Report on survey of directors (or equivalent) of Australian University Teaching and Learning Centres

This document reports on the results and findings of a national survey of Directors (or equivalent) of Teaching and Learning Centres at Australian universities. The respondent group included 31 out of the 38 Centres invited to participate, and was a highly representative sample of the generally recognised institutional groupings in Australian higher education. While there is wide variation in the characteristics of individual Centres, the richness of which can only be appreciated by exploring the results and findings in detail, a summary of the results is provided here in the form of a description of a mythical ‘average’ Australian university Teaching and Learning Centre.

Managing Indian IT professionals for global competitiveness: the role of human resource practices in developing knowledge and learning capabilities for innovation

Little is known about how human resource practices contribute towards the competitiveness of people based-knowledge intensive organisations in developing countries. This paper examines the role of human resource practices in developing knowledge and learning capabilities for innovation in the Indian information technology services sector. The study draws from the experience of a sample of 11 of the largest information technology service providers (ITSPs) in India and is based on in-depth interviews. The main finding suggests that the talent management architecture of ITSPs that comprises human resource practices and the development of knowledge and learning capabilities is the main drivers of innovation. A conceptual framework showing the link between human resource practices, knowledge and learning capabilities and innovation of ITSPs is developed followed by the limitations of the study and avenues for future research.

Teaching and learning in the crucible: Actors with disabilities as experts preparing pre-service teachers to be inclusive educators

Dorothy Heathcote understood teaching and learning to take place in a kind of ‘crucible’ in which participants, who are both teachers and learners, contribute to the mix sometimes resulting in a radical transformation. This paper reports the ways Heathcote’s ideas have influenced both research and practice in the Teaching for Diversity workshop - a drama workshop that brings together pre-service teachers, teacher educators and actors from Fusion Theatre, a community-based theatre company for people with intellectual disabilities.

O where are you going? O do you imagine? Reproduction and response : a reflexive sociology of scholarship of teaching and learning in practical legal training

My doctoral research studies Australian PLT practitioners’ engagement with scholarship of teaching and learning. I argue that many PLT practitioners are motivated to engage with scholarship of teaching and learning in their work. There are, however, individual and extra-individual impediments.
PLT practitioners are lawyers that teach in institutional practical legal training (“PLT”). Satisfactory completion of mandatory PLT is an eligibility requirement for admission to the Australian legal profession. The PLT requirement is additional to academic legal qualifications. PLT is undertaken at a post-graduate level with, or after, the academic law degree.
My study investigates PLT practitioners’ motivations and capabilities to engage with scholarship of teaching and learning (“SoTL”). I study organisational symbolic support for SoTL in PLT, and organisational allocation of resources to SoTL in PLT.
The study involves individual and extra-individual domains of PLT practitioners’ work. It considers how social structures (e.g. “the juridical”) are inscribed into individuals’ practices (“teaching”) and, conversely, whether practices influence social structures.
My research adopts qualitative methodologies. These involve inter-disciplinary exchanges between law, legal education, practice research, sociology of law, cultural theory, and theory and practice of teaching and learning. My theoretical framework draws on Pierre Bourdieu’s “reflexive sociology”, and Michel de Certeau’s “heterological science”.
I sourced data from documents, and semi-structured interviews with 36 Australian PLT practitioners. Documentary sources include statutory instruments, speeches, reports, practice directions, histories, and scholarly publications.
To analyse the data I adopted Kelle’s characterisation of “theoretical sensitivity”, drawing on “explicit” and “emergent” analysis strategies derived from “grounded theory”. The explicit strategies were based on my theoretical framework. The emergent strategy involved sensitivity to non-explicit concepts and theories that emerged from the data. Computer-aided qualitative data analysis software expedited these methods.
My findings to date question dominant legal structures’ readiness for change, the implications of this for teaching and learning in PLT, and in particular for PLT practitioners’ engagement with SoTL in PLT.
The espoused rationale for mandatory PLT (in statutes) is improvement for the protection of clients, the administration of justice, and to assure quality legal services. The tacit rationale is improved quality of legal education, and experiences, for lawyers-to-be. My thesis argues dominant structures in legal education impede the espoused and tacit objectives, and impede PLT practitioners’ engagement with scholarship of teaching and learning.

eVALUate: an evaluation instrument for measuring students’ perceptions of their engagement and learning outcomes

In the current climate in Australian higher education, quality assurance in university teaching is a priority. In particular, the introduction of the Learning and Teaching Performance Fund (LTPF) has refocused attention on universities’ internal student evaluation survey instruments. This paper reports the development, validation and implementation of a new unit survey instrument which prompts students to reflect on what helps their achievement of unit learning outcomes, and to report their levels of motivation, engagement and overall satisfaction with a semester‐long course or unit of study. The instrument (eVALUate) was created from precepts reported in the research literature, current practices in evaluating teaching, and sound quality assurance practices appropriate to a university outcomes‐focused education paradigm.

Designing an e-portfolio for assurance of learning focusing on adoptability and learning analytics

The Assurance of Learning for Graduate Employability framework is a quality assurance model for curriculum enhancement for graduate employability, enabling graduates to achieve "the skills, understandings and personal attributes that make [them] more likely to secure employment and be successful in their chosen occupations to the benefit of themselves, the workforce, the community and the economy" (Yorke, 2006). Of particular note is the framework's dependence on three foundations, including easy access to integrated and accessible tools for staff and student self-management. In other words, this approach to curriculum quality depends on staff and student access to tools that enable them to self-manage their learning. This paper examines two aspects which informed the design of a student e-portfolio system, iPortfolio, intended for students' self-management of their learning, particularly recording evidence of their achievement of capabilities. The paper focuses on two particular considerations in the design of the iPortfolio: adoptability and learning analytics. Adoptability means the phase preceding adoption, whether students have the devices, platforms and technology skills to be able to use such an innovation. The iPortfolio also facilitates learning analytics: it has the capability to gather data related to learning indicators for course quality assurance purposes. Both adoptability and analytics are very dynamic fields: new devices, platforms and applications constantly spark changes in user habits, and policy changes mean institutions need to be able to provide new data, often at short notice. In the conclusion, the paper suggests how tools such as the iPortfolio can be designed for 'future proofing' and sustainability.

How are Australian higher education institutions contributing to change through innovative teaching and learning in virtual worlds?

Over the past decade, teaching and learning in virtual worlds has been at the forefront of many higher education institutions around the world. The DEHub Virtual Worlds Working Group (VWWG) consisting of Australian and New Zealand higher education academics was formed on 2009. These educators are investigating the role that virtual worlds play in the future of education and actively changing the direction of their own teaching practice and curricula. 47 academics reporting on 28 Australian higher education institutions present an overview of how they have changed directions through the effective use of virtual worlds for diverse teaching and learning activitiessuch as business scenarios and virtual excursions, role-play simulations, experimentation and language development. The case studies offer insights into the ways in which institutions are continuing to change directions in their teaching to meet changing demands for innovative teaching, learning and research in virtual worlds. This paper highlights the ways in which the authors are using virtual worlds to creat opportunities for rich, immersive and authentic activities that would be difficult or not possible to achieve through traditional approaches

Teaching and learning in virtual worlds: is it worth the effort?

Educators have been quick to spot the enormous potential afforded by virtual worlds for situated and authentic learning, practising tasks with potentially serious consequences in the real world and for bringing geographically dispersed faculty and students together in the same space (Gee, 2007; Johnson and Levine, 2008). Though this potential has largely been realised, it generally isn't without cost in terms of lack of institutional buy-in, steep learning curves for all participants, and lack of a sound theoretical framework to support learning activities (Campbell, 2009; Cheal, 2007; Kluge & Riley, 2008). This symposium will explore the affordances and issues associated with teaching and learning in virtual worlds, all the time considering the question: is it worth the effort?. © 2010 Helen Farley, Sue Gregory, Allan Ellis, Geoffrey Crisp, Jenny Grenfell, Angela Thomas & Mathew Campbell.

Project and Module Based Teaching and Learning

This paper proposes a new teaching and learning approach-project and module based teaching and learning (PMBTL). The PMBTL approach incorporates the merits of project/problem based and module based learning methods, and overcomes the limitations of these methods. The correlation between teaching, learning, practice and assessment is emphasized in this approach, and new methods have been proposed accordingly. The distinct features of these new methods differentiate the PMBTL approach from conventional teaching approaches. Evaluation of this approach on practical teaching and learning activities demonstrates the effectiveness and stability of the approach in improving the performance and quality of teaching and learning. The approach proposed in this paper is also intuitive to the design of other teaching units.

Re-making jobs : enacting and learning work practices

This paper takes up understandings of organisations where practices constitute and frame past and present work, as well as future work practice possibilities. Within this view, work practices, and thus organisations, are both perpetuated and varied through employees’ enactments of work. Using a practice lens, we are particularly interested in the ways workers simultaneously maintain and alter practices in their workplace—we characterise this as re-making one’s job. This perspective challenges ways in which managers often depict jobs and everyday work—as rational, linear and easily describable. We suggest that workers at various levels of responsibility contribute more to the formation of organisational practices than is often assumed. The processes of re-making jobs and remaking organisational practices create tensions that we posit as sites for learning. This paper addresses these issues through a focus on work practices in two Australian organisations that have been undergoing significant cultural change.