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Vol. 12 No. 1 (2015)

Published: 1 January 2015

Articles

  • The Effectiveness of Peer Review of Teaching when performed between Early-career Academics

    Richard J Woodman, Maria B Parappilly

    The success of peer review of teaching (PRT) in shaping teaching practice during an academic’s formative years may depend on the peers’ teaching experience and the frequency of evaluation. Two Australian early-career University lecturers with no previous experience of peer review performed a single PRT on one another following a one week academic development program, a mandatory exercise for all new academic staff with teaching roles within the University. Their experiences were recorded and used in the development of a teaching philosophy. The same PRT was then repeated between the same 2 individuals for the purpose of mandatory peer evaluation some 5 years later and after gaining considerable teaching experience. This paper describes the perceived impact of the PRT process on their teaching philosophies and the potential limitations imposed by their inexperience in formative PRT and teaching itself. Despite this relative inexperience, both academics believed their initial PRT accelerated changes to their mainly teacher-focused knowledge-transfer approaches. This case study provides qualitative evidence that PRT programs can successfully shape teaching practice without the involvement of more experienced teaching faculty. Academic developers should highlight the importance of building collegiality and the scholarship of teaching and learning for early-career PRT participants.

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  • Working in triads: A case study of a peer review process

    Peter Grainger, Martin Bridgstock, Todd Houston, Steve Drew

    Peer review of teaching has become an accepted educational procedure in Australia to quality assure the quality of teaching practices. The institutional implementation of the peer review process can be viewed as genuine desire to improve teaching quality or an imposition from above as a measure of accountability and performativity. One approach is to conduct the peer review process as a team or a triad, involving a group of three academics. This article reviews this process of peer review through the eyes of the participants. The results of the study indicate that the peer review process upon which this study is based, has the potential to not only significantly impact academics’ pedagogy but to improve teaching confidence and associated benefits in regard to evidence based teaching for promotional opportunities.

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  • On-Campus and Fully-Online University Students: Comparing Demographics, Digital Technology Use and Learning Characteristics

    Genevieve M Johnson

    First-year university students (n = 185) completed an online questionnaire that allowed comparison of those who reported studying on-campus with those who reported studying fully-online. Independent sample t-tests compared the means of students in the two study modes on demographics, frequency of use of digital technology and metacognitive learning characteristics. Compared to students who studied on-campus, students who studied fully-online were older, more likely to be native English speakers and had lower expectations of academic achievement. Compared to students who studied fully-online, students who studied on-campus were more likely to use a computer to chat or tweet, had higher levels of extrinsic achievement motivation and expressed greater need for peer and teacher support for learning. Some differences between on-campus and fully-online students appear to be eroding; other differences persist. Implications for instructional practice are presented.

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  • Introducing Educational Technologies to Teachers: Experience Report

    Neena Thota, Joao G M Negreiros

    The dramatic rise in use of digital media has changed the way learning is taking place and has led to new ways to teach with digital technologies. In this article, we describe the experiences of teaching a course that introduces educational technologies to teachers in Macau. The course design is based on connectivism, a learning theory for the digital age that emphasizes interaction with digital media and active engagement in sharing digital artefacts. The learning outcomes are constructively aligned with learning and teaching activities and assessments. We share the insights we gained of the learning needs and the disparity in the technological skills and competencies of the students. The course design is evaluated in terms of the students' learning outcomes and progress through the stages of learning with technology. We present evidence from journal writings that show metacognition, active reflection and critical evaluation, and we identify anxiety and increased confidence with digital tools, as well as concerns about group work. This article contributes to the discussion on teachers learning to teach with technologies.

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  • Shedding Light on Students’ Technology Preferences: Implications for Academic Development

    Negin Mirriahi, Dennis Alonzo

    This study built on previous research in 2010 to determine changes to students’ current use of and expectations for future integration of technologies in their learning experience. The findings reveal a continued trend of conservative technology use amongst students but with a growing demand for more integration of technologies for assessment and administrative purposes, podcasts or lecture recordings in flexible and blended course designs. While academic practice has been slow to change, this study reveals a continued need for academic development to focus on strategies that enhance technology adoption amongst academic staff. Students’ preferences from this and the earlier study suggest that they would like more use of technologies, especially mobile technologies for efficient and convenient access to content, communication and assessment that can not only inform academic development and course design for fully online and blended learning courses, but also for the growing number of massive open and online courses (MOOCs) in the education landscape.

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  • A University Math Help Centre as a Support Framework for Students, the Instructor, the Course, and the Department

    Petra Menz, Veselin Jungic

    Among many challenges a math department at a post-secondary institution will most likely be faced with the optimization problem of how best to offer out-of-lecture learning support to several thousand first- and second-year university students enrolled in large math service courses within given spatial, scheduling, financial, technological, and manpower resource constraints, and at the same time ease the administrative work of the instructor. This article describes how math workshops, essentially math help centres, are set up in the Department of Mathematics at Simon Fraser University so that they provide the administrative and learning support structure for the students, the instructor, the course, and the department. The roles and responsibilities of the workshop coordinator, instructors, teaching assistants, and students are outlined along with a discussion of the challenges and benefits of this support framework.

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  • Using a Brief Form of Problem-Based Learning in a Research Methods Class: Perspectives of Instructor and Students

    Anastasia D. Elder

    Problem based learning (PBL) is an instructional method aimed at engaging students in collaboratively solving an ill-structured problem. PBL has been presented and researched as an overhaul of existing curriculum design, yet a modified version may be attractive to college instructors who desire active learning on the part of their students, but who cannot completely reorganize their current course design. A brief case using principles of PBL was constructed for use in an undergraduate research methods class. Instructor planning and student reflections highlight roles and skills demanded in the PBL classroom. Planned conceptual issues were successfully covered during the brief PBL case. In addition, important yet unforeseen topics emerged during the discussions and were seen as helpful for the activity and instructional objectives. Reported student perspectives indicated that the objectives of the PBL activity were successfully accomplished: students learned research concepts, engaged in discussion with peers, and were actively involved with and motivated by the authentic activity. This work supports the suggestion that a brief version of PBL may be an attractive option to instructors interested in having students be more actively engaged in the classroom. Further research on variations of PBL is encouraged.

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