Centre for Teaching and Learning
Parallel Session Abstracts
Finalised abstracts (in Alphabetical order)
Addressing environmental and agricultural challenges through online learning
Barriers and facilitators to intensive online education in health disciplines
Collaborative development of online social work curriculum: Lessons from a crisis
Creating and using H5P online interactivities to engage students: One user’s experience
Developing a culture of enquiry and dialogue among first-year students: A ‘Trojan horse’ approach
Improving student attitudes toward group work through embedding skills and assessment
Innovative sustainable online language teaching
Innovative mobile technology for flexible and interactive nursing education
Jam session: Technology tools for engagement and collaboration
Online student engagement through real-world, experiential case studies
Rapid design, deployment and evaluation of online exams in mathematical units of study
Re-visioning attendance policies in the contemporary context of higher education
Saving lives (not death by PowerPoint) - using the H5P content creator in the BN
Two days to transition: Taking the music degree online
Use of a case study to develop market-ready graduates in engineering
Using Zoom to facilitate authentic online assessment
WIL – here, there, then anywhere... from home
Go back to 2020 SoLT Symposium Page
Addressing environmental and agricultural challenges through online learning
Dr Hanabeth Luke, School of Environment, Science & Engineering
It has long-since been a challenge to deliver a similar experience to our online students, as we do for our on-campus students. Connection is well documented as a critical element of student retention, and student wellbeing (Tanis, 2020). When COVID-19 brutally cut away our opportunities for on-campus delivery this year, it was wonderful to see my colleagues nimbly adjust to online delivery modes. It was nevertheless challenging to learn of the impacts of this on students, particularly those who had moved to the area for an on-campus university experience. Some silver linings, however, emerged within and from the online platforms. With students disappointed to miss some key opportunities for face-to-face interaction, it was an important opportunity for us as educators, to rise to the challenge of somehow providing as close an experience as possible, while students remained at their home desks (Bryson & Andres, 2020; Goldberg, 2020). This presentation will explain some of the key learnings from this transition to online learning for students studying in the environmental and agricultural context, including challenges, opportunities, the unexpected delights and connections emerging.
Bryson, J. R., & Andres, L. (2020). Covid-19 and rapid adoption and improvisation of online teaching: Curating resources for extensive versus intensive online learning experiences. Journal of Geography in Higher Education, 1-16.
Goldberg, J. R. (2020). Identifying alternate resources and adjusting expectations for senior design projects during the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020. Biomedical Engineering Education, 1-6.
Tanis, C. J. (2020). The seven principles of online learning: Feedback from faculty and alumni on its importance for teaching and learning. Research in Learning Technology, 28.
An evaluation of intensive teaching mode in the Bachelor of Nursing using a 360-degree feedback model
Elicia Kunst and Felicity Walker, School of Health and Human Sciences
Tertiary education in Australia is in a period of dynamic change where teaching and learning practices need to adapt to meet student and institutional needs. This is particularly relevant for health education, where increasing student numbers and high demand for compulsory professional experience placements are challenging our traditional methods of delivery. In response to these challenges, for the first time in Session 3 2019, we piloted the delivery of core clinical units from the Bachelor of Nursing in an intensive and blended online delivery mode. To provide other educators with context, the process for planning and designing the delivery of unit content, engaging both internal and external partners for the successful delivery of teaching, and building clinical placement capacity, will be described.
To gather comprehensive evidence of the impact of this alternate delivery mode, a range of measures were collected and collated. This included the comparison of student success and completion in both academic and clinical practice performance compared to Session 1 teaching, student feedback gathered from student satisfaction ratings, as well as feedback from the community of practice who collaborated and worked in partnership for the design, delivery and administration of the unit. The results were overwhelmingly positive, with high student satisfaction scores, as well as positive feedback on student performance from academic staff, professional staff and external clinical partners. The success of the pilot has led to the expansion of the offering in Session 3 2020 across all campuses.
Barriers and facilitators to intensive online education in health disciplines
Dr Nasim Salehi, School of Health and Human Sciences
Dr Mansoureh Nickbakht, School of Health and Human Sciences and School of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences, The University of Queensland
Intensive online courses (IOC) are increasing due to its high demand and flexibility. Limited studies explored intensive delivery approaches in health-related disciplines, which require interconnectedness to patients’ health and wellbeing. Overall, the way forward is to look at the IOC in an ecological framework, interconnecting students, educators, and educational support services for enhancing the effectiveness.
There are commonalities regarding intensive (6 study periods per year, completing a single unit within 6 weeks) and non-intensive online approaches to learning, including learning materials, assessment principles, and skills requirements for both educators and students. However, the intensive learning environment includes a higher level of reliance on effective communication, technology, and feedback strategies as well as competent educators in intensive online teaching. Hence, pedagogical approaches need to account for students’ competencies and preferred learning approaches. Although both intensive and non-intensive approaches have some similar learning outcomes, IOC are preferred by students due to learning at their own pace and frequent intakes (Vlachopoulos et al., 2019). Universities also benefit from IOC as they are not limited to a specific time/place that attracts more national and international students.
Critical barriers to IOC can be increased attrition due to poor motivation and time management skills, technological challenges for students and educators, and difficulties to bond with Student Learning Facilitators. It is vital to consider strategies to provide support, including a flexible teaching approach, updated technological capabilities, meaningful interactions mutually and reciprocally, enhanced self-regulated learning, and peer-to-peer and student-to-educator communication. In addition, advanced technologies (e.g., simulations) help educators in engaging students in activities (Bevacqua & Colasante, 2018) and in bringing more student-centred practices.
Some of the challenges for clinical placements/education can be related to the need for face-to-face working with patients (Seymour-Walsh et al., 2020) and the nature of the assessment (e.g., OSCE) (Kakadia et al., 2020). It is recommended to use artificial intelligence (e.g., gamification) to create more real-world scenarios and enhance the practicality of the learning/assessment. A lack of support for staff (Torda, 2020), beliefs about the complexity of online teaching, and face-to-face culture are other important factors that may hinder the potentials of educators for IOC; thus, they may require interventions (e.g., persuasion, modelling).
The Capability-Opportunity-Motivation Behaviour (COM-B) model can be beneficial in overcoming the barriers (Michie et al., 2011). The COM-B can explore educators’ capabilities and motivations toward the IOC as well as the opportunities for implementing a successful IOC. It is also recommended that universities collect ongoing feedback from students and educators and acknowledge that acclimatisation to online platforms needs time and patience.
Bevacqua, J., & Colasante, M. (2018). New shores: Preliminary observations from a proof-of-concept project to define and design a student-centred approach to study mode selection. In M. Campbell, J. Willems, C. Adachi, D. Blake, I. Doherty, S. Krishnan, S. Macfarlane, L. Ngo, M. O'Donnell, S. Palmer, L. Riddell, I. Story, H. Suri, & J. Tai (Eds.), Open Oceans: Learning without borders: 35th International Conference of Innovation, Practice and Research in the Use of Educational Technologies in Tertiary Education, 309-313. Australasian Society for Computers in Learning in Tertiary Education (ASCILITE). http://2018conference.ascilite.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/ASCILITE-2018-Proceedings-Final.pdf
Kakadia, R., Chen, E., & Ohyama, H. (2020). Implementing an online OSCE during the COVID‐19 pandemic. Journal of Dental Education. https://doi.org/10.1002/jdd.12323
Michie, S., van Stralen, M. M., & West, R. (2011). The behaviour change wheel: A new method for characterising and designing behaviour change interventions. Implementation Science, 6(42). https://doi.org/10.1186/1748-5908-6-42
Seymour-Walsh, A. E., Bell, A., Weber, A., & Smith T. (2020). Adapting to a new reality: COVID-19 coronavirus and online education in the health professions. Rural and Remote Health, 20(2). https://doi.org/10.22605/RRH6000
Torda, A. (2020). How COVID‐19 has pushed us into a medical education revolution. Internal Medicine Journal, 50(9). https://doi.org/10.1111/imj.14882
Vlachopoulos, P., Jan, S. K., & Lockyer, L. (2019). A comparative study on the traditional and intensive delivery of an online course: design and facilitation recommendations. Research in Learning Technology, 27. https://doi.org/10.25304/rlt.v27.2196
Collaborative development of online social work curriculum: Lessons from a crisis
Clarissa Hitchcock, Dr Kathomi Gatwiri, Dr Elaine Nuske, and Dr Louise Whitaker, School of Arts and Social Sciences
The Australian Association of Social Work (AASW) accreditation standards require Master of Social Work(Q) students to attend 20 days of face-to-face delivery as part of their two-year degree (AASW, 2020). With the increasing global trend toward the online delivery of education, these standards reinforce the AASW’s belief that online delivery alone cannot meet the learning needs of social work students (Goldingay & Land, 2014). In Session 1 2020, 150 students in their first and second year of study were to join staff on the Gold Coast campus for 2 × 7-day compulsory residentials, spread across four units. First-year units facilitate learning around foundational theory, knowledge and practice, with second-year units focused on advancing practice skills, group work, and community development. The rapid onset of Coronavirus and the resulting restrictions, meant in just four weeks, we were tasked with converting these residentials from face-to-face to online delivery. Faced with the enormity of this task, we collaborated as a team, to plan, develop, implement, and reflect on our experience, rather than battle in isolation. In this presentation, we highlight the key features of our delivery (including establishing student connections, setting expectations, and acknowledging moments of gratitude) and reflect on what we have learnt and how this will inform our pedagogy into the future.
Australian Association of Social Workers. (2020). Australian Social Work Education and Accreditation Standards (ASWEAS). https://www.aasw.asn.au/document/item/6073
Goldingay, S., & Land, C. (2014). Emotion: The “E” in engagement in online distance education in social work. Journal of Open, Flexible and Distance Learning, 18(1), 58–72.
Creating and using H5P online interactivities to engage students: One user’s experience
Holly Muggleston, School of Health and Human Sciences
When adding unit content into Blackboard, you may have noticed H5P as one of the tool items. H5P is a collection of HTML5 tools that enable academics to create, share, and reuse online interactive content as a teaching and learning strategy. This content can replace or supplement a lecture or other learning strategies. The H5P tools are largely user intuitive and require no technical expertise.
In Session 2, I introduced interactive online content created with H5P. This was in response to low student engagement in one of my units from a previous teaching session. This presentation will share my experience with creating and using H5P interactive content, including the benefits and difficulties, examples, and reflections. As the University transitions to a new curriculum, new ways of ‘thinking and doing’ will need to be implemented. The use of online interactive content is one such educational strategy. A variety of activities were created using content such as presentations, quizzes, branching scenarios, image hotspots, fill in the blanks and image sliders, to check and reinforce understanding of subject matter.
Inclusion of H5P interactivities do boost student engagement in many ways, one of which is facilitating a move from passive to active learning. Examples of student feedback include, ‘activities were helpful’ in that ‘they were more engaging then just providing a non-graded practice quiz’ and ‘they stimulated learning with more engagement in the content delivered. Not just simply a yes/no answer.’
Wilkie, S., McDonald, T., & Zakaria, G. (2017, June 27-30). Integration of H5P online learning activities to increase student success [Conference presentation]. The Higher Education Research and Development Society of Australasia (HERDSA) Conference 2017, Sydney, Australia. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/335233744_Integration_of_H5P_Online_Learning_Activities_to_Increase_Student_Success
Wilkie, S., Zakaria, G., & McDonald, T. (2018, July 2-5). Transforming lectures to online interactive activities [Conference presentation]. The Higher Education Research and Development Society of Australasia (HERDSA) Conference 2018, Adelaide, Australia. https://www.academia.edu/43268801/Designing_online_orientations_for_higher_education_music_students_A_proposed_framework
Developing a culture of enquiry and dialogue among first-year students: A ‘Trojan horse’ approach
Dr Liz Goode, Dr Johanna Nieuwoudt and Associate Professor Thomas Roche, SCU College
In the information-rich, post-truth world, it is vital that university graduates are able to think critically about real-world issues and to develop informed and respectful responses in professional, academic and personal contexts. This necessitates developing students’ understanding of the nature of knowledge, including recognising their own and others’ biases and limitations, and equipping them with the ability to respectfully articulate and justify their views. Additionally, students need to be information literate to identify, evaluate, and effectively use information in their studies. There is increasing recognition of the need to position these practices not merely as “academic skills”, but as core, foundational aspects of units and programs (Bury & Sheese, 2016; Wingate, 2006). Researchers at SCU argue that these academic practices should be embedded in first-year units; and yet, they have found that only 59% of first-year health science educators embed teaching these practices into their unit (Munn et al., 2016).
This presentation outlines a novel approach to introducing first-year students (from various disciplines) to foundational academic practices. It also touches on some of the challenges experienced by the unit design team, including working towards a synergy between ‘content’ and academic practices. Two units are in development for six-week (intensive) offerings: A Culture of Enquiry and A Culture of Dialogue. These units guide students through a series of real-world topics ranging from climate change and alternative energy, to the role of arts in society, immigration, vaccination, and contemporary Indigenous cultures. While exploring these topics, students are introduced to critical thinking, biases and heuristics, digital and information literacy, academic integrity, and the conventions of academic writing.
This ‘Trojan horse’ approach to embedding academic practices into first-year units was chosen to engage diverse cohorts in meaningful dialogue that connects academic practices with lived experiences and important social issues and contexts. At the same time, this approach aims to facilitate an epistemological shift wherein students are empowered to question, critique and offer responses to real-world issues, rather than to accept “knowledge as uncontested facts” (Wingate, 2006, p. 463). The multiple identities of our students, their families, peers, and Australian residents are also recognised and honoured, to advance intersectionality in education. In this way, diverse cohorts can be guided towards respectful recognition of experiential and ideological differences and equipped with the tools to articulate their views via cogent and respectful dialogue at work, at university, and as citizens of an increasingly complex world.
Bury, S., & Sheese, R. (2016). Academic literacies as cornerstones in course design: A partnership to develop programming for faculty and teaching assistants. Journal of University Teaching and Learning Practice, 13(3), 1-18. http://ro.uow.edu.au/jutlp/
Munn, J., Coutts, R., Knopke, J., Grant, A., & Bartlett, E. (2016). The academic skill needs and competency of first year health science students: Views of educators. Journal of Academic Language and Learning, 10(2), 32-47. https://journal.aall.org.au/
Wingate, U. (2006). Doing away with “study skills.” Teaching in Higher Education, 11(4), 457–469. https://doi.org/10.1080/13562510600874268
Equity, access, and innovation in the online learning space: A shift towards Open Educational Resources
Dr Mieke Witsel, School of Business and Tourism
OER Project Team: Carlie Nekrasov, Marin Simpson and Marty Williams, University Library
Dr Joanne Munn, Centre for Teaching and Learning
This presentation provides an alternative, equity-based model for prescribing and providing textbooks and readings to students. This model involves a move away from the current model of prescribed texts (PT) and financially unsustainable e-book licenses, to a new model based on freely available Open Educational Resources (OERs). This model aims to reduce the financial burden on students and improve their learning outcomes.
Attrition among first year low socio-economic status (low SES), Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander and first-in-family students is higher than average. Students at SCU in these equity groups comprise up to 45% of the student body where attrition can rise to 27%, meaning more than a quarter of equity students who start their undergraduate degree, fail to complete their first year. Students’ financial situation can present a significant challenge to retention (Breier, 2010). Although many universities maintain a vision adhering to principles regarding social justice, equity and social inclusion, these do not always filter down to practical strategies supporting equity-based students (Gale & Tranter, 2011). A 2018 study found that 64% of students studying in an online environment did not purchase their textbook (Donaldson et al., 2019).
This session, an OER textbook was offered as an alternative to the PT in week three in a first-year SCU unit. The existing PT, published by Cambridge, was co-authored by the unit assessor herself. A survey among the students in weeks 5–9 highlighted that one third of the respondents had not accessed the PT at all. They cited financial cost, and difficulty accessing the PT via a library, as the main barriers. However, more than two thirds of the respondents had used the OER, citing that aside from being free, they experienced the OER text as equitable, accessible, portable, and having ‘great content’. All respondents had used either one, or both texts. According to unit protocol, students are not penalised for referring to the OER in lieu of the PT. What has transpired, furthermore, is that assignments that cite the OER in lieu of the PT are not of discernible lower quality.
These results, although limited in scale and scope so far, suggest that OER texts offer practical, flexible and equitable resources that suitably support student learning. What is a given, however, is that those students who had not – and in the immediate future were not likely to – access their PT, now do access a scholarly textbook of good quality, supporting their learning and engagement.
Breier, M. (2010). From “financial considerations” to “poverty”: towards a reconceptualisation of the role of finances in higher education student drop out. Higher Education, 60(6), 657–670. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10734-010-9343-5
Donaldson, R., Opper, J., & Shen, E. (2019). 2018 Florida student textbook and course materials survey. Florida Virtual Campus, Tallahassee, FL. https://dlss.flvc.org/documents/210036/1314923/2018+Student+Textbook+and+Course+Materials+Survey+Report+--+FINAL+VERSION+--+20190308.pdf/07478d85-89c2-3742-209a-9cc5df8cd7ea
Gale, T., & Tranter, D. (2011). Social justice in Australian higher education policy: an historical and conceptual account of student participation. Critical studies in Education, 52(1), 29–46. https://doi.org/10.1080/17508487.2011.536511
How good is ‘good’? A successful transition from face-to-face to online raises questions around human connectedness
Dr Tania von der Heidt and Dr Mieke Witsel, School of Business and Tourism
This study relates to a transnational program with Tianjin University of Science and Technology (TUST). Each year around 110 selected Chinese full-time undergraduate students enrol in the one-year program, studying on-campus in Tianjin following completion of an English preparatory course. Students undertake 12 units sequentially in a three-week intensive mode (IM). Normally, each unit is delivered face-to-face (F2F) by a School of Business and Tourism (SBAT) academic, who stays in China for the duration. In March 2020, academics in the program were asked to switch from F2F to wholly online delivery. Simultaneously, the students were isolated, unable to access the campus.
We studied (a) how IM teaching adapted from F2F to online in the program; (b) the impact on student performance and satisfaction in Session 1 2020, compared with F2F delivery in Session 1 2019. Initial data shows that, despite unexpected constraints (e.g. students having limited access to (SCU) databases), academics successfully adapted delivery. The standard key performance indicators (KPIs) - student success rate (SSR), GPA and student satisfaction (SS) - for 2019 (F2F) vs 2020 (online) show that the program has remained successful, with consistently higher than School and SCU averages. The results, taken from the University’s Office of Planning Quality and Review MIS student performance cube, and averaged across the six subjects at TUST in S1 2019 / S1 2020 are:
- SSR: 98.5% / 98.7%;
- GPA: 5.1 / 5.2;
- SS: 4.6 / 4.6.
So far so good, one might say. Despite the major change in learning environment, the students performed as well as always in terms of SCU’s key KPIs. It is not clear whether this is because we sufficiently adapted our units to the new environment, or because the students are so self-motivated and disciplined that they succeeded regardless. In any case, the students’ learning experience was different. We attribute this mainly to the different sense of connectedness between students and teachers. In 2019 connectedness was high during daily face-to-face interactions in class, where attendance rates were high. In 2020, where live classes online were not always offered and, even when they were, attendance and participation rates were low, connectedness was lower.
Taking a constructivist approach, and holding that knowledge is socially constructed, rather than received or discovered, we question whether our KPI metrics adequately capture the quality of the learning experience and whether the nature of student learning experience matters to the metrics. We ask the audience, what role should ‘connectivity’ (Senior, 2010) or ‘connectedness’ (Starr-Glass, 2013), community of inquiry (Garrison et al., 2010) and related constructivist concepts play in fostering improved learning experiences within our learning environments, and what learning design and technology (LDT) principles should guide us (Warr et al., 2020).
Garrison, D., Anderson, T., & Archer, W. (2010). The first decade of the community of inquiry framework: A retrospective. The Internet and Higher Education, 13(1-2), 5-9. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.iheduc.2009.10.003
Senior, R. (2010). Connectivity: A framework for understanding effective language teaching in face-to-face and online learning communities. RELC Journal, 41(2), 137-147. https://doi.org/10.1177/0033688210375775
Starr-Glass, D. (2013). From connectivity to connected learners: Transactional distance and social presence. In C. Wankel & P. Blessinger (Eds.), Increasing student engagement and retention in e-learning environments: Web 2.0 and blended learning technologies (Cutting-edge technologies in higher education, 6, 113-143. Bingley: Emerald Group Publishing Limited. https://doi.org/10.1108/s2044-9968(2013)000006g007
Warr, M., Mishra, P., & Scragg, B. (2020). Designing theory. Education Technology Research Development, 68(2), 601-632. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11423-020-09746-9
Improving student attitudes toward group work through embedding skills and assessment
Dr John Haw, School of Business and Tourism
John Gerrard, The Hotel School Sydney
Greg Blair-Smith, The Hotel School Melbourne/Brisbane
Uma Panchapakesan and Brian Hunt, The Hotel School Sydney
Benedict Lee, The Hotel School Melbourne
Dr Sharen Nisbet, School of Business and Tourism
MNG00114 Hospitality Services Management had been rating poorly with students (red-lighted in 2019) with the most common complaint about the group work assignment. Group work is an important aspect of a student’s learning experience as it promotes the practice of teamwork and the development of interpersonal competencies (Gottschall & García-Bayonas, 2008; Gaudet et al., 2010; Kirschner et al., 2011; Mendo et al., 2016). We decided to redesign the unit based on our observation that students were previously assigned a group work task with little teamwork training. Session 2 included features designed to train and improve student’s attitudes and social skills towards group work and to reward their group work performance. This presentation will showcase the results of the renewed curriculum and innovative group work practices. Changes include: early assessment of student attitude toward group work with a standardised instrument; explicitly teaching group communication and group process management; and introducing an individual assessment on the value of group work before the formation of groups. Once in groups, another practice was introduced that allowed students to score more than the total assessment mark through peer evaluation to reward cooperation. This increased flexibility in the scoring of the group work was implemented to address some of the issues that arise when group work is undertaken by students with diverse academic skills. We surveyed the students before the unit and will show survey results after the unit to ascertain the effectiveness of our approach.
Gaudet, A. D., Ramer, L. M., Nakonechny, J., Cragg, J. J., & Ramer, M. S. (2010). Small-group learning in an upper-level university biology class enhances academic performance and student attitudes toward group work. PLOS ONE. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0015821
Gottschall, H., & Garcia-Bayonas, M. (2008). Student attitudes towards group work among undergraduates in Business Administration, Education and Mathematics. Educational Research Quarterly, 32, 3-28.
Kirschner, F., Paas, F., Kirschner P. A., & Janssen, J. (2011). Differential effects of problem-solving demands on individual and collaborative learning outcomes. Learning and Instruction, 21, 587-599.
Mendo, S., Leon, B., Felipe, E., Polo, M.I. & Palacios, V. (2016). Assessment of social skills of students of Social Education. Revista de Psicodidáctica, 21(1), 139-156.
Innovative sustainable online language teaching
Sharon Leslie, Neil McRudden and Zoe Hancock, SCU College
In Session 1 2020, SCU College’s English Language Programs (ELP) began delivering its direct-entry Academic Purposes (EAP) and general English units online for the first time. The College faced the same challenges - related to staff and student training and the migration of online materials, classes and courses - as other schools, faculties and colleges in universities throughout the world. However, the added complexity that ELP providers in Australia faced was that the National Code, the English Language Intensive Courses for Overseas Students (ELICOS) Standards 2018, requires providers to deliver 20 face-to-face hours of English language education to students every week (Department of Education, 2019). The project to migrate all SCU College ELP resources online continues, and the College continues to offer 20 hours of synchronous English language education to students both onshore and offshore each week.
As SCU College’s English Language Programs (ELP) have moved from emergency remote teaching mode towards a more sustainable online model (Hodges et al., 2020), we have increased our online offerings and started to explore more innovative approaches to teaching and learning. We are now offering not just EAP and general English units online but also study tours, and increasingly using educational apps and social media to keep our online classes relevant and engaging. This presentation will share some of the possible uses of WhatsApp (Wei, 2017), Quizlet and Padlet in the delivery of online English language lessons.
Amin, F. M., & Sundari, H. (2020). EFL students’ preferences on digital platforms during emergency remote teaching: Video Conference, LMS, or Messenger Application? Studies in English Language and Education, 7(2), 362-378. https://pesquisa.bvsalud.org/global-literature-on-novel-coronavirus-2019-ncov/resource/en/covidwho-820400
Department of Education, Skills and Employment. (2019). National Standards for ELICOS providers and courses. Australian Government. https://internationaleducation.gov.au/Regulatory-Information/Education-Services-for-Overseas-Students-ESOS-Legislative-Framework/ELICOSnationalstandards/Pages/Default.aspx
Hodges, C., Moore, S., Lockee, B., Trust, T., & Bond, A. (2020, March 27). The difference between emergency remote teaching and online learning. Educause Review, 27. https://er.educause.edu/articles/2020/3/the-difference-between-emergency-remote-teaching-and-online-learning
Wei, Y. (2017, May). Application of WeChat in English Teaching [Conference session]. 2017 International Conference on Culture, Education and Financial Development of Modern Society (ICCESE 2017). Atlantis Press. https://doi.org/10.2991/iccese-17.2017.21
Innovative mobile technology for flexible and interactive nursing education
Associate Professor Christina Aggar, Lucy Shinners, Donna Wilson, Felicity Walker, Associate Professor Deb Massey, Dima Nasrawi, Katrina Austen, School of Health and Human Sciences
Dr Golam Sorwar, School of Business and Tourism
Our journey for the pursuit of innovative teaching and learning practices first began in 2016 when the School of Health and Human Sciences developed, delivered, and evaluated the first Australian Graduate Certificate program for internationally qualified nurses (IQNs). A barrier to the successful transition of IQNs into the Australian healthcare system was communication and leadership skills (Aggar et al., 2019). With the support of an International Education and Training Partnership Fund from Study Queensland and in collaboration with Practera (EdTech company) and Central Queensland University, we designed and developed an experiential online learning program called mPreceptor. The communication and leadership program, underpinned by a preceptor model of support, was delivered via mobile technology and included cultural competence, practice and value differences in the areas of accountability, independence, technology use, and the care relationship (Aggar et al., 2019).
The success of the program, and it’s applicability outside of health, led us to collaborate with colleagues in the School of Business and Tourism and the Kaher Institute in India. An Australia-India Strategic Research grant enabled further development and evaluation of the teaching and experiential online learning program for delivery to onshore and offshore domestic and international students. The ensuing mLearning program embeds a robust experiential and reflective learning approach in which students are required to complete milestones, activities and tasks such as reflective activities to progress through the program.
The use of mobile technology to deliver education is becoming increasingly prevalent as it presents great opportunities to improve student performance and satisfaction, engage students in their learning, reduce cost, and increase education reach (Majumdar et al., 2015). This is now more important than ever, as students and education providers navigate the changing learning landscape created by the COVID-19 pandemic. The portability of mobile technology, including phones and tablets, provides flexibility and increased access to resources and the ability to deploy resources regardless of physical, border or access restrictions and on a widespread scale (Kim et al., 2017).
In collaboration with our Australian and international colleagues we are extending the practical teaching and learning mPreceptor and mLearning programs to build a collaborative platform. The mCollaborative program is designed to support students, academics and institutions to exchange knowledge and ideas in the areas of education and research scholarship. Funded by the New Colombo Plan, mCollaborative will support international work integrated learning (WIL) experiences in India. We believe that this innovative project is the first of its kind, and will build global collaborative activities between higher education institutions, and support international engagement in the areas of workforce development, education and research.
Aggar, C., Shinners, L., Thomas, T., & Stockhausen, L. (2019). Experiences of internationally qualified registered nurses enrolled in a bridging program in Australia: A pilot study. Collegian: The Australian Journal of Nursing Practice, Scholarship and Research, 27(3), 298–303. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.colegn.2019.09.003
Majumdar, A., Kar, S. S., Kumar, G. S., Palanivel, C., & Misra, P. (2015). mHealth in the prevention and control of non-communicable diseases in India: Current possibilities on the way forward. Journal of Clinical and Diagnostic Research, 9(2), LE06-LE10. https://doi.org/10.7860/JCDR/2015/11555.5573
Kim, S., Shin, H., Lee, J., Kang, S., & Bartlett, R. (2017). A smartphone application to educate undergraduate nursing students about providing care for infant airway obstruction. Nurse Education Today, 48, 145-152. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nedt.2016.10.006
Jam session: Technology tools for engagement and collaboration
Monique Dalli, School of Education
Monique Dalli is the Director of Professional Learning at a co-educational Melbourne Catholic High School who has worked with teaching staff to transition to remote learning during lockdown. Monique supports staff with a best-practice focus in the use of ICT tools and technology.
Monique also works as a sessional tutor and assessor in the SCU School of Education where her teaching focus is to increase collaboration and to encourage passive online learners to participate.
This jam session will explore a range of ICT tools that encourage student interaction, voice, participation, feedback and checking for understanding in an online classroom. The session will cycle through a wide variety of ICT tools explaining what, why and how – with enough of an opportunity for participants to dip into each tool and resources for later exploration.
The tools demonstrated could be used in conjunction with Collaborate and Blackboard to add further value to your teaching tool-kit when online teaching and/or learning. Some of the ICT tools that will be explored include: Mentimeter: https://www.mentimeter.com; Flipgrid: https://flipgrid.com; and Whiteboard: https://whiteboard.fi.
Online student engagement through real-world, experiential case studies
Dr Mo Kader, The Hotel School Sydney
Digital storytelling has been used to enhance online learning and engagement in higher education (Robin, 2006). Its use in improving the digital literacy of students (Hava, 2019) and their digital citizenship (Wu & Chen, 2020) has also been explored. This presentation examines the opportunities presented by integrating business and management cases with technology through the implementation of contemporary storytelling and experiential pedagogy in under-graduate management courses. It provides recommendations on how to engage learners through linkages between real-world, current stories and the subject matter being taught (Lambert & Hessler, 2018) including how to use digital tools to enable greater student participation. It illustrates the practical benefits and challenges associated with the use of current (contemporary), real-world cases to increase engagement and student participation in an online learning community through the Learning Management System (LMS) and Zoom online conferencing.
This presentation provides practical examples of solutions to common classroom problems that arise when integrating technology and subject content particularly when student engagement is at risk or with larger cohorts. These include attendance, language and digital literacy. It also explores the use of appropriate stories and the media reports surrounding them. Methods of integrating these events into the subject matter are also explored. The teaching insights from this approach show increased levels of student engagement with the subject matter and improved classroom dynamics. An increased willingness by students to read external articles is also observed as a result of the storytelling. Suggestions of good practice approaches to teaching and learning in the context of digital storytelling are examined and their impact on assessment administration is considered. The presentation includes a description of the Learning Management System (Blackboard and Moodle) and online video conferencing platform (Zoom) with regard to integration into the storytelling pedagogy.
Hava, K. (2019). Exploring the role of digital storytelling in student motivation and satisfaction in EFL education. Computer Assisted Language Learning, 1-21. https://doi.org/10.1080/09588221.2019.1650071
Lambert, J., & Hessler, B. (2018). Digital storytelling: Capturing lives, creating community (5th ed.). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781351266369
Robin, B. (2006, March 19). The educational uses of digital storytelling. In C. Crawford, R. Carlsen, K. McFerrin, J. Price, R. Weber & D. Willis (Eds.), Proceedings of SITE 2006--Society for Information Technology & Teacher Education International Conference. Orlando, Florida, USA: Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education (AACE). https://www.learntechlib.org/primary/p/22129/
Wu, J., & Chen, D. (2020). A systematic review of educational digital storytelling. Computers and Education, 147. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compedu.2019.103786
Rapid design, deployment and evaluation of online exams in mathematical units of study
Dr Michael Brickhill and Jamie Hetherington, SCU College
COVID-19 has presented universities worldwide with many challenges. Locally, social distancing protocols, together with limits placed upon gatherings within closed spaces, has forced the cancellation of invigilated face-to-face examinations at Southern Cross University (SCU). To address this situation for two first-year quantitative units within pathway programs at SCU, online examinations were prepared and deployed as online tests within Blackboard at short notice in place of usual face-to-face examinations. Students were encouraged to use the mathematical editor function within Blackboard and the equation editor function within Microsoft Word when developing and inserting answers into spaces provided for each question.
Being mindful of the additional cognitive load associated with the use of these tools (Prisacari & Danielson, 2017; Cramp et al., 2019), students were prepared for these examinations by the provision of an instruction video, practical examination papers and additional hardcopy advice beforehand. Students were also given four hours to complete their examinations instead of the usual two hours. Completion time data from Blackboard and student performance data as defined by students’ final grades for the examinations concerned suggest this additional time was adequate to cater for most students. Use of mathematical functions by students enhanced the visual structure and readability of student responses, thus making the marking process easier as markers were not confronted with legibility and interpretation issues typically associated with hand-written exams (Frankl & Bitter, 2012).
The replacement of traditional paper-based assessments with e-assessments foreshadowed a decade ago (Ripley, 2009) is likely to accelerate further post COVID-19. As such, care and due diligence are required for the design of future online assessments tasks of this nature to ensure that they are rigorous, secure and scalable (Allan, 2020), have sufficient depth and authenticity (Villarroel et al., 2019), and with measures and features put in place to address potential academic integrity concerns (D’Souza & Siegfeldt, 2017).
Allen, S. (2020, May 6). Online exam challenges: migration or transformation? [Video]. https://au.bbcollab.com/recording/190a620d761f4b96957d1a2c42add300
Cramp, J., Medlin, J. F., Lake, P., & Sharp, C. (2019). Lessons learned from implementing remotely invigilated online exams, Journal of University Teaching and Learning Practice, 16. https://ro.uow.edu.au/jutlp/vol16/iss1/10
D’Souza, K. A., & Siegfeldt, D. V. (2017). A conceptual framework for detecting cheating in online and take-home exams, Decision Sciences Journal of Innovative Education, 15, 370–391. https://doi.org/10.1111/dsji.12140
Frankl, G., & Bitter, S. (2012). Online exams: practical implications and future directions, Proceedings of the European Conference on e-Learning, pp. 158–164.
Prisacari, A., & Danielson, J. (2017). Computer-based versus paper-based testing: investigating testing mode with cognitive load and scratch paper use. Computers in Human Behavior, 77, 1–10. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2017.07.044
Ripley, M. (2009). Transformational Computer-based Testing. In F. Scheuermann & J. Bjornsson (Eds.), The Transition to Computer-based Assessment, European Commission Joint Research Centre, Italy, pp. 92–98. https://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/bitstream/111111111/8713/1/reqno_jrc49408_final_report_new(1)[1].pdf
Villarroel, V., Boud, D., Bloxham, S., Bruna D., & Bruna, C. (2020). Using principles of authentic assessment to redesign written examinations and tests, Innovations in Education and Teaching International, 57(1), 38–49. https://doi.org/10.1080/14703297.2018.1564882
Re-visioning attendance policies in the contemporary context of higher education
Dr Anne Bellert, School of Education
Until recently, in the contemporary Australian higher education context, calls for mandatory attendance policies still regularly echoed through the halls of academia, often with the rationale that this kind of ‘forced’ engagement was in the students’ best interests and ensured they would achieve better grades. Surprisingly, with the changes wrought by the impact of ubiquitous digital technologies for learning, such that in higher education, many students participate in at least some online or blended courses (Dawkins et al., 2019; Allen & Seaman, 2011), mandatory attendance requirements still held influence. Some higher education providers, whilst promoting flexible learning options, had mandatory attendance requirements for online lectures or tutorials, such was the influence of traditional notions about mandatory attendance.
Even in the absence of mandatory attendance policies, academic teachers in higher education commonly expressed concern about poor student attendance, for example, after delivering lectures to almost empty lecture theatres or low attendance for online seminars. It is somewhat ironic that mandatory attendance policies could never serve as a proxy for student engagement, as even forcing students to be in a place at a certain time cannot guarantee active participation in learning. Ideas about mandatory attendance have been contested in the past – with views that they are unnecessarily punitive (Muir, 2009), ethically questionable (McFarlane, 2016), and can have a negative impact, particularly on students who already face barriers to success in higher education (Stone et al., 2019).
In the current COVID-19 circumstance, and the likely future landscape in higher education in the post COVID-19 context, the very notion of attendance has been irreversibly changed, and policy or other requirements for compulsory attendance need to be challenged. Surely, the death knell for mandatory attendance policies is now tolling. Yet, the concern for student engagement that, optimistically, was the driver for misplaced focus on attendance, should not be lost. In proposing that innovation and creative approaches should replace notions of mandatory attendance, this presentation suggests that the focus must now shift to student engagement through authentic participation and self-regulated learning.
The presentation reports the findings of a recently conducted scoping review of the literature about mandatory attendance in higher education from the past 20 years. Arguments for and against mandatory attendance, reasons for non-attendance and strategies for teachers to enhance attendance, were identified. Notions of attendance in the contexts of online and blended programs were explored. Whilst the literature indicated a correlational connection between on-campus attendance and student achievement, the non-linear nature of this relationship was frequently emphasised, and individual student factors such as student motivation, conscientiousness, situational knowledge, and time spent ‘on task’ were also implicated in the relationship between attendance and achievement.
The review revealed some interesting perspectives on alternative perspectives for academic teachers in higher education to consider, instead of focusing on place-and-time-bound notions of attendance. For example, one study found that completion of (non-compulsory) formative online tasks was a better predictor of student attainment than attendance (Mackintosh-Franklin, 2018). The findings from another study suggested that in seeking to enhance professionalism in their students, educators need to re-think the privileging of one kind of learning (on-campus classes), as opposed to independent study (Lipscombe & Snelling, 2009). In this presentation, strategies and approaches for student engagement, curriculum design and quality teaching that are purportedly more justifiable and effective than mandatory attendance requirements will be shared.
Allen, E., & Seaman, J. (2011). Going the distance: Online education in the United States, 2011. Babson Survey Research Group and Quahog Research Group, LLC. https://www.onlinelearningsurvey.com/reports/goingthedistance.pdf
Dawkins, P., Hurley, P., & Noonan, P. (2019). Rethinking and revitalising tertiary education in Australia. Melbourne: Mitchell Institute. https://www.vu.edu.au/sites/default/files/rethinking-and-revitalising-tertiary-education-mitchell-institute.pdf
Lipscomb, M., & Snelling, P. (2010). Student nurse absenteeism in higher education: An argument against enforced attendance. Nurse Education Today, 30(6), 573–578. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nedt.2009.12.003
Macfarlane, B. (2013). The surveillance of learning: A critical analysis of university attendance policies. Higher Education Quarterly, 67(4), 358–373. https://doi.org/10.1111/hequ.12016
Mackintosh-Franklin, C. (2018). An evaluation into the impact of undergraduate nursing students classroom attendance and engagement with online tasks on overall academic achievement. Nurse Education Today, 61. http://search.proquest.com/docview/2053306088/
Muir, J., (2009). Student attendance: Is it important, and what do students think? CEBE Transactions, The Online Journal of the Centre for Education in the Built Environment, 6(2).
Stone, C., Freeman, E., Dyment, J., Muir, T. & Milthorpe, N. (2019). Equal or equitable? The role of flexibility within online education. Australian and International Journal of Rural Education, 29(2). https://journal.spera.asn.au/index.php/AIJRE/article/%20view/221
Saving lives (not death by PowerPoint) - using the H5P content creator in the BN
Elicia Kunst, School of Health and Human Sciences
Complex Challenges in Nursing Care (NRS30005) is a final unit in the Bachelor of Nursing (BN) which covers critical and challenging nursing knowledge and skill, including life-saving interventions. The content is closely related to real-life clinical practice. A significant portion of the unit is delivered in a very hands-on format in the clinical nursing teaching laboratories using a range of simulation contexts where weekly 3 hour on-campus classes support online learning.
The challenge during COVID-19 was to create accessible, meaningful, and engaging online nursing laboratory content for high risk, low frequency critical emergencies, including adult advanced life support (resuscitation), paediatric resuscitation, paediatric care including medication administration, and other adult emergencies. Using the H5P content editor, a series of online learning modules were developed. The H5P content creator allowed transition from face-to-face laboratory content to a series of interactive online modules that linked current best evidence practice to rich real-life practice. It enabled students to consolidate online lecture learning, practice critical thinking and clinical reasoning, and to link to a wide range of external clinical resources while checking their knowledge through an interactive experience.
Students provided very positive feedback about their online learning experiences and appreciated the combination of asynchronous delivery with the weekly drop-in Collaborate sessions to balance their time between study and life. This presentation will provide a brief overview of how the teaching plan for unit NRS30005 was transformed to meet COVID-19 safe online teaching requirements.
Student engagement through innovative technologies: VR/AR/XR past, present and future possibilities at SCU
Dr Lisa Jacka, School of Education and Centre for Teaching and Learning
Associate Professor Grayson Cooke, School of Arts and Social Sciences
Dr Tom Round, School of Law and Justice
Dr Lachlan Yee, School of Environment, Science and Engineering
Dr Vinh Bui, School of Business and Tourism
Fiona Lotherington and Andrew Woods, School of Health and Human Sciences
Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR) are emerging as promising clusters of technology and practice in education and training, and in entertainment and the arts; they comprise a multi-billion-dollar industry slated to grow dramatically over the coming years. This presentation will draw on a report (by the authors working party) collated to provide guidance on best practice and opportunities for SCU to explore this space. While scholarly literature on the value for VR in education is tentative and the evidence base is still emerging, VR experiences are understood to offer a range of potential benefits. We call VR/AR “clusters” of technology and practice because they are not a single technology, and careful consideration needs to be made about which technologies best suit which contexts.
Across multiple technologies there are key considerations and barriers to entry - cost/accessibility, ease of content creation, immersion, and interactivity. There is also the danger of orphaned technologies: the VR/AR market is still evolving, and commitment to technologies subject to obsolescence is a common pitfall. However, VR/AR/XR has been acknowledged as an emerging technology that presents a significant opportunity to enhance student engagement. The working party has identified what some of the possibilities and barriers are in the SCU context. This presentation will discuss these and invite feedback from the audience to further develop the SCU scholarship on this topic.
Teaching strategies used to improve final-year nursing students’ foundational knowledge and self-assessed confidence in interpreting cardiac arrhythmias
Dr Lisa Chen, Dima Nasrawi, Associate Professor Deb Massey, Elicia Kunst, School of Health and Human Sciences
Dr Amy Johnston, University of Queensland
Professor Kathryn Keller, Florida Atlantic University
Graduating nurses should possess knowledge and understanding of cardiac arrhythmias interpretation so they can assess abnormal and life-threatening arrhythmias (Australian Nursing & Midwifery Accreditation Council, 2019). However, literature remains scarce around nursing students’ foundational knowledge in cardiac arrhythmia interpretation (Habibzadeh et al., 2019), who are in their final year of study leading to initial registration as registered nurses. This presentation will showcase the teaching strategies that have been changed as the result of COVID-19, and will ascertain the students’ understanding of their foundational knowledge and their self-assessed confidence when interpreting cardiac arrhythmias with the use of an online survey. Online self-directed learning methods were used, often referred to as a ‘flipped classroom’ approach (Lo & Hew, 2017), in which online modules were completed in the students’ own time and then later reinforced through clinical application in online tutorials. It explores the challenges and opportunities in developing high-level educational cardiac arrhythmia interpretation.
Australian Nursing & Midwifery Accreditation Council. (2019). Registered nurse accreditation standards 2019. https://www.anmac.org.au/standards-and-review/registered-nurse
Habibzadeh, H., Rahmani, A., Rahimi, B., Rezai, S. A., Aghakhani, N., & Hosseinzadegan, F. (2019). Comparative study of virtual and traditional teaching methods on the interpretation of cardiac dysrhythmia in nursing students. Journal of Education and Health Promotion, 8(1). https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31807592/
Lo, C. K., & Hew, K. F. (2017). A critical review of flipped classroom challenges in K-12 education: possible solutions and recommendations for future research. Research and practice in technology enhanced learning, 12(1), 4. https://doi.org/10.1186/s41039-016-0044-2
Two days to transition: Taking the music degree online
Dr Matt Hill, Dr Leigh Carriage, Dr Philippe Chambin, Dr Barry Hill, Associate Professor Annie Mitchell, Steve Russell, David Sanders, and Tim Sladden, School of Arts and Social Sciences
This presentation will trace the rapid transition to online delivery undertaken by staff in the Bachelor of Contemporary Music (BCM) degree since March 2020. Prior to the pandemic, the BCM was delivered entirely on-campus at Lismore and in 2020 the degree was also offered for the first time at the Coomera campus of Queensland TAFE. This double-barrelled provocation propelled staff into a dizzy whirlwind of innovation that has not yet subsided. Numerous technological tools have been trialled and staff continue to refine delivery methods that range from one-to-one, small group, small and large ensemble teaching, to more traditional lecture and tutorial modes.
Overcoming the issue of latency to enable remote participation in ensembles has been one of the key difficulties. The use of online tools, such as Splice and Audiomovers, have allowed staff and students to easily share audio projects, however, latency remains a barrier to real-time online musical interaction. Assessment of live performance has also proved challenging in the restricted COVID-19 environment. For students without suitable home studios, the creation of backing tracks and use of the isolated booths in the University studio facilities has provided them the opportunity to complete live performance assessments with high quality sound and video recording. With access to campus facilities restricted, staff and students have had to ensure compliance with strict WHS guidelines for any on-campus activities.
Since March, music staff have worked as a team to address challenges, drawing on professional practice experience to solve technical problems and enlisting help from a wide network of musicians, music teachers, technicians and educators all dealing with similar issues. With minimal preparation time, many issues required immediate support or intervention for a class to proceed. This required staff to essentially be ‘on call’ for others for troubleshooting purposes; whether it be to jump into a Collaborate Session to solve a problem, to test a new audio setup, or to simply offer a sympathetic ear to a fellow staff member sinking deep into a Collaborate/Zoom induced fatigue.
Use of a case study to develop market-ready graduates in engineering
Robert Rollin, Associate Professor Peter Coombes, Dr Maree Lake, School of Environment, Science and Engineering
Dr Jenelle Benson, Centre for Teaching and Learning
The Associate Degree in Civil Construction (Engineering Management) (CCEM), which recently obtained Engineers Australia’s provisional accreditation, was designed explicitly to develop market-ready engineering graduates. The new degree and associated Diploma was developed in response to needs identified through the Engineering Advisory Committee and an industry survey, and are designed to be offered online based on a blended-learning approach (Southern Cross University, 2019). Research by Tharayil et al. (2018) states that in a discipline such as STEM, active engagement is one of the main tools to improve student understanding and grades. A real-world application of a case study provides this engagement. To develop engineering professionals that are industry ready, the team selected and embedded a single case study to be used across multiple units within this associate degree to provide a scenario that was relevant to the students (Roddy et al., 2017; Harvey et al., 2016). As the students’ progress through the different engineering disciplines in their first two years, they are asked to apply concepts learnt to the case study.
The case study is an actual current residential land development project in the Lismore area. The case study is used in conjunction with Lismore City Council and the developer, who have both made the project material available to the University for teaching purposes. The materials are provided to the student through one common database residing in Blackboard.
Various methods are used to embed practical experience in the units including - questions in the unit content to test student understanding of the concepts against the case study, weekly tasks that are typical work a junior engineer would perform on site, and an assessment based on the application of the theory to the case study scenarios. The use of a case study as the core scenario that all units refer to allows students to gain a deeper understating of the processes and theories, and how they apply to specific scenarios. As students are already familiar with the case study, their attention is focused towards the specific details of that unit (Roddy et al., 2017; Harvey et al., 2016).
Harvey, M., Power, M., & Wilson, M. (2016). A review of intensive mode of delivery and science subjects in Australian universities. Journal of Biological Education, 51(3), 315-325. https://doi.org/10.1080/00219266.2016.1217912
Roddy, C., Lalaine Amiet, D., Chung, J., Holt, C., Shaw, L., McKenzie, S., Garivaldis, F., Lodge, J. M., & Mundy, M. E. (2017). Applying best practice online learning, teaching and support to intensive online environments: An integrative review. Frontiers in Education, 2. https://doi.org/10.3389/feduc.2017.00059
Southern Cross University. (2019, May). A tertiary pathways model for civil construction engineering and management.
Tharayil, S., Borrego, M., Prince, M., Nguyen, K. A., Shekhar, P., Finelli, C. J., & Waters, C. (2018). Strategies to mitigate student resistance to active learning. International Journal of STEM Education, 5(7). https://doi.org/10.1186/s40594-018-0102-y
Using Zoom to facilitate authentic online assessment
Matt Sorenson, Technology Services
Use Zoom to create a platform for your students to have an authentic online group assessment experience, without an assessor present. Learn how to create multiple simultaneous meetings which will automatically send the recordings generated back to the assessor for marking. This process empowers the assessor to maintain control, security and privacy of all meetings and all the recordings created. The presentation will be showcasing unreleased features of Zoom. A sneak peek into what Technology Services are working on.
WIL – here, there, then anywhere...from home
Dr Julia Caldicott and Dr Sharen Nisbet, School of Business and Tourism
Work-integrated learning (WIL) is a common component of university curricula design for many disciplines. There are different WIL experiences, including internships, practicums, clinical placements, volunteering, case studies, community programs, fieldwork, role plays, simulations, and virtual projects. Although alternative models of WIL are being designed and implemented, off-campus internship placements were the most common form of WIL prior to COVID-19 (Jackson, 2017; Orrell, 2011). The COVID-19 situation required exploration and experimentation with new ways of engaging with industry partners.
The School of Business and Tourism’s (SBaT) WIL program consists of a workplace preparation unit and a capstone internship placement. The program is a core requirement for undergraduate tourism, and hospitality and event management students; an elective for postgraduate tourism and hospitality management students; and an elective for undergraduate and postgraduate business and IT students. Traditionally, the curriculum and pedagogical approach in the WIL program centred on face-to-face industry engagement where students undertake their internship placements predominantly in service industry roles.
In response to the COVID-19 situation universities acted swiftly to transition to online classes. WIL educators faced the additional challenge of designing and delivering innovative solutions to enable students to continue to learn in partnership with industry. Approaches adopted in Session 1 for students undertaking placements included reducing required work placement hours, completing placement tasks remotely, and undertaking alternative project-based industry experiences via Practera, a third-party provider. In Session 2, students had the option of deferring their internship enrolment or completing substitute units, including the Community Engagement Project unit with all tasks completed remotely. The internship units are available in Session 3, but only remote/online placements will be undertaken to mitigate COVID-19 risks. In the WIL preparation units students engaged with industry partners via technology rather than on-campus class presentations. Additionally, students were encouraged to undertake a remote online project with ReadyGrad, a third-party provider, as preparation for future remote internship placements.
Strategies implemented enabled students to meet the learning outcomes of the WIL units. Student and industry feedback regarding these alternative teaching and learning strategies in the WIL units was mixed. The new ways of thinking and doing WIL, when COVID-19 restrictions impact on face-to-face activities, has prompted us to question our reliance on placements where students complete tasks within a physical workplace. Adopting an approach of preparing students for the workforce rather than the workplace may present additional teaching and learning opportunities in WIL units.
Jackson, D. (2017). Developing pre-professional identity in undergraduates through work-integrated learning. Higher Education, 74(5), 833-853.
Orrell, J. E. (2011). Good practice report: Work-integrated learning. Sydney, Australia: Australian Learning & Teaching Council.