Decolonising the Law Curriculum

Dr Jessica Russ-Smith

Embedding Indigenous Knowings and Perspectives in the curriculum of university contexts is an ongoing and iterative project with twofold aims of improving opportunities and outcomes for Indigenous Australians and educating all students and staff to develop their cultural capability and contribute towards social justice. Decolonising curriculum requires critical listening and engagement of Indigenous and decolonial scholarship (Galloway, 2018; Russ-Smith 2019).

This presentation outlines the eight key themes found as a part of a literature review and Teaching Development Grant project and seeks to highlight the wider transformative and relational process of decolonising curriculum. The presenters will reflect on how the process of the literature review itself called for decolonial transformation of educators, not just curriculum, to offer other educators an insight into the process of decolonising curriculum across the academy and how this can be embedded into teaching and learning practice.

Galloway, K. (2018). Indigenous Contexts in the Law Curriculum : Process and Structure. Legal education review, 28(2), 1. https://doi.org/10.53300/001c.6469
Russ-Smith, J. (2019). Indigenous social work and a Wiradyuri framework to practice, in B Bennett and S Green Our Voices: Aboriginal Social Work (2nd Edition). London: Red Globe Press: 103-116.

Restarting the heart: paramedic student views on integrating gender identity and sexuality in health curricula at ACU

Assoc Professor Georgia Clarkson

Stakeholders influence decisions around program content. Mirroring population trends, stakeholders are predominately cisgender and heterosexual. Resulting curriculum is produced though predominantly heteronormative and cisnormative lenses. This may not include perspectives and experiences of LGBTQI+ people. This can mean student clinical practice needs in relation to interactions with the LGBTQI+ community are overlooked. Specific learning needs of LGBTQI+ students may also be neglected. Student views on how LGBTQI+ people and perspectives might be integrated in curriculum, benefits of such inclusion and the risks involved in maintaining the prevailing silence on the needs of this community are important, especially the perspectives of students within the LGBTQI+ community. This study aimed to examine student perspectives on LGBTQI+ content in paramedicine curriculum.

This research reports qualitative data within a broader mixed methods research project exploring LGBTQI+ presence in ACU paramedicine curriculum. An initial survey of students indicated that questions around LGBTQI+ student inclusion in curriculum and student or practitioner safety were questions that required further exploration. From the survey pool of 187 respondents, fourteen students were interviewed.

Students responded to five questions and four key themes were identified through a process of inductive and deductive analyses. These themes were: silence is unsafe, there is a need to ‘normalise’ the LGBTQI+ community through representation in curricula, developing knowledge and skills in communication protocols for engaging respectfully with LGBTQI+ people and community, inclusion of LGBTQI+ content in a safe and open learning context is the responsibility of all teachers.

Leonard, W., Lyons, A., & Bariola, E. (2015). A closer look at private lives 2: Addressing the mental health and well-being of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) Australians. https://apo.org.au/node/53996

Student Panel: Student perspectives of learning at ACU

Elouise Rabbets, Sienna Pitt and Oliver Peppermint

A panel of students studying at the Canberra campus, representing a range of disciplines at various points of their academic journey will participate in a session facilitated by the MC. Each student will speak to the reasons for their program selection, their professional goals and aspirations, their experience at ACU, what has and has not worked well for them on their learning journey, and suggestions for what could be done to improve the learning experience.  To conclude, there will be a Q&A session in which showcase attendees are encouraged to participate.

Quality Simulation Assurance Framework (QSAFe) for the enhancement of simulation-based health curriculum

Dr Jessica Russ-Smith

The aim of the project is to deliver a Quality Simulation Assurance Framework (QSAFe) which comprises of an audit tool aligning simulation activities to healthcare simulation standards of best practice (HSSOBP) (Watts et al., 2021), national professional and accreditation standards and First Nations perspectives. Particularly, there are no Australian or New Zealand (NZ) tools aligning simulation pedagogy with national health accreditation standards or First Nations perspectives.

This multi-phase project is being undertaken by a small group of Australian and NZ simulation providers working at different higher education and health service organisations. QSAFe development has occurred through robust analysis of the literature and through a modified nominal group technique with in-depth qualitative analysis. The QSAFe will be piloted in late 2023, early 2024 initially in nursing, across Australian metropolitan and regional areas, with the aim to pilot in NZ and other health disciplines later in 2024.

QSAFe will ensure curriculum and industry simulation activities are culturally appropriate and aligned to recognised professional and simulation standards to assist simulation facilitators of differing levels of expertise to design and implement quality simulation-based experiences. Developing QSAFe is an imperative next step in advancing simulation-based learning in Australian and NZ health curricula, addressing program accreditors concerns regarding the inconsistent quality of simulation, and enhancing the learner experience.

The purpose of the presentation is to report the results of the initial scoping reviews highlighting the national and global need for not only assurance of simulation quality, but also the need to help tangibly include First Nations perspectives in simulation-based health curriculum.

Watts, P. I., Rossler, K., Bowler, F., Miller, C., Charnetski, M., Decker, S., Molloy, M. A., Persico, L., McMahon, E., & McDermott, D. (2021). Onward and upward: introducing the healthcare simulation standards of best PracticeTM. Clinical Simulation in Nursing, 58, 1-4. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecns.2021.08.006

Developing authentic assessment across the disciplines: a workshop for academic staff

Assoc Professor Alison Owens 

Decades ago, Wiggins (1990) defined authentic assessment as those tasks that are similar to workplace tasks, are led by students allowing (co-) creation, and produce outcomes that are a result of problem solving. Wiggins (1990) also emphasised that the learning process of completing an authentic assessment is of equal value to the assessed product, enabling assessment for as well as of learning. This approach has long been supported by constructivist theorists (Biggs & Tang, 2011; Sadler, 1989) and recently enshrined in new Assessment Policy at ACU. Yet, more traditional forms of assessment tasks, such as tests, exams and essays, continue to feature strongly in universities. Simper (et.al. 2022) argue that changing assessment practices at an institution involves a change in assessment culture achieved through a combination of policy levers and agency for change. Such an approach is required to disrupt entrenched micro-cultures of assessment in disciplines, compliance-driven approaches to assessment and also academic resistance to change (Simper et al., 2022).

Australian Catholic University has also recently implemented new Graduate Attributes and Capabilities. As academic staff work to review their curricula to map new Graduate Attributes and a new Assessment Policy to their teaching, learning and assessment structures and practices, an opportunity exists to reconsider assessment in terms of authenticity of tasks across disciplines and student cohorts. This opportunity is also timely in the context of the rapid proliferation of generative AI tools. This workshop aims to present principles and strategies for authentic assessment task design and implementation, engaging attendees with redesign options in their field. The intended outcome is to foster a collaborative environment for academics to explore and integrate authentic assessment approaches in alignment with ACU’s new Graduate Attributes and Assessment Policies, thereby enhancing the learning experiences and outcomes for ACU students across different disciplines.

Biggs, J. B., & Tang, C. S.-K. (2011). Teaching for Quality Learning at (4th ed.). Maidenhead, UK: Society For Research Into Higher Education & Open University Press.
Sadler, D. R. (1989). Formative assessment and the design of instructional systems. Instructional Science, 18(2), 119–144.
Simper, N., Mårtensson, K., Berry, A., & Maynard, N. (2021). Assessment cultures in higher education: reducing barriers and enabling change. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, 47(7), 1016–1029. https://doi.org/10.1080/02602938.2021.1983770
Wiggins, G. (1990). The Case for Authentic Assessment. Practical Assessment, Research, and Evaluation, 2(1). https://doi.org/10.7275/ffb1-mm19

Supporting students to develop graduate capabilities – how the Academic Skills Unit can work with staff

Ms Emma Grist

ACU is introducing new graduate attributes. The development of these graduate attributes is underpinned by twelve graduate capabilities that demonstrate students’ skills and their ability to achieve the graduate attributes. The Academic Skills Unit (ASU) is at the nexus of facilitating skills development and building students' graduate capabilities. ASU aims to develop students’ skills through workshops, consultations and resources. In this interactive workshop we will map these skills against the graduate capabilities. The session will then explore how staff can collaborate with the ASU on how the development of the graduate capabilities can be scaffolded so that students can demonstrate their achievement of the graduate attributes.

Playing by the rules - rubric design principles

Mr Lance Gray and Ms Cath Emmerson

Rubrics in higher education refer to a set of criteria or standards used to evaluate student learning or performance. The goal of using rubrics in higher education is to provide students with clear expectations and feedback on their learning, and to help educators make more objective and consistent evaluations of student performance (Brookhart & Chen, 2015; Reddy & Andrade, 2010). Allowing staff and students as learners to connect, a well-designed, evidence-based rubric enables both staff and students to ‘play by the rules of the game’ and should be an integral element of assessment design.

By the end of this 40-minute workshop, based on the evidence in the INSPIRE toolkit, you will be able to:

• Understand what a ‘good’ rubric looks like and how it can improve student learning and motivation.
• Critique an existing rubric and subsequently develop an improved rubric for an assessment of choice (participants will be encouraged to bring an existing rubric to critique in the workshop session).
• Discuss how students can co-create their own rules of the game and a gain a better understanding of the expectations of the assessment and clarity regarding terms and phrases.

Brookhart, S. M., & Chen, F. (2015). The quality and effectiveness of descriptive rubrics. Educational Review, 67(3), 343–368. https://doi.org/10.1080/00131911.2014.929565
Reddy, Y. M., & Andrade, H. (2010). A review of rubric use in higher education. Assessment and Evaluation in Higher Education, 35(4), 435–448. https://doi.org/10.1080/02602930902862859

Roundtable on ACUs Professional Learning & Teaching Community - 2024 and beyond

Mr Michael Larkin

Like a Community of Practice (Wenger-Trayner, 2014), the Professional Learning and Teaching Community (PLTC) provides a forum for ACU staff to come together to explore and share their ideas and concerns on common experiences and practices. More than a forum for discussions, another important aim is to make constructive recommendations to the university to improve experiences and outcomes for staff and students. The PLTC sits outside formal University committee structures but through avenue this can provide a forum for a broad range of staff to participate and contribute to the dialogue around learning and teaching issues at ACU.

To date, the PLTC has been instrumental in influencing learning and teaching practices, policies and processes relating to issues from assessment design and moderation to academic wellbeing and managing change. Until 2022, these sessions were run within the Faculty of Health Sciences using the model started in 2019. In 2023, the PLTC moved to open these meetings up to the boarder university community. Following this move, this workshop will run in a round-table format inviting interested staff to discuss how the new university wide PLTC should be shaped in 2024 and beyond.

Wenger-Trayner, E. (2014). Learning in landscapes of practice: Boundaries, identity, and knowledgeability in practice-based learning. London: Routledge.