Name: Cécile Dutreix
Cécile is not the original author of this idea but has used it effectively in her teaching. The original author is not known.
Field or discipline: Social Work
Program: Bachelor of Social Work
Course: Human Service Provision
Year level: 1
Class size: 25
Activity type: Values Walk
Aim: Explore a range of perspectives in values, including social justice and the implications for services in a multicultural, non-racist and gender sensitive context. Developing graduate qualities 1,2,5 and 6.
Description: Students are asked to reflect on their values and position in relation to the following statements (ie strongly agree to strongly disagree). The students move from one side of the room to the other depending on their position.
· Women should stay at home when their children are young
· Capital punishment should be reintroduced
· Divorce is too easy
· People on the dole are lazy
· Anyone can go to university
· Abortion is wrong
· Teachers should be banned if they are known to be gay or lesbian
· Refugees are queue jumpers
· Children raised in 2 parent families are better off than children raised in single parent families
People may choose to discuss why they took this position (but are not required to if they do not wish to). This generates discussion which leads to increased knowledge and understanding of differing values and beliefs.
Application: This exercise enables students to explore and challenge their own values, prejudices and assumptions. If there is a lack of respect and courtesy within the group, this can disintegrate into argument and personal attacks. Students should be prepared by deciding on group norms prior to this exercise and in particular discussing the need for respect of differing views and beliefs.
Wednesday, December 23, 2009
Tuesday, December 22, 2009
Mouse-trap powered cars
Name: Liz Smith
Field or discipline: Engineering
Program: Common first year - Civil, Electrical, Mechanical
Course: Engineering and Design Innovation
Year level: 1
Class size: 180
Activity type: Assignment
Description: Students, working in groups, create an innovative design model and compare their creations with their peers. This year the design brief was to make a car that was made of ordinary objects and propelled by a mouse trap. A public event to test the design and innovations was held in the Experience 1 studio, an informal learning environment for first year engineering students. Students were assessed by interview with a 'scruitineer' on the merits of their creation as well as performance - distance that the car was propelled.
Application: Community and peer engagement with professional learning
Field or discipline: Engineering
Program: Common first year - Civil, Electrical, Mechanical
Course: Engineering and Design Innovation
Year level: 1
Class size: 180
Activity type: Assignment
Description: Students, working in groups, create an innovative design model and compare their creations with their peers. This year the design brief was to make a car that was made of ordinary objects and propelled by a mouse trap. A public event to test the design and innovations was held in the Experience 1 studio, an informal learning environment for first year engineering students. Students were assessed by interview with a 'scruitineer' on the merits of their creation as well as performance - distance that the car was propelled.
One that had a good run
Scrutinisation of a air-bag design for a mouse-trap car
Application: Community and peer engagement with professional learning
Wednesday, December 16, 2009
Modelling Project
Field or discipline: Mathematics
Program: Bachelor of Mathematics
Course: System Modelling
Year level: 3
Class size: 30
Activity type: Project
Aim:
Use discipline knowledge; develop liaison, teamwork and communication skills.
Description:
For a course in modelling, groups of students choose a project from a list, discuss the project and agree aims with an industry partner, construct a mathematical model to represent the problem, undertake analysis, write a report and present the results.
The benefits of this activity are that it addresses several graduate qualities and allows the students to gain a sense of professional accomplishment by organising projects. It also assists the student to gain an understanding of the need to develop their own networks/contacts outside university.
Implementation:
This idea comes from personal history. I still recall the learning experience that engaging in such a project gave me. Organising the project demands a lot from the lecturer. Probably it could not be done by commencing lecturers, it requires some time to build up the connections in industry to ask them to be partners.
Program: Bachelor of Mathematics
Course: System Modelling
Year level: 3
Class size: 30
Activity type: Project
Aim:
Use discipline knowledge; develop liaison, teamwork and communication skills.
Description:
For a course in modelling, groups of students choose a project from a list, discuss the project and agree aims with an industry partner, construct a mathematical model to represent the problem, undertake analysis, write a report and present the results.
The benefits of this activity are that it addresses several graduate qualities and allows the students to gain a sense of professional accomplishment by organising projects. It also assists the student to gain an understanding of the need to develop their own networks/contacts outside university.
Implementation:
This idea comes from personal history. I still recall the learning experience that engaging in such a project gave me. Organising the project demands a lot from the lecturer. Probably it could not be done by commencing lecturers, it requires some time to build up the connections in industry to ask them to be partners.
Problem Solving Discussion During Lecture
Name: Sue Milne
As originally suggested by Professor Vicki Waye
Field or discipline: Law
Program: Bachelor of Law
Course: Contract Law
Year level: 1
Class size: 30-80
Activity type: Problem solving discussion during lecture
Aim: Learning the principles, graduate qualities, problems solving skills, team work
Description: Mid-lecture, after discussion of a substantive topic, students are put into small groups (between 4 and 5 students) and given a set of problem scenarios. The lecturer moves between groups to facilitate discussions if required and when groups are faced with a similar difficulty, bring the discussion back to the whole class for a time, and then continue with problem in small groups.
Application: Often each group has a leader who dominates the discussion. This person however is usually articulate and has good problem solving skills. Therefore, they do provide another point of learning for other students in the group. Group dynamics need to be monitored.
As originally suggested by Professor Vicki Waye
Field or discipline: Law
Program: Bachelor of Law
Course: Contract Law
Year level: 1
Class size: 30-80
Activity type: Problem solving discussion during lecture
Aim: Learning the principles, graduate qualities, problems solving skills, team work
Description: Mid-lecture, after discussion of a substantive topic, students are put into small groups (between 4 and 5 students) and given a set of problem scenarios. The lecturer moves between groups to facilitate discussions if required and when groups are faced with a similar difficulty, bring the discussion back to the whole class for a time, and then continue with problem in small groups.
Application: Often each group has a leader who dominates the discussion. This person however is usually articulate and has good problem solving skills. Therefore, they do provide another point of learning for other students in the group. Group dynamics need to be monitored.
Group Work During Tutorial
Name: Emma Fabbro
Activity type: Group work during tutorial
Aim: To reach every student within the tutorial on a one on one basis and gauge their knowledge and understanding.
Description: Give students a past exam question to work on for a few minutes in the tutorial. While they are working on the question walk around the room to each group and talk one on one to students. This gives students who would not normally speak up in a larger group the opportunity to communicate and talk to you. The discussion helps with exam revision.
Application: Provides individual student contact but other students may not stay on task. It may also become loud.
Activity type: Group work during tutorial
Aim: To reach every student within the tutorial on a one on one basis and gauge their knowledge and understanding.
Description: Give students a past exam question to work on for a few minutes in the tutorial. While they are working on the question walk around the room to each group and talk one on one to students. This gives students who would not normally speak up in a larger group the opportunity to communicate and talk to you. The discussion helps with exam revision.
Application: Provides individual student contact but other students may not stay on task. It may also become loud.
Using Student Feedback for Course Development
Name: Chris Saunders
Activity type: Using Student Feedback
Aim: Improve teaching style to suit what students want using student reflection of the course delivery
Description: Provide students with lecture course material, then in tutorials work with them on the delivery of content. Ask them how they found the course delivery, how they learned best and what they would change. Make sure they understand the content and get them to develop the course style for subsequent course deliveries.
Application: Use this to help students take ownership of the course. Can develop exam material from the students’ developed work.
Activity type: Using Student Feedback
Aim: Improve teaching style to suit what students want using student reflection of the course delivery
Description: Provide students with lecture course material, then in tutorials work with them on the delivery of content. Ask them how they found the course delivery, how they learned best and what they would change. Make sure they understand the content and get them to develop the course style for subsequent course deliveries.
Application: Use this to help students take ownership of the course. Can develop exam material from the students’ developed work.
Thursday, December 10, 2009
Interactive Challenge
Activity type: Interactive Challenge
Aim: To provide a comfortable environment for students to apply theoretical knowledge to clinical scenarios. Provide information to students in meaningful ways. Encourage thought on subtle protocol variations between staff and departments. Discuss activities undertaken to provide feedback and facilitate self-reflection. Improve class confidence prior to placement. The student objectives were to identify areas of deficit in clinical skills and to demonstrate ability to apply theoretical knowledge to clinical practice. This task gave student simulated experience in general practice to challenge their knowledge base and help them to gain confidence.
Description: As part of preclinical session, a PowerPoint file making use of hyperlinks shows images of a skeleton (for surface anatomy) and a simulated field of view over the top in three different positions. The students are asked questions relating to the images. Selected answers link to a discussion. Some options for correcting poor choices are also discussed together with other questions and challenges. Following this 30 minute session, the class discusses the questions and the processes.
Aim: To provide a comfortable environment for students to apply theoretical knowledge to clinical scenarios. Provide information to students in meaningful ways. Encourage thought on subtle protocol variations between staff and departments. Discuss activities undertaken to provide feedback and facilitate self-reflection. Improve class confidence prior to placement. The student objectives were to identify areas of deficit in clinical skills and to demonstrate ability to apply theoretical knowledge to clinical practice. This task gave student simulated experience in general practice to challenge their knowledge base and help them to gain confidence.
Description: As part of preclinical session, a PowerPoint file making use of hyperlinks shows images of a skeleton (for surface anatomy) and a simulated field of view over the top in three different positions. The students are asked questions relating to the images. Selected answers link to a discussion. Some options for correcting poor choices are also discussed together with other questions and challenges. Following this 30 minute session, the class discusses the questions and the processes.
Pre-assessment Task to Improve Learning Outcomes
Activity type: Group research project
Aim: Development of analytical, team work, brainstorming and time management skills, and subject knowledge.
Description: Students were given articles to read allowing them to develop their subject knowledge. They then used this new knowledge to develop arguments and form opinions and were then given the opportunity to present an opinion based on the information they had gathered. After completion of this task they attended a 2 hour lecture relating to the same topic. The students were able to link their ideas to the lecture more productively and consolidate their understanding of the topic, leading to better learning outcomes on subsequent assessment tasks.
Aim: Development of analytical, team work, brainstorming and time management skills, and subject knowledge.
Description: Students were given articles to read allowing them to develop their subject knowledge. They then used this new knowledge to develop arguments and form opinions and were then given the opportunity to present an opinion based on the information they had gathered. After completion of this task they attended a 2 hour lecture relating to the same topic. The students were able to link their ideas to the lecture more productively and consolidate their understanding of the topic, leading to better learning outcomes on subsequent assessment tasks.
Drafting a Human Rights Bill
Name: Lori Kambitsis
Field or discipline: BUT
Program: Bachelor of Law
Course: Law, Society and Justice
Year level: 1
Class size: 20
Activity type: Drafting a Human Rights Bill
Aim: Develop graduate qualities 1,2,3,4 and 6
Description:
The class is divided into small groups and directed to draft a clause/provision that the group unanimously agree should be part of the Australian Bill of Rights. It is best to have a few suggestions clauses available, i.e. free education, right to marriage. Pre-reading is a must for students to understand the foundations of civil rights in various countries.
Preparation
Break into groups of 3 & request groups allocate positions
You are a policy officer in the Attorney-General’s Department. You are asked to draft one clause for a Bill of Rights for Australia over the next 20 minutes.
Prepare a draft clause and be prepared to discuss, at a senior officer’s meeting, the following:
Allows students to:
Field or discipline: BUT
Program: Bachelor of Law
Course: Law, Society and Justice
Year level: 1
Class size: 20
Activity type: Drafting a Human Rights Bill
Aim: Develop graduate qualities 1,2,3,4 and 6
Description:
The class is divided into small groups and directed to draft a clause/provision that the group unanimously agree should be part of the Australian Bill of Rights. It is best to have a few suggestions clauses available, i.e. free education, right to marriage. Pre-reading is a must for students to understand the foundations of civil rights in various countries.
Preparation
Break into groups of 3 & request groups allocate positions
- Scribe
- Speaker
- Timekeeper
(5 mins)
- Decide upon clause
- Note pros and cons of such clause in a Bill of Rights (10 mins)
- Draft clause, including Exclusions, Definitions, Conditions and Sanctions
(20 mins)
- Pros and cons of including the draft clause into a BOR
- Methodology of drafting to avoid ambiguity, relevance now and into the future
- Difficulties with this exercise
- Which tools/resources do you require in order to complete this activity properly – (e.g. legislation access to internet, social views, economic position etc)
(20 mins)
- Expose ambiguities
- Raise issues
- Support and validate good work
- Keep them on track
- Question their work, make observations etc.
You are a policy officer in the Attorney-General’s Department. You are asked to draft one clause for a Bill of Rights for Australia over the next 20 minutes.
Prepare a draft clause and be prepared to discuss, at a senior officer’s meeting, the following:
- Why the draft clause should be included along with suggestions to overcome likely objections to its inclusion
- How the clause is unambiguous, relevant now and will be suitable for the future
- The difficulties you as a group experienced in undertaking this task
- Which tools/ resources would assist to make this task easier.
Allows students to:
- build relationships with each other by working collaboratively
- appreciate the complexity of drafting
- be aware of how social and historical underpinnings of a country can effect legislating
- realise the policy implications of legislating
- comprehend the difference between negative and positive human rights and as a result the impacts and effects on social economic and political imperatives of government when drafting legislation.
- develop written communicative and legal writing skills in particular understanding the complexity of language requirements in drafting and the need to write clearly and concisely –i.e. articulate yet plain and simple
- develop and refine critical thinking skills
Group Quiz
Name: Jun Ma
Program: Bachelor of Engineering
Course: Design in plastics and composites
Year level: 3
Class size: 80
Activity type: Student engaged learning
Aim: Improve class attendance
Description: Group quiz at the end of the lecture
Program: Bachelor of Engineering
Course: Design in plastics and composites
Year level: 3
Class size: 80
Activity type: Student engaged learning
Aim: Improve class attendance
Description: Group quiz at the end of the lecture
Using Utopian Fiction for Political Analysis
Name: Alistair McCulloch
Field or discipline: Politics/Public Management
Program: BA in Public Administration
Course: Political Analysis
Year level: 2
Class size: 50+
Activity type: Using Utopian fiction as a source of case studies in teaching political analysis
Aim: To have students read at least one book during the academic year and to have them explore, and to facilitate the academic assessment of their understanding of and ability to use, concepts and theories.
Description: Asking students to assess the distribution of power and critique a set of sound relations in an ‘extant’ society is problematic because the undergraduate textbooks (sociology and politics) provide ‘potted’ descriptions which effectively answer the questions and encourage plagiarism. It is better to ask students to undertake the exercise in the context of a society with which they are unfamiliar and about which there are few available analyses. Real-world cases which students could become familiar with quickly are rare, but utopian novels such as 1984, Brave New World, Island and Ecotopia provide just such a comprehensive social system which can act as the basis for the assessment of student understanding. Some even enjoy it.
Further Reading: A. McCulloch (1997). ‘Seeking the Holy Grail? Utopian Novels as an Aid to Teaching and Assessing Political Analysis Courses’, Teaching Public Administration, Vol. 17, No. 1, pp. 73-78.
Field or discipline: Politics/Public Management
Program: BA in Public Administration
Course: Political Analysis
Year level: 2
Class size: 50+
Activity type: Using Utopian fiction as a source of case studies in teaching political analysis
Aim: To have students read at least one book during the academic year and to have them explore, and to facilitate the academic assessment of their understanding of and ability to use, concepts and theories.
Description: Asking students to assess the distribution of power and critique a set of sound relations in an ‘extant’ society is problematic because the undergraduate textbooks (sociology and politics) provide ‘potted’ descriptions which effectively answer the questions and encourage plagiarism. It is better to ask students to undertake the exercise in the context of a society with which they are unfamiliar and about which there are few available analyses. Real-world cases which students could become familiar with quickly are rare, but utopian novels such as 1984, Brave New World, Island and Ecotopia provide just such a comprehensive social system which can act as the basis for the assessment of student understanding. Some even enjoy it.
Further Reading: A. McCulloch (1997). ‘Seeking the Holy Grail? Utopian Novels as an Aid to Teaching and Assessing Political Analysis Courses’, Teaching Public Administration, Vol. 17, No. 1, pp. 73-78.
Tuesday, December 8, 2009
Role play in nursing
Activity type: Role Play
Aim: To understand the symptoms/signs of health conditions
Description: The tutor acts out conditions of patients. After the performance, the class discusses the patient’s symptoms/signs to gain an understanding of what individual patients with certain conditions are experiencing.
Application: Being a hands-on person, I found this was an excellent way for me to learn.
Aim: To understand the symptoms/signs of health conditions
Description: The tutor acts out conditions of patients. After the performance, the class discusses the patient’s symptoms/signs to gain an understanding of what individual patients with certain conditions are experiencing.
Application: Being a hands-on person, I found this was an excellent way for me to learn.
Field Placement in the Library
Aim: Real life experience in a controlled environment. Develops graduate qualities 1 and 2.
Description: Students, in pairs, spend one day at the library. Half the day is spent shadowing staff on the reference desk and the other half spent shadowing a staff member on a deferred research query.
Students are assessed using a reflective journal.
Description: Students, in pairs, spend one day at the library. Half the day is spent shadowing staff on the reference desk and the other half spent shadowing a staff member on a deferred research query.
Students are assessed using a reflective journal.
Dinner Guest Speaker
Activity type: Dinner guest speaker networking opportunity
Aim: To give the students an opportunity to listen to a property entrepreneur and also give students a chance to speak to them afterwards on a one-to-one basis.
Description: At the end of the course we have a celebration dinner. A local property entrepreneur is invited to come along and speak about how they made their money. After the speech there is an opportunity for the students to speak to them on a one-to-one basis.
Aim: To give the students an opportunity to listen to a property entrepreneur and also give students a chance to speak to them afterwards on a one-to-one basis.
Description: At the end of the course we have a celebration dinner. A local property entrepreneur is invited to come along and speak about how they made their money. After the speech there is an opportunity for the students to speak to them on a one-to-one basis.
Tutorial Assessment
Activity type: Tutorial Assessment
Aim: To promote tutorial preparation, participation and ongoing learning throughout the study period.
Description: Students are assessed on tutorial work. Students are required to come to tutorials with pre-prepared tutorial answers. On three randomly selected weeks (selected by tutor) students are required to submit their answers for assessment.
Another component of this is tutorial tests where students are given three mini tests throughout the study period.
Application: Students receive more feedback throughout the study period. They can better gauge their own learning and areas they may need to reflect on. Also helps tutor to gauge students’ understanding of material and topics which may need to be covered in more detail.
Aim: To promote tutorial preparation, participation and ongoing learning throughout the study period.
Description: Students are assessed on tutorial work. Students are required to come to tutorials with pre-prepared tutorial answers. On three randomly selected weeks (selected by tutor) students are required to submit their answers for assessment.
Another component of this is tutorial tests where students are given three mini tests throughout the study period.
Application: Students receive more feedback throughout the study period. They can better gauge their own learning and areas they may need to reflect on. Also helps tutor to gauge students’ understanding of material and topics which may need to be covered in more detail.
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