Utilising the virtual learning environment to encourage faculty reflection and improve the student learning experience

Student evaluations of teaching (SETs) are the most frequent form of faculty performance in the classroom, though they tend to be used as summative rather than formative evaluations. In this chapter, a project involving the use of a virtual learning environment for formative, weekly SETs is explored from both the student and faculty point of view at a rural university college in the United Kingdom. This project encouraged student participation in creating the learning environment and faculty reflection on how to improve the student experience. From the student perspective, the weekly anonymous evaluations were useful for providing feedback; however, students tended to only respond if they were not satisfied with the faculty member. The exception to this was that some students were more motivated to complete the evaluation forms if they believed the faculty member was utilising their feedback. From the faculty perspective, the feedback was not as detailed as they had expected, and some questioned whether it was worth the effort of conducting formative evaluations if the response rate was so low. Others used the feedback for reflective purposes, and it was found that those that reflected on their work at higher levels tended to receive a greater year-on-year increase in their end of year teaching evaluations.

A simple-to-use calculator for determining the total solar heat gain of a glazing system

Architects and designers could readily use a quick and easy tool to determine the solar heat gains of their selected glazing systems for particular orientations, tilts and climate data. Speedy results under variable solar angles and degree of irradiance would be welcomed by most. Furthermore, a newly proposed program should utilise the outputs of existing glazing tools and their standard information, such as the use of U-values and Solar Heat Gain Coefficients (SHGC’s) as generated for numerous glazing configurations by the well-known program WINDOW 6.0 (LBNL, 2001). The results of this tool provide interior glass surface temperature and transmitted solar radiation which link into comfort analysis inputs required by the ASHRAE Thermal Comfort Tool –V2 (ASHRAE, 2011). This tool is a simple-to-use calculator providing the total solar heat gain of a glazing system exposed to various angles of solar incidence. Given basic climate (solar) data, as well as the orientation of the glazing under consideration the solar heat gain can be calculated. The calculation incorporates the Solar Heat Gain Coefficient function produced for the glazing system under various angles of solar incidence WINDOW 6.0 (LBNL, 2001). The significance of this work rests in providing an orientation-based heat transfer calculator through an easy-to-use tool (using Microsoft EXCEL) for user inputs of climate and Solar Heat Gain Coefficient (WINDOW-6) data. We address the factors to be considered such as solar position and the incident angles to the horizontal and the window surface, and the fact that the solar heat gain coefficient is a function of the angle of incidence. We also discuss the effect of the diffuse components of radiation from the sky and those from ground surface reflection, which require refinement of the calculation methods. The calculator is implemented in an Excel workbook allowing the user to input a dataset and immediately produce the resulting solar gain. We compare this calculated total solar heat gain with measurements from a test facility described elsewhere in this conference (Luther et.al., 2012).

Teaching critical reflection: a tool for transformative learning in social work?

In an Australian Bachelor of Social Work degree, critical reflection is a process explicitly taught in a fourth year subject to students who have returned from their first field placement experience in agencies delivering social work programmes. The purpose of teaching critical reflection is to enable social work students to become autonomous and critical thinkers who can reflect on society, the role of social work and social work practices. The way critical reflection is taught in this fourth year social work unit relates closely to the aims of transformative learning. Transformative learning aims to assist students to become autonomous thinkers. Specifically, the critical reflection process taught in this subject aims to assist students to recognise their own and other people's frames of reference, to identify the dominant discourses circulating in making sense of their experience, to problematise their taken-for -granted ‘lived experience’, to reconceptualise identity categories, disrupt assumed causal relations and to reflect on how power relations are operating. Critical reflection often draws on many theoretical frameworks to enable the recognition of current modes of thinking and doing. In this paper, we will draw primarily on how post-structural theories, specifically Foucault's theorising, disrupt several taken-for-granted concepts in social work.

Structured self-reflection as a tool to enhance perceived performance and maintain effort in adult recreational salsa dancers

The purpose of this study was to determine if the use of structured self-reflection in community dance classes would influence achievement goal orientations, levels of intrinsic motivation, or perceived dance performance. The Task and Ego Orientation in Sport Questionnaire (TEOSQ) and the Intrinsic Motivation Inventory (IMI) were modified slightly to reflect involvement in salsa dancing rather than sport and then were administered to 139 Latin dance students at the beginning and end of an 11-week term. The dance classes were divided into control and intervention groups, balanced in terms of sample size and level of instruction. The intervention group completed a salsa self-reflection form during or after class for 9 weeks. At the posttest all students rated their salsa performance and the intervention group evaluated the self-reflection process. Results indicate that although achievement goal orientations were not affected, structured sell-reflection is perceived to be a positive tool and may be a useful technique to enhance perceived performance and maintain effort and perceived importance. The participants' perceptions of the self-reflection process were positive, with no negative effects of engaging in the process reported.

Different shades of the collective way of thinking: Vietnamese and Chinese international students' reflection on academic writing

Investigating ELF/ESL students' experiences in constructing their academic written texts seems to be of great significance in EFL/ESL writing syllabus design and teaching. The case study reported in this paper explores the underlying factors which shape students' ways of supporting ideas in academic essays in English. Drawing on Lillis' (2001) framework for exploring student writing, the study examines the writing experiences of students from Vietnam and mainland China at an Australian university. Based on the students' reflection on their different ways of meaning making, this paper argues for the need to challenge the tendency to essentialize cultural rhetoric patterns and their effects upon Chinese and Vietnamese students' writing in English as a foreign or second language. Several implications for teaching EFL/ESL writing have also been drawn from the findings of this study.