Pacific Journal of Technology Enhanced Learning
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Enhancing student learning through trans-disciplinary project-based assessment in bioengineering
Get PDFThe Bioengineering Systems major offered at the University of Melbourne aims to enable students to rigorously integrate mathematics and modelling concepts with the fundamental sciences of biology, physics, and chemistry in order to solve biomedical engineering problems. This requires mastery of core concepts in engineering design, programming, mechanics, and electrical circuits. Historically, these concepts have been sequestered into separate subjects, with minimal cross-curricular references. This has resulted in the compartmentalisation of these concepts, with students often failing to appreciate that these seemingly disparate ideas can be synergistically combined to engineer larger, more capable systems. Building the capability of students to integrate these trans-disciplinary concepts is a unique aspect of the major that seeks to prepare students to solve real-world problems in the digital age (Burnett, 2011).
We previously implemented trans-disciplinary design in the second-year subject Biomechanical Physics and Computation by integrating the teaching of mechanics and programming (typically covered in separate subjects in standard engineering degrees). This integration was explored largely through assessment redesign that focuses upon authentic learning (Bozalek et al., 2014). In these assessments, students have to model real-world mechanical systems using programming, for example, the construction of an animated physics-based model for a bicep curl. Here, an understanding of either the mechanics or programming component is insufficient to properly complete these assessments – students necessarily have to master both in order to perform well. Student feedback surveys have indicated that student learning has benefited from this redesign, as they have helped put programming concepts in a real-world context by demonstrating their utility in solving complex physics problems. Quantitatively, trans-disciplinary design has contributed to improvements in the following survey scores from 2017 (pre-redesign) to 2019: “I found the assessment tasks useful in guiding my study”: 3.85 to 4.43, “I learnt new ideas, approaches, and/or skills”: 3.88 to 4.32, “I learnt to apply knowledge to practice”: 3.63 to 4.13 (averages, maximum: 5).
To further model trans-disciplinary design, we have established a collaborative curriculum design team (Laurillard, 2012) to develop a coordinated set of learning activities and assessments centred around the design, construction, and control of a bionic limb. Using design-based research (McKenney & Reeves, 2019), our team will model a design-based research approach within the curriculum over a two-year project timeline. By integrating these learning activities across four core subjects in the Bioengineering Systems major, students will be involved in an authentic learning project that integrates the concepts taught in the context of a larger system. The project involves hands-on design and fabrication of a bionic limb facilitated by a learner-centric ecology of resources (Luckin, 2008), including an ePortfolio consisting of Jupyter Notebook, GitLab, MS Teams and Adobe Spark. The intended learning outcomes are to enhance students’ capacity to integrate trans-disciplinary knowledge by providing continuity in assessments and learning objectives across our curriculum.
The presentation will outline the methodology behind the collaborative trans-disciplinary curriculum design project and will also explore how the team is navigating the impact of COVID-19 on a traditionally lab-based project in a hybrid mode.
https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.13725631.v
#DataCreativities: Developing a trans-disciplinary data visualization framework from Arts practice to teaching and learning during COVID19
Get PDFTransdisciplinarity and collaboration are key capabilities that need to be fostered by authentic higher education learning environments to prepare our graduates for an unknown future (Barnett, 2012). These capabilities need to be modelled through the practice of academics, and even more so during a global pandemic such as COVID19 in response to the changing ways in which professions, and in particular the arts that have traditionally relied upon face-to-face interaction, have rapidly pivoted to online modes of interaction. In response, this project is conceived as a transdisciplinary collaboration between the University of Melbourne Faculty of Fine Arts and Music (FFAM), the Graduate School of Education (MGSE), the Centre for the Study of Higher Education (MCSHE), the Social & Cultural Imformatics Plaform (SCIP) and the Melbourne Data Analytics Platform (MDAP). The #DataCreativities collaboration seeks to learn from the data created by the creative industry communities as they rapidly moved to new forms of online interaction in order to survive in a socially distanced environment (for example (Braus & Morton, 2020)). We use this to develop a new framework for data generation and visualization in the context of higher education as a form of feedback loop that can inform innovative pedagogical practice and research (Ferdig et al., 2020).
The project data collection and analysis began by creating visualisations of the teaching and learning activities embodied in the universities learning management system (Canvas) to discover patterns of usage and interaction as the creative arts disciplines switched from studio-based on campus to remote online teaching and learning modes. The analysis of the data visualisations from creative and education domains formed a continuous loop of acting and reacting (Glaveanu et al., 2013) as they rapidly developed new modes of interaction in response to COVID19. In learning from these data as visual patterns, the project is focused upon identifying new modes of teaching and learning that are sustainable beyond an emergency response to COVID19.
The data visualization project involves the identification of an Ecology of Resources or EoR (Luckin, 2008) that encompasses social media via a hashtag #Datacreativities (Twitter, TikTok, YouTube) open software publishing (Omeka, Figshare) and Altmetrics (Priem et al., 2010) - creating a feedback loop between the model of a COVID19 rapid pivot from face-to-face Arts community to building an online community, and traditional higher education teaching and learning and research practices and metrics (Williams & Padula, 2015). Early stages visualisations helped turn data into information. Collaborative bringing together of our experience and expertise helped turn information into knowledge. Making visualisations of data formed practice-based research (Candy, 2016) transforming abstract data into observable, malleable digital artefacts (Kallinikos,Aaltonen& Marton, 2010).
The presentation will showcase some of the data visualisations produced by the #Datacreativities team and the mapping between the professional arts community and arts education practice on response to COVID19. The presentation will also outline the emergent data visualisation framework and how the ecology of resources facilitates a feedback loop back into informing teaching and learning and research.
Presentation: https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.13726870.v
Developing culturally responsive practice using mixed reality (XR) simulation in Paramedicine Education
Get PDFThe department of Paramedicine at Auckland University of Technology is committed to establishing informed evidence and strategies representative of all ethnicities. The MESH360 team propose that immersive mixed reality (XR) can be employed within the learning environment to introduce critical elements of patient care through authentic environmental and socio-cultural influences without putting either students, educators, practitioners or patients at risk.
Clinical simulation is a technique that replicates real-world scenarios in a controlled and non-threatening environment. However, despite the legal and moral obligations that paramedics have to provide culturally competent care, a lack of evidence and guidelines exist regarding how to adequately integrate simulation methods for cultural competence training into paramedicine education. In our curriculum, clinical simulation has been used mainly to teach the biomedical aspects of care with less focus on the psychological, cultural, and environmental contexts. A potential, therefore, exists for high-fidelity clinical simulation and XR as an effective teaching strategy for cultural competence training by providing learners with the opportunity to engage and provide care for patients from different cultural backgrounds, ethnic heritages, gender roles, and religious beliefs (Roberts et al., 2014). This is crucial preparation for the realities of professional practice where they are required to care for patients that represent the entirety of their community.
This presentation explores the MESH360 project and the development of a theoretical framework to inform the design of critical thinking in enhanced culturally diverse simulation clinical scenarios (ResearchGate, n.d.). The project aims to develop a transferable methodology to triangulate participant subjective feedback upon learning in high stress environments within a wide range of cultural-responsive environments. The implications for practice and/or policy are the redefinition of the role of simulation in clinical health care education to support deeper critical learning and paramedic competency within cross-cultural environments within XR.
The aim of the research is to develop simulation based real-world scenarios to teach cultural competence in the New Zealand paramedicine curriculum. Using a Design-Based Research framework in healthcare education the project explores the impact of culturally-responsive XR enhanced simulation for paramedicine students through the triangulation of participant subjective feedback, observation, and participant biometric data (heart rate) (Cochrane et al., 2017). Data analysis will be structured around the identification and description of the overarching elements constituting the cultural activity system in the study, in the context of XR in paramedicine education (Engeström, 1987).
Our research objective focuses upon using XR to enable new pedagogies that redefine the role of the teacher, the learner, and of the learning context to:
Develop clinically appropriate and contextually relevant simulation-based XR scenarios that teach students how to respect differences and beliefs in diverse populations whose world view may be different from ones’ own.
Inform culturally-responsive teaching and learning in paramedicine education research and practice.
Implementation of pedagogical strategies in paramedicine critical care simulation to enhance culturally-responsive understandings and practice
Telling Small Stories With Power Point As Video In Lockdown
Get PDFThe 2020 pandemic and ensuing lockdowns came as a shock nationally and internationally. As a result, the change in approaches to teaching for many was fast and absolute. One minute the face-to-face ethos was humming along as 'normal', the next it was fully on line and taking teachers and students into a story many would never have considered. This brought with it the challenge of continuing to build and maintain relationships with the students in order to support their road to success. Storytelling has always been an important part of my practice in developing relationships through sharing my own experiences and encouraging the students to share theirs. In this way, we co-construct understanding of the class content and get to know each other. Going into fully online teaching would potentially change this.
Given the speed of the changes required, this project was never meant to be overtly innovative but was designed to allow me to continue using narratives of content and practice to build communities of learning in the online environment. As a teacher, Power Point was familiar, so I started there and simply changed to saving them as mp4 files.
The presentation plots this journey as a teacher taking storytelling from a face-to-face classroom across the lockdown in a way that continued supporting relationships and learning. The first attempts showed me that online stories are not the same as class power points where I physically created the narrative that linked the slides together. As I viewed my first attempt, it became clear that I was trying to tell a story that was in my head but not translated to the screen and I needed to adopt an approach that clearly spoke to a listener/audience i.e. my community of learning. I learned that, up to this point, I had used power point as a guide as I wove a story around the weekly content in a face-to-face classroom. In other words, the whole thing was heavily dependent on me. In this new environment, the story had to be told in a different way. It had to stand as a discrete artefact on its own, speaking to anyone that logged on, enabling me to reach out to that other human being without the unique connection that develops between story-teller and listener in the face to face world. Through three more cycles of research, I found that this new kind of story depended on a delicate balance between visual and oral, the context, content and the affective and how each was portrayed. Ultimately, the focus had to remain on the relationships I could build and the impact they could have. Therefore, this project came to be about keeping storytelling, whether face-to-face or online, “a uniquely human experience through which people make sense of past experience, convey emotions and ultimately connect with each other” (Christianson, 2011, p. 289)
Mixed Reality (XR) research and practice: Exploring a new paradigm in education
Get PDFUp until recently, learning affordances (possibilities) offered by immersive digital technology in education, such as augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR), were addressed and considered in isolation in educational practice. In the past five to ten years this has shifted towards a focus on integrating digital affordances around particular learning contexts and/or settings, creating a mixed reality (MR) ‘continuum’ of digital experiences based on the combination of different technologies, tools, platforms and affordances. This idea of a ‘digital continuum’ was first proposed during the mid 1990s by Milgram and Kishino (1994), conceptualised as an immersive continuum going from the real environment (RE) end, where no digital immersion exists in the real world, all the way to the fully digitally immersive VR end, where digital immersion is at its full.
Recent literature expands the original digital continuum view – rooted in Milgram and Kishino (1994), to now consider MR environments extending to a multi-variety of sensorial dimensions, technological tools and networked intelligent platforms, and embodied user engagement modes, creating interconnected learning ecosystems and modes of perception (see for example Mann et al., 2018; and Speicher, Hall & Nebeling, 2019). This new approach to MR is referred to as XR, where the X generally stands for ‘extended reality’ (referring to all the points along the MR continuum and beyond), or for ‘anything reality’ (accounting for the range of existing immersive technologies and denoting the imminently yet-to-come new digital affordances). XR as a multi-dimensional immersive learning environment can be approached and understood as a dynamic and culturally-responsive ‘medium’, offering targeted, flexible and adaptable user experiences coming from user-centric learning design strategies and pedagogy (Aguayo, Eames & Cochrane, 2020).
Today, XR as an emergent learning approach in education invites us to re-conceptualise technology-enhanced learning from a completely different epistemological stand. We have moved from focusing on the individual and isolated use of immersive digital technology like AR and VR as ‘learning tools’ that can enhance and augment learning experiences and outcomes in education; to now going beyond hardware and software and consider perception, cognition, aesthetics, emotions, haptics, embodiment, contexts (space), situations (time), and culture, among others, as critical components of a purposefully designed XR learning ecosystem (Aguayo et al., 2020; Liu et al., 2017; Maas & Hughes, 2020). Imagine the educational possibilities when artificial intelligence (AI) learning algorithms connected to internet of things (IoT) devices come into play with XR in education (Cowling & Birt, 2020; Davies, 2021).
The challenge remains in knowing how to ground such epistemological and technological innovation into authentic, contextual, and tangible practice, while facilitating the balancing with non-technology mediated lived experiences in the real world (i.e. real reality (RR), Aguayo, 2017). Here, a set of XR research and practice case studies from Auckland University of Technology’s AppLab are presented to showcase and discuss how XR as a new paradigm is leading the exploration of digital innovation in education
Heutagogy: The pedagogy of agency
Get PDFEven before Covid-19, higher education was facing a perfect storm of challenges: increased costs, reduced funding, and rising industry demand for more skilled graduates. Educators were also challenged with finding ways to better prepare students for an uncertain future where lifelong learning skills are essential. The current pandemic has only served to intensify the storm, and educational institutions have rushed to technology in order to survive. In response to the new — or next — normal, institutional leaders are attempting to adapt traditional curriculum and systems so that they can transition rapidly to remote teaching and learning. Online, hybrid, and hyflex learning have become the beguiling buzzword solutions of today. How to survive this perfect storm and the storms to come? This presentation will propose that it is not technology that will best address these challenges; instead, a fundamental rethinking of how we teach and learn is necessary. By adopting heutagogy — or a pedagogy of agency, where the learner takes control of learning — will we be able to agilely transition and pivot across delivery methods, while also equipping our students with the lifelong learning skills and competencies required for the future.
Presentation: https://vimeo.com/51818739
A Provocation: Blended learning is dead, long live blended learning!
Get PDFMost universities across the world have been offering what has come to be called ‘blended learning’ for a number of years now. However, this has largely been supplementing traditional, face to face, classroom teaching with varying degrees of online elements. The pandemic has done us all a favour by highlighting the fact that what universities have been doing with this ‘blended learning’ is no longer sufficient and arguably already passed its sell-by date. The pandemic has accelerated existing trends. But it has also moved us in new directions.
Presentation: https://vimeo.com/518516618
In the medium term, university teachers know they are going to have to teach some students on campus and others remotely, and both alongside each other. Some have called this ‘dual mode’ or ‘dual track’ teaching. However, for many universities, and countries, this approach may not be feasible for any length of time as it is both resource-intensive and time-consuming. More importantly, it fails to recognise the limitations of our current model of educational provision for high participation societies – which privileges students who can access and afford the face-to-face campus experience and short-changes students with poor or restricted access to WiFi, computers or places to study or whose life circumstances require alternative learning modes. So let’s not waste this opportunity to rethink and redesign our online learning platforms, environments and technologies, and improve them, so that they are fit for purpose.
Ultimately, however, the crises caused by the pandemic should encourage us to look beyond new platforms and technologies to the longer term, and rethink what we teach and what students learn, as well as how we teach and how we assess learning. Universities could be preparing students for a longer-term future and to solve some of the urgent global challenges of our time, including climate change and repair, poverty, inequality, poor health, food insecurity and cyber insecurity, to name a few of the most urgent. This should include developing learner’s abilities to manage their lives, careers, work-life balance and physical and mental health and not simply obtain their first graduate job.
By doing so, universities could rediscover the public and collective purposes of higher education, as well as the private and individual benefits it offers. Universities need to not only help students be lifelong learners but open their doors in genuinely flexible ways to respond to the needs of learners of all ages and abilities. So, alongside the new modes of blended learning – or what might be called hybrid approaches to facilitating distributed learning communities – this pandemic-induced crisis is an opportunity for universities to also reconsider what is taught as well as how, the purposes of education in unpredictable times of rapid change and greater risk, and the new opportunities and broader possibilities opened up by this.
There is a world of difference between remote teaching in an emergency and carefully designed and planned hybrid learning for the future
Natural language processing for analysis of student online sentiment in a postgraduate program
Get PDFHigher education institutes are continually looking for new and better ways to support and understand the learning experience of their students. One possible option is to use sentiment analysis tools to investigate the attitudes and emotions of students when they are interacting on social media about their course experience. In this study, we analysed the social media posts, from a closed programme-based community, of more than 300 students in a single programme cohort by processing the dataset with the Google cloud-based Natural Language Processing API for sentiment analysis. The sentiment scores and magnitudes were then visualised to help explore the research question ‘How does a natural language processing tool help analyse student online sentiment in a postgraduate program?’ The results have provided a better understanding of students’ online sentiment relating to the activities and assessments of the programme as well as the variation of that sentiment over the timeline of the programme
A framework for re thinking the pedagogy of studio-based design classrooms
Get PDFThis paper explores the application of a design-based research (DBR) methodology to inform the re-design of pedagogical strategies for studio-based classrooms within undergraduate higher education programmes. The goal is to establish a transferable model that is student-centred around authentic educational and professional learning environment as described as Dewey for the digital age. The paper outlines the initial analysis and exploration stage of a DBR methodology that leads to the development of a proposed ecology of resources designed to stimulate rhizomatic pedagogical environments intended to support collaborative student teams rather than the traditional classroom structure. The main aim of this project is to look at alternative models to the studio or classroom environment that can enhance and improve the more traditional teacher-centric environments of the classroom through focusing upon what the student does and their graduate profiles. These ‘ontological pedagogies’ will guide the student through the educational process but also provide them with the necessary skill set to enter into the professional design based working environment once they have graduated
Interprofessional Education digital implementation
Get PDFInterprofessional Education digital implementation
Case Study (20mins + 10minsQ&A)
Keywords: Interprofessional teaching, Digital implementation.
In 2017, AUT rolled out a new initiative called the Interprofessional Learning Zone (ILZ). ILZ is a central, student-driven programme that provides all clinical students (regardless of the programme they are enrolled in) with an opportunity to study and learn together (Flood, 2017) – student enrolments will total to over 1000 in a year. ILZ is a self-select programme, where students volunteer and complete ILZ units to get extra credits and recognition. ILZ as such is not a formal qualification, rather a ‘clinical passport’ that provides the students with industry relevant knowledge and understanding with a key focus on enabling a shared understanding of clinical practices (Floyd & Morrison, 2014).
ILZ being student-driven means the learning path and process in the programme is determined by the students. The students enrol and complete learning tasks and activities according to the time they have and their learning needs.
The student-driven nature of the programme created significant challenges when it came to evaluating the use of technologies that could help facilitate the course. It was uncertain how many students would enrol and complete a unit of study in ILZ. This created significant pedagogical issues, such as if a group of students enrolled to undertake an ILZ unit how would bookings for the simulation labs be handled? In particular, the system needed to ensure a mix of students from all disciplines to create opportunities for interprofessional learning.
This presentation will provide an overview of the evaluative and design processes that informed the choice of the technology in ILZ – discussing similar issues as above encountered over a period of time.
References
Flood, B. (2017). Toward a spirit of interprofessional practice: A hermeneutic phenomenological study Thesis type: Doctoral Thesis. Auckland University of Technology. http://hdl.handle.net/10292/10776
Floyd, A., & Morrison, M. (2014). Exploring identities and cultures in inter-professional education and collaborative professional practice. Studies in Continuing Education, 36(1), 38–53. http://doi.org/10.1080/0158037X.2013.78347