Misunderstanding What Success Is

Dr Anish Purkayastha,
USyd

Purkayastha and Huber investigated what makes undergraduate management students successful at an Australian university (paper 2023, & article 2024).  They found students of tutors with a PhD, older students and those with higher previous grades do better. However, I am not sure I agree with the author's assertion that higher grades are a measure of "success".

The authors found that domestic students of tutors with a PhD were more likely to receive a Distinction grade. However, a high grade does not assist a student in meeting the minimum required to get their degree, and is a waste of effort for the typical student.

This effect, where a PhD graduate tends to help a few students get higher grades, whereas tutors who have been trained to teach tend to help struggling students pass, has been found in previous studies.

Reference

Purkayastha, A., & Huber, E. (2023). What factors contribute to higher grades in a first-year undergraduate management unit: an exploratory study at an Australian university. Higher Education Research & Development, 43(3), 735–752. https://doi.org/10.1080/07294360.2023.2258818

Employability and Teaching

Employability has always been an important part of university education. The idea that students enrolled to explore the miseries of the universe and to think deep thoughts is a myth. Universities were established to provide trained professionals for industry and government. Those teaching the students therefore need to be trained in how to teach and test real-world skills. 

One way to make students more employable is to have them undertake internships and group projects. In ANU Techlauncher, computing students with group projects for a real clients. Their last assessment task is to write a job application. 

Providing the resources for Work Integrated Learning (WIL), is a challenge. The classes I help have 200 to 300 students. This could scale to any size, using group work tools from the IT industry. The limiting factor is the availability of suitable tutors.

WIL provides the opportunity to build partnerships with industry. The best partnerships are driven by student involvement which brings staff together. Innovation centers, such as Canberra Innovation Network (CBRIN) are also a useful. Just having some sort of committee doesn't really help. Adjunct and honorary staff with industry backgrounds also helps.

Hackerthons can help as a quick lightweight supplement to WIL. Student involvement in innovation centers is also useful. An example of a good story is an ANU student start-up on the Forbes 30 Under 30 list. 

However, it takes training, as well as real world experience, for teaching staff to provide WIL. Australian universities tend to showcase teaching, but neglect basic teacher training for staff. School and TAFE teachers are required to have formal AQF qualifications, whereas university teachers are not. Unfortunately the priority at universities is research. One way to get researchers to take teacher training more seriously would be to emphasize how this will reduce work for them, so they can spend more time on research. This training can be done without making staff sit in classroom, but by Dogfooding: give the staff the learning experience we want them to provide their students.

AQF aligned micro-credentials provide the opportunity to rethink how teacher training is provided at universities. These could act as a minimum qualification which tutors are expected to have to teach. This would replace classroom based training courses with documenting experience, and peer support. Tutors could be offered free training, but then get credit for a qualification, by paying the usual course fees. Microcredentials could be nested into certificate/graduate certificates, diploma, degrees/masters of education. Staff could have the option of completing certifications for professional bodies as a byproduct.

Students training for the professions could be offered the same teaching courses as university staff, as teaching/supervision is part of being a professional. As an example, the Skills Framework for the Information Age (SFIA), is used for accrediting computing degrees in Australia. SFIA includes skills definitions for learning management, learning design, learning delivery, competency assessment, certification scheme operation, teaching, and subject formation.

Australian universites should maintain membership of national and international education bodies (such as ASCILITE, ACEN, and EDUCAUSE), and host events under their auspices. This will help guide staff, and lift the level of knowledge of education. This will help with emerging fields, such as co-design with students,  which require specialist skills currently not part of teacher training.

A modest proposal: I suggest an "Indo-Pacific Education Innovation Institute" to the new federal government, with $100M funding over ten years. This would train students from the region, alongside Australians, in advanced digital teaching techniques. 

Developing a Learning and Teaching Strategy

Along with many university staff, I have been invited to be part of developing a Learning and Teaching Strategy. This is an issue exercising the minds of people at many universities at present (or should be), as we recover from the COVID-19 pandemic. I have spent some of the last ten years studying, researching and presenting on these issues, so note that these are my views, not necessarily those of any particular institution.

An Approach

The approach I suggest is that universities design for a student who is remote, part time, and focused on practical vocational outcomes. Then add optional on-campus, and more academic activities. In terms of teacher development, require formal qualifications, but with training based on workplace experience.

It is much easier to start with a course designed for remote students, and add on-campus activities, than the reverse. Also, when another emergency forces some, or all, students online, this can be accomplished with no change in course design or delivery, the on campus components can be simply cancelled, leaving the remote component to continue. This approach was found to be effective in response to COVID-19 (Narayan, et al., p. 168, 2021).

Some issues:

1. Learning

Use of digital learning environments, on-campus learning, blended, flipped and flexible. As a result of the need to switch to online learning during the Pandemic, universities have well developed technical support for modern teaching approaches. The students are expecting these. The problem, up until 2020, was in convincing staff to do more than give the usual lectures. COVID-19 forced a crash program of online delivery. The problem is now how to make this more than just recorded lectures.

In part, the problem with learning is one of the self image of academics. When I joined the staff of a university decades ago, I assumed I would be researching, and teaching by giving an occasional lecture. As a computer professional, who had an award for helping getting the nation on the Internet, I assumed I could easily translate classroom teaching online. It took about ten years to realise I needed to swallow my pride and learn how to teach online without lectures. This is a process we need to take academic staff through, using dogfooding: teach them to teach by having them a student.

2 . Assessment

Also as a result of the pandemic, universities have technical support for flexible and advanced authentic forms of assessment (even if they don't use these). The ideal form of assessment is where the student does what they will need to do after graduation, in the workplace, and how they do it is checked. This can be in a real workplace, with an internship, or other Work Integrated Learning (WIL), or some form of simulation. Ideally the assessment is progressive, throughout the students courses, and accompanied by timely relevant feedback, so they pay attention. However, good assessment is much harder than end of semester examinations (which are bad assessment). This requires academics to be trained in how to assess, and time to set up. Once set up using the digital tools, the assessment takes more work. But academics will require the training and support to get to this point. 

As a student of assessment I did not believe much of what I was being told, until I had to experience it first hand (more dogfooding). As an example, I did not believe students did not read detailed feedback on assignments, until I got back my assignment on assessment and did not read the feedback. Only after this did I set about delivering feedback in smaller, more frequent chunks. Only after having to do group-work online, and reflective portfolio,  did I understand what these were about.

3. Teaching

How to ensure quality teaching is a dilemma for all university, but especially for research intensive ones. Whatever the marketing slogans might say, research is the priority, and researchers generally do not make good teachers. While vocationally focused, and not an elite researcher, I still did not volunteer to undertake teacher training, and had to be forced to do it. 

Universities will need to require staff to undergo teacher training, making recruitment and promotion conditional on achieving the required standard. I suggest this be done with formal courses, and AQF aligned qualifications. Voluntary schemes and ad hoc training courses are not sufficient. Universities have the opportunity to set up nested programs which can be a showcase for future offerings across the institution. As an example, micro-credentials which nest into a graduate certificate, diploma, and masters degree in university education, with WIL, & recognition of prior learning (RPL). Components of these programs can be offered to students, who are plan to be trainers in their discipline, as well as to staff. 

4. Job Ready Graduates

Internships, WIL, and career skills, as typically provided in computing, engineering and other closely vocationally linked disciplines, can be expanded to other fields. As an example, the ANU Computing School offers internships to individual students, and group projects for real clients (Awasthy, Flint, & Sankaranarayana, 2017). ANU Careers guides the group project students through the process of documenting the skills gained, considering careers, and applying for a job. Rather than this being extra-curricular, it is integrated into a course, with assessment (Worthington, 2019). Further digital support for these resource intensive programs can be developed. As with other forms of education and assessment, it would be valuable for teaching staff to have undergone such a program as a student.

References

Awasthy, R., Flint, S., & Sankaranarayana, R. (2017, April). Lifting the constraints—closing the skills gap with authentic student projects. In 2017 IEEE Global Engineering Education Conference (EDUCON) (pp. 955-960). IEEE. https://doi.org/10.1109/EDUCON.2017.7942964

Narayan, V., Cochrane, T., Aiello, S., Birt, J. R., Alizadeh, M., Cowie, N., Goldacre, P., Sinfield, D., Stretton, T., Worthington, T., Deneen, C., & Cowling, M. A. (2021). Mobile learning and socially constructed blended learning through the lens of Activity Theory. In S. Gregory, S. Warburton, & M. Schier (Eds.), Back to the Future – ASCILITE ‘21. Proceedings of the 38th International Conference of Innovation, Practice and Research in the Use of Educational Technologies in Tertiary Education (pp. 166-171). Australasian Society for Computers in Learning in Tertiary Education. https://2021conference.ascilite.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/ASCILITE-2021-Proceedings-Narayan-Cochrane-Cowie-Goldacre-Birt-Sinfield-Mehrasa-Worthington-Aiello.pdf

Worthington, T. (2019, December). Blend and flip for teaching communication skills to final year international computer science students. In 2019 IEEE International Conference on Engineering, Technology and Education (TALE) (pp. 1-5). IEEE. https://doi.org/10.1109/TALE48000.2019.9225921

Teaching Teachers to Support Diverse Students

The University of Newcastle is providing a free 20 hour course for teachers "Aspirations: Supporting Students’ Futures" to teach students "... from diverse linguistic, cultural, religious and socio-economic backgrounds". This is intended for school teachers, but may also be of value to those teaching in VET and universities. As well as the content, it would be useful for university academics with limited teacher training to see what a well designed online course looks like. In particular the ways the course directly references professional skills standards provides an example of what universities should aspire to. 

The course is implemented using Newcastle's Canvas LMS, in a conventional online course format. There is also a 41 page learning journal, in the form of a Microsoft Word document, with versions to print, or fill in online. This contains the same course content as online, with places for the student to fill in answers. That may seem a little old fashioned, but makes the course backward compatible for students who do not have Internet access, or prefer a printable workbook.

The course has six units:

1. Introduction (10 minutes)

2. Introduction to aspirations (2 hours)

3. Aspirations matter (2 hours)

4. Factors that matter (2 hours)

5. Relationships and connections that matter (2 hours)

6. Schooling and teachers matter (2 hours)

I was able to quickly register with UoN's system and enroll in the course. Canvas provides a text rich usable interface. 

There is a glossary included in the workbook, but buried in Unit 2 (it would be better if separate). Some of the definitions are a bit difficult to understand, for example, "Cultural capital: Symbolic assets such as cultural awareness and knowledge, skills, mannerisms, and credentials". I am not really sure what a "Symbolic asset" is or what makes a mannerism an asset. The author's biases might be showing also, for example with "Cultural capital" being measured, in part, by the student's interest in classical music. Apparently only formal Western music has culture. ;-)

The course invites teachers to think about how their background shapes their aspirations, as well as those of their students. For example:

"What are some of the reasons why you chose teaching as a career? What other careers might have brought a similar sense of fulfilment?

How might you use the reasons given by your students for their occupational aspirations to broaden their sense of possible selves?"

Some of the questions are very relevant to the future of higher education in Australia, such as:

"Thinking about the students you teach, what might be some of the reasons behind misalignment in university and VET aspirations?

What role can teachers play in ensuring that students understand differences between university and VET and the educational pathways required to reach a particular occupation?"

This is a question which might be asked of the leadership of universities which seem to be trying to be everything to any possible student, trying to provide everything from vocational training to graduate research. 

The course is not peppered with long reading lists and quotes from research papers, which makes many university courses so annoying. However, a few embedded references and readings would be useful. The course apparently draws on a study from  draws on a study from Newcastle, however only a title "the Aspirations Longitudinal Study" is provided, with a broken hypertext link. As an experienced online learner I am used to hunting down web pages in the Internet Archive, but this link appears to have broken two years ago. It would have been useful to have a full formal citation of the research report, which took me a couple of minutes to track down (Gore, Holmes, Smith, et al, 2015).

As it is there is a reading list section at the end of the course, but I was unable to get this to display, instead getting an error message (which I have reported):

Integration Failure

Reading List Display Failure

Unable to display the reading list due to the error below. Please review the error and if the error persists then contact support

Error code user_is_missing
eReserve Plus was unable to create the necessary records when processing the launch from the platform (https://canvas.newcastle.edu.au). Please contact support.

There is also a discussion forum called "Community". I was able to read the postings there, but could not register to participate. It is not clear why this forum is not using the same ID I was provided with for the rest of the course (which I was able to get access to).

References

Gore, J., Holmes, K., Smith, M. et al. Socioeconomic status and the career aspirations of Australian school students: Testing enduring assumptions. Aust. Educ. Res. 42, 155–177 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13384-015-0172-5

Provide Learning Content in Alternate Formats

I had a very compelling unplanned lesson in accessibility today. In a Zoom session, we were asked to watch a video. Rather than play the video via Zoom, which has problems, links to the video on three platforms were provided. But I could not get any to work. Normally I would read the notes, or the transcript, but could find neither, so I had no idea what it was about. I then took part in a discussion of the video and spent about ten minutes feeling excluded and a but of a fool, as I had no idea what they were talking about. As I can normally see and hear, this is not a common problem, but for those who can't, it is. I need to remember to include alternate formats in my own teaching, especially as I helped make this Australian law. 

Being a Student is Stressful

Last week I spent many hours preparing for the tutor training course I am a student in this week. I went through the materials for the week, checked ever link, read the readings. But this morning it all went wrong. I had to move cities due to a family emergency, and had an ad-hoc video setup. Also my laptop had updated its software. As a result the video did not work. While I was trying to fix that I discovered I did not have access to the resources for the live interactive activities. Eventually I got the video to work, sort of. Also I found an arrow which took me on to the resources, so in the end it all worked out fine, and it was energizing to be in small groups with enthusiastic new tutors. But this again emphasized the main point I relearn each time I do such a course: being a student is a really stressful experience, where what seems to me  as a teacher is not obvious to the student, and small seemingly unimportant items take on a overwhelming importance.

Perplexing Unconscious Bias Tests

As part of teacher training I am required to undertake some unconscious bias tests. This is to allow the teacher to realise they may have biases towards particular students, even if they don't think they do. That sounds reasonable, but I had difficulty with some of the tests. These are from the Harvard Implicit Project. 

First I tried the Race ('Black - White') test. This flashed a series of cartoon images of people with captions. These seemed to use made up names, to prevent a bias there. I was required to respond quickly, but it was not clear how to: an image would flash up briefly, but a mouse click, or key-press did nothing.

One test I was able to get to work was "Gender - Science". This first flashed up a series of gender words, and I was required to indicate if these were male or female. Then a series of discipline words were displayed, and I had to indicate if these were liberal arts or science. These appear to be training, not part of the study, but to ensure I knew how to click the correct button. However, then the disciplines were displayed again, but requiring me to choose from two combinations of gender and type of discipline (such as "Chemistry", "Male or Liberal Arts", "Female or Science" ). Initially I did not know how to respond to this, as the combinations did not make any sense. 

After a few minutes thought, I worked out the idea was to try to trick me to respond with a gender bias, for example, respond to "Engineering" with "Male", rather than "science". While knowing this consciously, I still found it difficult to press the right button quickly, and not select "female" for "Humanities" and "Male" for "Science".

The results of the test surprised me, showing a "moderate automatic association for Male with Science and Female with Liberal Arts" (which is the most common response). I would have expected more than "moderate". The results did not give any more details, such as a numeric indication of how biased I was.

The test was frustrating, as it diagnosed a bias, which I was aware of anyway, but did not give me any strategy to correct it. This is similar to when in primary school it was quickly established that I had difficulty with spelling and I spent many lunchtimes in detention for years afterward as a result. That did not help me spell, and I still can't (I am only literate with a spell checker). I suspect it will be much the same with the gender bias: something which I know about, but am unable to change. The ways to address this would instead have to be external, such as blind assessment, where I don't know the gender of the person who's work I am grading (easy to set up with a Learning Management System). 

Johari window a legitimate training exercise?

As part of tutor training, I have been asked to undertake the Johari window exercise. With this the subject first picks keywords from a list, describing themselves. One or more peers then pick from the same list to describe the subject. The words selected are then tabulated into a quad chart, showing those the subject and peers agree on (Open or Arena), those from subjects but not peers (Façade), peers but not subjects (Blind), and those selected by no one (Unknown). There are 57 words to choose from. 

I am deeply suspicious of all such tests. But I gave it a shot. I looked down the list of words. At first I tried to find some which applied, then which did not apply. However, I was not able to do either and did not find this useful.

To get over not being able to choose a set of adjectives, I used a random number generator to select. This produced: warm, mature, reflective, witty, and intelligent. That sounds far to positive and boastful, but for the purposes of the next part of the exercise (comparing my description with others), I guess it will do as well as any.

My skepticism is shared by some researchers, with Newstrom, and Rubenfeld (1983), suggesting a revised window.

Reference

Newstrom, J. W., & Rubenfeld, S. A. (1983, March). The johari window: A reconceptualization. In Developments in Business Simulation and Experiential Learning: Proceedings of the Annual ABSEL conference (Vol. 10). URL https://absel-ojs-ttu.tdl.org/absel/index.php/absel/article/download/2298/2267

Do theories of teaching help?

Fox (1983) suggests four ways to think about teaching: transfer, shaping, travelling, and building. The first is bout transferring knowledge (and presumably skills, although Fox doesn't mention them), from teacher to student. The second is shaping the student in some way, which I guess might be about skills. The third is about having the teacher as a guide on a learning journey (a bit too metaphorical?). Building theory I did not really understand: perhaps constructionist? Experiential Learning, and growing theory were also mentioned.

It wasn't clear to me how this laundry list of theories was helpful. There was no attempt to conduct an experiment to see if these were actually evident in the way teachers teach, or was useful in practice. Also there was not attempt to see if one theory, or another, improved student outcomes.

The European HoTEL (Holistic Approach to Technology Enhanced Learning) project has an even larger list of learning theories. Here 24 theories are related to practice, but again not in a way which is useful to a practitioner wanting to improve their teaching: 

HoTEL Learning Theory Map, 
Richard Millwood, 2002 

References

1. Dennis Fox (1983) Personal theories of teaching, Studies in Higher Education, 8:2, 151-163, DOI: 10.1080/03075078312331379014
2. 
   

The Harder You Make the Students Work, the Less They Think They Learn

Louis Deslauriers, 
Harvard University

Deslauriers et al. (2019) have identified a curious problem for keen teachers: if you have students actively involved they learn more, but think they learn less. This could be a problem where teachers are evaluated based on student surveys. 

The authors conducted an experiment using introductory university physics students. One group had conventional lectures, the other used active techniques, but with the same materials. The latter group liked the active learning, and learned more, but did not think they did. The authors speculate this may be because the students are rating how smoothly the class ran, rather than how much they learned (an active class is inevitably a more messy activity than a lecture). A second theory was students new to university were not good at knowing how much they have learned (I wonder if students ever learn this). Thirdly, the authors suggest that students are not used to a "student-centered" classroom (that would not be the case in Australia, where secondary schools are very "active").

The authors suggest instructors explain the value of active learning at the beginning of class, along with a diagnostic test, so students better understand how much they learn. However, they do not make the obvious suggestion: student feedback scores should not be used to measure the quality of teaching. While teaching students more about how they learn will be good for their learning, it should not be used to simply bolster results on a survey of questionable validity, and I have found a far better way to game the student surveys. ;-).

Reference

Deslauriers, L., McCarty, L. S., Miller, K., Callaghan, K., & Kestin, G. (2019). Measuring actual learning versus feeling of learning in response to being actively engaged in the classroom. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 116(39), 19251-19257. URL https://www.pnas.org/content/116/39/19251

Do Teachers Make a Difference?

At the start of a new year I am learning a little more about teaching. This is not by choice, it is compulsory tutor training. But it is years since I have done a formal course, so a useful refresher, at least to remind me how hard being a student is. Otherwise it is easy for someone who teaches to forget how difficult, frustrating, stressful, and occasionally frightening being a student is.

One thing I have learned is that however experienced, as soon as I enroll in a course I start behaving like a student. One manifestation is to complain about readings: do I really have to read all this stuff? ;-)

Professor John Hattie, 
University of Melbourne

The first reading is Hattie (2003), who claims that teachers account for 30% of the variance in student results, the students themselves accounting for 50%, with home, school & peers each accounting for 5 to 10%. Hattie then presents a table (unlabeled), showing a long list of influences on student outcomes, the top ones being feedback, students’ prior cognitive ability, and instructional quality. The point here is that two of these are up to the teacher, along with most in the list. 

Hattie then goes on to argue that expert teachers make a difference, not experienced ones. However, the definition of what an expert was seems to mix up methods with results. As an example, expert teachers were said to be able to provide feedback, but also influence student outcomes. The former is something you could train a teacher to do, while they latter would be the outcome of successful training.

Having presented the case that teachers can make a difference, and that "expert" teachers make a bigger difference, Hattie does seem to have any useful advice on how to improve teaching. Perhaps the use of the term "expert" does not help. All teachers should be competent, in the sense they should have the required level of expertise, both in the field they are teaching, and how to teach. In Australia, school and vocational education teachers are required to have formal qualifications in teaching. University lecturers are only required to be qualified in what they are teaching, not how to teach. So it may be premature to worry about how to make them expert teachers, until they have reached the level of basic competence.

This paper is useful in giving university teachers some hope that they can make a real difference to student's education. But it doesn't help much with what to do. 

Reference

Hattie, J.A.C. (2003, October). Teachers make a difference: What is the research evidence? Paper presented at the Building Teacher Quality: What does the research tell us ACER Research Conference, Melbourne, Australia. Retrieved from http://research.acer.edu.au/research_conference_2003/4/

Online Learning for Remote and Complex Environments

Mr Andrew Laming MP,
Chair of the Committee.

The Australian Parliament is looking into the impact of COVID-19 on learning, as part of its inquiry into education in remote and complex environments. Public hearings are suspended due to COVID-19, although I suggest these could use video conferencing. The inquiry has received 64 submissions, including mine (number 50):

Train Teachers Online to Provide Blended Learning 

Submission to the Inquiry into Education in Remote and Complex Environments

This is a submission on online teaching during the COVID-19 Pandemicⁱ. Replicating the classroom using video conferencing is only a small part of the answer. University and school teachers need to be trained online to teach in blended mode, for the optimum combination of online plus face-to-face learning, to suit prevailing conditions. This approach made it possible to teach university students without interruption during the lock-down and is suitable for older school students, providing a smooth transition to normal teaching.

Blend Classroom and Online for Resilient Learning

In February 2020 with the prospect of COVID-19 keeping students from campus, I was able to quickly switch from blended learning, to fully online teaching at the Australian National Universityⁱⁱ. The course text and videos were already stored in the University's Learning Management System (LMS), which the students can access via the Internet from anywhere, at any time. Most student activities (forums, quizzes, and assignments), could already be undertaken online at any time. This left just the face-to-face workshops, to be replaced by video conferences. When students begin return to the classroom, video conferences can continue to link those who cannot attend, to their teachers, and more importantly, to the other students.

The ability to rapidly change from campus-based to online instruction is a by-product of a blended approach to teaching. To allow maximum flexibility, I first design for online delivery, then add campus activities, combining online and campus in chunksⁱⁱⁱ. If a student is unable to get to campus, they can still undertake most activities.

As an international graduate student of education, I had experienced the difficulties of studying at a distance^iv. In 2017 I realised my students could be stopped suddenly from getting to class and suggested preparing for this with online learning^v.

Train Teachers Online to Teach Online

Australian universities and schools have the good fortune of access to high-quality LMS. One example is the Moodle product, developed in Western Australia, and now used by schools and universities across Australia, and throughout the world. Tools such as Moodle, allow a teacher to provide the materials the student needs, wherever they are. However, what is also needed are teachers trained to teach online, as well as in a classroom.

While we have the technology for teaching, what has been lacking during the COVID-19 Pandemic are university and school teachers trained to use that technology effectively. More important than technical training, is the ability to build a rapport with students who are remote from you. This can be done by having teachers experience being online students themselves. This dogfooding approach ensures that teachers understand the stresses of being an online student^vi. I suggest that school and university teachers should undertake at least one semester unit of instruction online, about how to teach online. This online learning should model good techniques, such as students working together to accomplish a task, peer assessment and an absence of formal examinations^vii.

Tom Worthington MEd FHEA FACS CP IP3P
22 May 2020

Biography: Tom Worthington is a computer professional and an honorary lecturer in computer science at the Australian National University. A Certified Professional^viii member of the Australian Computer Society, in 2015 Tom received a national gold Digital Disruptors Award for "ICT Education" and in 2010 was Canberra ICT Educator of the Year. He previously worked on IT policy for the Australian Government and in 1999 was elected a Fellow of the Australian Computer Society for his contribution to the development of public Internet policy. He is a Past President, Honorary Life Member, Certified Professional and a Certified Computer Professional of the Society as well as a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, a voting member of the Association for Computing Machinery and a member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers.

Tom has a Masters of Education in Distance Education from Athabasca University, a Graduate Certificate in Higher Education from the Australian National University and a Certificate IV in Training and Assessment from the Canberra Institute of Technology. He blogs as the Higher Education Whisperer and is the author of Digital Teaching In Higher Education.

While an Honorary Lecturer at the Australian National University and a member of the Professional Education Governance Committee of the Australian Computer Society, his views here do not necessarily reflect those of either organization.

i Home learning and teaching during COVID 19, Media Release, House of Representatives, 14 May 2020. http://www.medianet.com.au/releases/release-details.aspx/?id=931917&k=1145358

ii Learning to Reflect, Learning Module Notes for the ANU TechLauncher WPP Exercise, Tom Worthington, November 2019. URL http://www.tomw.net.au/technology/education/learning_to_reflect/learning_to_reflect_2_1.shtml

iii "Blended learning and learning communities: opportunities and challenges", Fleck, J. (2012), Journal of Management Development, Vol. 31 No. 4, pp. 398-411. https://doi.org/10.1108/02621711211219059

iv E-Portfolio for the Athabasca University Master of Education, Tom Worthington, 6 December 2016. URL http://www.tomw.net.au/masters_eportfolio/introduction.shtml

v Digital Teaching In Higher Education: Designing E-learning for International Students of Technology, Innovation and the Environment, Worthington, T., 2017. URL http://www.tomw.net.au/digital_teaching/introduction.shtml

vi Dogfooding: Learning About Teaching by Being an On-line Student, Tom Worthington, 2017. URL http://www.tomw.net.au/technology/it/dogfooding/

vii Blend and Flip for Teaching Communication Skills to Final Year International Computer Science Students, Tom Worthington, 2018 IEEE International Conference on Teaching, Assessment, and Learning for Engineering (TALE). In Press. Presentation notes: http://www.tomw.net.au/technology/education/learning_to_reflect/tale2019_blend_flip_worthington_final.pdf

viii Liability limited by a scheme approved under Prof. Standards Legislation

Teach Our Teachers to Teach Online and Prepare for a Second Career

In a recent article by Stephanie Garoni and Jo Lampert  asks if school teachers and their educators are ready for the effects from COVID-19 yet to come (COVID-19 is impacting on our teacher workforce. Are we ready for the mostly bad (but some good) effects?, Edu Research Matters, 1 June 2020). It is unfortunate that our school teachers have experienced so much stress recently with adapting to teaching online. However, I suggest teacher educators have failed their students by not preparing them for teaching in today's world. We need to change what and how school and university teachers teach. The changes to schools will not be as great as the rationalization being forced on the Higher Educaiton system over the next three years, due to a loss in student fees.

Online learning has grown in schools but teachers have not been given the training to do this well. This is not just about using particular software, it is about being able to shape the expectations of students, and their parents, as to the role of the teacher in education. This also involves taking a professional attitude to workloads, where the teacher decides how to best use the limited time they are paid to work, rather than trying to meet impossible deadlines.

Teaching online is fundamentally the same as in a classroom, but if you do not have the techniques and discipline to do it efficiently, the workload and stress can kill you.

Like many in the workforce, teachers are being asked to work on shorter contracts. This requires teachers to be trained in how to work in this environment. It would also be useful to suggest to teachers during their training they obtain qualifications in another discipline, so they have options if teaching does not suit them. It should be assumed a teacher will teach for a few years, before moving to another career.

Unfortunately most Australian universities and academics failed to take reasonable steps to implement an online learning contingency despite the likelihood students could suddenly be unable to get to class. They also became overdependent on a few sources of international students for revenue.  However, this should not cause a teacher shortage. The shift to online learning has been sudden, but worked well. The smaller number of universities which emerge from the coming rationalization will be able to support teacher training.

The chnage to online learning and rationalization of the Australian Higher education system is a good opportunity to think about what and how teachers are trained.  I suggest this aim to give each teacher qualifications in two disciplines: teaching and another field in which they could be employed. Obviously teachers should be mostly trained online, with time previously spent in unproductive lectures freed up for the practical experience of teaching.

Australian Parliament Looks at the Impact of COVID-19 on Learning

Mr Andrew Laming MP,
Chair of the Committee.

The Australian Parliament is looking into the impact of COVID-19 on learning, as part of its inquiry into education in remote and complex environments. The inquiry has already received 49 submissions, since starting in December 2019, but now wants to hear about the impact of the pandemic.

‘We want to expand our range of evidence into specific lessons and consequences of rapid and flexible home and online learning and teaching. The Committee hopes to learn more about how these new flexible approaches might continue to be applied in remote and complex environment long after schools return to ‘normal’ face-to-face teaching,’  Mr Andrew Laming MP, Chair of the Committee.

Responding to the Coronavirus Emergency with e-Learning

Athabasca University sent out a request to alumni for short articles on how study had changed their lives. So I quickly wrote "Responding to the Coronavirus Emergency with e-Learning", which has now been published. As part of my studies in distance education I looked at how e-learning could be used by Australian universities for international students. This included proposing online learning as an emergency measure in the event an international crisis prevented students getting to campus. Having considered the policy, tools and techniques for this, has proven useful in dealing with COVID-19.

Advocating elearning be ready in case of a crisis has been frustrating. Some academics were horrified by the idea of distance education, and did not believe my warnings in 2016 and 2017 that an international crisis could stop students getting to campus. Just three years later, with COVID 19, some of the same people said this was a Black Swan Event, which could not have been anticipated, or prepared for. But at least, when faced with an existential threat to their teaching, and their lives, they were prepared to at last take action. 

ps: I am not Nostradamus, I feared a military confrontation in the region would keep students away, not a virus. Although I did teach students using the web for dealing with a pandemic.

This presentation contains images that were used under a Creative Commons License. Click here to see the full list of images and attributions:

https://link.attribute.to/cc/948463

COVID-19 is not the end of schools

Professor Julian Sefton-Green asks "Will mass schooling-at-home lead to the death of schools?" in EduResearch Matters (13 April 2020). I suggest not. School and university students are studying at home in numbers not see before. This is challenging for teachers and lecturers, the students, and their families. It will also introduce many to the benefits of this form of education. However, distance education is not new or unknown, at least not to some of us. School and university campuses will still be needed, at least for about 20% of the average student's education.

Most teachers and lecturers have received little format training in distance education, but may have some experience of it as a student. There is the problem of becoming familiar with the technology used, but this is minor compared to the need to make a personal connection with students over a relatively impersonal medium.

However, distance education is not new and unknown to the education discipline. There are decades of experience on the use of online learning at school and university for millions of students. There are research journals and conferences devoted to the subject, as well as courses and whole degree programs. For ten years I have been part of this subset of the education discipline, studying, teaching online, presenting papers at national and international conferences, writing books on the topic and refining the techniques though teaching students around the world. sharing the frustration with my colleagues that the rest of the world just doesn't "get it". That has now changed, but there is a risk of over-promising what distance education can deliver.

As teachers learn to teach online, materials are developed and students settle into it, governments may be tempted to see an opportunity to reduce costs. If students just need a computer to study, why have we been spending money all these years on expensive schools? The answer is that there is more to learning than what you can do through a computer, and teachers are still needed.

Professor Sefton-Green worries that we may see a move to
concentration of education, with the computer as a conduit for a national curriculum. At least in Australia, moves for national standards have been resisted due to the decentralized nature of our governments. I suggest that of more conern is a move to cost cutting.

As parents are no doubt discovering, delivering education is hard work, the more so the younger the child.  Also social skills require a social environment, with students learning to work togehter. This does not only apply to the youngest students. When studying education, as a graduate student, I was required to work in teams. I did not like it, but I had to do it. Now I help university students learn this way. It is possible to have students in disciplines, such as computing (which I teach), learn to work together online, but this is a very difficult skill to learn.

Post-COVID-19 we will still need school and university campuses. But there could be the opportunity to use them, and teachers better. University lecturers perhaps need to learn the benefits of teamwork themselves, while parents and governments could learn to value their school teachers more (and pay them more).

Most older school students and university students do not need to spend much time in a classroom listening to a teacher talk. Instead they need to be working together, with a team of teachers in support. Most of their learning can take place off campus, online. But there are valuable skills best learned interacting face to face in a team. My rules of thumb is that the average  students will need to spend about 20% of their time (one day a week) on campus, or in some other location, together with other students, and perhaps a teacher.

ANU Needs a Team Leader for Staff Education

The Australian National University is looking for a "Team Leader, Staff Education", to plan and deliver professional development for teaching staff, including tutors and lecturers. It is an interesting time to be involved in Australian Higher Education, with the COVID-19 Coronavirus challenging assumptions about how education can be provided.

"Role Statement ...

1. Lead the Staff Education team in the design, facilitation and evaluation of transformative educational development programs and resources for staff that have teaching responsibilities or who support teaching, ensuring alignment with the ANU Education Fellowship Scheme.
2. Build and cultivate collaborative relationships and foster communication between College- and centrally-based staff in the University Education community to ensure programs meet current needs and strategy.
3. Inform the creation, development and management of high-quality educational materials and resources, including web and/or multimedia-based online courseware, in collaboration with team members across the CLT and with academic staff.
4. Lead the organisation and administration of activities such as staff education, training, workshops and information sessions in support of educational development initiatives and new or revised programs, in consultation with team members across the CLT and with academic staff.
5. Remain current with and potentially contribute to the latest educational research and good practices, including engagement with informed discussion on innovative teaching and learning approaches, pedagogy, technologies, software and learning environments locally, campus wide and externally. ..."

From: "Team Leader, Staff Education, Position Description", ANU 05/02/2020. 

Community Trauma Toolkit for Disasters

Staff at the Australian National University (ANU) have developed a free Community Trauma Toolkit, to help with mental health in disasters. The toolkit covers preparedness for a disaster, as well as during and after. There are resources for parents, doctors, teachers, and others. Provided are summaries, workshop materials, podcasts, and videos. As well as assisting those recovering from bushfires, these materials could be of use for educators dealing with the Novel Coronavirus. In particular there is an Educators workshop, for professional development of teachers. This has a 51 page facilitator’s handbook, 41 pages of activities, a 91 slide presenters pack (with speaker's notes)..

The toolkit is comprehensive, but there are so many materials offered to so many groups, the website is difficult to navigate. Also there appears to be no online delivery option, which will severely limit its usefulness. The materials are designed for face to face delivery, by a trainer, to professionals, who then assist the community. I suggest that the toolkit should have options for e-learning, as there may not be the time, nor resources, for face-to-face training.

An additional difficulty with the toolkit is that modifications to the toolkit are prohibited. The policy of the Australia Government, which funded the toolkit, is to use a Creative Commons license, which provided less restrictive use of materials. As an example, it would be useful to be able to modify the materials to address the current coronavirus situation.

Also I experienced a technical difficulty when attempting to view the workshop slides:  "This error has been reported to Google and we'll look into it as soon as possible. Please reload this page to continue.". W hat the error was, was not displayed.

What Skills and Knowledge do Tutors Need?

I was asked to help with training of university tutors for computer science and engineering. So I looked at some of the training materials used around the world. But what do tutors need to know and be able to do? The term "tutor" is used by Australian universities for casual contract staff, usually later year undergraduates, and graduate students, who teach small groups (tutorials, or workshops), or supervise in a laboratory. In the USA these are referred to as Graduate Teaching Assistants, or just Teaching Assistants, and are usually PhD students.For simplicity, I will use the term tutors.

Tutors may take on many roles, apart from teaching small groups, including giving lectures and in some cases running whole courses (under the supervision of a Professor). However, my interest here is in what a beginning tutor, who has been asked to supervise a small class needs to know and be able to do.

UK Professional Standards Framework 

The UK Professional Standards Framework (UKPSF) breaks what a university teacher needs to be able to do into three categories: Areas of Activity (A), Core Knowledge Professional Values (K), and Professional Values(V):

"A The Areas of Activity

1. Design and plan learning activities and/or programmes of study
2. Teach and/or support learning
3. Assess and give feedback to learners 
4. Develop effective learning environments and approaches to student support and guidance
5. Engage in continuing professional development in subjects/disciplines and their pedagogy, incorporating research, scholarship and the evaluation of professional practices 

K. Core Knowledge

1. The subject material
2. Appropriate methods for teaching, learning and assessing in the subject area and at the level of the academic programme
3. How students learn, both generally and within their subject/ disciplinary area(s)
4. The use and value of appropriate learning technologies
5. Methods for evaluating the effectiveness of teaching
6. The implications of quality assurance and quality enhancement for academic and professional practice with a particular focus on teaching

V. Professional Values

1. Respect individual learners and diverse learning communities
2. Promote participation in higher education and equality of opportunity for learners
3. Use evidence-informed approaches and the outcomes from research,
   scholarship and continuing professional development
4. Acknowledge the wider context in which higher education operates recognising the implications for professional practice"

From:  UK Professional Standards Framework, HEA, 2011

Under the UK PSF Graduate Teaching Assistants (ie: tutors) are expected to have covered at least two of the five Areas of Activity (A1 to A5), core knowledge of the subject matter and how to teach it (K1 & K2), a "commitment" to appropriate Professional Values (V1 to V4), professional practices, subject and pedagogic research and/or scholarship of these, professional development activity (A5).

Areas of Activity

 The Areas of Activity seem a good place to start. It may seem curious that the first item on the list is not teaching (it is second). This may be because tutors, and university teachers generally, do not simply teach pre-prepared materials, they design activities for their students, and in many cases, carry out some of the assessment. So A1, A2 and A3 would appear essential for a tutor.

It is less clear that tutors can, and should, develop learning environments and approaches (A4). Beginning tutors will not have the experience, or training to do this. More clearly, tutors should be undertaking continuing professional development (K5).

Core Knowledge

Obviously, the tutor will need knowledge of the subject their student are to learn (K1) and how to teach it (K2). Undergraduate students who are tutoring will generally be at a later stage in their studies at the same institution, in the same field as the students they are tutoring. Thus these tutors will be familiar with the subject matter. However, PhD students may have finished their studies years ago, in another country and in another part of the discipline, as so will need to study up on what they are teaching.

Practitioners from industry may also be less current with the subject matter, however they will have a depth of practical experience, which students value. Subject matter knowledge is something I don't think needs to be covered in tutor training, except to say the tutor needs to review the teaching materials.

More problematic are methods for teaching and assessment (K2). Practitioners, and PhD students may not be familiar, or comfortable, with modern teaching and assessment methods. These tutors may assume students attend lectures, and assessed via examinations and individual assignments assessed by staff. However, a constructionist approach is increasingly used, particularly in fields such as computing and engineering.

With a constructionist approach the focus is on students undertaking projects, working in teams. There may be videos and computer based instructional materials, in place of lectures, and peer assessment of project work. This can be very confronting for tutors who have not learned in this way, especially when challenged by students who are not familiar with it either. There is a temptation for the tutor to fall back on what they know, giving lectures, and marking student work, instead carrying out their expected role.

Those teaching tutors, I suggest, should lead by example. Giving lectures to tutors telling them they should not give lectures will not send the intended message. Instead the same approach with videos and online materials should be used for teaching the tutors. The tutors should be given group activities to undertake, with most of the learning time spent on this. Even if their training is not to be formally assessed, they should be set the task of assessing each other, so they have experience of this.

How students learn (K3) need not be covered in detail. Some tutor training courses make the mistake of assuming they are training education academics, rather than practitioners. I suggest it is better to briefly mention learning theory, and then apply it, via the tutor training materials and activities. Similarly, learning technologies can be introduced by using them as part of the tutor training. Ideally the same tools should be used for tutor instruction, as they will use for teaching students.

Methods for evaluating teaching (k5) and quality assurance (K6), should be confined to peer review, which can be practiced during the training, and whatever standard evaluation surveys the institution uses. Those training teachers should resist the temptation to turn them into apprentice education researchers, or assistants for the trainer's research projects, as few of the tutors will go on to a career in academia.

Reference

Higher Education Academy. (2011). The UK professional standards framework for teaching and supporting learning in higher education. URL https://documents.advance-he.ac.uk/download/file/7013

Teaching Computer Professionals to Teach with Educational Technology

For some years I have been considering the question of how to improve the quality of teaching at universities. One obvious way is to have academics who teach trained and qualified to do so. However, the business model of university is to attract students, and funding, based on the quality of their research. Students will select a university to study at based largely on a reputation which comes from research, even though this has nothing to do with the quality of the teaching. As a result, there is a strong incentive for universities to select and promote staff based on their research record.

Having recruited a staff member based on their research, it is very difficult to get them to study how to teach. The academic knows that they will be promoted based on the research they do. Regardless of the quality of education they provide, students will enroll. However, those same staff then have a frustrating time teaching students, because it is a skill they did not acquire during their undergraduate degree, where they learned the basics of their discipline, or in postgraduate studied, where they learned research techniques.

Universities offer academic staff short courses, and various fellowship schemes, in an attempt to improve the quality of education, and also to be seen to be doing something. However, this is frustrating for all concerned. I have been through many of these training courses and programs.

One solution I suggest is to incorporate training into degree education, before academics graduate, are appointed and become fixated on research. It can be argued that teaching is an integral part of any professional's job.

To make this training more relevant, it can be tailored to the needs and opportunities of the discipline. As an example, computer professionals can help provide education using computers and networks (so called Educational Technology, or EdTech).

Emphasizing the technical aspects of teaching will make the topic more palatable to computing students, and also make the topic more acceptable to those who approve degree courses. Such a course can make use of whatever short training courses, or work experience through tutoring, or edtech support work is available.

This approach could turn teacher training from something graduates are reluctant to do, even when they are paid to do it, into something students will pay for.

Previously I used this approach in a reflective learning module. Students were required to write a job application as a course assignment. While they were offered training materials, workshops and individual one-on-one help by a specialist careers unit of the university, they were reluctant to use these services. As a result they produced poor job applications. However, when the same materials, workshops and staff were integrated into the formal course, students engaged. The same approach should work for teaching and edtech.