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Using Gagne’s model of instructional design to develop an engaging general education course for fully online delivery
Get PDFPROBLEM
Designing fully online courses that are engaging can be inherently challenging due to their asynchronous nature. General education courses come with the added challenge of needing to accommodate students with diverse educational backgrounds and different interests.
PLAN
The course, “Genetics and Society”, was designed with a scaffolded modular structure, with each module building on the previous. Gagne’s nine events of instruction were applied to design learning and assessment activities in each module. Appropriate educational technologies were then used to develop and deliver these activities.
ACTION
The course has been offered by the Faculty of Science at the University of New South Wales to over 150 students from all levels of study and all faculties.
REFLECTION
The flexibility of Gagne’s framework enabled presenting complex genetic concepts and applications through a variety of activity types in each module. This facilitated accommodating students with different levels of content knowledge, while ensuring constructive alignment of each learning and assessment task with the learning outcomes, at both course and individual module level. The model also allowed for seamless integration of assessments with the learning activities, making them an extension to learning as opposed to stand alone tasks. Student feedback highlighted the clear and concise easy to follow structure of the course. They also appreciated the variety of learning and assessment tasks that provided them with an engaging educational experience, as well as the flexibility to focus on areas that were of interest to them
Exploring ocean acidification in undergraduate chemistry workshops
Get PDFBACKGROUND
Ocean acidification (OA) has profound impacts on marine ecosystems, particularly the Great Barrier Reef. While many studies investigate students’ understanding of climate change, there is a paucity of research on OA (Aubrecht, 2018; Danielson & Tanner, 2015). Literature suggests effective climate change education is affect-driven and personally relevant (Rousell & Cutter-Mackenzie-Knowles, 2020; Monroe et al., 2019).
AIMS
This study aims to investigate how to develop students’ understanding of and concern about OA.
DESCRIPTION OF INTERVENTION
Three first-year undergraduate chemistry workshops were designed with different pedagogical approaches. The Community of Inquiry workshop engaged students in philosophical discussion about the scientific, ethical, and social complexities of OA. In the Socioscientific Issues workshop students debated how we should respond to OA. The control workshop aligned with current practices and involved students solving chemistry problems within the context of OA.
DESIGN AND METHODS
The interventions were implemented in Semester 1 2022. A quasi-experimental design was used, students self-selected their workshop. Mixed-methods evaluation involved collection of pre- and post-test data and audio recording students’ group discussions during workshops. These data are undergoing statistical and thematic analysis, informed by literature.
CONCLUSIONS
Insights from this project will inform development of an OA inquiry-based learning opportunity that builds students’ knowledge and fosters care for the environment.
REFERENCES
Aubrecht, K. B. (2018). Teaching relevant climate change topics in undergraduate chemistry courses: Motivations, student misconceptions, and resources. Current Opinion in Green and Sustainable Chemistry, 13, 44-49.
Danielson, K. I., & Tanner, K. D. (2015). Investigating undergraduate science students’ conceptions and misconceptions of ocean acidification. CBE–Life Sciences 14(3), ar29.
Monroe, M. C., Plate, R. R., Oxarart, A., Bowers, A. & Chaves, W. A. (2019). Identifying effective climate change education strategies: A systematic review of the research. Environmental Education Research, 25(6), 791-812.
Rousell, D. & Cutter-Mackenzie-Knowles, A. (2020). A systematic review of climate change education: Giving children and young people a ‘voice’ and a ‘hand’ in redressing climate change. Children's Geographies, 18(2), 191-208
Giving students the choice of authentic assessments in the Chemistry laboratory
Get PDFIncorporating authentic assessments into a laboratory program can improve students’ engagement and satisfaction whilst developing highly valuable employment skills (Schultz et al., 2022; Sokhanvar et al., 2021). It can promote a deeper understanding by having students translate their data and findings to a real-world audience of stakeholders – occasionally not from the scientific community (Jopp, 2020).
Another assessment strategy is to empower students with a choice of assessments to complete. A choice of assessments can increase student motivation, confidence and engagement whilst reducing the anxiety around assessments (Patall et al., 2010; Garside et al., 2009). This promotes self-regulated learning, self-efficacy and can lead to improved academic performance (Jopp & Cohen, 2020).
At The University of Sydney, students complete four experiments in their laboratory program during their first semester of first year chemistry. Each experiment has a different style of authentic assessment associated with it. Students are provided with the opportunity to select one of these four experiments (and its associated authentic assessment) to submit as their major laboratory assessment for the semester. At the end of semester, students (n = ~750) were questioned about why they had selected the assessment they submitted. In this presentation, we analyse how popular the different authentic assessments were amongst students and look at some of the motives behind why these assessments were selected.
REFERENCES
Garside, J., Nhemachena, J. Williams, J., & Topping, A. (2009). Repositioning assessment: Giving students the ‘choice’ of assessment methods. Nurse Education in Practice, 9(2), 141-148.
Jopp, R. (2020). A case study of a technology enhanced learning initiative that supports authentic assessment. Teaching in Higher Education, 25(8), 942-958. https://doi.org/10.1080/13562517.2019.1613637
Jopp, R. & Cohen, J. (2020). Choose your own assessment – assessment choice for students in online higher education. Teaching in Higher Education 27(6), 738-755. https://doi.org/10.1080/13562517.2020.1742680
Patall, E. A., Cooper, H., & Wynn, S.R. (2010). The effectiveness and relative importance of choice in the classroom. Journal of Educational Psychology, 102(4), 896.
Schultz, M., Young, K., Gunning, T., & Harvey, M. (2022). Defining and measuring authentic assessment: a case study in the context of tertiary science. Assessment and Evaluation in Higher Education, 47(1), 77-94.
Sokhanvar, Z. Salehi, K., & Sokhanvar, F. (2021) Advantages of authentic assessment for the improving the learning experience and employability skills of higher education students: A systematic literature review. Studies in Educational Evaluation, 70, 101030
Understanding STEM education focussed academics' capacity for self-determination in higher education in Australia
Get PDFEducation focussed STEM academic roles that unbundle or separate teaching from disciplinary research are rapidly increasing across Australia and internationally. Understanding the experiences of education focussed STEM academics is critical if we are to deliver on educational excellence and improve the quality of the student experience. A Self-Determination Theory (SDT) lens and the three central tenets of autonomy, competence and relatedness and semi structured 90-minute interviews were used to understand the experiences of eight STEM education focussed academics in research intensive higher education institutions in Australia. This study found education focussed STEM academics had the agency and autonomy to take on a role that they valued and to which they believed they could effectively contribute. The reality of the role was restricted autonomy and uncertainty about competence and expertise. All education focussed STEM academics expressed the view of the importance of relatedness in the role through building communities which were commonly external to their school and institution and involved education focussed STEM academics in other disciplines and higher education institutions. Self-determination theory is a powerful heuristic for education focussed academics to use so they have adaptive capacity and the resilience to persist and deliver on expectations of improved STEM education
The family Calymperaceae (Bryophyta) in Australia. Part 3: The genus Mitthyridium
Get PDFEach of the nine Mitthyridium (Mitt.) H.Rob. species known from Australia is described and illustrated in detail, and a key to species and distribution maps are provided
The Parson to the Plankton: George Israel Playfair (1871–1922)
Get PDFIt is one hundred years since ‘the late G.I. Playfair, Australia’s foremost student of freshwater algae’ died, in Tauranga, New Zealand, but the value of his collection, and descriptions of many freshwater photosynthetic organisms from New South Wales, is current and growing
Recircumscription of Utricularia leptorhyncha and U. lasiocaulis and three related new species for northern Australia
Get PDFThe Utricularia lasiocaulis F.Muell. complex (subg. Polypompholyx; sect. Lasiocaules) is a morphologically and ecologically variable group of closely related taxa with a mostly tropical distribution across northern Australia. A recent molecular phylogenetic study placed the recognised species U. kamienskii F.Muell. sister to a clade of accessions relegated to either U. leptorhyncha O. Schwarz or U. lasiocaulis, with the latter previously circumscribed as an assemblage of highly variable morphological forms. We have expanded the previous study to include populations representing the known distributions of all three species and have attempted to include all morphological variants; 55 ingroup accessions were used in the full phylogenetic analysis based on two non-coding chloroplast regions (rps16, trnD–T) and the nuclear ribosomal internal transcribed spacer (ITS). We found that the pink corolla form of the usually white flowered U. kamienskii is not sufficiently different, and we retain it under that species. We also found strong support for a paraphyletic U. leptorhyncha, with the smaller flowered accessions matching the type material placed sister to all other U. lasiocaulis forms, including a grouping previously assigned as a larger flowered U. leptorhyncha. Within the U. lasiocaulis clade we found that much of the variation sorts into well-supported clades that we find are sufficiently morphologically and genetically differentiated from the type clade for recognition at the specific rank, namely Utricularia brennanii R.W.Jobson & Baleeiro from Northern Territory and Queensland, Utricularia cowiei R.W.Jobson & Baleeiro from the Kimberley region of Western Australia, and U. disjuncta R.W.Jobson & Baleeiro restricted to the Darwin and Gulf region of the Northern Territory
Aspects of physics competitions in Thailand: Upsides, downsides and overcoming
Get PDFToday, innovation is called for, and science competition is one of the places where new ideas are illuminated. For scientists, competition (such as for funding or resources) attracts the international talents, but it might have a detrimental effect on advances in science. This poses similar concerns about learning and the whole process of training students for science competition. For students, the science competition is an enrichment program to sharpen skills. The benefits are also for teachers as well as the teaching community. In Thailand, International Physics Olympiad (IPhO) and International Young Physicists’ Tournament (IYPT) are the two familiar competitions. The events are well-received, triggering several competitions at the national level. The high intensity of the competition identifies the brightest students. The widespread demand requires the teachers to prepare for coaching.
In this talk, I will discuss recent efforts not only to improve student performance, but also to enhance teacher skills for the physics competitions in Thailand. Despite all the merits of the competitions, there are downsides. Gender gap and lack of creativity are among some others. Ways to overcome are proposed and implemented