Rethinking a learning environment strategy

I have committed a significant period of time (in my case five years) to the purpose development of learning environments, with the belief that it would improve the self-actualisation and self-motivation of students and teachers alike. I consider it important to record and measure performance as we progressed toward such an outcome. Education researchers and practitioners alike, in the higher (university/tertiary) education systems, are seeking among new challenges to engage students and teachers in learning (James, 2001). However, studies to date show a confusing landscape littered with a multiplicity of interpretations and terms, successes and failures. As the discipline leader of the Information Technology, Systems and Multimedia (ITSM) Discipline, Swinburne University of Technology, Lilydale, I found myself struggling with this paradigm. I also found myself being torn between what presents as pragmatic student learning behaviour and the learner-centred teaching ideal reflected in the Swinburne Lilydale mission statement. The research reported in this folio reflects my theory and practice as discipline leader of the ITSM Discipline and the resulting learning environment evolution during the period 1997/8 to 2003. The study adds to the material evidence of extant research through firstly, a meta analysis of the learning environment implemented by the ITSM Discipline as recorded in peer reviewed and published papers; and secondly, a content analysis of student learning approaches, conducted on data reported from a survey of ‘learning skills inventory’ originally conducted by the ITSM Discipline staff in 2002. In 1997 information and communication technologies (ICT) were beginning to provide plausible means for electronic distribution of learning materials on a flexible and repeatable basis, and to provide answers to the imperative of learning materials distribution relating to an ITSM Discipline new course to begin in 1998. A very short time frame of three months was available prior to teaching the course. The ITSM Discipline learning environment development was an evolutionary process I began in 1997/8 initially from the requirement to publish print-based learning guide materials for the new ITSM Discipline subjects. Learning materials and student-to-teacher reciprocal communication would then be delivered and distributed online as virtual learning guides and virtual lectures, over distance as well as maintaining classroom-based instruction design. Virtual here is used to describe the use of ICT and Internet-based approaches. No longer would it be necessary for students to attend classes simply to access lecture content, or fear missing out on vital information. Assumptions I made as discipline leader for the ITSM Discipline included, firstly, that learning should be an active enterprise for the students, teachers and society; secondly, that each student comes to a learning environment with different learning expectations, learning skills and learning styles; and thirdly, that the provision of a holistic learning environment would encourage students to be self-actualising and self-motivated. Considerable reading of research and publications, as outlined in this folio, supported the update of these assumptions relative to teaching and learning. ITSM Discipline staff were required to quickly and naturally change their teaching styles and communication of values to engage with the emergent ITSM Discipline learning environment and pedagogy, and each new teaching situation. From a student perspective such assumptions meant students needed to move from reliance upon teaching and prescriptive transmission of information to a self-motivated and more self-actualising and reflective set of strategies for learning. In constructing this folio, after the introductory chaperts, there are two distinct component parts; • firstly, a Descriptive Meta analysis (Chapter Three) that draws together several of my peer reviewed professional writings and observations that document the progression of the ITSM Discipline learning environment evolution during the period 1997/8 to 2003. As the learning environment designer and discipline leader, my observations and published papers provide insight into the considerations that are required when providing an active, flexible and multi-modal learning environment for students and teachers; and • secondly, a Dissertation (Chapter Four), as a content analysis of a learning skills inventory data collection, collected by the ITSM Discipline in the 2002 Swinburne Lilydale academic year, where students were encouraged to complete reflective journal entries via the ITSM Discipline virtual learning guide subject web-site. That data collection included all students in a majority of subjects supported by the ITSM Discipline for both semesters one and two 2002. The original purpose of the journal entries was to have students reflectively involved in assessing their learning skills and approaches to learning. Such perceptions were tested using a well-known metric, the ‘learning skills inventory’ (Knowles, 1975), augmented with a short reflective learning approach narrative. The journal entries were used by teaching staff originally and then made available to researchers as a desensitised data in 2003 for statistical and content analysis relative to student learning skills and approaches. The findings of my research support a view of the student and teacher enculturation as utilitarian, dependent and pragmatically self-motivated. This, I argue, shows little sign of abatement in the early part of the 21st Century. My observation suggests that this is also independent of the pedagogical and educational philosophy debate or practice as currently presented. As much as the self-actualising, self-motivated learning environment can be justified philosophically, the findings observed from this research, reported in this folio, cannot. Part of the reason for this originates from the debate by educational researchers as to the relative merits of liberal and vocational philosophies for education combined with the recent introduction of information and communication technologies, and commodification of higher education. Challenging students to be participative and active learners, as proposed by educationalists Meyers and Jones (1993), i.e. self-motivated and self-actualising learners, has proved to be problematic. This, I will argue, will require a change to a variable/s (not yet identified) of higher education enculturation on multiple fronts, by students, teachers and society in order to bridge the gap. This research indicates that tertiary educators and educational researchers should stop thinking simplistically of constructivist and/or technology-enabled approaches, students learning choices and teachers teaching choices. Based on my research I argue for a far more holistic set of explanations of student and staff expectations and behaviour, and therefore pedagogy that supports those expectations.

Putting theory into practice : moving from student identity to teacher identity

As teaching is a highly skilled and complex profession, pre-service teachers’ need to develop a series of attributes for their practice in relation to pedagogy, content, student learning, classroom management and their ability to engage in reflection. Through reflective narrative, this article seeks to share how a tertiary music educator prepares her generalist primary pre-service teachers to engage, explore and experience music education within the Bachelor of Education (Primary) course at Unnamed University. It also presents one pre-service teacher’s experience of teaching music during her school placements in 2009 in what she calls ‘putting theory into practice’ moving from student identity to teacher identity. Although the ‘hands-on’ approach to teaching and learning on-campus and when on school placement provide pre-service teachers with knowledge, skills and understanding, the continued support of professional learning is well recognised and will be an ongoing process as pre-service teachers create their own professional identity.

Enriching student experience and inter-professional learning of inclusive design with Second Life

This position paper reflects rapid advances in immersive 2D and 3D eLearning technologies and the expanding pool of ideas and applications in higher education across two professions. Inspiration has been drawn from examples in design learning, and various multidisciplinary collaborative projects through developmental research in Multi-User Virtual Environments (MUVEs). Linden Lab's Second Life (SL) is the most mature and popular of the ‘persistent’ virtual worlds. The study described in this paper aims to increase the authenticity of student learning through a range of SL simulated ‘life experiences’ relating to accessibility and mobility in the built environment. Significantly, the successes of such initiatives lie in several elements: teaching champions with vision and courage; detailed scripting of precise role-play encounters for first-time users to provide supportive ‘blended learning’ contexts; careful and vigilant strategic management of facilities and resources, and a robust design program. This paper focuses on the crucial alignment of these elements to the specific challenges of designing and navigating conception and development processes, to enable the execution and delivery of a tightly defined script for meaningful and memorable learning outcomes. This innovative pedagogical approach lacks time-tested outcomes, but is recognised equally as opportunity and challenge; risk and reward.

Where shall the future student learn? Student expectations of university facilities for teaching and learning

This paper examines some of the issues surrounding educational facilities - their design and impact upon student learning now and into the future. It details some of the recent literature in this area with particular emphasis upon teaching and learning trends that match the needs of modern students. The responses of a group of first year university students in the School of Property, Construction and Project Management at RMIT University are also matched against these trends. The conclusions from these responses drawn indicate that the future university student will want flexible learning spaces that can adapt to both individual and collaborative work with a strong emphasis on social learning and advanced technology. The responses also indicate a mismatch between existing lecture theatres and tutorial rooms and the third space learning that these graduates of 2011 want. The results have implications for all higher education institutions as we enter the new millennium.

Impact of learning environment and learning context on student satisfaction : a comparative study of postgraduate students from Asia

The growth of the international education market with increasing export income has created a highly competitive environment among education providers worldwide. WTO reports that this market is now worth around $27 billion a year (Alderman, 2001) while IDP Australia has estimated an increase in the number of students seeking higher education overseas at 7.2 million by 2025. This alludes to the attractiveness of the international education market in the form of both pecuniary and non pecuniary benefits to provider nations and the higher educational institutions and hence the need for strategies to maintain a globally competitive position. This paper looks at the impact of the learning environment and the learning context on student satisfaction among international postgraduate students from Asia studying in Australian universities. The growing competition requires provider institutions to be highly responsive to the needs and aspirations of the diverse student community and to deliver services to create satisfaction and loyalty, which would be critical in sustaining a competitive position. The study, based on the expectancy-disconfirmation paradigm, and a model of post choice satisfaction in the educational setting, uses logistic regression, MANOVA, ANOVA and chi square testing, investigates factors relevant to student learning environment and the learning context to assess satisfaction levels of these students. The sample size used in the study is 371 and is drawn from a mail survey of five leading universities in Australia.

Learning science through engaging with its epistemic representational practices

This group of papers explores the development of student understanding and application of the discursive tools of science to reason in this subject, as the basis for classroom practices that parallel scientists’ knowledge production practices. We explore how this account of the disciplinary literacies of science can be enabled through effective pedagogies. The papers draw on research from Australia and Sweden that have overlapping agendas and theoretical perspectives including pragmatism (Peirce 1931-58; Dewey 1938/1997), social semiotics (Kress et al. 2001) and socio-cultural perspectives on language and learning (Lemke, 2004). The papers examine the role of language/multimodal representations in generating knowledge claims in science classrooms, the classroom epistemologies that support learning, and assessment practices from this perspective. A large body of conceptual change research has identified trenchant problems in conceptual learning in science, spawning long-standing and ongoing programs to identify pedagogies to address this. By redefining the problem in terms of language and representation, we aim to offer a way forward to support student engagement and learning in science.

Techno-literacy and learning in blended, multicultural course environments

For the last two decades, higher education institutions have been actively engaged in the use of online technology with the aim of transforming the way we teach and learn to improve students’ learning experiences and outcomes. However, despite significant investment in infrastructure and training and a wide-scale uptake of such technologies, the promised transformative effect on student learning is yet to be actualised outside of small pockets of innovation. In this paper, we argue that one of the factors contributing to lack of qualitative large-scale transformation is students’ lack of preparedness and experience in using online tools for learning purposes. Drawing on an ethnographic study of culturally diverse computing students and teachers within learning environments that blend online and face-to-face pedagogies, we argue that, although contemporary university students are largely operationally literate when using online learning tools, they often lack the cultural and critical skills required to use such technologies in a meaningful way to support powerful learning. We argue that, for online learning technologies to transform learning, students need to be supported to develop these higher order techno-literacy skills.

Engagement and learning through social software in finance : a retrospective on the Trading Room experience

The introduction of a social software blog space called the Trading Room in an undergraduate finance unit generated a great deal of activity to support student learning. A subsequent evaluation of this innovation, viewed through the lens of Activity Theory, demonstrated that students perceived high value in the opportunity it provided for them to reaffirm theories, obtain individualised feedback and benchmark their work against others. While assessment is generally seen as the carrot and the stick of learning; students in the study reported that they would still participate in reading and posting to the Trading Room even if there was no assessment requirement. Students did not see any value in the environment as a purely social space, reporting that they saw it primarily as a professional educational community. It would appear that just as there are different communities in the real world social space, there are also different types of communities in the online space.

Problem-based learning curricula in engineering

This chapter explores Problem-Based Learning (PBL) curricula in engineering in Australasian universities, in particular its effects on student approaches to learning in PBL teams. Exploring from the three view points: curriculum design and implementation; institutional support structures assisting the transition to PBL for both students and academics; and student learning experiences in PBL teams this chapter intends to close the loop for institutions and academics using PBL to educate future engineers. In particular, this chapter examines the design of engineering PBL courses or subjects within programs and the ways in which learning experiences are designed for students, the support structures that institutions put in place for both academics and students to transition to PBL, teacher practices and student experiences of learning both individually and as a team in PBL. It is argued that many engineering programs still undermine the need for designing learning experiences to help students achieve the desired learning outcomes; seldom consider the learning cultures adopted by PBL teams and how students engage in learning as individuals and as a team. This chapter argues the need for approaches to PBL that enhance student learning and experiences in engineering and the need for support structures that assist both students and academics in the transition to problem-based learning.

Applied learning educators breaching boundaries storming barriers

This paper provides discussion of learning experienced by Applied Learning Educators in a workplace context where everyday teaching activities can involve undertaking unfamiliar tasks to the extent that the concept of ‘crossing boundaries’, or acting outside ‘comfort zones’ becomes ‘normalised’. This perspective arises from consideration of extensive interviews with Applied Learning Educators who work in the Victorian Certificate of Applied Learning (VCAL), a senior years’ pathway in Victoria. The pathway is available in settings of schools, Adult Community Education (ACE) and Technical and Further Education (TAFE) and designed to support the engagement of young people in education and their subsequent transition into further study or meaningful work. VCAL Educators use Applied Learning pedagogy in the development of curriculum content that promotes employability skills, connectedness to community and has grounding in student interests and needs. Subsequently student learning in VCAL occurs in and out of classrooms. Applied Learning Educators frequently navigate institutional boundaries in the process of negotiating and developing partnerships with industry and community organisations to enable learning to be undertaken in meaningful and relevant environments. In this paper Boundary Crossing is used as a concept for discussing the wide-ranging nature of VCAL educators’ everyday practice as they respond to the needs of the cohort and requirements of the curriculum. Collegial learning is considered using the notion of Communities of Practice.

Infusing instructional design principles into an active student-centred social learning framework

Social and participatory media offer a plethora of ways for students to communicate, collaborate, and learn in schools. Using a social learning approach, Casey (2013a) investigated ways that social media could be integrated into Australian public high school classrooms to enhance student learning. In the process, she developed a social learning framework as discussed in Casey (2013b). Similarly, Davidson-Shivers and Hulon (2013; Hulon & Daidson-Shivers, 2013) suggest ways to employ ID principles to prepare college instructors and pre-service teachers to integrate technology into classrooms. Prior to that, Davidson-Shivers with Rasmussen (2006) developed an instructional design (ID) model for creating effective Web-based learning environments. Through collaboration, Casey and Davidson-Shivers consider a wide range of social learning and instructional design principles and approaches to help develop frameworks for new media integration that can work within varying levels of education.

Graduating Students' Perceptions of Learning Design in an Undergraduate Engineering Course

BACKGROUNDUndergraduate Civil Engineering Course at Deakin University, Australia is relatively a new course. It graduated its second main cohort in 2013. Since its beginning in 2012, this study has been running an internal annual Course Experience Surveys targeted at uncovering the graduating students’ perceptions on three components of contemporary learning system provided by Deakin University learning design, learning environment and the human factor. Learning design covers the learning curriculum, learning resources, learning activities and learning supports; learning environment includes physical environment, virtual environment and psychosocial environment; and human factor includes learners, facilitators/teachers and help/support staff and their culture. There is a common agreement among educators in higher education that these three components of learning system should interact and complement each other in order to maximise student learning. This paper coversonly learning design aspect of the overall surveys from 2012 and 2013.PURPOSEThe aim of this study is to analyse the students’ perceptions of learning design provided by Deakin University to its undergraduate civil engineering students in 2012 and 2013. This will help track down the progresses in different aspects of learning design and to understand whether the learning design provided by the institution have actually helped students in their learning and met their learning expectations.DESIGN/METHODThis study adopts questionnaire approach to collect original data by asking students about their perceptions of learning design provided by the institution. 5-point Likert-scale questionnaire survey (strongly disagree, disagree, neutral, agree, strongly agree) is developed and responses are collected. The responses are then statistically analysed in order to uncover the students’ perceptions of learning design provided by the university.RESULTSThe statistical analysis shows that the graduating students in both 2012 and 2013 did not perceive some important aspects of the learning design of the undergraduate civil engineering program/course as good as they expected. Moreover, in line with the shift in the learning design paradigm from content-centric to more inclusive learning design where soft skills, self-directed learning skills and research skills are incorporated, graduating students clearly perceived these changes. However, respondents’ perceptions on some components of learning design got slightly down in 2013 compared with 2012 particularly the ‘learning resources’, ‘learning activities’ and ‘learning supports’.CONCLUSIONSThe shift in the learning design paradigm of the undergraduate civil engineering program/course at Deakin University from teacher-centric to student-centric between 2012 and 2013 has not been perceived by students positively as expected. Students have clearly indicated that they prefer improved curriculum, quality learning resources, customised learning activities and additional learning supports in order to successfully implement student-centric learning design.

Enhancing and assessing group and team learning in architecture and related design contexts

EXECUTIVE SUMMARYTeamwork skills are essential in the design industry where practitioners negotiate often-conflicting design options in multi-disciplinary teams. Indeed, many of the bodies that accredit design courses explicitly list teamwork skills as essential attributes of design graduates e.g., the Australian Institute of Architects (AIA), Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA), the National Council of Architectural Registration Boards (NCARB) of the United States and the Institution of Engineers, Australia (IEAust). In addition to the need to meet the demands of the accrediting bodies, there are many reasons for the ubiquitous use of teamwork assignments in design schools. For instance, teamwork learning is seen as being representative of work in practice where design is nearly always a collaborative activity. Learning and teaching in teamwork contexts in design education are not without particular challenges. In particular, two broad issues have been identified: first, many students leave academia without having been taught the knowledge and skills of how to design in teams; second, teaching, assessment and assignment design need to be better informed by a clear understanding of what leads to effective teamwork and the learning of teamwork skills. In recognition of the lack of a structured approach to integrating teamwork learning into the curricula of design programs, this project set out to answer three primary research questions: • How do we teach teamwork skills in the context of design? • How do we assess teamwork skills?• How do design students best learn teamwork skills?In addition, four more specific questions were investigated:1. Is there a common range of learning objectives for group-and-team-work in architecture and related design disciplines that will enable the teaching of consistent and measurable outcomes?2. Do group and team formation methods, learning styles and team-role preferences impact students’ academic and course satisfaction outcomes?3. What combinations of group-and-team formation methods, teaching and assessment models significantly improve learning outcomes?4. For design students across different disciplines with different learning styles and cultural origins, are there significant differences in performance, student satisfaction (as measured through questionnaires and unit evaluations), group-and-team working abilities and student participation?To elucidate these questions, a design-based research methodology was followed comprising an iterative series of enquiries: (a) A literature review was completed to investigate: what constitutes effective teamwork, what contributes to effectiveness in teams, what leads to positive design outcomes for teams, and what leads to effective learning in teams. The review encompassed a range of contexts: from work-teams in corporate settings, to professional design teams, to education outside of and within the design disciplines. The review informed a theoretical framework for understanding what factors impact the effectiveness of student design teams. (b) The validity of this multi-factorial Framework of Effectiveness in Student Design Teams was tested via surveys of educators’ teaching practices and attitudes, and of students’ learning experiences. 638 students and 68 teachers completed surveys: two pilot surveys for participants at the four partner institutions, which then informed two national surveys completed by participants from the majority of design schools across Australia. (c) The data collected provided evidence for 22 teamwork factors impacting team effectiveness in student design teams. Pedagogic responses and strategies to these 22 teamwork factors were devised, tested and refined via case studies, focus groups and workshops. (d) In addition, 35 educators from a wide range of design schools and disciplines across Australia attended two National Teaching Symposiums. The first symposium investigated the wider conceptualisation of teamwork within the design disciplines, and the second focused on curriculum level approaches to structuring the teaching of teamwork skills identified in the Framework.The Framework of Effectiveness in Student Design Teams identifies 22 factors impacting effective teamwork, along with teaching responses and strategies that design educators might use to better support student learning. The teamwork factors and teaching strategies are categorised according to three groups of input (Task Characteristics, Individual Level Factors and Team Level Factors), two groups of processes (Teaching Practice & Support Structures and Team Processes), and three categories of output (Task Performance, Teamwork Skills, and Attitudinal Outcomes). Eight of the 22 teamwork factors directly relate to the skills that need to be developed in students, one factor relates to design outputs, and the other thirteen factors inform pedagogies that can be designed for better learning outcomes. In Table 10 of Section 4, we outline which of the 22 teamwork factors pertain to each of five stakeholder groups (curriculum leaders, teachers, students, employers and the professional bodies); thus establishing who will make best use the information and recommendations we make. In the body of this report we summarise the 22 teamwork factors and teaching strategies informed by the Framework of Effectiveness in Student Design Teams, and give succinct recommendations arising from them. This material is covered in depth by the project outputs. For instance, the teaching and assessment strategies will be expanded upon in a projected book on Teaching Teamwork in Design. The strategies are also elucidated by examples of good practice presented in our case studies, and by Manuals on Teamwork for Teachers and Students. Moreover, the project website ( visited by representatives of stakeholder groups in Australia and Canada), is seeding a burgeoning community of practice that promises dissemination, critical evaluation and the subsequent refinement of our materials, tools, strategies and recommendations. The following three primary outputs have been produced by the project in answer to the primary research questions:1. A theoretical Framework of Effectiveness in Student Design Teams;2. Manuals on Teamwork for Teachers and Students (available from the website);3. Case studies of good/innovative practices in teaching and assessing teamwork in design;In addition, five secondary outputs/outcomes have been produced that provide more nuanced responses:4. Detailed recommendations for the professional accrediting bodies and curriculum leaders;5. Online survey data (from over 700 participants), plus Team Effectiveness Scale to determine the factors influencing effective learning and successful outputs for student design teams;6. A community of practice in policy, programs, practice and dialogue;7. A detailed book proposal (with sample chapter), submitted to prospective publishers, on Teaching Teamwork in Design; 8. An annotated bibliography (accessed via the project website) on learning, teaching and assessing teamwork.The project has already had an international impact. As well as papers presented in Canada and New Zealand, the surveys were participated in by six Canadian schools of architecture, whose teaching leaders also provided early feedback on the project aims and objectives during visits made to them by the project leader. In addition, design schools in Vancouver, Canada, and San Diego in the USA have already utilised the Teacher’s Manual, and in February 2014 the project findings were discussed at Tel Aviv University in a forum focusing on the challenges for sustainability in architectural education.