In May 2021 the NZ Council of Legal Education (CLE) resolved that Te Ao Māori concepts and Tikanga (mātauranga) would be compulsory requirements of the LLB degree under the Professional Examinations in Law Regulations 2008. This requires a systemic change to both the content and structure of UC’s LLB. Teaching these concepts will be required for the six ‘core’ laws subjects, and an independent compulsory 100 or 300 level paper must be taught.
The teaching of tikanga is mandated to begin in 2025, scaffolded so that 100 level teaching begins in 2025, 200 level in 2026, and 300 level from 2027. The ‘new-look’ LLB will be bicultural, bilingual and bijural. The project is lead by Māori legal academics, but this ‘new-look’ LLB will be taught by both Māori and non-Māori.
The project will support the Team with two core objectives: how the teaching will be developed (Phase 1, 2023) and what the teaching will be (Phase 2, 2024). The Team is also tasked with delivering the teaching. There is also a need to support other staff within the Faculty of Law to deliver the teaching from 2025 onwards.
Due to the unique nature of this project, the Team is working with key stakeholders including Kā Waimaero; the wider legal profession; the Māori legal academic network; Te Hunga Rōia Māori o Aotearoa (Māori Law Society); and Māori law students. We are fortunate to have the support of our Upoko Professor Te Maire Tau; and our Kaiārahi, Lyndon Waaka, in carrying out the important work in this project.We are hopeful that this work will increase retention and pass rates (for both Māori and Pasifika law students) with their ability to critically analyse and compare the existing dual systems in Aotearoa, underscoring bijuralism as intrinsic to the LLB.
AI is impacting wider society and becoming more prevalent - they are embedded in toys, virtual assistants and video games, and are used to drive chatbots and adaptive learning software. Algorithms now provide recommendations on what videos to watch, what news to read, what music to listen to and even who to be friends with.
The advent of ChatGPT has necessitated the need to rethink what we teach and how we assess. It has required us to take a critical lens to how we leverage this and other AI tools in education. Leveraging these tools requires new approaches, we need to develop new literacies that develop and scaffold ours, and our learners’, understandings of how AI works and how they can support (and hinder) our learning and engagement. We also, need to develop new pedagogies that scaffold these literacies but also integrate these tools equitably within the teaching space, one that also acknowledges the biases, ethical implications and limitations of these tools and makes these explicit to our learners. The development of new “AI pedagogies” require new knowledge areas that draw in new knowledge areas, pedagogical knowledge and technological knowledge weaved within our existing domain/content knowledge.
This project will explore:
- How can we develop students’ AI literacy so they can make informed decisions, evaluate its potential impact and identify opportunities for use?
- What approaches are best suited to conscientiously build our learners’ abilities to utilise AI and develop their learning?
The study will use a digital equity and bicultural lens to this explore these approaches.
Online assessment tools combined with adaptive learning systems allow students to gain mastery of concepts by revisiting topics at their own pace thereby improving their knowledge and confidence in the subject material. Such a system has been successfully implemented in high volume first year mathematics classes at the University of Canterbury (Cameron, R. 2020).
Two key issues currently facing many disciplines are: 1) the widening range in the knowledge and abilities of incoming students; and 2) low course success rates for demographics such as Māori and Pasifika. Both issues can be addressed by back-filling knowledge and improving student confidence through online adaptive learning systems which allow students to improve at their own pace across a range of topics without increasing the demand on the limited in-person teaching resources.
The goal of this project is to design and implement an adaptive learning system in AKO|LEARN initially for high volume courses in physics. This will build on the previous experience within UC and integrate both numerical and text-based assessment tools so it will have the potential to be used as a template for a range of disciplines across the University of Canterbury (UC).
Part of the design and development of the system will be the functionality to assess how well the students are using the system and its effectiveness in improving student knowledge and confidence. This provides important feedback that can be used to improve the adaptive learning system to reflect student learning practices.
Anxiety in undergraduate students has increased due to COVID-191,2, which is detrimental to student learning3,4. This anxiety has is exacerbated by the move towards online and hybrid teaching, as students face greater uncertainty without being grounded in a community of learners1,5. Course-related anxiety can be reduced through coping strategies4,6 and resiliency7 , which include approaching academic challenges with a growth and problem-solving mindset and cultivating a sense of community.
My overarching aim for this project is to improve student outcomes through the cultivation of a problem-solving mindset in the course. Decreased course-related anxiety and social networks are known to improve learning outcomes for historically underserved groups8, so this project will secondarily aim to increase retention of Māori and Pasifika students in science. Furthermore, I also plan to develop resources for other courses to use to enable other instructors to cultivate this mindset across UC.
More specifically, I want to re-invent the teaching approach to emphasize – and reward – the problem-solving process instead of specific content. In re-developing the teaching materials, I intend to identify how to include technology and innovative teaching tools (e.g., using video games9,10) that incorporate peer-to-peer learning, building resiliency and flexibility into this essential course while enhancing teaching outcomes.
As a case study, I will focus on a large (>200 students) required 2nd year biology course, BIOL209: Biological Data Analysis. This course is an ideal case study because it is already focused on teaching students to employ the highest orders of thought in Bloom’s Taxonomy (analysis, synthesis, and evaluation). Furthermore, this course has a broad reach as a required course in both the Biology and Environmental Science BSc degrees.
This project explores the process of transfer of knowledge and skills for work integrated learning (WIL). Transfer of knowledge and skills is essential in the development of work readiness. Transfer has been described as a “cognitive practice whereby a learner’s mastery of knowledge or skills in one context enagbles them to apply that knowledge or skill in a different context” The process of transferring knowledge and skills depends on students and supervisors recognizing when previous knowledge and skills are relevant to the current WIL context. The transfer of knowledge and skills also interacts with other factors, such as confidence, to enable transfer in students.
In the Speech-language Patholgy (SLP) realm (our area of work) for example, transfer of knowledge and skills has recently been explicitly identified as an essential component of university programs. However, only a limited number of studies have investigated the development or assessment of transfer of knowledge and skills with SLP students, and most of this has following simulated placement experiences.
Thus there is limited understanding of the concept of transfer of knowledge and skills during WIL. This situation poses a challenge during WIL where student transfer of knowledge and skills is often expected by supervisors, yet teaching strategies may not effectively support students in this process.
This project seeks to clarify understanding of the process of transfer of knowledge and skills. Developing consensus of opinion from university, people who supervise WIL (who are also potentially future employers of UC students) and UC students, can then inform pedagogical decisions to improve the student learning experience and ensure that they are well prepared for success in the workplace
We are looking forward to connecting with our UC colleagues and UC students as part of this project. Please email us if you are interested in learning more about this project.
This project seeks to address this question in the context of the BA Cultural Heritage Specialization, which is now in its second year. I was very privileged to be asked to lead the establishment of the CHS in 2021 in consultation, first, with NTRC (now NTC) and later with Aotahi and various colleagues within the College of Arts. The original aim of the CHS was to provide students with specialist insight into the key issues, policies and working practices in the field of cultural heritage with a particular emphasis on Aotearoa. It currently covers topics that range from Te Reo Māori to contemporary art and indigenous film, and from the oral traditions of Ngāi Tahu to books, material culture and the built environment. It provides opportunities for students to draw on local institutions like Te Rūnanga o Ngāi Tahu, the Canterbury Museum, and the Teece Museum. Enrolments have been relatively healthy, growing from 30 in 2022 to around 100 in 2023.
Despite our best intentions, however, there are weaknesses within the specialization that will count against the employment prospects of graduates. As a practitioner within the sector, I strongly believe that we require career development learning and WIL to be woven throughout the curriculum for all learners. One key aspect of that goal might be the movement of Te Reo Māori from an optional to a requirement at each undergraduate level. Neve Duston’s (2019) interviews with leading scholars such as Aroha Harris and Jock Phillips revealed a consensus view that language proficiency will be paramount for those entering the heritage sector in future years.
A second aspect needed within the curriculum is a capstone course at the upper undergraduate level that brings together the various strands of the degree and emphasises career development. Right now need only choose one of the three ‘required’ courses at 300-level and ANTH 388 Contested Heritage: Politics, Power & Practice deals exclusively with heritage and has a practicum. Our current cohort could conceivably graduate without actually encountering critical heritage studies, career development, or Te Reo Māori.
Finally, we need to find ways to embed and implement both WIL and career development within the degree in a systematic, effective, and formalised manner. We are fortunate in being able to draw upon a rich and expanding literature around professionalization and WIL, including notable contributions by researchers at UC. It will require serious thinking and discussion around the educational objectives of the programme and these, in turn, shape the target population for the WIL component. There are practical considerations related to sector partners, including resourcing, communication, and managing mutual expectations. In this regard, I bring a wealth of experience and heritage connections to the project, as well as important learning from my time as the first Director of Criminal Justice at UC, where I worked as part of a team with key stakeholders in a multi-disciplinary setting.
The proposed project is manageable within the two-year time-frame. Career development and work-integrated learning would be rolled out for the 2025/26 cohorts. The model established by the project will inform decision-making around the other five specializations within the BA and provide valuable guidance for other initiatives at UC.
The School of Psychology, Speech and Hearing is proposing a new qualification, the Bachelor of Psychological Sciences, a 360-point Level 7 named undergraduate degree. The CUAP Early Warning document can be provided to offer more detailed information about the new degree planning. The structure of the new degree will consist of a compulsory core and at least one psychology minor selected from those created for this degree. The degree specific minors will build on the core body of discipline specific knowledge. Relevant employment and postgraduate study pathways will be identified for all minors. The minors currently under consideration are:
- Mental Health and Psychological Wellbeing
- Forensic Psychology
- Organisational Psychology
- Psychology for Public Good
- Neuroscience
- Psychology for Programme Evaluation
- Kaupapa Māori practice
This project proposes to investigate how CDL and WIL can be most meaningfully built into a programme curriculum. Scalable CDL and WIL strategies will be explored, given the anticipated large number of students in the Bachelor of Psychological Science degree. With students choosing specific minors, there will also be the opportunity to develop CDL and WIL for specific psychology subdisciplines and study pathways. For some minors, CDL and WIL could contribute to new professional registration pathways (e.g., mental health).
CDL and WIL will benefit students in many ways – not only will it increase student employability and community engagement, but it is also anticipated to enhance student engagement and retention in study, academic success, hauora wellbeing, and personal development. The CDL and WIL curriculum will be designed to maximise these positive outcomes.
In the new degree development, particular attention will be paid to bolstering outcomes for Māori and Pasifika learners. CDL and WIL activities are uniquely placed to be responsive to the needs of Māori and Pasifika ākonga and their stakeholders. Culturally appropriate CDL and WIL will be explored as part of this project. CDL and WIL are also a natural touchpoint for bicultural competence and provide opportunity to apply bicultural skills.
2022 DLTP Projects & Scholars
Engagement can be defined as: “… concerned with the interaction between the time, effort and other relevant resources invested by both students and their institutions intended to optimise the student experience and enhance the learning outcomes and development of students and the performance, and reputation of the institution.” (p3, Trowler, 2010). In an online context, engagement with learning materials might be seen through downloads, viewing lecture recordings, and interacting with/participating in online activities. In an effort to support students, assessing online engagement statistics and sending follow up emails, texts or calls (such as with ACE) is a recognised way of addressing the engagement issue and retention rates.
Online behavioural engagement measures might not reflect cognitive or emotional engagement (Fredericks, Blumenfeld and Paris, 2004) with learning materials, personal learning approaches, or cultural learning preferences. For instance, a student may prefer self-guided offline study, downloading all course content at the beginning of the semester, and learn most effectively through reading in their own time. This student may achieve excellent results but would be flagged through online engagement statistics. Alternatively, a student might constantly log into the online platform and ‘view’ or download materials, but feel paralysed to engage with the materials and overwhelmed, ultimately failing the course, and not be flagged. To add another layer to these hypothetical situations from a post digital pedagogy and duty of care standpoint, both students might be suffering from extenuating personal circumstances, mental health issues, or perhaps a need to care for dependents, which lead to the level of interaction they are having with online materials that could not (and possibly should not) be identified through their online engagement statistics.
The aim of this project is to explore and validate additional online engagement measures to support student retention, success and pedagogical development.
In this project, I will build and test a model of experiential teaching in a setting of extended reality over a web browser. This experiential teaching model will build on and extend a traditional classroom through web3, metaverse and virtual reality (VR). The metaverse and web3 based learning environment will be applicable across disciplines within the University, hence the term, “metaversity of Canterbury”.
I will collaborate with UC’s future learning team and experts in other departments, including those from HitlabNZ, we will immersive world and make it open for anyone in UC and wider to engage with, play, and extend reality using just a web browser. While using a virtual reality headset would be welcome, they would not be necessary to enjoy this world that will create this experiential learning opportunity in practically any field of study.
In our pilot with RCT (Rotorua Canopy Tours), we filmed zip lining with GoPros and 360 cameras mounted on helmets and hand held. This footage is stunning in its ability to immerse the viewer and to almost have a better experience than we had in person. Because this technology allows the viewer to control the POV as well as slow down the zip lining, we will label the trees as they travel, which will be part of their scavenger hunt. This is a significant enhancement to the actual experience where the adrenaline and speed do not make it possible to take in details of the surroundings such as idenfying trees.
For our Scholarship, we would value the time and space to intentionally purpose this footage into the most pedagogically effective format possible. We are not far away in that we are intensely familiar with the footage after being thoroughly involved in every aspect – the shooting schedule, the frames desired, and the interview conversations. However, every filmmaker will acknowledge that it does not matter what footage you shot, it’s what you do with it that really matters. It would be amazing to build upon what the seed funding got us in collecting fantastic footage and now turning it into a unique to UC teaching resource.
Tūngia te ururua, kia tipu whakaritorito te tipu a te harakeke.
Clear the undergrowth so that the new shoots of the flax will grow.
This whakatauki guides the the overarching aims of this project which are twofold; (i) identifying a process for enagaing with mana whenua which is authentic, culturally safe and appropriate (ii) understanding the use of cultural narrative as a pedagogy to enhance design and delivery of educational programmes across the university.
Aligned with the UC strategic vision 2020-2030, partnering with Ngāi Tahu to uphold the mana and aspirations of mana whenua underpin this professional inquiry. Initial consultation identified a need for:
- UC staff to build understanding and confidence to set a new pattern for authentic engagement with mana whenua.
- Using narratives of mana whenua as a teaching tool, recognising the values and importance of connection with place.
The specific intentions of this project include:
- Partnering with mana whenua to identify aspirations and the value of narrative pedagogy to inform design and delivery of teaching programmes.
- Use of dialectic thinking and critical reflection to examine our own assumptions, to assist in creating new patterns in our teaching approaches.
- Share our personal experiences of partnering with mana whenua to promote teacher confidence and leadership capacity in this space.
- Develop and present a poutama for using narrative pedagogy in teaching and learning programmes across the university.
2021 DLTP Projects & Scholars
The University of Canterbury (UC) Vision and Mission, Tangata Tū, Tangata Ora, is predicated upon a starting point of ethical foundations: to empower our people “…to make a difference in the world” and to deploy our “expertise and knowledge to advance civic purpose and to foster public good”. Our ability to analyse, communicate and act with integrity is what defines the nature of our impact and reputation. This project will positively articulate and pragmatically embed fundamental academic integrity values and competence within learning and teaching practices across UC.
Stage 1 of the project involves analysing results from a pilot academic integrity module in Te Kura Aronukurangi | School of Earth and Environment, improving and widening the module’s application via a second SCIE101 pilot in Semester 2 2021. Stage 2 will employ feedback from the SCIE101 experience and from around UC to prepare the academic integrity module for pan-university implementation in Semester 2, 2022. Stage 3, throughout 2022, involves the creation of supporting tertiary teacher training resources, while the final Stage 4 will develop and implement an UC academic integrity analysis and reflection system in conjunction with the Academic Quality and Academic Development units to produce a new UC system of academic integrity analysis and reflection, incorporating effective academic integrity module data and reporting, with lessons learned fed back into teaching and learning practices and the evolution of UC academic integrity regulations and policies.
In a global pandemic, our ability to maintain and reinforce via flexible delivery, strong student academic integrity skills is central to our degrees’ value. Academic integrity is not only crucial to study skills but also to graduates’ work readiness. Approaches to academic integrity learning developed in a bicultural context can incorporate knowledge systems beyond those of Western academic and colonial contexts, recognising the dignity of indigenous knowledge, knowledge-sharing practices, and identifying cultural appropriation.
As technology tools have improved the use of video as a communication medium is now prevalent in many courses across the university. However videos are almost exclusively directed toward the student as the passive recipient, with the exception of capturing some student presentations. Tools such as Flipgrid and others, can now relatively simply capture individual students themselves as the creators and simply deliver these videos back to course facilitators in order to both demonstrate and enhance the learning process.
As an experiment on the Creative Challenge course, a part of the MBA programme, student centred videos through flipgrid were used as an ongoing reflection tool during the course. The students, who were all experienced MBA students and so familiar with written reflections, were overwhelmingly positive about the experience and highlighted some interesting differences from the typical written reflections. Common feedback was that “The video reflections did trigger deeper thoughts on the challenge”, “Encouraged deeper reflection than when written, more conversational”, and “I found the video easy to use so my attention could be on the learning rather than creating the written word to express what was sometimes fairly messy ideas.”
It appears from this very early experiment that the act of having to articulate their thoughts quite succinctly in a video may involve different learning processes compared to compiling a written reflection. It certainly involves a different communication skill, i.e. verbal vs written. From the teachers perspective it certainly appears to be a more authentic medium for students to convey complex contextual ideas.
The focus of this project then will be to examine from a student centric perspective how the use of video tools helps or hinders the learning process and why this is. From there we will be able to examine when and how to best make use of some of these new tools in order to enhance the learning experience of our students, e.g. In what situations are these tools most appropriate? What sort of assessment/learning tasks could make effective use this technology? How might this translate to larger undergraduate classes? Could this increase engagement for students?
Modern, practical degrees such as the Bachelor of Product Design require a multi-disciplinary ‘hands-on’ student experience that historically has been driven via a cognitive-apprenticeship or experiential learning model, wherein experienced practitioners (academics) guide students through problem-based and experiential learning. Such models are demonstrably functional for small cohorts, but are resource intensive when employed for larger groups.
The primary strategic goal of this project is to explore how technology-enhanced pedagogy can enable programmes with high student-staff ratios to effectively align with an experiential, apprentice-learning model. The project will explore the use of digital educational tools to provide accessible, equitable, and future-focussed education. Project outcomes may be used to help ‘scale up’ future recruitment and to inform other apprentice-model programmes across the university.
The secondary strategic goals are to improve the utilisation of specialist spaces across the university, and provide additional resilience for interrupted teaching. The project outcomes will also create strategic opportunities for the university to increase engagement with the community, providing opportunities for practical training for maker spaces and associated equipment.
Online assessments offer exciting opportunities for students to demonstrate their abilities to “enquire, …create and contribute knowledge for a better society,” in realistic and culturally-responsive ways that go beyond the knowledge-recall skills that are typically nurtured in paper-based examinations and tests. They can also provide authentic analogues for the communal, knowledge-rich work environments that students expect to find themselves in after graduation. This authenticity is important, as it allows for an aligned assessment system that is credible to both students and employees.
In this project, I will research and develop online assessments, specifically targeted at STEM courses offered at UC, that provide valid and reliable measurements of student achievement. I will use remote laboratories, interactive programming quizzes and online exams to explore how assessment design can be used to demonstrate students’ high-level cognitive skills while discouraging rote memorisation. I will also explore how questions can be crafted to embrace the abundance of knowledge available online, while maintaining effective barriers against cheating. This work will allow me to develop assessments that more closely mimic the work environments graduates expect to find themselves in when they begin their engineering careers.
This project is about the challenge of how we internationalise university education in the current ‘crisis of globalisation’. Student mobility is a rich form of learning, but is accessible to very few (even when borders are open). It’s also not compatible with our low-carbon goals and operates mostly on neo-colonial lines. I think we can do better, through developing long-term partnerships at the course level where the focus is on rich learning experiences for students.
So the project sets out to develop a structure for ‘global classrooms’ at UC, through research and cross-university teaching collaboration, and will hopefully have practical outcomes in a number of teaching partnerships with universities overseas. The global classrooms model involves local courses on the same topic offered at two or three partner universities, linked by a common platform that heavily favours collaborative learning. These kinds of courses address major strategic goals at UC, promising accessible, environmentally sustainable and low-cost international experiences for students, a structure for international partnerships and high quality learning that will prepare students with skills to contribute to society.
The project will:
- Be research-led through a study of graduates of an existing course, COMS225, that follows the global classrooms model.
- Build a community of practice of lecturers at UC focused around the model.
- Initiate work on administrative structures at UC to enable and set up these courses, working with departments, deans and others.
2020 DLTP Projects & Scholars
The Anthropocene is a new geological age characterised by industrial civilisation’s rapid expansion, accelerating from the 1950s, to consume and transform ecosystems and landscapes, a development marked indelibly in Earth’s biodiversity and rock record that will persist for aeons. Despite significant improvements in human wellbeing in recent centuries, the benefits of global development have been unequal, and consequent environmental degradation threatens to undermine progress.
This project contends that Humanitarian Engineering is a useful transdisciplinary approach to support human flourishing in the Anthropocene. One definition of Humanitarian Engineering is “the artful drawing on science to direct the resources of nature with active compassion directed toward meeting the basic needs of all — especially the powerless, poor, or otherwise marginalised”. This project will develop a collaborative teaching programme to support and expand the delivery of Humanitarian Engineering based on: acknowledgement of Te Tiriti o Waitangi and mana whenua, harnessing established iwi relationships, and acknowledging Te Ao Māori and Mātauranga Māori in weaving new understanding; reciprocal, resilient and sustainable partnerships with Pasifika communities; essential conceptual and theoretical approaches to development; deeply considered ethical frameworks; meaningful and demonstrably beneficial community engagements; and recognition of social-cultural and geopolitical dynamics in a COVID-19 world.
The uncertainties of COVID and related future crises demand that we plan for and accommodate increased flexibility and adaptability in instruction that is responsive to both students and current social contexts. The current crisis, or “turning point,” if you will, has presented us with a unique opportunity to shift our practices. We believe blended/ online learning is as much social-emotional as it is cognitive. Teaching should not be solely focused on the dissemination of content. Social learning, care, and connection are critical elements of learning. Furthermore, we need to keep issues of equity firmly in the forefront of our teaching. We propose, therefore, to draw on the principles of hybrid pedagogy (which combines the strands of critical pedagogy and digital pedagogy to arrive at the best social and civil uses for technology and new media in education) and ethics of care to rethink our approach to digital learning for the post-pandemic university.
We hope to explore universal design for learning and teaching (UDL) as an approach that will be flexible enough to accommodate diverse students’ needs for learning. One of our initial activities will be to establish a “think tank” around critical digital pedagogies (connected to Learning Earth Ako Futures [LEAF] group and Digital Education Futures Lab (formerly E-learning lab).
The Covid 19 pandemic has brought to the fore the need for more flexible and future-focussed education. This project will build a team in the School of the Earth and Environment (SEE) and with colleagues from the Centre for Academic Success and the College of Education, Health and Human Development, to support course transformations towards resilient blended, flipped and wrapped MOOC courses. This team will develop a methodology that is applicable across the university to create innovative online experiences that enhance learning in face-to-face settings. Specifically, we will create innovative ways to deliver and assess flexible content via virtual fieldtrips and virtual lab environments.
Stage 1 will focus on Geol 336 Volcanology and Magmatic systems course that underwent some course transformation in 2011 (Kennedy et al., 2012). We will measure baseline data on teaching practices (TPI Wieman and Gilbert, 2104), student motivation (MSLQ) (Pintrich, 1991), and pre –post learning outcomes (Hake, 1996). We envisage a significant component of this UC face to face course will be delivered using the open EdX platform with the goal of running the transformed course as a wrapped MOOC in 2021 and beyond. The wrapped MOOC will contain elements of online labs and virtual fieldtrips and specific assessments around bicultural competencies, providing an experience resilient to sudden changes in teaching constraints (e.g. social distancing or lockdown obligations). Following the transformation in 2021/2 we will remeasure teaching and learning for the instructor and students.
Stage 2 of the project will establish a teaching mentoring program in the School. This mentoring program will be developed in conjunction with the Postgraduate Certificate of Tertiary Teaching. The mentoring program is designed to support other staff through the course transformation process beyond the duration of this project and many of the measures (TPI, MLSQ) will be continued to be used to measure course transformation where appropriate. The mentoring will involve mentor and peer classroom observation, integration with educational research, and facilitate the integration of resilient teaching methodologies
Stage 3 will see the course transformation and mentorship results disseminated throughout the university, and permanent establishment of teaching mentorship in SEE, with recommendations for other Schools/departments.
One of the challenges in tertiary teaching within professional programmes is to ensure the relevance of tertiary teaching and learning for the professions while also ensuring high levels of academic scholarship. Questions of relevance, though, go beyond professional programmes. There are many ways that tertiary education is relevant and meaningful that are not connected with particular professional practices. This project focuses on assessment as an aspect of tertiary teaching, in particular on exploring possibilities for practice-oriented assessment. The starting context is one-year teacher education programmes in the School of Teacher Education. These programmes have all recently been re-developed and, over the next two years, the tertiary teachers in these programmes will be revising and designing new learning opportunities and assessment activities. These assessments need to meet both university requirements for academic scholarship and professional requirements for practice-orientated teaching. However, this is only the project starting point. This participatory project is open to any UC academics who would like to explore assessment practice and possibilities within their own teaching and disciplinary contexts, with the support of a group of similarly interested academic peers.
This project aims to redesign MATH101 to meet the diverse learning needs of incoming students. As a mathematics foundations course MATH101 will aim to satisfy stakeholder requirements such as prerequisite for EMTH118/MATH102, but also incorporate remediation for students who are under-prepared for tertiary mathematics.
Over recent years, the cohort of students in MATH101 has included many students who lack the foundational skills that they need to keep up with the course. This has been established by pretesting and is reflected in recent pass rates. Previous adjustments have been to reduce the number of topics, encourage students to revise numeracy and algebra skills, and trial different teaching and learning activities. While these approaches have been beneficial there are still a large number of students who require further remediation.
The initial stage of the project will be to explore different tools and teaching methods that have potential application to a redesigned MATH101. One such tool is adaptive learning which provides students with targeted remediation and automated support. This provides them with the opportunity to master initial, prerequisite content and then build on these acquired skills as they encounter content that is more complex.
