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Vol. 8 No. 3 (2011)

Published: 1 July 2011

Articles

  • Editorial 8.3

    Geraldine E. Lefoe

    Welcome to the third and final issue of Volume 8 of the Journal of University Teaching and Learning (JUTLP) in 2011. As the year draws to a close we are seeing some striking changes to the higher education sector internationally. In England budget cuts have seen the closure of the twenty-four Higher Education Academy subject centres at the same time as the establishment of student fees. In Australia the cap has been lifted across the board on the number of students that can be enrolled in universities with the resultant projected increased student numbers. The focus in Australia is on social inclusion yet in England the concern for the introduction of fees is just the opposite, these will be the very students who may now be excluded. The changes in both countries see new measures of accountability and more complex regulations put in place. Will this cause people to rethink the way we teach and the way students learn? For the Higher Education Academy in the UK, new directions see the hosting of a summit on learning and teaching with a focus on flexible learning, an indicator of new directions for many institutions. In Australia, we see a renewed opportunity to investigate such changes through the opening of the Office of Learning and Teaching (OLT) and its role of recognising the importance of learning and teaching through grants and awards schemes. We hope in 2012 we’ll hear more from our authors about the impact of these transformations, as well as those changes occurring in other countries around the world, on teaching practice in our universities.

    Read article: Editorial 8.3

  • The Lived Experience of Flexible Education – Theory, Policy and Practice

    Stuart R Palmer

    The range of rationales that underpin conceptions of flexible education, and the re-making over time of the official meaning of flexibility in national education policy, have led to the point where flexibility might be found, or be required, in nearly every aspect of Australian higher education. This paper seeks to identify those rationales and the development of public policy rhetoric that have framed the development of the meaning of flexible education over time in an Australian context. By considering the intersection of theoretical and policy perspectives on flexible education with the realities of teaching and learning practice in the discipline context of engineering, this paper proposes the essential importance of individual context and agency in the making of real meaning from, and creating practical boundaries around, the otherwise tenuous definitions of flexibility often offered by institutional policy.

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  • In-service Development For Graduate Teaching Assistants: A Blended-learning And Formative Approach

    David Santandreu Calonge, Patrio Chiu, Dimple R Thadani, Kai Pan Mark, Cecilia F.K Pun

    Graduate Teaching Assistants (GTAs) are front-line facilitators with first-hand contact with students. They play an important role in providing an engaging learning experience for undergraduate and postgraduate students. However, most of them have not received adequate training and guidance in teaching. This paper reports on an intensive and compulsory education development course for postgraduate students, which aims to prepare them for their upcoming teaching role whilst they are still research students; The course provides an introduction to the basic theoretical knowledge and practical skills required before they begin to take up teaching responsibilities at the University, in a Chinese (Hong Kong/Mainland China) and English Medium Instruction context. Blended learning technologies, active learning strategies, formative assessment and an outcomes-based approach are extensively used throughout the course to enable and encourage participation and collaboration. To measure the outcome performance of the course in alignment with the University’s strategic goals, a number of key performance indicators are assessed. The result shows that students found the course very useful and the blended instructional methods used facilitated the achievement of the Intended Learning Outcomes.

    Read article: In-service Development For Graduate Teaching Assistants: A Blended-learning And Formative Approach

  • Teaching for Civic Engagement: Lesson Learned from Integrating Positive Psychology and Future Studies

    Jeanie K Allen

    Teaching for civic education holds promise for assisting colleges and universities that suggest the promotion of global citizenship in their mission statements. This paper presents the study of a course where readings and activities from the literature of positive psychology were integrated with studies about current global issues and potential future scenarios, with the goal of enhancing students’ civic engagement. The hypothesis was that using activities designed to assist individuals in the development of hope, optimism, resilience, and other positive traits would encourage students to become more engaged in global issues. The analysis of students’ reflective essays reveals insights into the student experience. These results, combined with literature on the current thinking about teaching for civic engagement, provides educators and policymakers with factors to consider in evaluating their own programs. In addition, two overarching questions emerged: Can a college class enhance civic engagement? and How does this fit within the purpose of a university education?

    Read article: Teaching for Civic Engagement: Lesson Learned from Integrating Positive Psychology and Future Studies

  • Practical and Pedagogical Aspects of Learning Through Participation: the LTP Assessment Design Framework

    Jacqueline A Mackaway, Theresa Winchester-Seeto, Debra Coulson, Marina Harvey

    Assessment of student learning in experience-based education is recognised as being a complex but important task. Practitioners are faced with a myriad of practical and pedagogical issues that influence what and how they assess, and can severely impact the effectiveness of assessment strategies. This paper presents a synthesised overview of the literature about assessment of student learning that is usually discussed in dispersed arenas and under different headings, such as work-integrated learning, cooperative education, practicum, project-based learning and service-learning etc. The term Learning through Participation (LTP) is introduced to cover all of these areas, but especially those where students undertake experiences and placements that incorporate community engagement and which are based within the curriculum. The literature in this area highlights a number of issues that add layers to the complexity of assessment of LTP. The synthesis presented herein discusses questions of validity, objective verification of learning, the roles and expectations of various stakeholders in the process of assessment, and the role and purpose of reflection in learning and assessment. To assist practitioners a LTP Assessment Design Framework has been created, which guides academics though a consideration and analysis of the practical and pedagogical context of LTP and some of the most important issues. The framework consists of two parts. The first part involves the development of a Placement Profile, to better understand the operational conditions for which the assessment package must be designed, and the second part is a set of Guiding Questions about assessment and feedback.

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  • Helping university students to ‘read’ scholarly journal articles: the benefits of a structured and collaborative approach

    Yuka Fujimoto, Pauline Hagel, Paul Turner, Uraiporn Kattiyapornpong, Ambika Zutshi

    Academics often treat students’ discipline-specific literacy as unproblematic. In doing so they may underestimate the difficulties for university students as they move between subjects of study that may involve different disciplines, language genres and academic practices. This paper describes an initiative aimed at supporting students in reading academic articles in preparation for completing an essay for an assessment task. This initiative involved a structured and collaborative two-week tutorial exercise that provided students with practice in using a framework to extract the main ideas from academic readings. Students were surveyed after this exercise, and their reflections of its value are described in this paper. The findings of this study will inform further stages of the project which aim to develop and investigate practical ways to develop student’s academic literacy across several business disciplines.

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  • Undergraduate Student Acceptance of a Unit Design for Developing Independent Learning Abilities

    Samar Zutshi, Matthew Mitchell, Debbi Weaver

    This paper describes a method intended to advance students along the path to independent learning. The method is consistent with the principles of enquiry-based Learning. It involves restructuring student contact class time into a single three-hour block, and dedicating the majority of this time to working in small research project groups. Non-punitive, formative feedback is provided continuously on student work through the semester. In order to gain insight into the student experience of the design, a qualitative study using focus groups was conducted across two consecutive semesters. Reflection on the teaching experience in light of the student responses provides insight into aspects that have worked well, particularly the nature and channels of support provided to students. Despite the students’ unfamiliarity with the unit design, the contact structure and the group work has been popular and has been perceived as contributing to the students’ learning experience. The levels of support and feedback made possible through the unit design have also been very positively viewed. However, interesting questions are also raised. The first is regarding the balance between encouraging independent learning and the provision of structure and support by staff. The second is related to going beyond student perceptions and reliably measuring changes in independent learning abilities.

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