Students' perceptions of the value of the elements of an online learning environment : looking back in moving forward

In 2003, Deakin University implemented a centralised learning management system (LMS) under the banner of Deakin Studies Online (DSO), as well as implementing policies requiring all its units of study to have at least a basic online presence from 2004. Given the scope of the university's commitment to online education, it was considered essential to evaluate the effectiveness of this investment. Based on more than 5400 responses obtained from students in 2004 and 2005 as part of the DSO evaluation survey, the analysis presented here identifies those elements of the online learning environment (OLE) that are most used and valued by students, those elements of the OLE that students most want to see improved, and, those factors that most contribute to students' perceptions that use of the OLE enhanced their learning experience. The most used and valued elements were core LMS functions, including accessing unit information, accessing lecture/tute/lab notes, interacting with unit learning resources, reading online discussions, contacting lecturers/tutors and submitting assignments online. The OLE elements identified as most needing attention were receiving feedback on assignments; viewing my marks; and reviewing unit progress. Students felt that using DSO enhanced their learning experience when they were adequately supported by unit teachers and technical support services; when they were able to find and use unit information; and when they were able to read the online contributions of other unit members. The retrospective analysis of data collected in the period 2004-2005 has been shaped by a forward-looking agenda. The array of elements available within, and in association with, traditional LMSs which has emerged since that time raises the future challenge of how to maximise and evidence educational value through the optimal combination of elements from the portfolio of e-learning technologies increasingly available to educators.

The good, the bad and the ugly : Facebook and higher education

The use of Social Networking and Web 2.0 are clearly reshaping the ways in which Higher Education is facilitated and experienced by students. Increasingly, there is a social and cultural expectation that Information Communication Technologies (ICT) should be ubiquitous within peoples’ daily lives. Specifically, through auto-ethnographic methodology, this presentation will showcase the use of Facebook across several units of study. Within these auto-ethnographies are exemplars of collaboration between students, and between students and lecturers. There are also examples which highlight the ways in which the lecturer uses Facebook to inform teaching, and monitor student engagement with ‘real time’ student feedback. Other examples demonstrate the ways in which Facebook is utilised as a mode of representation for student assessment, knowledge production and dissemination. Two examples specifically focus on lecturer responses to student use of Facebook which resulted in infringement of academic conduct. The presenter will draw upon this series of auto-ethnographies to highlight multiple considerations for academia, the institutions in which they work and the development of policy more broadly across Higher Education. This presentation explores the potential capacities, strengths and pitfalls in adopting social technologies. It further highlights the vigilance with which these spaces must be ‘monitored’ in protecting intellectual property, academic integrity and in demonstrating a duty of care for those with whom we interact.

Business ethics and accounting students : Australia, South Asia and East Asia

Recent corporate collapses around the world show that there are no national boundaries for these occurrences. Australian corporate collapses including HIH Insurance, One.Tel, Ansett Australia and Harris Scarfe have raised public expectations of investigation of the causes of collapses (Mirshekary, Yaftian & Cross, 2005). The main reason for the collapse of HIH was mismanagement, with an emphasis more on the directors’ personal qualities such as integrity, honesty and morality rather than tougher legislation and rules. Accounting students are our future business leaders. The teaching of ethics in the classroom to multicultural groups of students provides an opportunity to facilitate the sharing of knowledge, and to increase interaction and debate around different approaches to ethics among students from different countries.
This study uses previous literature to explain the attitudes of accounting students towards academic and business/accounting ethics at an Australian university which is a multi-campus institution undertaking programs and activities at regional, national, international levels and by distance education.
This study reports the results of cross-cultural investigations of students’ ethical perceptions on moral values, academic and accounting/business vignettes, given that all students share the same learning opportunities, knowledge of ethics and interaction with their peers and lecturers. The results indicate no significant differences in responses between the students from Australia, South Asia and East Asia.

Students' approaches to assessment in accounting education : the unique student perspective

In accounting education, most Student Approaches to Learning (SAL) research has investigated the relationship between students' performance and their approaches to learning. Relatively limited research has been conducted on how assessment practices influence the quality of students' learning from the students' perspective. This paper seeks to address this gap in the accounting education literature. The research is centred on a large Australian undergraduate accounting degree delivered in Australia, Singapore and Hong Kong. Focus group interviews were conducted with students across the three locations. The research results reveal that: (1) it is the English competency of students that has the most important impact on students' completion of set assessment tasks and thus their approach to learning; (2) it is the way in which assessment is designed and written and the way lecturers convey their expectations about how assessment will be undertaken that is crucial to how students from various countries perform in that assessment; and (3) students' approaches to assessment and their preferred assessment tasks are not homogeneously based on cultural background.

Teaching and live performances : applied theatre in universities and schools

This article compares the classroom process of school teachers and university lecturers to the activity of theatrical performance. In doing so, it probes the potential of live performance as an educational instrument. It concludes by tracing some of the history of applications of theatre to education, from the time of Brecht to the present day.

Quality in accounting education and low English standards among overseas students : is there a link?

Two studies of stakeholders in university education for accounting professionals in Australia provide evidence of a decline in the quality of accounting education as perceived by accounting academics. This decline may be linked to increasing enrolments of international students with poor English language skills. Some university lecturers indicate that the quality of students entering their courses has declined, as has the quality of those graduating. In an environment increasingly dominated by the need to publish or perish, assessment tasks such as essays, case studies, and research reports, designed to improve the English language and communications skills of graduates, may have been compromised. This may contribute to the fact that many employers of graduates are concerned about the low levels of English language and communication skills displayed by accounting graduates, particularly international students.

Picture words : toward an art-critical methodology

“Phiction: Lies, Illusion and the Phantasm in Australian Photography” is a curatorial experiment in assembling a survey exhibition from a significant collection. Its formulation, presentation and the outcomes of its tour of eleven regional and metropolitan Victorian galleries provide a case study for this paper. The exhibition Phiction (the title amalgamates photography and fiction) challenges audiences’ reading of photographs, and confronts some curatorial assumptions, by juxtaposing the images with extracts of Australian fiction instead of the usual gallery fact sheet, list of provenance or expert gloss. In this way the exhibition forces a confrontation between ‘dumb’ image and ‘blind’ text and while examples are examined, a review of the exhibition is not the purpose of this paper. A consideration its process and effect is discussed in the paper to propose a comparative tool in the study, investigation and evaluation of art. It is offered to visual art school researchers, lecturers and students contemplating the most appropriate and effective, or alternative, methodologies to employ. With reference to the dominant systems of critique which have come to us from other disciplines, the paper considers the art practitioner’s perspective by drawing on the example of Phiction to pose the open question; “How might we use one artform to explore another?”.

Alternative dimensions in assessment : an overview

This four-part paper is the 'highlights' of the 2009 Australian Technology Network conference, 'Assessment in Different Dimensions: a conference on teaching and learning in tertiary education', held at RMIT University, 19–20 November 2009.

The main theme of this paper is an exploration of how 'progressive and innovative' assessment techniques from other higher education providers might be used to 'progress and innovate' the assessment of Media and Communication students at Deakin University.

As lecturers and tutors have traditionally had almost total control over the learning and assessment environment, for most students, the approach to assessment has changed little. The arrival of 'new media', 'digital culture' and 'dispersed learning' threatens this stability and control. Students are now able to operate in a more open, collaborative, interactive and distributed manner, and this fact challenges many of the traditional perceptions about what constitutes a 'university experience' and what are now 'appropriate' assessment tasks (Crisp 2009).

Each of the four speakers will present a 'spotlight' initiative from the 2009 Australian Technology Network conference, describing how each assessment innovation might be useful to (a) confront our current ideas and values around what is 'good' and 'bad' assessment; (b) explain why some assessment myths are 'hard to shift'; and (c) suggest how these new approaches might be useful in the years to come.

Teacher performance assessment in teacher education : an example in Malaysia

As part of a cross-cultural collaboration, a teacher performance assessment (TPA) was implemented during 2009 in three Malaysian institutes of teacher education. This paper reports on the TPA for graduating primary teachers in Malaysia. The investigation focused on the pre-service teachers’ perceptions about whether the TPA provided them with an opportunity to document successfully their professional learning and professional practice. Successful completion of the Malaysian TPA was closely aligned to successful relationships, support and collaboration between Malaysian lecturers and pre-service teachers, and between pre-service teachers and their classroom teachers. Overall, the TPA did provide pre-service teachers with an opportunity to focus on the connection between theory and professional learning during field-work, and to become reflective evidence-based practitioners. Recommendations for improving the assessment of pre-service teachers are discussed.

Children and university architecture students working together : a pedagogical model of children’s participation in architectural design

Increasing efforts have been made to engage children in the design of the built environment, and several participatory models have been developed. The aim of this paper is to propose a pedagogical model for children's genuine participation in architectural design, developed in an architectural education context. According to this pedagogical model, children (primary school students) and youth (university architecture students) work in teams to develop the architectural design proposals. This model was developed through a joint educational project between Deakin University and Wales Street Primary School (both institutions are based in Victoria, Australia). In the four-week duration of the project, first year architecture students worked with Grade 3 and 4 primary school children to design a school playground. The final product of the project was a 1:20 scale model of a playground, which was installed and presented at the end of the fourth week. The project received positive feedback from all the participants, including children, architecture students, university lecturers, primary school teachers and architects. In addition, it achieved a high level of children's genuine participation. This model can be refined and applied in new situations, and potentially with other primary schools working with Deakin University.

Komunikasi budaya silang, kompetensi, pengajaran dan pembelajaran : satu analisis

This paper examines several issues related to intercultural communication competence and shared reality or inter-subjectivity when teaching in multicultural classrooms in Australia. Using the research method of personal narratives and autoethnography, it examines the challenges faced by lecturers and students in the classroom such as the use of different vocabulary, slang, idiom and keywords and the prior culture-specific knowledge required of both the lecturers and students. The paper also discusses how these challenges can be identified and addressed and how to prepare for future situations more effectively and in advance. It will be examined within the contexts of culturally responsive teaching, communicaiton competence, the hidden curriculum, instructional scaffolding, understanding and being open to other cultures and acknowledgement of the richness and relevance of multicultural students' varied experiences and social realities, from the point of view of the academic discipline of communication studies.

Concepts and factors influencing independent learning in IS higher education

The concepts of independent learning (IL), self-directed learning (SDL) and self-regulated learning (SRL) have been widely used in relation to students’ learning success. Often, these terms are interrelated and used interchangeably in the literature with regards to students’ learning process. The purpose of this paper is (1) to promote conceptual clarity by having clear definitions of SRL, SDL and IL and (2) to provide a review of research related to the development of students’ SRL at higher education particularly in the context of Information Systems studies. The findings from the literature reveal that mastering the process self-regulation progressively leads to self-directed and independent learning. The literature review on SRL reveals that students’ academic self-regulation is influenced by their personal processes such as cognitive knowledge and motivational beliefs and also external processes such as lecturers and instructions in higher education.

Digital oral feedback written assignments as professional learning for teacher educators : a collaborative self-study.

Allan Luke (2008) uses a “pedagogical economy where literacy education is taken as a cultural gift”. This paper reports on the digital oral feedback provided to pre-service teachers in a literacy unit and explores the pedagogical gift this feedback is to the teacher educators marking this work. Rather than mark their written work as individual lecturers, we collaboratively read the assignment and recorded the sound file of the conversation around each assignment. We then participated in another conversation with a critical friend, which enabled us to explore the impact of this form of assessment on our professional identities as teacher educators. We found these conversations provided a rich context for our professional learning about ourselves as teacher educators, as well as specific content knowledge we both brought to the teaching of this unit. We found we were working as a team to provide more in-depth feedback of the assessment criteria for each assignment than we did with written feedback. Through this dialogical feedback we were able to construct the pre-service teachers' assignments as an important textual gift in our collaborative professional learning about assessment, and in exploring our beliefs and practices as teacher educators.

(Re)viewing the landscape inside and outside the box : providing effective support for early childhood student teachers

This paper presents key findings from a study that investigated how early childhood student teachers perceived the support, guidance and mentoring facilities that were available to them and aspects of their courses. The study was conducted by lecturers who were delivering the three year Bachelor of Teaching (ECE) degree to a multicultural student cohort in a New Zealand polytechnic. A multi-method approach was taken and involved practitioner action research, questionnaires and interviews with students. The findings showed that whilst first year students found large group guidance useful, second and third year students preferred small group and individual support. Being able to email lecturers, particularly during practicum placements, was important for students. During practicum placements Associate Teachers who were culturally competent communicators and fully informed about students’ coursework were important for student success. Practicums where students experienced open communication were included as part of the teaching team and felt well-informed about the philosophy and practices of the centre were found to increase their confidence and competence. However, students expressed concern that in some placements, they felt under informed or isolated. Hence, this paper argues that lecturers and Associate Teachers should be proactive about initiating communication with students and optimize opportunities for individual mentoring through questions and guided reflection.

Putting the cog into cognitive : the theory behind teaching practice.

During teacher education programs, lecturers introduce students to the joys of studying a range of theorists. Sadly, many teachers appear to put theoretical perspectives of practice behind them immediately the essay-writing is over. The purpose of this paper is to breathe life into the work of theorist, relevant to early childhood teaching. I aim to inspire teachers to gain a new depth of satisfaction from their teaching as they critically reflect on their practice and gain a deeper understanding of teaching strategies that support children’s learning and development.