Skip to main content
Our journal logo
Search

Vol. 8 No. 2 (2011)

Published: 1 September 2011

Articles

  • Editorial 8.2

    Geraldine E. Lefoe

    Welcome to the second issue, Volume 8 of the Journal of University Teaching and Learning (JUTLP). We are very pleased to see the way the journal continues to grow and the improvement in the quality of the papers. For this we would like to thank our editorial board and reviewers for their considerable efforts in providing valuable feedback to the contributors. Recently many people farewelled the Australian Learning and Teaching Council at the Opera House in Sydney as they presented the final round of Teaching and Learning awards and citations. Recognition for these outstanding teachers, as well as support through a multi-million dollar grant system, has seen the profile of teaching and learning raised significantly within higher education in Australia and we look forward to seeing further support through the government body who have taken over this role.

    Read article: Editorial 8.2

  • Catering for Student Diversity: Building Academic Skills in Graduate Attributes Learning and Assessment Opportunities through Collaborative Work

    Susanne Owen, Gary Davis

    Australian higher education institutions are increasingly operating within broader political, economic and social frameworks and the global context. The link between productivity and high level skills and qualifications and the importance of establishing a systematic process for ensuring increased participation of those from under-represented groups have been emphasised. In relation to the law profession in Australia, over the past twenty years there has been a proliferation of law schools established to meet increasing demand, with higher student numbers and greater diversity of backgrounds evident. Concerns about the stresses on law students and the consequences for their mental well-being (especially compared to students in other disciplines) have come to the fore following recent research into the issue. In 2007, funding was provided to the Council of Australian Law Deans (CALD) to establish a national exploration of approaches to and the practices of legal education, with the aim of ensuring the provision of high quality outcomes for the increasingly diverse range of legal education students. A key focus was building legal academic skills in using scaffolded learning approaches through establishing collaborative workshops. Surveys, baseline data analysis and network meetings were some of the other methodological processes utilised in the project. The collaborative workshop processes occurring at a national level, resulted in the development of quality assessment tasks in areas such as group work and reflection, with positive written feedback being obtained. This paper focuses on the links between wider assessment approaches within graduate attributes and catering for student diversity. Relevance for redefining effective academic practice within other professional disciplines in the changing contexts of higher education is evident.

    Read article: Catering for Student Diversity: Building Academic Skills in Graduate Attributes Learning and Assessment Opportunities through Collaborative Work

  • Teething Problems in the Academy: negotiating the transition to large-class teaching in the discipline of history

    Philip A Keirle, Ruth A Morgan

    In this paper we provide a template for transitioning from tutorial to larger-class teaching environments in the discipline of history. We commence by recognising a number of recent trends in tertiary education in Australian universities that have made this transition to larger-class sizes an imperative for many academics: increased student enrolments in the absence of a concomitant rise in teaching staff levels, greater emphasis on staff’s research and service, and governmental and institutional pressures to maximize resource efficiency. All this, of course, taking place in an environment where staff are required to engage with discipline-specific pedagogies in teaching and learning to ensure that their departments, faculties and institutions successfully meet and maintain standards of quality in the delivery of higher education. The main challenge historians face here, we argue, is to ensure that the ‘higher order thinking skills’ associated with the discipline are developed in a learning environment often deemed incompatible with doing so. Dealing with this issue requires a particular approach to curriculum design, one that systematically unpacks the signature skills of historical thinking/writing/reading and engages with the pedagogy of large-class teaching environments. What follows is an account of our foray into unfamiliar territory, which, we hope, can act as a guide to academics moving in a similar direction.

    Read article: Teething Problems in the Academy: negotiating the transition to large-class teaching in the discipline of history

  • An Investigation of the Impact of Research-led Education on Student Learning and Understandings of Research.

    Fuming Jiang, Pamela J Roberts

    This study investigated the impact of two approaches to research-led education on students’ learning and their understandings of research in the context of two university courses in international business involving third year undergraduate and graduate students. One approach involved the lecturer using his research as the basis for a case-study assignment involving an intercultural business negotiation. In the second approach students conducted a research project in which they reviewed the academic literature to identify practical implications for business and theoretical gaps as the basis for future research. A questionnaire was used to explore students’ perceptions of the impacts on their learning and understandings of research. Students’ understandings of research were most informed by the research based learning project which was presented to them as an experience of doing research. Students valued the lecturer using his research in the course because of his enthusiasm and his expertise and mentoring in doing research. However many students developed only limited understandings of research in the subject area, despite their direct experience of the lecturers’ research. The implications for the design of research-led education approaches are explored.

    Read article: An Investigation of the Impact of Research-led Education on Student Learning and Understandings of Research.

  • Linking Teaching and Research Through Scholarship Projects: A Case Study

    Natalie Braber

    Many lecturers find that teaching and research compete for their time. However, teaching and research can be linked closely together, and there are many ways of linking the two. This article will consider how research can be incorporated into teaching through a case study in Linguistics at Nottingham Trent University (in the United Kingdom), where undergraduate students are invited to participate on a research project. This project aims to foster and strengthen the links between teaching and research in the undergraduate curriculum to enhance the student learning experience (both for the students involved in the project and the wider student community). Allowing students to become involved in academic research before their final year can influence teaching and learning practice by encouraging students to look beyond lectures and seminars at the work which is carried out by their own lecturers. In order for learning to be most effective, it must be seen as relevant to the real world and by inviting students onto active research projects will show them how academic research is relevant to, and involved with, the wider world outside academia. By enthusing students with the actual potential of their studies, will increase learning and allow us to link research and teaching actively for all students.

    Read article: Linking Teaching and Research Through Scholarship Projects: A Case Study

  • Web-based-Research as Critical Pedagogy: A Reflection on its Application to Undergraduate Management Education.

    Gabriela Coronado

    In disciplines such as Management, where research capacity is not seen as an obvious workplace skill, it is difficult to get students to engage in research activities. They see them as too difficult and without value. However, research activities in undergraduate Management education are vital as tools for developing key learning attributes such as critical thinking and skills in analysis and argument. Convinced of the high value of integrating research activities into undergraduate Management Education, I took on the challenge to find alternative ways for students to develop their research capacity and engage in actual research. Drawing on reflections on my experience of teaching undergraduate management subjects with research components, in this paper I discuss how Web-based research can promote critical thinking and raise consciousness among management students. This experience included designing strategies to introduce a form of electronic literacy into undergraduate education, to assist students to learn how to use the Web critically for research purposes, while enhancing learning based on conventional resources. In the methodology I propose for researching contemporary issues by collecting and analysing data from the Web I adapt the critical pedagogy of Freire for adult literacy into new forms of literacy involving critical use of the new media of communication.

    Read article: Web-based-Research as Critical Pedagogy: A Reflection on its Application to Undergraduate Management Education.

  • Pedagogical Approaches that Facilitate Writing in Postgraduate Research Candidature in Science and Technology

    Janice Catterall, Pauline Ross, Claire Aitchison, Shelley Burgin

    The current higher education climate seems to be demanding increasing levels of written output from doctoral researchers during candidature. In this context this study employed an online questionnaire, individual interviews and focus group discussions to collect information on the challenges and successes of doctoral writing. It was found that feedback on student writing was universally regarded as the primary pedagogical tool for teaching and learning research writing and for most, the supervisor’s role was central to this. Some supervisors employed ‘writing for publication’ as a complimentary tool. A number of supervisors and students also reported positively about the value of participating in social writing and critiquing environments such as writing groups, writing retreats, or writing for peer feedback. This research suggests that there would be benefit in tertiary institutions pursuing a more systematic approach to the support of writing both as a learning tool for research students and for the promotion of a vibrant, scholarly, research community.

    Read article: Pedagogical Approaches that Facilitate Writing in Postgraduate Research Candidature in Science and Technology

  • Using Nominal Group Technique to Develop a Consensus Derived Model for Peer Review of Teaching Across a Multi-school Faculty

    Tracy Burrows, Naomi Findlay, Chloe Killen, Shane E Dempsey, Sharyn Hunter, Pauline Chiarelli, Suzanne Snodgrass

    This paper describes the development of a peer review of teaching model for the Faculty of Health at the University of Newcastle, Australia. The process involved using the nominal group technique to engage Faculty academic staff to consider seven key decision points that informed the development of the peer review of teaching model. Use of the consensus based nominal group technique established collegial discussion and networking among participants, and has expanded the discussion within the Faculty about peer review of teaching. Although the academics come from a diverse multi-school and multi-program Faculty, there was high levels of consensus on the structure and process of the developed peer review of teaching model.

    Read article: Using Nominal Group Technique to Develop a Consensus Derived Model for Peer Review of Teaching Across a Multi-school Faculty