View the playlist for all the videos from the conference
Videos of individual presentations can be viewed from the links below
Keynote: Myth or Messiah? Exposing the core values of technology in university education and learning
Professor Gregor Kennedy is the Pro Vice-Chancellor (Educational Innovation) at the University of Melbourne and a Professor in the Melbourne Centre for the Study of Higher Education (MCSHE). In his PVC role Gregor leads the University’s strategy in curriculum innovation, technology-enhanced teaching, learning and assessment, MOOCs, and learning analytics, and the use of physical and virtual space in teaching and learning.
Gregor has spent over 15 years conducting and overseeing research and development in educational technology in higher education and leads the educational technology
research group within the MCSHE. His current research interests include
Gregor has published widely in these areas, is the past editor the Australasian Journal of Educational Technology and serves on a number of editorial boards. He is a regular invited and keynote speaker at national and international conferences on educational technology and higher education.
View the video of the Keynote Speaker | Professor Gregor Kennedy
View the presentation slides (PDF, 12938.07 KB)
Dr Michael P Theophilos (Workshop)
The 18th century French rhetorician and philosopher Voltaire, famous for his percipience and wit, once noted that a person should be judged on the basis of their questions rather than their answers. Recent research undertaken by the presenter indicates that the lack or absence of student questions in the modern tertiary setting is relatively easy to predict on the basis of a number o key factors. This session will scrutinise our core objectives in facilitating students in critical thought (GA4), and explore how ‘student questions’ can be reinvigorated through engagement and dialogue between a field of study and popular culture. The case studies will be philosophical and theological in nature but the findings will be more broadly applicable to a range of disciplines and fields.
Assoc Prof Joanna Zubrzycki; Ms Bindi Bennett; Mrs Helen Redfern (Presentation)
The presentation demonstrates how our work in embedding Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander perspectives into the social work curriculum reflects innovative ways of progressing quality teaching through scholarship and research. Our focus will be on processes undertaken in 2015 in the development of the case studies. This involved aligning the content of the case studies with key social work theories, the objectives and principles of the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health Curriculum Framework as well as gathering feedback from a range of community stakeholders about the key areas of practice which need to be taught and demonstrated to students.
View the presentation slides (PPSX, 740.11 KB).
Professor Wilhelmina van Rooy; Ms Trish Stockbridge (Presentation)
This presentation details how staff and pre-service primary and secondary science teachers integrate experiences of learning and teaching into authentic classroom practice and publication. The presenters will showcase how in-class, hands on practical work in science teacher education has been used by students during their professional placement, in their assessment tasks and how in particular two assessment tasks related to tutorial work have resulted in joint student/staff publication in professional and research journals. Participants will be encouraged to discuss how this work in science teacher education might apply to their own/other discipline contexts to advance their scholarship of learning and teaching.
View the video of the presentation
View the presentation slides (PPSX, 9286.04 KB).
Dr Paul Chandler (Presentation)
Effective professional learning is supported by structured reflective practice and the preparation of a portfolio of evidence of progress towards meeting professional standards. These practices are well supported by Mahara software, available to us as leoportfolio. This session will describe the implementation of leoportfolio in the unit ‘effective teaching and professional practice’, showing examples of portfolios and journals, and illustrating how features of Mahara – such as pages, friends, RSS feeds, collections and the maharadroid app – contribute to the effective enhancement of a teacher education course with technology.
View the presentation slides (PPSX, 462.87 KB).
Rev Dr James McEvoy (Presentation)
This presentation reports on the redevelopment of “THCT563 Introducing Theology” in Blended mode, undertaken within the L4L “Teaching Support Program”. Redevelopment required, first of all: close attention to the Unit’s learning outcomes, assessment, content, and teaching strategies from the perspective of Constructive Alignment principles. The student response was surprising: not only did Blended mode foster greater student engagement, but the quality of students’ work, particularly through online forums and blogs, shifted the Unit to another level. The new iteration of this Unit has been one of the best experiences in my 20 years of teaching theology.
View the presentation slides (PPSX, 671.71 KB).
Professor Kay Souter; Ms Lisa Burrell (Presentation)
How can we improve student success and retention rates? Our students are increasingly demanding a more flexible and engaging model of learning. In response the Faculty of Law and Business embarked on a project within the Peter Faber Business School to provide an interactive and highly engaging online learning environment for both blended and online units. The foundation is a pedagogical design that supports achievement of learning outcomes through the use of contemporary and interesting resources and activities and interaction between students, academic teaching staff and where possible, industry experts. This session describes the implementation of this project.
View the presentation slides (PPSX, 6254.91 KB).
Dr Val Goodwin; Ms Rose McMaster; Ms Sandra Hyde; Ms Meghan Appleby; Ms Therese Fletcher (Presentation)
As part of a university/health service partnership between ACU and the Nursing and Midwifery Office, Queensland, ACU undertook an evaluation of the experiences of students participating in the newly developed Graduate Diploma in Mental Health Nursing and the service-based nurse educators supporting these students in the field. Outcomes from this research will demonstrate good practice in linking research to curriculum development and review. In this presentation the findings and recommendations from the research will be discussed, including ideas for future curriculum development.
View the presentation slides (PPSX, 952.16 KB).
Ms Gail Baker; Assoc Prof Paula Schulz; Mrs Machellee Kosiak; Ms Denise Burdett-Jones; Dr Lynne Dunne; Mrs Joclyn Neal (Presentation)
The Away from Base Bachelor of Midwifery program is designed to prepare Indigenous students to work as competent graduate midwives in their home communities and address the workforce shortage of Indigenous midwives.
A key challenge for the course is the high attrition rate for students in their commencing semester. This presentation will showcase how the Away from Base Midwifery team have worked collaboratively with students and graduates to develop an online orientation and transition support program to strengthen student support during this crucial first semester.
View the video of the presentation
View the presentation slides (PPSX, 4314.63 KB).
Dr Genevieve Morris; Dr Belinda Martinac; Dr Santha James (Presentation)
Many of our students have had little experience in learning science, and are often intimidated by it and convinced that it is ‘hard’. We have designed voluntary ‘lessons’ in LEO that guide students through fundamental aspects of Chemistry and Biology. These lessons utilize the technological opportunities offered by LEO, incorporating a range of resources such as you-tube clips, mini-quizzes and figures. These lessons have been shown to assist students develop a better understanding of science, being especially useful to those who have not studied science since middle-high school, and/or those who are returning to studies after a break of some years.
View the presentation slides (PPSX, 574.39 KB).
Dr Brianna Chesser (Presentation)
Teaching methods in the criminal law are well established; we write hypothetical problems for our students designed to lead them to particular crimes and cases. While it seems that Legal Academics have always relied on some variation of the problem based learning method, the creation of new units within the Thomas More Law School provided unique opportunities to embrace new methods to enhance student achievement. This project, funded by an ACU Teaching Development Grant, piloted the use of a specially designed ‘brief of evidence’ to contextualise student learning within a practical context.
View the presentation slides (PPTX, 643.72 KB).
Ms Colette Alexander (Presentation)
The presentation will consider curriculum alignment as a principled process designed to assure the quality of curriculum design for teaching and learning. It will look at theorising the alignment of external standards, graduate attributes and learning outcomes with teaching, learning and assessment. A proposal for the identification, development and use of critical criteria linked to academic and professional expectations as a core tool for curriculum alignment will be proposed.
View the presentation slides (PPSX, 410.65 KB).
Professor Patrick Crookes (Workshop)
This workshop will present a taxonomy of teaching and learning-related activities, encompassing scholarly teaching, the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SOTL) and SOTL Leadership and then facilitate personal reflection and interactive discussion about the utility of the taxonomy for participants.
The workshop is aligned with the ‘Progressing Quality Teaching through Scholarship and Research’ stream as it is envisaged that the discussion will evolve to one focused on ‘how might one effectively evidence activity and impacts across the taxonomy?’ It will also facilitate discussion of the nature of scholarship per se.
View the presentation slides (PPSX, 364.01 KB).
Dr Georgia Clarkson; Dr Leigha Dark (Presentation)
The higher education sector is facing the challenge of how to define and implement flipped and blended learning approaches within a diverse range of programs. In 2015 this pilot project aimed to explore the suitability of a community of practice model for the implementation of sound and sustainable approaches to blended and flipped learning within FHS. This project was implemented within a newly structured faculty facing the challenge of establishing consistent practices which are at the same time suitable for, and sensitive to, the needs of a large number of disciplines. This discussion presents the findings of this project.
View the video of the presentation
View the presentation slides (PPSX, 1937.02 KB).
Professor Clare Johnson (Workshop)
Fully-online unit design entails the alignment of multiple components so that a balance between readings, activities, assessment tasks, and interactions can be achieved across the course of a semester. This workshop will explore how to map and balance synchronous and asynchronous learning experiences over a unit’s 150 hours, focusing on integrating technology (especially Adobe Connect) in engaging ways to help students achieve learning outcomes, develop graduate attributes and meet course requirements. Examples of how to design across the semester will be explored and participants will use approved generic unit outlines to sketch a semester’s learning utilising the mapping approach presented.
View the presentation slides (PPSX, 1464.79 KB).
Dr Helen Aucote (Presentation)
Cognisant of the diverse academic abilities of students, gradual changes have been implemented in introductory psychology units which have resulted in a dramatic decrease in failure and attrition rates. The positive results were achieved without changes to content, assessment or standards. Changes include the introduction of essential online lessons completed before tutorials and optional online resources such as quizzes and activities. The presentation includes examples of the online resources and discussion on how these changes were implemented gradually 1) to allow use of student feedback 2) to reduce strain on staff. Data evidencing the effectiveness of the changes is presented.
View the presentation slides (PPSX, 453.23 KB).
Assoc Prof Theda Thomas (Workshop)
In order for students to learn our discipline, they need to master the key threshold concepts of the discipline including how experts think in our discipline. Curricula are often designed around content rather than how we practice and think within our discipline. The knowledge of how we think may be tacit, which makes it difficult for lecturers to explain the ways of thinking explicitly to students. . This workshop will facilitate lecturers identifying how they think within their discipline, the difficulties that students might have in grasping that way of thinking and how they might help students become proficient thinkers and practitioners.
View the presentation slides (PPSX, 180.13 KB).
Mr Anthony Steel; Professor Jude Butcher (Workshop)
This workshop will involve participants in a process that will highlight the importance of embedding Catholic identity and mission as an integral means of promoting curriculum excellence. Specific activities will include an exploration of Catholic identity and mission in curriculum, through the lens of Catholic Social Teaching and Thought.
View the presentation slides (PPSX, 1299.96 KB).
Dr Miriam Tanti; Ms Leanne Cameron (Presentation)
This presentation will showcase a variety of ways in which ICT can be used to enhance teaching. We will share stories and examples from an undergraduate Bachelor of Teaching/Bachelor of Arts, third year unit, where technology was used to engage students. Examples include; content visualisation and infographics, Snapchat for authentic learning and the use of Twitter to establish a community of practice.
View the video of the presentation
View the presentation slides (PPSX, 1030.62 KB).
Dr Leigha Dark; Dr Diane Jacobs; Dr Erin Conway (Presentation)
Blended learning is more than just using technology for the sake of it, but rather requires a careful and considered approach to enhancing the learning experience, engaging all students through a variety of learning modes and supporting students and teachers to achieve learning outcomes. This presentation will outline how the principles of ‘Transition Pedagogy’ can inform the decisions made about modes of learning and curriculum. Ideas about how to design, deliver and demonstrate pedagogically sound blend learning in First Year curriculum will be shared and supported with data and examples from the discipline of Speech Pathology.
View the presentation slides (PPSX, 881.67 KB).
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