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This keynote will share ongoing work in recalibrating university wide assessment practices in Victoria University of Wellington. In so doing I will talk of the importance of assessment for learning, assessment of learning and assessment as learning. The last mentioned is central in empowering students, academics and professional administrators and moves towards regaining a paradise we may not actually have ever had – when assessment was not a burden for all parties. If this is the goal the route and challenges towards it are far from clear.
Stephen Dobson was born in Zambia (1963), grew up in England and has previously lived for many years in Norway. Prior to entering higher education, he worked for thirteen years with refugees as a community worker. He has published poetry in Norwegian and one of his most recent books is Assessing the Viva in Higher Education. Chasing Moments of Truth (Springer publishers, 2017). Dobson’s writing, teaching and research focus upon assessment, ethnicity and the practice of education.
He has published extensively in Norwegian and English, holds two PhDs, one in Cultural Studies and Refugees (Nottingham Trent University, 2000) and another in Assessment and Education (Institute of Education, UCL, 2008). A Magistergrad in Sociology (University of Oslo, 1990) complements his later studies. He is at the forefront of emerging educational trends and technologies through EU (2014-2016) and Erasmus+ (2016-2017; 2017-2019, 2019-2021) projects and his advocacy of big data, learning analytics and social inclusion.
In 2020, during COVID, everyone had to learn to do things from home that few could have imagined before. Things like rescuing victims from chemical spills. Teaching blind rats to explore their way to the middle of mazes. Escaping from dungeons filled with nefarious blob guards. Landing on the Moon. This talk gives a whirlwind tour of my “CS0” course and some of the techniques behind it.
(And hopefully by next time, things’ll start to get truly doctacular…)
Dr Will Billingsley
The rapid migration of courses from blended teaching to a fully online learning environment during the COVID-19 pandemic required the timely development of new, online teaching resources and re-imagined strategies, to teach practical skills to university students. The move to deliver content that was fully online challenged the assumptions and conventions about the use of face-to-face classes, especially in STEM disciplines. This critical review uses case studies to describe the innovations that were used to adapt undergraduate, first year biology courses which were previously delivered using a blended learning pedagogy to a fully online format.
Dr Adrienne Burns, Dr Lea Labeur, Dr Nick Andronicus
As the higher education sector grapples with the demands of the COVID-19 pandemic, now more than ever, educators need to explore innovative learning activities that not only encourage better student engagement, but also adapt well to online delivery methods and systems. In this presentation, we provide tangible gamification activity ideas, explore the advantages and limitations of gamified environments, and elicit discussion on the broader subject of gamification and learning activity innovation in general.
Mr Marc Mellors and Dr Ingrid Harrington
The lightboard is a new and innovative teaching tool which consists of a large pane of glass which is edge-lit with LED lights. Using standard whiteboard markers, the glass can be drawn on and this lighting causes the text/images to glow in front of the presenter. This presentation describes research undertaken to see if the lightboard was an effective teaching tool for first-year nursing students. Results from this study were overwhelmingly positive, with the majority of students reporting that the use of the lightboard for content delivery was innovative, engaging and enjoyable. Critically, students felt more confident in their understanding of learning material delivered using the lightboard.
Dr Richard Charlesworth
If I had a dollar for every time, I’ve seen a PowerPoint presentation where everything is tiny, I could fund Australia’s budding space program. Have you witnessed a presenter blaming the application zoom for not being able to share their screen? Or experienced a session with the noise of the microphone has your ears waving the white flag while you switch to something more engaging? It’s not just PowerPoint slide design that is the stage, the presenter as actor is even more important. What you leave out is just as important as what you show. It is all about focus, being clear about what is being presented, and yourself being presented clearly.
Mr Iain Mackay
UNE has been called the Smithsonian of the New England, and its extensive collections referred to as one of Armidale’s best kept secrets. At times, those extensive collections have been something of a mystery even to staff and students. Do you know what collections UNE has and what they can offer for your teaching and research? In this presentation we examine some innovative uses to which UNE’s existing collections and digital technologies are being put in our teaching and discuss the emerging opportunities for teachers and researchers at UNE to take advantage of the support our collections and digital platforms can provide for distance education, online research, and community engagement.
Dr Bronwyn Hopwood, Dr Melanie Fillios, Mr Malcolm Lambert, A/Prof Karl Vernes, Mr Jackson Shoobert
Bench in the Sun Lunch Breakout Room
Background Information Activity - Grab some lunch and maybe be a coffee and join us in the Bench in the Sun Breakout Room. You are encouraged to set your Zoom background to either – your favourite place in the world or your favourite hobby or even both! Be prepared though to share some background information on your background.When face to face teaching isn’t an option, what should educators do? We could throw up our hands in despair, curse, or retreat behind closed doors – or we could do what we do best – adapt and innovate by going back to basics. Drawing on anthropology, learning design 101 and 30 years of teaching, I explore some things we can do when it all goes digital. Using a traditionally face to face intensive school as a case study, I discuss ways to make the physical virtual – with even more meaning and more engagement than face to face teaching. Want to know more? Come and see.
Dr Melanie Fillios
In response to the COVID lockdowns the School of ERS had numerous units with field and laboratory practical components that needed to be delivered virtually. With limited resourcing for video recording and the need for recording equipment that was accessible, we devised a plan to use cost effective equipment to record our practicals. We used a mobile phone with full HD video recording capacity, steadied by a gimble, with clear audio using a wireless microphone. This system has empowered both academic and technical staff in ERS to upskill and take control of how they display their material to students. In this presentation we will give examples of how this equipment has been used and the lessons learned.
Dr James Turnell and Dr Janelle Wilkes
ANPR340 is a multidisciplinary unit that through five modules examines each of the subsystems of a beef cattle feedlot. It uses an authentic, industry relevant learning experience where students usually immerse themselves at a research and commercial feedlot. This presentation explores, how in response to COVID-19 restrictions, the unit was converted to a completely online experience using a ‘Virtual Commercial Learning Feedlot’. Students engaged with this virtual feedlot using Moodle Lessons which included videos the teaching team recorded at commercial feedlots. Provided with commercial feedlot data, students used industry relevant practical tools to make decisions on if and how they should intervene to solve the problem.
Dr Fran Cowley
The School of Education formally commenced the Commencing Student Success Project (CSSP) to address on-going issues relating to the tertiary experiences of commencing students. The CSSP developed and embedded a set of 14 evidence-based principles known as ‘Basic Elements’ promoting student retention and engagement into first year/commencing units centring around the quality of the teaching academic:student relationship. A significant project aim was to shift the Unit Coordinator’s ‘gatekeeping’ mindset, to a ‘facilitating’ one, much sought by students new to the tertiary classroom. This presentation provides an overview of the CSSP guiding principles and shares some of the interim findings from the T1 2021 Pilot.
Dr Ingrid Harrington and Mr Marc Mellors
This presentation will outline a signature pedagogy titled ‘Inclusive Pedagogy for Student Wellbeing’. This pedagogy aims to support inclusion, cultural responsiveness, and wellbeing. The pedagogy has been produced through a UNE cross university collaboration between the School of Education, School of Psychology, Oorala Aboriginal Centre, and Student Success. Our signature pedagogy draws on Universal Design for Learning, Culturally Responsive Pedagogy, and Trauma Informed Pedagogy. Four principles for our ‘Inclusive Pedagogy for Student Wellbeing’ have been developed, and will be presented, along with illustrations of practice. At its core, this pedagogy has an aspiration to ensure UNE students experience education in a safe and accessible way.
Dr Joanna Anderson and Dr Genevieve Thraves
This presentation will discuss the challenges of online teaching and explains the reasons for students’ lack of engagement with the online teaching material. The benefits of self-authored hypothetical case scenarios made available to students in an online Moodle environment as multimedia-enhanced storyboards and animated videos to enhance students’ overall engagement with the unit content, unit coordinator and peers will be discussed. Overall, students appreciated the way unit content was presented to them in bite sized chunks that allowed them to progress authentic learning and deeply understand the formulation of marketing strategy in real work environment.
A/Prof Sujana Adapa
We’ve got 5 years’ worth of great work on this website.
