific learning outcomes, whilst contributing to a larger interdisciplinary dialogue that critiqued and offered innovative solutions to the current curriculum. Additionally this showcase will highlight how engagement in the design of collaborative teaching activities helped to reduce institutional resistance to cross-disciplinary pedagogical work.
Fostering engagement and career orientation among first year health students: The power of authentic experience
Dionne Holland and Berni Murphy
Deakin University, Australia
Engaging students in real world experiences such as field visits within undergraduate course curricula typically allows students to integrate theoretical knowledge gained through formal teaching with informal knowledge gained through immersion in a professional context (Bates, 2008; Boud & Falchikov, 2006; Collin & Tynjala, 2003; Crebert, Bates, Bell, Patrick, & Cragnolini, 2004; Rhodes & Shiel, 2007). Further, engagement in reflective practice leads students to self-direct their learning, identify and be motivated to develop areas for change, and promotes further learning (Boud & Falchikov, 2006; Lesnick, 2005; Pedro, 2005). Previous student cohorts reported a lack of clarity regarding their future career options and disengagement with some aspects of the course. Course satisfaction and retention indicators confirmed this anecdotal evidence. Several initiatives were therefore embedded in level 1 to expressly address these concerns. Specifically, students engaged in field visits from week 4 of their course and conducted interviews with practitioners working in a diversity of contexts. Students prepared for these interviews in scaffolded tutorials designed to orient them to the professional context and associated expectations. Students were later required to reflect on the field experience and other authentic learning activities in order to map a career pathway and action plan. A qualitative data set retrieved from 36 of 51 students (71% response rate) was thematically analysed. Findings confirm the importance of creating authentic learning contexts, as well as the benefits of orienting students to their future careers as early as possible. Specific strategies utilised to achieve this objective and evidence of effectiveness will be presented.
Scaling up innovation: Institutionalising curriculum change
Rachel Spronken-Smith
University of Otago, New Zealand
Mick Healey
University of Gloucestershire, United Kingdom
Susan Vajoczki
McMaster University, Canada
Megan Anakin
University of Otago, New Zealand
Instigating curriculum change within a department can be difficult enough, but initiating widespread change across an institution is even more of a challenge. Whilst there is a good theoretical base for instigating curriculum change at an institutional level, there is a paucity of empirical research using in-depth qualitative data. This study aimed to explore how innovative, university-wide, curriculum initiatives are developed and implemented. A comparative case study approach examined policies and practices in two universities with different contexts: McMaster University, Canada – research intensive; and the University of Gloucestershire, UK – teaching focused. Data collection involved interviews and focus groups with academics and managers, as well as an analysis of policy documents and reports. The institutional context played a major role in shaping academics’ perceptions about curriculum change. At Gloucestershire, with a tradition of teaching innovation, implementing curriculum change was much easier, despite some staff perceptions to the contrary. In both universities strong leadership was of paramount importance so that there was a mandate from the highest levels, but leadership from middle management was also crucial in order to implement the change. However, a challenge was a possible disjunction between managers and practitioners in terms of implementing the change. The role of academic staff development support was of key importance and a combined model of centralised and dispersed support appeared to work well to assist such initiatives. It was apparent that unless there was dedicated funding, curriculum changes within a departmental framework appeared to be more sustainable than interdisciplinary initiatives.
The Deakin University-Ballarat University Collaboration Fund: Influencing practice through innovative policy and inbuilt accountability
James O’Meara
University of Ballarat, Australia
Karen Starr
Deakin University, Australia
This showcase is for staff involved in blended learning. The Blended Learning Environments in Rural and Remote Communities (BLERRC) project was a collaborative project between Deakin University and the University of Ballarat. Academic staff designed blended learning environments to promote engagement and self-regulation among learners from rural and remote communities. The project reflected an identified need (Universities Australia, 2008) to create beneficial learning experiences and significant outcomes for learners accessing higher education in regional and remote areas (Bradley, 2008). The Australasian Survey of Student Engagement (Coates, 2008) provided a common engagement framework for the academics. Self-regulation represented a graduate outcome common to both institutions. The BLEERC findings included examples of modified learning environments that engaged learners and produced self-regulation outcomes. There were also examples of staff who mainly introduced technological changes to the blend of their learning environment. This approach resulted in very different outcomes for the learners. The theoretical explanation for the differences in the blending strategies and outcomes drew on concepts of blended learning environment design (Holden and Westfall, 2008), student engagement (Coates, 2008), learning climates (Little, 1975), and levels of readiness (Rogers, 1995). The practical implications included the need to create professional learning experiences that reflect the levels of readiness of the staff as well as the intended outcomes of the blended learning environment. The project findings also included policy and leadership implications linked to the adoption of new technologies across one or more universities seeking to improve learning outcomes for learners from rural and remote communities.
Deakin at Your Doorstep: Engaging students from rural and regional backgrounds
Linda Thies, Alistair McCosh and Linda Wilkie Bell
Deakin University, Australia
The Bradley Review (2008) recommends an increase in Government funding in order to help increase the access rates to higher education for young people from rural and regional areas. In addition, ‘Transforming Australia’s Higher Education’ (2009), an Australian Government policy document highlights the barriers to delivering higher education in rural and regional areas and the potential of collaboration between TAFE and higher education providers. While the tyranny of distance and economic disadvantage are two related factors which impact on participation rates of this group, there are other challenges related to delivering higher education to such disadvantaged groups. A Deakin University project (‘Deakin at Your Doorstep’), which commenced in 2009 aims to improve the attractiveness, accessibility and perceived relevance of tertiary education to rural and regional young people and their families. The Project involves the development of an innovative two year Associate Degree award, delivered both on-campus and in conjunction with selected TAFE partners at Deakin Learning Centres. A profile of the Associate Degree first year student cohort confirms that many are from considerably disadvantaged backgrounds, and that they view the course as an unexpected opportunity to gain a higher education qualification and/or pursue a particular professional career. This presentation will provide further detail on the nature of the student group, and an evaluation of the initial project development. The evaluation will highlight how the project aims to promote successful transition and engagement of a group of students previously under-represented in higher education.
Understanding social determinants in educational disadvantage and under-representation: The Equity Raw-Score Matrix
Julie Willems
Monash University, Australia
Understanding educational disadvantage has been a focus in Australian higher education policy since the 1980s (Watson et al., 2000). As part of this focus, the Bradley Report (2008) has identified of concern the participation of under-represented groups of students in higher education. Further, Gillard (2009) has linked federal government funding to institutions on the basis of the inclusion and participation of these under-represented (equity) groups in higher education. Yet educational disadvantage is a complex issue. Many argue that the identification of broad equity group categories do not capture the true nature of disadvantage in education. Some have further argued for the creation of measures that will more accurately capture the nature of social determinants of disadvantage, and the role that these play in participation in, and completion of, higher education. This is a difficult task: the linking of quantitative data collection and the capturing of qualitative social issues for the purposes of analysis, evaluation and funding. The Equity Raw-Score Matrix (Willems, 2009; Willems, forthcoming) has been proposed as one means not only to address the complex and multidimensional nature of educational disadvantage from an individual student’s perspective, but also to supply institutions, governments, policy creators, and funding bodies with detailed (cross-sectoral) data on student transition, participation, retention and successful completion in higher education. This paper further develops the matrix for the purposes of an intended pilot study
Assessing capacity and readiness to implement a fundamental change in learning and teaching practice
Betty Gill and Pauline Ross
University of Western Sydney, Australia
Introduction of criteria and standards based assessment, was implemented across a large multidisciplinary college facilitated in each school by a School Learning and Teaching Fellow (SLTF) who worked with individuals within their school to review units and build capacity and expertise in criterion and standards based assessment with the intent of eliciting real and sustained change in practice, as opposed to simple compliance with policy. This study reports on a survey assessing the level of engagement and readiness to change of academics charged with individually implementing the changes within their units. The response rate was 56% (n=187) across the six schools, with an equal mix of gender and academic staff levels. Overall academics stated they took significant or highly significant action in relation to writing and reviewing learning outcomes (62%) and criteria and standards assessment (66%). The majority reported having been stimulated to alter assessment tasks (55%) and were motivated to further review assessment in their units (59%). Respondents indicated that they believed the university would benefit from the change (60%) and that they had the skills needed to implement the change (78%). Although most agreed that the change would improve assessment practices (56%), only a minority believed the change was based on sound evaluation of evidence (41%) and many questioned whether it would improve student learning (46%). Engagement of individuals with the change process is influenced by acceptance of the appropriateness of the change; perceptions of whether the change will be beneficial, both personally and institutionally; leadership support for the change; capability and achievability of the change (Holt et al 2007).
Liaison staff in pre-service teacher education programs
Sandra Grace and Stephen Loftus
Charles Sturt University, Australia
University courses that are designed to produce work-ready professionals rely on quality fieldwork education to prepare graduates for the challenges of professional practice. Effective communication between universities and their industry partners is needed to negotiate expectations of roles, assessment practices, strategies and goals of fieldwork education programs to ensure optimal learning outcomes for students. Liaison staff are engaged in some pre-service teacher education programs to bridge the gap between the worlds of university academics and workplace supervisors, to trouble-shoot, to act as ‘go-betweens’ and to problem-solve to support student learning. This paper examines the experiences of liaison staff in three pre-service education programs in an Australian university. The findings of this study suggest that liaison staff can make a significant and timely contribution to the quality of fieldwork education and student learning outcomes, particularly through their ability to enhance effective communication between students, associate teachers and university academics. However, in their own eyes, inconsistencies in induction, training and professional recognition of liaison staff and feedback about their own performance diminished their ability to perform their role. Greater attention to the induction and professional development of liaison staff can make better use of these people who are a valuable and sometimes under-utilised resource.
Work experience: Business students' voices
Maria M Ryan, Gary Marchioro, Helen Cripps and Michael Verheyen
Edith Cowan University, Australia
Aligning business undergraduate programs with industry requirements is reshaping higher education. It is now a well acknowledged and strategic initiative at many institutions. The framework for learning generic skills has been well developed and documented in reference to employer groups and articulated through many university programs. However, research into students’ perceptions and assessment of their skill development when working within industry is less well documented. This work examines students’ personal views of their generic skill capabilities. The literature addresses the need for these skills to be inclusive of personal attributes along with relevant technical abilities. Clearly understanding and defining these personal attributes has been a challenge for educators. Five focus group discussions were conducted with undergraduate business students. The aim of the research was to explore student views of their skill level. Students voiced a range of issues including: their lack of confidence in business face-to-face communication settings; their frustration in managing group meetings; and challenges in working in multicultural groups. Results from this study will be merged with data collected from employers and academics to develop a framework that will enable students to self-manage and monitor the development of their skills across a defined study period and to be accountable for their own generic skill development. The transference of personal attributes and skills is reshaping academic practice in course development and has added a dimension to university teaching.
Bringing down the silos to enhance student outcomes through interprofessional teaching
Catherine Snelling, Tracey Winning and Sophie Karanicolas
The University of Adelaide, Australia
This paper focuses on the enhancement of student learning outcomes in providing basic counselling and brief interventions for smoking cessation in an oral health program. The design, development, implementation and initial evaluation of an interprofessional program in Tobacco Use Prevention and Cessation are outlined to demonstrate the way in which interprofessional teams can be engaged to contribute to a more holistic higher education experience for students in a second year undergraduate program. This interprofessional initiative has been initially evaluated by pre- and post-course surveys, student focus groups and assessment of student role-plays in brief motivational interviewing. These approaches have provided some initial insights into the program’s effectiveness in creating a positive student learning experience and highlight potential improvement opportunities. In summary, there was a demonstrable improvement in students’ knowledge, attitudes and skills in providing initial smoking cessation and brief motivational interviewing techniques.
Challenging student teachers in higher education to learn authentically: A Singapore case study
Lana Khong
Nanyang Technological University, Singapore
This article is an account of the design and development of a course in teacher higher education using an inquiry and self-directed approach to improve authentic learning of graduate students in a course taught at the National Institute of Education in Singapore. A key learning outcome is that these adult learners were supported to change their perspectives about internal and external relationships of school communities. Challenges to examine prior, often negative, assumptions about school stakeholders increased students’ awareness of the influences of prior attitudes and beliefs on actions. As a result, many expressed both a greater willingness to modify these perceptions as well as a readiness to take responsibility for building more positive relationships with their future constituencies.
Evaluation of scholarly literacy: Determining first year learning outcomes
Fiona Salisbury, Sharon Karasmanis and Claire Brooks
La Trobe University, Australia
Scholarly literacy and research skills are a fundamental graduate capability, and essential in the changing world of work and lifelong learning (Barrie 2004, Willison 2006). However, measuring student outcomes in relation to these skills in large university cohorts is often problematic. Measuring student learning outcomes and the suitability of methods used to build these skills needs to start in first year. When entry-level capabilities are known, achievement across subsequent years can be sufficiently mapped to determine whether required graduate capabilities have been achieved. La Trobe University provided the ideal opportunity to test scholarly literacy of a large cohort of incoming first year students (~1700); to redesign the approach to teaching information literacy and to track the skill development of this group. Quantitative and qualitative data was gathered via a pre-experience survey (Mittermeyer, 2003) distributed during the first week of semester in 2009, an assessment quiz in May and a post experience survey in September. The pre-post experience surveys included eleven identical questions that were designed to test knowledge and understanding of scholarly information seeking. It was evident that the majority of students could not demonstrate foundation level information literacy skills when they commenced their studies in Health Sciences. However there was clearly improvement in their skills over the course of the year (accurate results – mean = 2.3 to mean = 4.5). This presentation examines the results of incoming student skill development, and discusses how collaboration between the Health Sciences Faculty and the Library, to develop an embedded information literacy program has direct implications for ensuring students achieve an appropriate level of scholarly literacy capability by the time they complete their degree.
Researchers of the future? Building research capacity among postgraduate students in English
Fran Kelly, Marcia Russell and Lee Wallace
The University of Auckland, New Zealand
The recent trend in higher education policy towards building research capacity places particular emphasis on postgraduate study as the incubator of research skills that drive the knowledge economy. For some humanities disciplines, such as English, this shift from traditional notions of scholarship to transferable skills has posed significant challenges. This paper will assess responses to the introduction of a compulsory research component in the B.A.(Hons) degree at The University of Auckland’s Department of English. Previously conceived as a one-year program undertaken by coursework, the inclusion of a research component in the B.A.(Hons) in English responds to a national regulatory change that reflects a commitment to building future research capacity as measured by higher-degree completions. Supportive of the University’s strategic objective to enhance the research experience of postgraduate students but aware of the range of academic abilities reflected in the Honours cohort, English department staff set about designing a platform for supporting staff-defined research projects via a mix of staff-led seminars with a skills-development focus, student peer-group seminars and one-on-one supervision. This research initiative represents a significant shift from prior graduate research culture. In this paper, we report on the initial findings of a research project developed to assess the impact of this initiative over a three-year inception period (2008-2010). Our analysis of data from student focus-group discussions highlights the challenges and benefits that the ascendency of the research skills agenda poses established academic practice in disciplines like English.
Student Learning in the East and the West
Michael Prosser
The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong
There has been much written about the paradox of the Chinese learner (Watkins and Biggs, 2001, Kember, 2001). At the heart of the paradox is the relationship between memorising and understanding. Many in the West perceive Chinese learners to be focused on memorisation – surface approaches to learning. Yet they show high levels of understanding and achievement - usually thought in the West to require deep approaches to learning. The resolution of the paradox seems to be in the variation in the relationship between memorisation and understanding. In the West, memorisation is often associated with rote learning – learning without understanding. But in Chinese cultures it seems that the experience of memorisation and understanding are intertwined. Understanding is not separated from memorisation – as it is often experienced in the West. But this does not mean that there are no surface approaches to learning in Chinese cultures – but that that deep approaches are always associated with high levels of memorisation and recitation. But what does this say about the way students in the West and China perceive their teaching and learning contexts, and the way those contexts relate to their approaches to learning. While there may be a variation in the meaning of a deep approach to learning, do their experience of teaching and learning differ. In this presentation, the results of the administration of John Biggs’ Approaches to Learning Inventory and Paul Ramsden’s Course Experience Questionnaire are used to examine the experiences of over 8000 students in Australia and neatly 2000 students in Hong Kong.
Investigating business student engagement at an Australian university
Beverley Jackling and Riccardo Natoli
Victoria University, Australia
Efforts to address attrition rates in higher education have been driven by evidence of the importance of student engagement. This study focuses on engagement and attrition factors as they relate to business students from an Australian university that draws students of low social and economic status and with a range of language diversity, factors typically aligned with attrition. The results confirm that business students are, on average, less engaged with the university on key engagement and outcome scales than students from other Australian universities. The results were reinforced by contingency tests which showed that students were significantly more inclined to depart university if they were not satisfied. The tests also demonstrated that a business student’s relationship with administrative personnel was a key to their retention. Overall, the results of the study suggest that business students need to be engaged early and often, beginning with enrolment and orientation.
The impact of winning an Australian Learning and Teaching Council Citation on Australian Catholic University staff
Kym Fraser and Phoebe Palmieri
The Australian Catholic University, Australia
In 2004 the Australian Learning and Teaching Council (ALTC), originally called the Carrick Institute, was constituted. The remit of the ALTC is to improve the student learning experience by supporting quality teaching and practice. As part of that remit the ALTC promotes teaching development and rewards excellent teaching. To date the ALTC has not evaluated the impact of the Citation program (ALTC, 2010). This research project investigated the impact on Australian Catholic University (ACU) staff of winning an ALTC Citation (one of the ALTC’s programs which rewards outstanding contributions to student learning) (Halse, 2007). The intention of the research was to derive a profile of winners and their experiences with a view to making recommendations on future policy and practice within the university. Interviews with individual (not teams) ACU staff who had won an ALTC Citation collected demographic and experiential data regarding the impact of winning the Citation. Some of the data collected was transformed into quantitative data. While the data analysis is still in progress, early results suggest that this research will provide recommendations for best practice policy in the areas of: 1) selection processes of teaching award applicants, both internal and external; 2) guidelines for and examples of expenditure of awards; and 3) the provision of opportunities for winners to be supported in publishing, networking and SOTL.
Team supervision: Policy genealogies and pedagogical practices
Catherine Manathunga
The University of Queensland, Australia
Team supervision is currently regarded as best practice in doctoral pedagogy. Yet few researchers have studied its effects (Pole, 1998). This showcase traces the genealogy of team supervision policy, exploring why it came to prominence at this particular moment. It tracks the impact of increasing institutional and epistemic boundary crossing on doctoral pedagogies (Boud & Lee, 2009; Nerad & Heggelund, 2008). It then investigates how team supervision policies play out in a small study of 4 supervision teams in the Humanities and Social Sciences (Manathunga, 2009). This showcase explores team supervision policy discourses at a research intensive Australian university using poststructuralist discourse analysis of policy documents (Grant, 2003; Lee, 2000). To trace the effectiveness of these policies, this initiative also involved studying the team interactions of 4 students and their respective teams of supervisors from the Humanities and Social Sciences. The findings of this qualitative study reinforce Pole’s (1998) argument that team supervision policies and practices are not a panacea for all supervision issues. Instead caution needs to be applied to untested claims current in the literature that team supervision will always become a manifestation of best practice in supervision pedagogy. This also has ramifications for the [re]construction of supervision policy statements and guidelines. In particular, the findings from this study suggest that the particular benefits and challenges presented by team supervision should be highlighted in university supervision policy guidelines so that supervisors will become more alert to the possibilities and the tensions and difficulties inherent in team supervision.
Great Expectations! Reshaping higher education through the integration of professional skills and graduate attributes within the law curriculum
Claire Macken
Deakin University, Australia
In 1987 a significant review of Australian law schools, the Pearce Report, (Pearce, Campbell and Harding, 1987) recommended a shift in legal education to include within the curriculum legal practice and the inclusion of practical skills in law (drafting, negotiation, legal research, problem solving). In the past 2 decades, Australian law schools have integrated, to varying degrees, both professional and generic skills within the curriculum as most recently documented by the ALTC/CALD Project ‘Learning and Teaching in the Discipline of Law’. Against this background, this showcase will explain the various initiatives Deakin’s School of Law has taken to embed professional and generic skills in its undergraduate law curriculum. This includes a tiered-professional skills program of advocacy, negotiation, drafting, legal interpretation and court practice; legal internships and law clinic programs, professional training course requirements as well as generally-expressed generic skills integrated through various subjects within the law curriculum. This showcase will then articulate the lessons learnt from this approach to curriculum design including the importance of integrated skills to student engagement and student experience; how skills integration in the curriculum redefines the role of academic practice; and how an integrated skills focus shapes leadership responsibilities and sets new expectations in the delivery of higher education today.
Divided we stand united: Distributed leadership in the development and delivery of sessional teacher support
Eileen Thompson, Lee Partridge, Bonnie Thomas, Natalie Skead, Sue Miller, Yola Szymakowski and Louisa Chawhan
The University of Western Australia, Australia
Numerous causal factors have contributed to the changing context of course delivery in Australian universities in recent years. Among these are an increased use of technology and a changing student demographic. Perhaps the most influential of all, however, has been the pressures imposed by fiscal constraints as evidenced by the increased numbers of sessional teachers employed to deliver vital undergraduate course content. Researchers have identified this phenomenon as being in response to the reduction in public funding for universities (Kift, 2002) and a common practice in universities seeking to increase the research output of academic staff by reducing their teaching load (Harland & Staniforth, 2000). The dilemma of the untrained and often unprepared and unsupported sessional teachers has been widely recognised (Australian Universities Teaching Committee, 2003; Hopwood & Stokes, 2008; Kift, 2002; Percy et al., 2008). As a result of recent studies and reports, a number of initiatives to better support sessional teachers have been instigated within Australian universities. This paper outlines one of those initiatives. It is unique in that it embraces a model of devolved, distributed leadership responsible for the delivery of context-specific academic development to a diverse group of sessional staff.
Leading or not leading: The world of subject coordinators
Kim Atkinson
Deakin University, Australia
Ian Macdonald
Victoria University, Australia
Dale Holt and Judy Nagy
Deakin University, Australia
Lynne Cohen, Glenda Campbell-Evans and Paul Chang
Edith Cowan University, Australia
Jacquie McDonald
University of Southern Queensland, Australia
This showcase presents the early results from an ALTC funded Leadership for Excellence project, Coalface subject co-ordinators – the missing link to building leadership capacities in the academic supply chain. This project explores the role of the subject coordinator in higher education. We report on an extensive literature review, linked with the results of semi-structured interviews involving Deputy/Pro Vice-Chancellors, Deans, Associate Deans (Teaching and Learning), Heads of Schools and Program/Course Coordinators and an online survey of subject coordinators, across the four partner universities. The data we will present helps highlight the complexity of the subject coordinator role and the diverse challenges imposed on subject coordinators in carrying out this role. Key observations in relation to professional development and how best to provide this are presented.
Partnerships with schools to provide rich professional learning experiences for pre-service science teachers
Gail Chittleborough, Peter Hubber, Russell Tytler and John Cripps Clark
Deakin University, Australia
Student learning during professional experience is a significant component in an increasing proportion of higher education courses. The introduction of a new course gave us the opportunity to undertake this case study of the factors that affect student learning during their professional experience. This study compared different models of professional experience (block and continuous placements); the value of forming partnerships between universities and schools; and the importance of students’ pedagogical and content knowledge. The results showed the preferred model of the professional experience, particularly by supervisors, was in block format. The main concern of students was the impact of their university study requirements, which distracted from their ability to immerse themselves in the workplace. Supervisors identified significant issues with students’ content knowledge, however, the students were not aware of these issues. Students’ previous experience in conditions similar to the workplace (for pre-service teachers, experience involving responsibility for groups of children such as after-school programs and sports coaching) appears to be a strong indicator of success in their professional experience placements. The personality of student (and supervisor) appears to be a primary determinate of the success of the placement, which highlights the importance of giving information about student and supervisor and the factors that promote placement success to those responsible for student placements both within the university and the workplace. This ensures that, where there is flexibility, students can be placed with the most appropriate supervisor; and that there is preparation in terms of both personal and professional behaviours of the students and supervisors.
Reshaping dominant stories: A poststructuralist approach to online role play
Mary Dracup
Deakin University, Australia
Online role play is an increasingly popular teaching/learning technique in higher education (Wills & McDougall 2009) but there has been little research into ways a poststructuralist approach may be supported in this format. This paper describes two very different means of incorporating a poststructuralist approach into role plays in higher education to problematise dominant assumptions in the language and content of the subject matter. The first method was a series of interventions in a face-to-face role play in which medical students practised consultations with adolescent school students. The consultations were interrupted repeatedly with activities designed to interrogate assumptions and the school students acted as coaches to improve the medical students' technique. Although this role play was performed face-to-face, some of its activities may be redeveloped to suit an online role-playing format. The second method was a feature of an online role play involving Middle-East politics and journalism students, in which daily online newspapers provided a reflecting and distorting mirror to the political events simulated by the politics students. Indications of ways in which the two methods produced changes in understanding were gathered using a mixture of qualitative and quantitative methods: questionnaires, focus groups, interviews, participant observation and analysis of online discussions and artefacts.
Preparing academics to teach in higher education: Final report
Gail Wilson
Bond University, Australia
Margaret Hicks
University of South Australia, Australia
Heather Smigiel
Flinders University, Australia
This session highlights deliverables from the recently completed Preparing Academics to Teach in Higher Education (PATHE), a three-year project (2006-2009) funded by the Australian Learning and Teaching Council. The project’s main aim was to produce a framework for Foundations of University Teaching programs. Specific objectives of the project included the promotion of sector-wide sharing of understandings of Foundations programs, the generation of evidence-based information, the development of resources and models of successful practice, and the identification of areas for further development. Stage 1 focused on a survey of current practice in Foundations programs and a literature review. Both of these reports helped inform the next three stages. Stage 2 of the project involved the identification and exploration of five sub-projects: benchmarking, impact, models, professional development and resources. In Stage 3 resources for each of the sub-projects were developed and a framework to promote sector-wide sharing of a set of expectations and understandings about the nature and role of foundation programs within university learning and teaching contexts was developed. Stage 4 involved the dissemination of the outcomes of the project and the sub-projects. The majority of the showcase time is focused on presentation and discussion of a key deliverable of the project – a framework to promote sector-wide sharing of a set of expectations and understandings about the nature and role of Foundation programs within university learning and teaching contexts.
"How do I get sound?"
Will Rifkin
The University of New South Wales, Australia
Nancy Longnecker
The University of Western Australia, Australia
Joan Leach
The University of Queensland, Australia
Lloyd Davis
University of Otago, New Zealand
“How do I get sound?” Lecturers acting like students creating ‘new media’ - the ‘blind leading the blind’. Assigning students to create a podcast on a key Chemistry concept or team up to produce a video on a topic in first-year Biology promises to engage them in authentic tasks that deepen learning of course content and increase acquisition of graduate capabilities (Rifkin, Longnecker, Leach, Davis, Orthia, 2009). A decade of experience with such ‘new media’ has convinced us, and our granting body, to initiate development of teaching materials to enable a wide range of lecturers to achieve this end. Major hurdles loom – a mix of student capabilities (Kennedy, et al, 2007), potentially unequal access to technology, issues of intellectual property and privacy, reluctance of lecturers to have their students’ work shown publicly, and the confidence of lecturers in assigning use of new technology that they may not be completely familiar with. One can argue that a lecturer’s task is to equip students to cope in the future with technology, norms, and genres of communication that have not yet been invented and master them in a way that enhances the messages they will be trying to convey. Perhaps, we lecturers should model how that is done. We could do that by illustrating how we encounter such new technological opportunities. This showcase session will include reflections by the authors about their problematic ‘new media’ experiences. The session invites dialogue to formulate an agenda for research and practice in this emergent domain, where ‘the blind may be leading the blind.’
Mapping the coverage of Australian Catholic University graduate attributes in a Bachelor of Arts
Theda Thomas and Kym Fraser
The Australian Catholic University, Australia
Australian universities are required to demonstrate that their graduate attributes (GAs) are developed and assessed throughout every course (BIHECC, 2007; EDGGS, 2009). This is exceedingly difficult to do in the Bachelor of Arts (BA) where students are required to take very few compulsory units. This Australian Catholic University (ACU) research pilot demonstrates two ways of showing this development, which in combination provide compelling evidence: 1) through surveying final year history major students to determine their perceptions of GA development; and 2) identifying the history units taken by all history major students and mapping expected GA development and assessment for individual students as specified in the generic unit outlines. The yet incomplete analysis of the data suggests that students perceive that all but three of the 15 elements of the graduate attributes explored were developed in their History units. Pathway analysis suggests that not all pathways would develop all of the graduate attributes for individual students. This information can be used to help the different discipline areas in the BA understand their responsibility in developing graduate attributes across their unit offerings. The information will be useful for future course reviews of the BA.
Enabling academic engagement with graduate attributes through communities of practice
Robyn Donovan, Julie Fleming and Peter Reaburn
CQUniversity, Australia
The implementation and integration of graduate attributes into university courses and across degree programs has been a challenge for higher education institutions for over ten years. The importance of building graduate attributes has been endorsed by the federal government, employer stakeholders and professional accrediting bodies, providing a strong imperative for ensuring that these attributes or ‘skills for the future’ are integrated into all degree programs. Through the lens of a regional university, this paper will explore the challenges associated with academic staff knowledge, understanding of, and ability to embed graduate attributes into courses and programs. It proposes the use of communities of practice as a strategy that could provide support to academic staff in the integration of graduate attributes within their respective disciplines. We believe that a supportive learning environment provided by a community of practice could assist in developing the understanding, knowledge and empowerment of academic staff.