Good Practice Report : Blended Learning

In early 2011, the Australian Learning and Teaching Council Ltd (ALTC) commissioned a series of Good Practice Reports on completed ALTC projects and fellowships. This report will: • Provide a summative evaluation of the good practices and key outcomes for teaching and learning from completed ALTC projects and fellowships relating to blended learning • Include a literature review of the good practices and key outcomes for teaching and learning from national and international research • Identify areas in which further work or development are appropriate. The literature abounds with definitions; it can be argued that the various definitions incorporate different perspectives, but there is no single, collectively accepted definition. Blended learning courses in higher education can be placed somewhere on a continuum, between fully online and fully face-to-face courses. Consideration must therefore be given to the different definitions for blended learning presented in the literature and by users and stakeholders. The application of this term in these various projects and fellowships is dependent on the particular focus of the team and the conditions and situations under investigation. One of the key challenges for projects wishing to develop good practice in blended learning is the lack of a universally accepted definition. The findings from these projects and fellowships reveal the potential of blended learning programs to improve both student outcomes and levels of satisfaction. It is clear that this environment can help teaching and learning engage students more effectively and allow greater participation than traditional models. Just as there are many definitions, there are many models and frameworks that can be successfully applied to the design and implementation of such courses. Each academic discipline has different learning objectives and in consequence there can’t be only one correct approach. This is illustrated by the diversity of definitions and applications in the ALTC funded projects and fellowships. A review of the literature found no universally accepted guidelines for good practice in higher education. To inform this evaluation and literature review, the Seven Principles for Good Practice in Undergraduate Education, as outlined by Chickering and Gamson (1987), were adopted: 1. encourages contacts between students and faculty 2. develops reciprocity and cooperation among students 3. uses active learning techniques 4. gives prompt feedback 5. emphasises time on task 6. communicates high expectations 7. respects diverse talents and ways of learning. These blended learning projects have produced a wide range of resources that can be used in many and varied settings. These resources include: books, DVDs, online repositories, pedagogical frameworks, teaching modules. In addition there is valuable information contained in the published research data and literature reviews that inform good practice and can assist in the development of courses that can enrich and improve teaching and learning.

Designing relational pedagogies with jam2jamXO

This paper examines the affordances of the philosophy and practice of open source and the application of it in developing music education software. In particular I will examine the parallels inherent in the ‘openness’ of pragmatist philosophy in education (Dewey 1916, 1989) such as group or collaborative learning, discovery learning (Bruner 1966) and learning through creative activity with computers (Papert 1980, 1994). Primarily I am interested in ‘relational pedagogies’ (Ruthmann and Dillon In Press) which is in a real sense about the ethics of the transaction between student and teacher in an ecology where technology plays a more significant role. In these contexts relational pedagogies refers to how the music teacher manages their relationships with students and evaluates the affordances of open source technology in that process. It is concerned directly with how the relationship between student and teacher is affected by the technological tools, as is the capacity for music making and learning. In particular technologies that have agency present the opportunity for a partnership between user and technology that enhances the capacity for expressive music making, productive social interaction and learning. In this instance technologies with agency are defined as ones that enhance the capacity to be expressive and perform tasks with virtuosity and complexity where the technology translates simple commands and gestures into complex outcomes. The technology enacts a partnership with the user that becomes both a cognitive and performative amplifier. Specifically we have used this term to describe interactions with generative technologies that use procedural invention as a creative technique to produce music and visual media.

Frantic fashion and Australia’s invisible designers : conversations on sustainability in the mass market

The majority of Australians will work, sleep and die in the garments of the mass market. Yet, as Ian Griffiths has termed it, the designers of these garments are ‘invisible’ (2000). To the general public, the values, opinions and individual design processes of these designers are as unknown as their names. However, the designer’s role is crucial in making decisions which will have impacts throughout the life of the garment. The high product volume within the mass market ensures that even a small decision in the design process to source a particular fabric, or to use a certain trim or textile finish, can have a profound environmental or social effect. While big companies in Australia have implemented some visible strategies for sustainability, it is uncertain how these may have flowed through to design practices. To explore this question, this presentation will discuss preliminary findings from in-depth semi-structured interviews with Australian mass market fashion designers and product developers. The aim of the interviews was to hear the voice of the insider – to listen to mass market designers describe their design process, discuss the Australian fashion industry and its future challenges and opportunities, and to comment on what a ‘sustainability’ for their industry could look like. These interviews will be discussed within the framework of design philosopher Tony Fry’s writing on design redirection for sustainability.

The knock-on from the knock-off : recent shifts within Australian mass market fashion design practice

Australia’s mass market fashion labels have traditionally benefitted from their peripheral location to the world’s fashion centres. Operating a season behind, Australian mass market designers and buyers were well-placed to watch trends play out overseas before testing them in the Australian marketplace. For this reason, often a designer’s role was to source and oversee the manufacture of ‘knock-offs’, or close copies of Northern hemisphere mass market garments. Both Weller (2007) and Walsh (2009) have commented on this practice. The knock-on effect from this continues to be a cautious, derivative fashion sensibility within Australian mass market fashion design, where any new trend or product is first tested and proved overseas months earlier. However, there is evidence that this is changing. The rapid online dissemination of global fashion trends, coupled with the Australian consumer’s willingness to shop online, has meant that the ‘knock-off’ is less viable. For this reason, a number of mass market companies are moving away from the practice of direct sourcing and are developing product in-house under a Northern hemisphere model. This shift is also witnessed in the trend for mass market companies to develop collections in partnership with independent Australian designers. This paper explores the current and potential effects of these shifts within Australian mass market design practice, and discusses how they may impact on designers, consumers and on the wider culture of Australian fashion.

Learning as identity and practice through involvement in online moderation

For teachers working in a standards-based assessment system, professional conversations through organised social moderation meetings are a vital element. This qualitative research investigated the learning that occurred as a result of online moderation discussions. Findings illustrate how participating in social moderation meetings in an online context can support teachers to understand themselves as assessors, and can provide opportunities for teachers to imagine possibilities for their teaching that move beyond the moderation practice.

Evidence-based practice

This chapter traces the history of evidence-based practice (EBP) from its roots in evidence-based medicine to contemporary thinking about the usefulness of such an approach to public health practice. It defines EBP and differentiates it from terms such as evidence-based medicine, evidence-based policy and evidence-based health care. As EBP is concerned with identifying ‘good evidence’, this chapter will briefly describe the nature and production of knowledge, as it is important to understand the subjective nature of knowledge and the research process. This chapter considers the necessary skills for EBP, and discusses the processes of attaining the necessary evidence and its limitations. We examine the barriers and facilitators to identifying and implementing ‘best practice’, and when EBP is appropriate to use. There is a discussion about the limitations of EBP and the potential use of other sources of information to guide practice, and concluding information about the application of evidence to guide policy and practice.

The exchange: an experiment in environmentally sustainable urban practice for a subtropical climate

The exchange pavilion offers a dialogue between two Expositions: 1998 in Brisbane and 2010 in Shanghai; and a chance to examine the impact that climate change will have on urban best practice outcomes in cities of the future. The Exchange exhibits the proposition that environmentally sustainable buildings need to interact responsively with a range of technical innovations to enable communities (and hence cities) to control and better manage their immediate environment. The 'Exchange' pavilion is a design experiment that integrates 3 key research elements: * An interactive digital exchange * A living green system wall (vertical and temporal) * A public urban star (horizontal and spatial) The proposition argues that the environmentally sustainability of any city is reliant on harnessing the full spectrum of intellectual and creative capital of the winder community (from universities to Government bodies to citizens) - a true knowledge city.

Unleashed : roadshow finale 2010 exhibition

This exhibition, as part of the Queensland Government Unlimited: Designing for the Asia Pacific Program, showcased the unleashed: queensland design on tour 2010 Exhibition and outcomes from the aligned goDesign Travelling Workshop Program for Regional Secondary School Students, delivered concurrently by the Design Institute of Australia Queensland Branch and QUT, between February and September 2010 in the six regional Queensland towns of Chinchilla, Mt Isa, Quilpie, Emerald, Gladstone and Bundaberg. Mirroring the delivery of the exhibition opening in the local gallery of each regional town, student design work produced during the workshop program was displayed alongside the award winning work of professional visual communication, interior and product designers and design students from the DIA qdos Awards Program of 2008 and 2009. The resulting linkages and connections made possible by the aligned programs, and the students’ creative product, based on their own interpretation of the local culture, environment, economy and politics of their town developed through a design process, were the subject of the exhibition, captured through photos and dialogues (digital and print format) and sketchbooks. The two programs and resulting final ‘retrospective’ exhibition, addressed the key objectives outlined in the Queensland Government Arts Queensland Design Strategy 2020 (2008-2012 Action plan), which focuses on the promotion of a better understanding of the value of good design across all of the state, by enhancing the collaboration between industry, the professional body for design, the government and the education sectors, and by providing opportunities for young people to engage in design. The exhibition highlighted the benefits for regional communities in being exposed to design exhibitions, and linking with tertiary educators and design practitioners to participate in design-based learning activities which broaden student understanding of their learning and subsequent career opportunities, by establishing a meaningful connection with real world issues of place, identity and sustainability.

Tensions in developing a secure collective information practice : the case of Agile Ridesharing

Many current HCI, social networking, ubiquitous computing, and context aware designs, in order for the design to function, have access to, or collect, significant personal information about the user. This raises concerns about privacy and security, in both the research community and main-stream media. From a practical perspective, in the social world, secrecy and security form an ongoing accomplishment rather than something that is set up and left alone. We explore how design can support privacy as practical action, and investigate the notion of collective information-practice of privacy and security concerns of participants of a mobile, social software for ride sharing. This paper contributes an understanding of HCI security and privacy tensions, discovered while “designing in use” using a Reflective, Agile, Iterative Design (RAID) method.

Addressing bullying and cyberbullying in schools: Translating theory into practice

Overviews of research are clear that bullying occurs in every school, and that there are significant negative physical and mental health outcomes associated with it (Beaty and Alexeyev, 2008; Carter, 2011). As such, it is imperative to develop successful intervention strategies to help students cope with bullying, including the emergent form of cyberbullying. Research suggests, however, that students have a very limited repertoire of strategies for dealing with bullying generally (Owens, Shute, and Slee, 2004). In this paper the authors outline what is currently known about bullying, including cyberbullying, its impact on students, how theory can assist in developing interventions to assist and support students to cope with bullying, and some of the implications for schools.

Stephen Russell : Super Vanitas

This article is an analysis and contextualisation of 'Super Vanitas' a video installation by Stephen Russell that was held at Boxcopy ARI, Brisbane. It discusses the significance of the painting 'Death of Marat' (J.L. David, 1793) to the work and describes the methodological processes that are revealed in the work.

The enterprising artist and the arts entrepreneur : Emergent pedagogies for new disciplinary habits of mind

Traditional pedagogies in the arts in higher education focus largely on the studio experience in which a novice artist studies under one or more master teachers (e.g., Don, Garvey, & Sadeghpour, 2009). In more recent times, however, a shift in higher education curriculum and pedagogy in the arts has expanded this traditional conservatory model of training to include, among other components, career self-management and enterprise creation—in a word, entrepreneurship.This chapter examines the developing field of arts enterprise and arts entrepreneurship in higher education in a multinational context. The field is contextualized within the broader landscape of the creative industries and the consequential development of knowledge, skills, and the habits of mind necessary for artistic venture creation, sustainability, and success. Whereas the discourse about learning and teaching for business entrepreneurship is well established (e.g., Fiet, 2001), equivalent conversations about arts enterprise and entrepreneurship have only recently begun (Beckman, 2007, 2011; Essig, 2009). This chapter will address the contested definitions of key terms and concepts and also the question of how arts educators, although mindful of the pedagogic traditions of the arts school, are also drawing on the pedagogies of business entrepreneurship and cognitive theories of entrepreneurship to create innovative new transdisciplinary signature pedagogies for creative enterprise and entrepreneurship education in the arts.

Making it creatively : building sustainable careers in the arts and creative industries

Many people aspire to careers in the arts and creative industries. However, it has long been known that it can be challenging to navigate a creative career: that competition for work can be intense, particularly for entry-level positions, and that success requires advanced skill sets in addition to a high degree of artistic talent and proficiency. In this article, Dr Ruth Bridgstock draws upon her doctoral and post-doctoral research to explore the challenges involved in building a creative career in Australia and suggest ways to support emerging creatives to build satisfying and sustainable careers.