scholarly journals An agile approach to co-creation of the curriculum

2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 89-97
Author(s):  
John Owen ◽  
Catherine Wasiuk

The importance of developing meaningful student engagement through partnerships is an increasing area of interest and practice within the context of learning and teaching in higher education. This case study reports on an approach used in a co-created curriculum project that aligned the values and principles of student-staff partnerships with those of an agile framework. Through an analysis of the individual team reflections captured during and after the project, the study explores how the agile approach could help address imbalances of power between students and staff in higher education. The results of the study show that team members found that working in this new way increased confidence in co-creating teaching and learning with staff and fostered a positive team relationship, although some reflections indicate that assumptions of power are deeply embedded within the structures and roles of higher education. However, our findings suggest that this way of working can result in positive experiences for students and staff and could be applied to a wide range of student-staff partnership projects.

Author(s):  
Geraldine Lefoe ◽  
Robyn Philip ◽  
Meg O'Reilly ◽  
Dominique Parrish

<span>The ALTC Exchange (formerly the Carrick Exchange), is a national repository and networking service for Australian higher education. The Exchange was designed to provide access to a repository of shared learning and teaching resources, work spaces for team members engaged in collaborative projects, and communication and networking services. The Australian Learning and Teaching Council (ALTC) established the Exchange for those who teach, manage and lead learning and teaching in higher education. As part of the research conducted to inform the development of the Exchange, models for peer review of educational resources were evaluated. For this, a design based research approach was adopted. Findings from the literature and feedback from key practitioners and leaders within the sector are discussed in this paper. Finally, key recommendations for implementation are identified.</span>


2020 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 184-195 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chrissi Nerantzi

This article provides an overview of peer instruction and flipped learning, two active learning approaches, in the context of learning and teaching in higher education and illustrates their relevance during the COVID-19 pandemic. Peer instruction and flipped learning should be considered when designing for flexible learning. These approaches can stimulate learning and create seamless active engagement in fully online and blended settings even when switching between these modes becomes necessary due to developments in this pandemic. This transitioning between fully online and blended, as and when required, is something that is of high importance during these challenging times, especially for campus-based universities as they are keen to secure the smooth running of their programmes under difficult circumstances. This article provides practical advice for course designers, module and programme leaders on how they can utilise peer instruction or flipped learning to maximise student engagement and learning.


2016 ◽  
Vol 16 (5) ◽  
pp. 107-122
Author(s):  
Deborah West ◽  
Helen Stephenson

In the current higher education environment, providing high quality teaching and learning experiences to students has moved beyond desirable to essential. Quality improvement takes many forms, but one core aspect to ensure sustainable improvement is the development of a culture of scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL). Developing such an institutional culture is surprisingly challenging yet essential to improving the status of teaching in higher education (HE), being successful in teaching and learning awards and grants, and, improving the student experience. The Australian Government’s Promoting Excellence Network initiative funds networks to foster collaboration between HE institutions to improve outcomes in national learning and teaching award and grant programs. Supported by this funding, the South Australian / Northern Territory Promoting Excellence Network (SANTPEN), a grouping of six institutions, formed. Bringing together a diverse network of institutions, similar only by virtue of geographic location is challenging. This paper describes the first three years of SANTPEN’s journey from the context of our own development with the concept of SoTL and how we applied this to build a culture of SoTL in and between our institutions. It also demonstrates how a modest budget can be put to effective use to benefit those immediately involved, institutional objectives and the aims of the national funding body. We provide evidence of this effectiveness and conclude with our collective aspirations for the future of SANTPEN and other likeminded and funded networks.


2021 ◽  
Vol 18 (4) ◽  
pp. 2-7
Author(s):  
Alisa Percy ◽  
◽  
Nona Press ◽  
Martin B Andrew ◽  
Vikk Pollard ◽  
...  

When the Journal of University Teaching and Learning Practice — JUTLP as we have come to know it — was established in 2004, it was to fill a perceived gap in publications related to teaching and learning practice in higher education, with practice being the operative word (Carter, 2004). While other higher education journals existed, they were mainly the purview of academic developers and the most prodigious of disciplinary academics researching their teaching. In contrast, JUTLP was to be built as open-access and its readership as ‘practitioners looking for good ideas based soundly on a body of accessible theory and research’ (McInnes, 2004, n.p.). JUTLP was established in the Australian context at a time when promoting excellence in teaching and learning was regarded as an important government agenda to improve the student experience, and not accidentally, coincided with the creation of the Carrick Institute for Learning and Teaching in Higher Education (later the Australian Learning and Teaching Council, and later again the Office for Learning and Teaching). The Carrick Institute supported national cross-institutional grants and fellowship schemes, and promoted national networks of educational research into practice to support the mission of the then Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations (DEEWR) to ensure all ‘Australian higher education institutions provide high quality teaching and learning for all students’ (Carrick, 2009). How times have changed.


Author(s):  
Leticia Anderson ◽  
Lynette Riley

Abstract The shift to massified higher education has resulted in surges in the recruitment of staff and students from more diverse backgrounds, without ensuring the necessary concomitant changes in institutional and pedagogical cultures. Providing a genuinely inclusive and ‘safer’ higher education experience in this context requires a paradigm shift in our approaches to learning and teaching in higher education. Creating safer spaces in classrooms is a necessary building block in the transformation and decolonisation of higher education cultures and the development of cultural competency for all staff and graduates. This paper outlines an approach to crafting safer spaces within the classroom, focusing on a case study of strategies for teaching and learning about race, racism and intersectionality employed by the authors in an undergraduate Indigenous Studies unit at an urban Australian university.


2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 414-418
Author(s):  
Nancy Chick ◽  
Katarina Martensson

A review of Mick Healey, Kelly E. Matthews, and Alison Cook-Sather’s Writing about Learning and Teaching in Higher Education: Creating and Contributing to Scholarly Conversations across a Range of Genres 


2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 414-418
Author(s):  
Nancy Chick ◽  
Katarina Martensson

A review of Mick Healey, Kelly E. Matthews, and Alison Cook-Sather’s Writing about Learning and Teaching in Higher Education: Creating and Contributing to Scholarly Conversations across a Range of Genres 


Author(s):  
Liz Thomas

In the UK students have traditionally moved away from home to study in higher education, but this is changing as a consequence of greater participation, and the shift in responsibility for financing study from the State to individual students and their families. This research under took 60 qualitative interviews with students of all ages who defined themselves as ‘commuters’, who continue to live at home whilst studying. The study found that while the students largely viewed themselves as ‘good students’ aiming to engage fully in their academic studies, the stresses and strains – and cost and time – involved in travelling - resulted in students evaluating the utility of a trip to campus, considering whether their resources would be better spent studying at home. In addition, these students tended to be less engaged in ‘enhancement’ activities, and had very little social engagement with HE peers. Commuter students achieve less good outcomes: they are more likely to withdraw early, achieve lower attainment and are less likely to secure graduate employment on completion. This paper considers the implications for student engagement and teaching and learning in higher education of a larger commuter student population, in an effort to achieve greater equity in student outcomes.


2018 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 97-111
Author(s):  
Gladys Sterenberg ◽  
Kevin O'Connor ◽  
Ashlyn Donnelly ◽  
Ranee Drader

Calls for enhancing student engagement in higher education have offered strong arguments for student-faculty partnerships in teaching and learning. Drawing on a conceptual model of partnership learning communities (PLC), we investigate the experiences of two undergraduate research assistants (co-authors of this paper) who participated in a PLC within a Scholarship of Teaching and Learning research study. In this paper, we use data from transcripts of four research conversations occurring over a three-year period. Evidence of research assistants’ experiences was co-analyzed using benefits and challenges identified in the literature. Our findings reveal that our PLC helped these research assistants develop student agency and provided opportunities for reflection on learning. We conclude that participating in our PLC helped the two research assistants develop deeper pedagogical relationships amongst themselves and with the faculty partners. Moreover, our study directly contributed to the development of our bachelor of education degree program while ensuring students were partners in that process.


Author(s):  
Charles Buckley ◽  
Chrissi Nerantzi

This Special Issue aims to go deeper in exploring the potential uses of visual representation in teaching and learning and the implications for practice in the context of higher education while showcasing the emerging work and research in this area from around the world. We welcome articles from new and more experienced academic writers, practitioners and researchers who have been creating, using and adapting various forms of visual representation across the disciplines and professional areas. We also invitestudents who are using them for their learning at undergraduate, postgraduate or doctoral level, from around the world and would like to share their work with a wider audience through an open access issue to help us all gain new insights and deepen our understandings in this area.


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