A decade since attaining Supreme Excellence in Tertiary Teaching Award - a reflection

In 2007, I was awarded the Prime Minister’s award for excellence in tertiary teaching. Yesterday evening, the 2017 award winners join the select group of NZ tertiary teachers recognised for sustained excellence in teaching. All awardees automatically become members of the Ako AotearoaAcademy. The Academy is a community of practice for award winners, they have a mandate to  advocate within their own institutions, nationally and internationally, for support of excellent teaching. The Academy also organises a yearly symposium, always a wonderful, supportive and enervating professional development opportunity. This year, the symposium - Talking Teaching - will he held at the end of November in Dunedin. The first two days will be an open forum for all tertiary educators to share practice. 

In 2007, I was on the cusp of shifting from being a trades teacher, teaching baking into a ‘staff development’ position. Since 1999, I had proportional (0.2 or one day a week to 0.4) positions on various ‘elearning’ projects. Mainly supporting tutors in a diverse range of discipline areas, to shift from being f2f to on-line or blended learning facilitators. In 2008, I shifted full-time into a shared role as a teacher educator and ‘staff developer’. When the then CPIT Centre for Educational Development came into being, I was one of 3 other people, horizontally shifted across to be part of the Centre. Since then several internal organisational changes and a change of institutional name to Ara has seen my role morph and evolve over time. My current role as an educational developer / ‘learning designer’ in the Learning Design section of Academic Services Division at Ara Institute of Canterbury includes about 3/5 of programme design / development, 1/5 of supporting staff in a range of teaching and learning and 1/5 as a researcher and scholar in vocational education. The role has its challenges but is always rewarding and interesting.

When I received my award, I was one of very few non-university staff to attain the award. For many years, I have been inspired by the life of Sir Edmund Hillary. He not only was the first, along with Tenzing Norgay, to climb Mount Everest, but also founded the Himalayan Trust.  The trust raises money to assist the Nepalis to build schools and hospitals and through its almost 50 years have contributed to the betterment of the lives of many people in Nepal. Therefore, Hillary made use of his status, to better the lives of others.

My aspirations are more modest but greatly inspired by a need to foster better teaching and learning capability within NZ vocational education. I was lucky with the timing of my award. Ako Aotearoa, the NZ Centre for Tertiary Teaching excellence, was set up at the same time. The award provided me with networking opportunities with the new organisation, assisting me to build sound relationships and to participate in a range of Ako Aotearoa activities. To date, I have been able to garner funding to undertake two Nationally funded projects and seven smaller projects, funded through the Southern regional hub (see Projects page on this blog for list and links to project outputs). My post PhD scholarly journey has therefore been largely ‘learning by doing’ through the completion of externally funded projects which require results. In line with my goal to build capability within the vocational education sector to carry out ‘practitioner-led’ inquiry, both the National and four of the smaller projects involved other trades tutors or ITO staff. For most, the projects were the first time these tutors have had the opportunity to complete an in-depth study into the efficacy of their teaching innovations.

There has now been a decade of contributing to the ‘evidence-base’ to assist the improvement of vocational learning. There is still much to do, and my contribution has been small but hopefully a start at building awareness and capability. The current project on e-assessments brings together many of my learnings from previous projects. In particular, the project also builds capability with a team of tutors who have a mandate to undertake some research as part of their teaching roles. I am hopeful some of this team will go on to lead other projects as vocational education research is still sparse. Modest beginnings are always better than no work at all :) 

In so doing, I hope some of the following quote, attributed to Lao Tzu, has transpired.

“A leader is best
When people barely know he exists
Of a good leader, who talks little,
When his work is done, his aim fulfilled,
They will say, “We did this ourselves.”

Disobedient Teaching - Welby Ings book

Welby Ings, who is the first tertiary teacher to be awarded the Prime Minister's Supreme excellence in tertiary teaching award, has a new book published.

I have yet to read the book, but have had the privilege of being at several of Welby's presentations over the last few years. He is subject area is design and he has been working in the area of creativity, producing and directing several short films.

Here is his TEDx presentation in Auckland a few years ago, summarising his work.

Last week, his book 'Disobedient Teaching' was officially launched. There has media interests with interviews on Radio Live, the Otago Daily Times and the NZ Herald - which also includes a short video.

The book is published by the Otago University Press and available at via the publishers or online via usual sources.

Will post a summary / overview after I have read the book :)

Spotlight on teaching and learning - 10th June

Summary of some of the presentations at the 'Spotlight on Teaching and Learning' event, held last Friday at the University of Canterbury. The event was organised by Ako Aotearoa Academy (Rua Murray and Eric Pawson from UC, myself and Suzanne Pitama from UO) and Ako Aotearoa Southern Hub. A good turnout with about 70-ish participants and 15 fifteen minute long presentations.

Mihi and opening with Associate Professor . Suzanne Pitama from University of Otago who is winner of the supreme award for sustained excellence in tertiary teaching for 2015. she then provides the opening keynote on "using peer review as a learning tool - peer assessment to coach transformative behaviours". Rationale was cause of death through medical errors still too high. Often caused by poor communication and difficulty in peers providing feedback as required. So important for medical students learn how to provide appropriate feedback to peers as and when required. Described process to assist students learning. 

Professor Eric Pawson chairs the following presentations before afternoon tea. First up, Sam Utai from Ara and Elena from UC present on an AKO funded project - change strategies to enhance Pasifika student learning. Focused on Elena's more quantitative analysis of the data. Need for all institutions to include / integrate Pasifika approaches in programmes, support approaches and pedagogy / curriculum. Participation at Support  programme tended to benefit. 

Dr. Timothy Curran from Lincoln presents next keynote using experiential learning to maximise success in undergraduate students, with context of field ecology. Introduced principles from the school of field studies - an immersive experience for students and staff. Shared experiences of how experiential contributes. Learning by doing, learn from mistakes, hones problem solving, fun, real world application, shared experiences between staff and students builds relations and job ready graduates. Challenge of bringing field experience back into classroom. Connect with data analysis and communication segments / learning outcomes of other courses. Showed link between field work, experiential learning and research - to publish papers or present posters (recommends use of padlet to comment and critique posters to learn how to produce good posters). 

Sascha Mueller from UC presents using real world context to improve student success. Bringing real world examples into the classroom to learn law. Need to shift from didactic and rote learning. Large picture type topics tend to be more open to experiential learning. However, black letter law courses still required to become solicitors. Tends to be descriptive with little moral or ethical discussion. Presented on one of the outcomes of an Ako Aoteoroa project, assessment. Instead of using set problem question, they are provided with a case file. File contents contracts, email trail, newspaper clippings etc. students have to work through. 

Kirsten Bracey from Otago Polytechnic presents via video link on supporting student learning from a learner advisor's perspective. As with Ara learning advisors from OP one on one with students to assist development of academic skills. Students are f2f or distance and across all levels, certificate to post grad. Learning advisors see a wide range of resources assessments across the institute. Some pointers on how to make learning better for students. Show students several times of where to find resources, e.g. How to navigate through Moodle and learning support websites. Share models of what needs to be produced. Talk through models, instructions and marking schedules. Approximate word limit for each section often useful. Give right amount of feedback, sometimes none, too little or too much and overwhelming. Look out for students at risk and make contact with them early. 

Afternoon tea is followed by two concurrent streams. Dr. Rua Murray chairs one stream and I chair the stream on active learning. 

First up, Adrian Woodhouse details the change in curriculum approaches for the Bachelor in Culinary Arts at Otago Poly. He provided the rationale for abandoning the curriculum silo and the programme's collaborative / co constructive approach. Instead of following a traditional trek through the cookie repertoire, there was a concentration on research informed design projects. Integration of research and management aspects into projects and assessments. Timetabling shifted to allow for several courses to run together allowing for blocks of learning to take place. 

Second, Bernadette Muir from Ara presents on project based learning in architecture. Covered active and authentic learning through projects which bring students from all 3 years together. Vertical integration of students across all years of a programme through a design jam. Detailed the living building principals students applied to their project as it brings about integrative concepts of architecture. Third year student led a project assisted by year 1 n 2 students. Year 1 n 2 then had a preview of their future learning expectations. Learning involved learning much about collaborative learning. 

Then Caro Macaw from Otago Polytechnic follows with project based learning for design teaching. Small student teams supported by staff to complete projects. Teacher becomes an executive producer! Described a project bringing together an author's work to life by to producing work and curating an exhibition at the museum. Museum invested $$ in the exhibition, held for 4 months and well supported by visitors. Summarised learning of the students from doing the project. Integrated theory learning in graphic design, film video audio production, communications etc. 

Raewyn Tudor from Ara presents on developing critical thinking, critical reflection competencies with social work students. Prepares student for role of social workers to challenge assumptions and social structures that discriminate and oppress and bring around meaningful personal and social change. Offered definition of critical reflection as a purposeful activity for considering and making changes, improvements to practice, knowledge and meanings. Introduced Stephen Brookfield's critical reflection model. Described how this is achieved through group projects and how assessed. Collaborative teaching requires high capability so PD essential. Shared learning of tutors from the process. 

Last up, Steve Tomsett from Ara on flipped classrooms as deployed helping engineering students learning concepts which are maths based. Provided background on the evolution of his current practice. Explained how flip learning should work and shared what worked and what did not work. Summarised the reflective process of Lines and dots. Line was the wider context and dots are the essential mechanics required to be learnt to progress in class. Dots are provided before class. Lines then take place to apply the dots into the context. Not just the maths but adding the why into the how. Able to use extra time to carry out authentic data collection and analysis to apply the concepts learnt. teL only useful to add value and enrich. 

In the other stream on school to tertiary transition. We have Katrina Fisher and Silvia Santos from Ara presenting as well. Katrina on 'learning barista skills through on-line learning' and Silvia with 'using tablets to assist with maths skills'. 

Dr. Peter Coolbear, Ako Aotearoa Director, closes a busy but well attended event. Peter reminded us internationally tertiary education is in flux. Changes in technology mean learning no longer has to be anchored in institutions. Cost wall being hit with regards to massification of education. Cost constrains now need to be rethought. Diversity of learners increased. Social expectations and returns on tertiary education also shifting. Tertiary education still needs to meet the needs of the future with uncertain parameters. Provided background on rationale for return on investment on tertiary education. D

Lots of variety in the presentation this afternoon but also commonalities between what constitutes good teaching to encourage learning. Active, authentic, constructive, collaborative.