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2020: ASCILITE 2020 Conference Proceedings: ASCILITE's First Virtual Conference

The 2020 ASCILITE annual conference was hosted by the University of New England, 30th November to 1st December.

Editors: S. Gregory, S. Warburton, and M. Parkes

Published: 30 November 2020

ASCILITE Conference - Concise Papers

  • Maybe it's us: Imagining Organisational Learning Design

    Sarah Thorneycroft

    Higher education is in crisis mode, and as organisations we need to find new ways to exist. The traditional entities tasked with change in the sector have had limited impact, however, and it may be time to explore new catalysts for organisational change. This short narrative paper describes one such potential catalyst, the concept of organisational learning design – a new practice domain that harnesses the capabilities and affordances of learning design and evolves them beyond technology into organisational learning and organisational culture practices to create a high-leverage change agent.

    Read article: Maybe it's us: Imagining Organisational Learning Design

  • Three arrows models in the developing of new digital learning experiences

    Pablo Riveros, Mika Tamura, Jin Tanaka

    The many challenges arising from COVID-19 have forced Japanese businesses and higher education to accelerate innovations and digital transformations. Japan is a well-known global leader in adopting innovative approaches with the use of advanced cutting-edge technologies, and education is not an exception. Digital learning and effective implementation of new pedagogies focused on distance learning, flexibility, and adaptation to innovative teaching practices are helping students and educators across Japan. As a result, Japan’s traditional face- to-face lecture style is being rapidly transformed into a new Education 5.0, involving Cloud tools, correct use of learning management systems (LMS), web 4.0/5.0, and a wide range of other educational tools. Additionally, in our research and course design, we have adopted a new collaborative agile approach, including academic, industry expertise and teaching assistance facilitators. We identify challenges and opportunities through a case study that examines the design of a new course that incorporates agile collaboration and student perceptions after the adoption of this rapid and unexpected digital learning approach.

    Read article: Three arrows models in the developing of new digital learning experiences

  • Should we care about what the students do? Challenging how we design for online learning

    Bettina Schwenger

    Rapidly responding in the times of a pandemic, tertiary courses in New Zealand have implemented emergency remote learning and teaching by increasing learning online. Many staff require support though to purposeful redesign and facilitate online as part of blended or hybrid learning and teaching. This article reports about a study of redesign for such a purpose. The course demands were identified to then consider how to use online features to support the assessment for Ma?ori and non-Ma?ori students. Research instruments with students included questionnaires and focus groups; conversations and reflections were used with staff. The paper includes key findings, firstly how online features can contribute to active learning and secondly, considerations and tools to enhance a course design with increased online learning, for example an explicit plan of how and when certain affordances support students learning.

    Read article: Should we care about what the students do? Challenging how we design for online learning

  • The value of design patterns in designing teaching in online settings

    Steven Warburton, Mark Perry

    This paper presents an overview of the development of a pattern language for designing online learning and teaching. The aim of these patterns is to facilitate teachers in designing their online teaching environment using a scaffolded methodology that maintains and confirms their individual design agency. Design patterns capture expert knowledge in ways that can be reused to solve problems but never in the same way twice. Here, the authors provide an overview of the patterns, their interrelationship, and reflect on the value of design pattern and their use, highlighting how they can be deployed to enhance online teaching in an iterative design cycle approach.

    Read article: The value of design patterns in designing teaching in online settings

  • Reimagining Information Literacy teaching and learning during the COVID-19 pandemic: Research and evidence- based practice skills training redesigned for online delivery

    Fiona Jones, Abigail Baker, Raymond A’Court, Jo Hardy

    Information literacy teaching and learning for Master of Chiropractic students undertaking systematic reviews was re-envisioned from hybrid to fully online mode due to COVID-19 pandemic restrictions. Collaboration with the academic unit convener informed design and development of appropriate online learning activities and assessment for student achievement of required learning outcomes. Using flipped classroom methodology, a pre-recorded lecture demonstrated research question formulation and advanced database search strategies. Tutorial activities were redesigned for Zoom delivery using breakout rooms to replicate the collaborative aspect of face-to-face tutorials. Learning was supported by a refreshed online research guide, research consultations, and emails. Consultations were delivered via Zoom upon request for more specific advice including question formulation, search terms, choosing appropriate research databases, and advanced database search techniques. Feedback and assessments were positive and review will inform future offerings.

    Read article: Reimagining Information Literacy teaching and learning during the COVID-19 pandemic: Research and evidence- based practice skills training redesigned for online delivery

  • Learning from a rapid transition to remote emergency teaching: Developing a typology of online business education designs

    Elaine Huber, Celina McEwen, Peter Bryant, Matthew Taylor, Natasha Arthars, Henry Boateng

    Many universities had to pivot their teaching into an online space in response to the COVID-19 health crisis. How can we leverage the lessons learned from our design of these spaces to provide superior student learning experiences? This study describes the development of a classification system to appraise our rapidly transitioned online units of study. Underpinned by active learning pedagogy, 234 online learning sites from a leading Australian Business School were reviewed and three types of sites emerged, content, student and teacher-centred. The quality of these online sites were evaluated using a modified framework from the literature focusing on elements of design across five domains. Findings indicated that the overall range of quality of sites was mirrored across all three types, with the majority categorised as ‘good’. Analysis of the design elements of this typology will help build capacity in the design of online learning environments and guide pedagogical practice in business education.

    Read article: Learning from a rapid transition to remote emergency teaching: Developing a typology of online business education designs

  • An interactive virtual reality physics instructional environment based on Vygotskian Educational Theory

    Michael Cowling, Robert Vanderburg

    Physics Education is a popular application for Virtual Reality (VR), with many simulations being available for students to manipulate objects in virtual space. However, most of these applications take a Piagetian approach to learning, instructing first in a traditional way and then exposing students to VR in a sandbox environment without the instructor present. This paper proposes a design for a VR physics simulation that takes a Vygotskian approach using Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) and scaffolding to teaching physics, allowing the students and instructor to collaborate in virtual space. Using gravity and circular motion as a case study, this paper discusses a design to facilitate this learning comprising a virtual universe with control of planet placement and size, external satellite placement and size, as well as gravitational forces acting on these objects, along with a design-based research (DBR) research design to evaluate both usability and learning for the intervention.

    Read article: An interactive virtual reality physics instructional environment based on Vygotskian Educational Theory

  • A mobile ecology of resources for COVID-19 learning

    Vickel Narayan, Thomas Cochrane, Neil Cowie, Meredith Hinze, James Birt, Chris Deneen, Paul Goldacre, Lisa Ransom, David Sinfield, Tom Worthington

    Mobile devices and a vast array of accompanying applications offer significant affordances to create, consume, share, collaborate and communicate—affordances that could be easily leveraged to facilitate meaningful learning. A positive disruption arising from COVID-19 that aligns with the affordances of mobile learning is the uncoupling of time and space in the learning process. Traditionally formal learning is a process that is predominately viewed as an experience that is ‘timetabled’— scheduled to eventuate at a ‘place’—lecture or a tutorial (or similar) in a room or lecture theatre. In this concise paper, an ecology of resources is discussed along with guiding principles for designing and facilitating uncoupled authentic and student-determined learning post the emergency remote teaching phase.

    Read article: A mobile ecology of resources for COVID-19 learning

  • Applications for virtual reality experiences in tertiary education

    Ghaith Zakaria, Sonia Wilkie

    Providing authentic learning experiences is a stellar teaching and learning strategy to prepare students for their future careers. They cultivate and enhance students learning by providing hands- on, experiential learning opportunities. However, incorporating such activities can be challenging, logistically complicated and may encapsulate hazardous situations and safety concerns. When these challenges arise, Virtual and Augmented Reality can offer learning experiences to supplement the curriculum, and optimise the valuable time spent on location. This paper provides an overview of different pedagogical applications to incorporate virtual experiences, namely Virtual experiences to supplement and optimise real-world experiences; Simulations and virtual tours for inaccessible or remote locations; First-person point-of-view; and Virtual scenarios for dangerous situations, which is supported with examples of activities used in higher education.

    Read article: Applications for virtual reality experiences in tertiary education

  • Creating a digital learning ecosystem to facilitate authentic place-based learning and international collaboration – a coastal case study

    Elisa Bone, Richard Greenfield, Gray Williams, Bayden Russell

    Authentic, place-based experiential learning is essential for students of ecology, whilst an understanding of broader human impacts is necessary for effective conservation efforts. Creating future environmental leaders requires fostering such understanding whilst building transferable skills in collaboration, communication and cultural competence. Mobile technologies and collaborative digital tools can connect students across broad geographic locations, allowing them to share experiences and build a common understanding of global environmental challenges. Within this concise paper, we report on the initial stages and proposed next steps in building a learning ecosystem, consisting of a digital platform and embedded tools, to facilitate undergraduate learning in coastal ecology across universities in Australia, Hong Kong and South Africa. Using here a framework guided by design-based research (DBR), we discuss the design and development of these digital tools in context, and their proposed integration into upper undergraduate science curricula across locations.

    Read article: Creating a digital learning ecosystem to facilitate authentic place-based learning and international collaboration – a coastal case study

  • The post-pandemic blended university in the time of digitisation

    Philip Uys, Mike Douse

    This paper documents the inevitable emergence of the ‘Global School’, assesses how the COVID-19 pandemic is hastening that transformation, and then focusses upon how these elemental educational developments may apply at the post-school level. Digitisation involves a pivotal leap in human potential as profound as the wheel in terms of development, as significant as the book in relation to information, and as iconoclastic as anything dreamed up by the deepest analyst/therapist in terms of the human psyche. Given that we are moving inexorably and joyfully into the One World One School situation, do we envisage the one global and blended university – where universal access and organisation are intermingled with local needs, cultures and priorities? Are we also progressing towards a blended post- secondary assessment and learning pedagogy in which the digital is dominant? And, if so, how will the pandemic – and the responses to it – pave the way towards that desirable destination?

    Read article: The post-pandemic blended university in the time of digitisation

  • Predictors of students’ perceived learning in off-campus learning environment: Online interactions are not enough

    David Kwok

    This study aimed to investigate how three online interaction variables (i.e., learner-instructor interaction, learner-content interaction, and learner-learner interaction) and self-efficacy for learning can predict students’ perceived learning in an off-campus learning environment. A total of 654 polytechnic students participated in the study. By controlling gender and age, regression results showed that self-efficacy for learning was the significantly strongest predictor of perceived learning, followed by learner-content interaction. Perceived learning and learner-instructor interaction for males were significantly higher than females. Finally, implications of these findings along with limitations of the study and directions for future research are discussed in the paper.

    Read article: Predictors of students’ perceived learning in off-campus learning environment: Online interactions are not enough

  • Emergency responses to teaching, assessment and student support during the COVID-19 pandemic

    Alison Reedy, Kalie Carmichael, Oriel Kelly

    Under COVID-19 conditions higher education institutions responded rapidly with technological solutions to maintain teaching and assessment for students and to adjust support mechanisms to compensate for the lack of face-to-face interaction with students. Using critical reflection as a research method, this paper captures the experiences of three education developers from different institutions to business as usual in the context of emergency remote teaching. The authors utilise the Substitution, Augmentation, Modification, and Redefinition (SAMR) model of technology integration as a conceptual frame to compare their institutions’ approaches to educational delivery during the pandemic. Additionally, the authors reflect on student diversity, inclusion and equity during the period of emergency remote teaching.

    Read article: Emergency responses to teaching, assessment and student support during the COVID-19 pandemic

Showing 27–39 of 48 articles