A focus on teaching in online pedagogy

As the Internet continues to grow in popularity and educational institutions feel the need to have a presence online, 'learning and teaching online' has become somewhat of an IT cliché. In many cases course material is made available online and it is left up to the learner to learn. The claims made for online courses promise considerable cost savings after the initial establishment period, and opportunities to provide education to a larger, globalised marketplace. For students, online learning is thought to allow more flexible study options, and the opportunity to work and study at the same time (Bell, et al 2002, p. 27).

In this paper we question the assumption that online teaching is merely making course material available on the World Wide Web. We report on our study of what is involved in the act of teaching online and on the research that led to the development of the 'mobile teaching facility' to enable a focus on teaching in the online environment. We reflect on how a group of academic staff are responding to online teaching. Details of professional development workshops, hardware and software solutions and working with the complexities of pedagogy will also be discussed. This paper is about our findings, recommendations and plans for future explorations.

Mapping pedagogy to technology - a simple model

As academics we are often encouraged to “go online” by our institution, by either moving or supplementing our teaching in an online environment. We have several options. We could simply attempt to replicate our face-to-face teaching, in effect changing nothing; we can enhance our face-to-face teaching with the available technology; or we can transform our face-to-face teaching by the available technology. The approach we choose will be determined by several factors, one of which will be our existing knowledge of the technological environment we are using. In this paper I propose a simple framework which provides novice eTeachers in particular with a simple mapping from classroom activity to technological functionality, reducing the need to have extensive technological literacy of the learning environment when designing online activities initially.

Data rich digital architectural environments

The development of data rich digital environments for the construction industry has been problematic despite the initial optimism when their application to design and construction was first considered. This paper reviews the current state of the art research into the application of information technology in design and construction and identifies the more critical issues in its adoption. In conclusion the paper then proposes a preliminary theoretical model being developed as a research tool for investigation into highly detailed information flows in a case study building renovation project. This investigation aims to track the detailed information flows and knowledge system used by the stakeholders in the building project.

Graphical authentication : an architectural design specification

Graphical authentication is proposed as an alternative to password, smartcard, and biometric authentication as it uses the innate ability of humans to recognise visual stimuli. Despite passionate debate surrounding their privacy and invasiveness issues, smartcards and biometrics require an excessive amount of extra hardware for widespread deployment. Conversely graphical authentication extends existing infrastructure as it builds largely on the foundations of passwords with one important difference: it takes humans into account as they are better at recognising visual stimuli than recalling text-based passwords. This paper follows a preceding proof of concept paper and essentially outlines the architectural and technical design for a graphical authentication solution.

Establishing best-practice principles for the teaching of group design projects

As student-to-staff ratios escalate, increasing numbers of undergraduate architects are finding the reduction of ‘one-to-one’ studio supervision an impediment to learning. Group design projects are becoming a widespread solution to this problem. However, little analysis has been undertaken as to their effectiveness both in terms of student assessment and as a design teaching methodology.
The two hundred years of apprentice/master tradition that underpins the atelier studio system is still at the core of much present day architectural design education. Yet this tradition today poses uncertainties for a large number of co-ordinating lecturers faced with current changes in the nature of tertiary education and its funding structure. In particular, with reductions in staff/student contact time, in sessional funding sources and in the relative weighting of design-based subjects with respect to other subject areas, many design teachers are finding it increasingly difficult to maintain an atelier system that has shaped both their learning and, more pointedly, their teaching. If these deficiencies remain unchecked and design-based schools are unable to implement strategies that successfully overcome the resource intensive one-to-one teaching program, then architecture may prove to be an untenable course structure for many institutions.
Rather then spreading their time thinly, many co-ordinating lecturers are setting group projects in order to review less assignments but at greater depth. However, while this learning model better reflects design teams in practice, this approach may pose other pedagogical and assessment questions. What is clear is the urgent need for structured research into the teaching and assessment problems experienced by design teachers, and for a readily adoptable pedagogy for group design projects. At Deakin University, research is underway aimed at establishing best-practice principles for group design projects by analysing students’ performance and recording and implementing their feedback to adjustments made to the pedagogical fundamentals of assessment, group configuration, and program structure. There are after two years of preliminary studies already clear indications of what changes can be made to these to encourage more effective team learning. This paper will present the findings of these studies.

Traversing the international rainbow of academia and architectural practice

In the context of contemporary tertiary education immersed as such in internationalisation strategies and internationalised curricula, the cultivation and promotion of international awareness in Australian graduates can be expected to lead to desirable lifelong attributes. Consideration of the need to be prepared for a globalised professional and cultural climate is integral to sustaining and growing the future and the fortunes of many. For the architectural community, the combined phenomena of globalisation and internationalisation strategies herald implications for the education and professional preparation of architects which traverse academia and architectural practice. This paper presents the case for exploring potential benefits of establishing closer links between academia and architecture practice, discusses the relevance of international student practice experience for the twenty first century and looks at its role within an intemationalised curriculum in preparing graduates for the future. Analysis of a survey of work experience as a component of Australian architecture courses is used to gauge the extent of current programs that seek to integrate the academic curriculum with practice experience, and the Deakin study (a work in progress) of architecture students in international practice contexts is presented as a vehicle for exploring the degree to which the combination of professional practice education and cultural experience may be beneficial to architecture students, academia and the profession more generally.

Ethnicity, social class, practice and pedagogy: a study of teacher identity

This paper draws on findings from three separate research projects to illustrate how teachers' and student-teachers' ethnic and social class identities shape their representations of professional self, their interactions with their students and the pedagogies they privilege in their classes. The paper raises a number of important implications for teacher education seeking to prepare teachers for culturally diverse contexts such as Australian classrooms. It concludes that a major challenge for teacher educators is to find ways of enabling their students to interrogate often taken-for-granted assumptions about their own ethnic and classed positionings.

Re-engaging young people through applied learning pedagogy

The Victorian Certificate of Applied Learning (VCAL) was developed as an innovative response to the changing context post-compulsory schooling in Australia. By combining ‘hands-on’ learning approaches with the traditions of adult learning, the VCAL seeks to cater for the learning temperaments and employment pathways of post-compulsory students who are less likely to remain at school to complete a more traditional Victorian Certificate of Education (VCE). This paper draws on my doctoral research into the schooling experience of VCAL students to explore the irony in using adult and work-based learning principles that underpin applied learning pedagogy as a strategy to reengage students frequently considered by schools to be ‘at risk’. It argues that traditional contentdriven and transmissive approaches result in some students being defined ‘at risk’ because of their failure to accept as legitimate traditional school-based modes of learning. It is proposed that teachers in secondary schools require a deeper understanding of applied learning principles and teaching strategies in order to cater for the increasing numbers of applied learning students in the post-compulsory years of secondary schools. It is argued that such an understanding is also critical to avoid many of such students being incorrectly labelled ‘at risk’.

Generic versus subject specific pedagogy - should mathematics be in the centre?

Research into pedagogy and school change is a high priority in Australia and many other countries. This paper, which includes some preliminary findings from the Improving Middle Years Mathematics and Science: The role of subject cultures in school and teacher change (IMYMS) project, argues that, while there are key features that are common to quality learning environments across all subject areas, generic formulations of pedagogy fail to take account of the extent to which the disciplines being taught shape pedagogy or the contribution of Pedagogical Content Knowledge (PCK) to effective teaching - i.e. that there really is a need to put "mathematics in the centre ".

Southern drift : the learning styles of first and third-year students of the built environment

This paper investigates learning processes across a built environment design curriculum through the recognition of the four learning styles defined in the experiential learning theory of Kolb, i.e., 'accommodating', 'diverging', 'assimilating' and 'converging.' The paper focuses on the results of a cross-curriculum learning style survey. The results of the survey appear to explain why many prior studies of the personality characteristics, learning and cognitive styles of practitioners and of design students at different stages of their education appear conflicting. The hypothesis tested to resolve these inconsistencies asked whether design-learning styles are fixed or change as students' progress through their studies. The survey provides evidence of a statistically significant relationship between learning styles and year of study. The evidence suggests a southern drift (the term refers to the spatial interrelationship of styles in the two-dimensional Kolb Learning Style Index [LSI] cycle) towards the abstract conceptualisation mode of the learning process as students near the completion of their studies. This fluidity in learning style remains a hypothesis until further research is able to study one cohort for the entirety of a degree program. The paper argues that the possibility of learning style fluidity needs determining if learning style theory is to provide a workable model for informing the teaching of architecture.