Ako Aotearoa Academy of Tertiary Teaching Excellence resources in category: Teaching Stories and Tools

What is Academic Co-creative Inquiry?  A workshop with Ksenija Napan

The Academy held their first regional event in Otago at the beginning of February.

Academy members help spread the word about teaching and learning at Wintec Festival

A presentation from Marty Vreede,  which was accompanied by a lesson in paper making.

 Symposium 2010 - A presentation from Professor Marnie Hughes-Warrington, Monash University

Tracy presented her story at the 2008 Symposium

Sally Kift is a Professor of Law at Queensland University of Technology, where she has served as Law Faculty Assistant Dean, Teaching & Learning (2001-2006) and QUT’s foundational Director, First Year Experience (2006-2007). Sally is a national Teaching Award winner (2003) and national Program Award winner (2007). She was awarded a Senior Fellowship by the Australian Learning and Teaching Council (ALTC) in 2006 to investigate the first year experience and is currently an ALTC Discipline Scholar in Law. Presentation: A transition pedagogy to engage and support first year biology students. This presentation will review research conducted under an Australian Learning and Teaching Council (ALTC) Senior Fellowship that has investigated good practice in first year curriculum design and support. The impetus for this work has been the recognition that, in all their diversity, students come to our institutions to learn and it is therefore within the first year curriculum that students must be engaged, supported, and realise a sense of belonging. A major Fellowship outcome has been the articulation of a 'transition pedagogy' – a guiding philosophy for intentional first year curriculum design and support that carefully scaffolds and mediates the first year learning experience for contemporary heterogeneous cohorts. This transition pedagogy is framed around the identification of six First Year Curriculum Principles. These interconnected organising principles, together with examples and strategies for their implementation in the context of first year biology, will be discussed.

 Jeffrey Smith holds a chaired professorship in Education at the University of Otago, and is Co-Director of New Zealand’s National Education Monitoring Project. Prior to Otago, he was Professor and Chair of the Educational Psychology Department at Rutgers University, where he had been a faculty member for 29 years. From 1988 through 2005, he also served as Head of the Office of Research and Evaluation at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. He studies issues in educational assessment, learning in cultural institutions, and the psychology of aesthetics. He has written or edited six books on educational assessment, statistical analysis, and educational psychology. In addition, he has written over 70 articles and reviews on educational research issues. He is currently Co-Editor of the journal, Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts. Presentation: Constructing MCQs Multiple choice questions have many perceived advantages and disadvantages. The purpose of this presentation is to demonstrate how the multiple choice format can be used to assess not only knowledge/recall, but also application skills and higher order thinking skills.

This posting is reproduced with the permission of the Stanford Centre of Teaching and Learning which operates the 'Tomorrow's Professor' list on which this was published.

Symposium 2010 -  A presentation from Professor Marnie Hughes-Warrington, Monash University

This posting is reproduced with the permission of the Stanford Centre of Teaching and Learning which operates the 'Tomorrow's Professor' list on which this was published.

 Kevin is Professor of Plant Biology at Victoria University of Wellington. An enthusiastic teacher and the recipient of two teaching awards, Kevin co-ordinates the large 100-level course, Biology of Plants. In 2009, as part of the University’s Pathways to Success initiative, he instigated rigorous changes to the curriculum, including the use of digital technologies in the lecture theatre. Those changes were associated with improved performance, lower failure rate, and deeper understanding of the course material among students. In particular, the use of ‘clicker technology’ led to higher-order critical thinking (analysis, synthesis, and evaluation, as the terms refer to Bloom’s taxonomy). Presentation: Developing higher-order thinking in the100-level classroom Kevin will describe the changes made to his course, and present evidence of their successful outcomes. He will present an online demonstration of his team’s latest project, the creation of a wiki webpage, complete with guidelines for creating effective clicker questions, and examples of questions used by academic staff in the School of Biological Sciences to promote higher order learning.

 Symposium 2010 - Part One of the presentation from Academy member - Tracey Poutama-Mackie

 Symposium 2010 - Part Two of the presentation from Academy member - Tracey Poutama-Mackie

A Teaching Story from Julia Bruce, Hairdressing Tutor, Centre for Hairdressing and Beauty Therapy, Waikato Institute of Technology.  Julia is a 2008 Tertiary Teaching Excellence Award winner.

The final session of the Academy Symposium was a hands introduction to the "Interactive Classroom Presenter" a package which enables student and teacher to exchange handwritten information via a "tablet".  Participants provided their ideas for Engaging their Students.

Alison Campbell is a senior lecturer in biology at The University of Waikato. In an earlier life she was a secondary school teacher and this has led to ongoing interaction with the secondary sector, including running on-campus biology days, running scholarship preparation workshops, and getting involved in curriculum development and national assessment. She also writes a blog on a whole range of things biological. She was a recipient of a national Tertiary Teaching Excellence Award in 2010. Presentation: Enhancing the secondary-tertiary interface With the new biology (‘living world’) curriculum and associated changes in Achievement Standards, students entering university biology classes will have had learning experiences quite different from those assumed by their university teachers. If we’re to successfully bridge them into tertiary study, we need to become much more aware of what’s happening in today’s secondary biology classrooms.

 Symposium 2010 - A presentation from Academy member Alison Campbell

Alison Campbell is a senior lecturer in biology at The University of Waikato. In an earlier life she was a secondary school teacher and this has led to ongoing interaction with the secondary sector, including running on-campus biology days, running scholarship preparation workshops, and getting involved in curriculum development and national assessment. She also writes a blog on a whole range of things biological. She was a recipient of a national Tertiary Teaching Excellence Award in 2010. Presentations: Fun with panopto Using panopto (course-cast) in class: how it works for Alison and what the students think of it.  

This posting is reproduced with the permission of the Stanford Centre of Teaching and Learning which operates the 'Tomorrow's Professor' list on which this was published.