Changing academic practice to prepare nursing undergraduates for an evidence-based approach

Evidence based practice (EBP) has been accepted as a process to assist health professionals in clinical decision making to improve patient outcomes. It requires applying skills in a prescribed sequence to critique existing practices. Many countries, including Australia, require nurses to demonstrate competencies in EBP skills to be registered. In the last ten years, this has lead to universities incorporating EBP in undergraduate nursing degree courses. The literature reports many challenges including students’ difficulties in critically appraising research evidence, and their need for both simplification of the process and extensive support. The purpose of our study was to investigate the effectiveness of a standalone introductory EBP subject for a diverse group of third-year undergraduates, based on a novel but challenging approach to assessment. Despite many changes made in the second iteration of the subject, most students’ perceptions of the subject’s difficulty remained unchanged. This research aligns with the issues identified in the literature and has wider applicability to the teaching of rapidly changing disciplines, where evidence-driven consumers have easy access to information and expect up-to-date practices

An adaptable framework for the teaching and assessment of software development across year levels

Few frameworks exist for the teaching and assessment of programming subjects that are coherent and logical. Nor are they sufficiently generic and adaptable to be used outside the particular tertiary institutions in which they were developed. This paper presents the Teaching and Assessment of Software Development (TASD) frame-work. We describe its development and implementation at an Australian university and demonstrate, with examples, how it has been used, with supporting data. Extracts of criteria sheets (grading rubrics) for a variety of assessment tasks are included. The numerous advantages of this new framework are discussed with comparisons made to those reported in the published literature

Lyman

Viau's celebratory text presents briefly Lyman's character and provides biographical notes on the painter

Christian Dotremont // Pierre Alechinsky

Well implemented criterion-referenced assessment (CRA) requires dedicated time and effort,\ud especially in describing realistic expectations of evidence of achievement to students in the form\ud of criteria sheets (or grading rubrics). It is also takes time out of delivering content to teach\ud students how to judge their own work using criteria sheets. In 2007, to engage third year\ud Microbiology students in using criteria sheets for the first time in their degree, we devised an\ud innovative assessment tutorial supported by online resources. We were sceptical of much of the\ud literature that reported ‘agreed’ characteristics of our predominantly gen Y cohort, because of\ud the older ages of the majority of authors. These authors claim gen Y has a propensity for digital\ud media, overconfidence in their own abilities and a collaborative orientation. We rejected this\ud stereotype when developing the tutorial. Evaluations by students were positive and there was no\ud dramatic change to grades for the unit. These results are similar to those in the literature for non\ud gen Y cohorts. This lends support to our claim that giving students control over their own\ud learning, irrespective of their generational label, is worth the time and effort

Levelling expectations across different years in an undergraduate degree to support work-related learning : evidence for a multi-pronged approach.

One of the ways in which university departments and faculties can enhance the quality of learning and\ud assessment is to develop a ‘well thought out criterion‐referenced assessment system’ (Biggs, 2003, p. 271). In\ud designing undergraduate degrees (courses) this entails making decisions about the levelling of expectations\ud across different years through devising objectives and their corresponding criteria and standards: a process of\ud alignment analogous to what happens in unit (subject) design. These decisions about levelling have important\ud repercussions in terms of supporting students’ work‐related learning, especially in relation to their ability to\ud cope with the increasing cognitive and skill demands made on them as they progress through their studies. They\ud also affect the accountability of teacher judgments of students’ responses to assessment tasks, achievement of\ud unit objectives and, ultimately, whether students are awarded their degrees and are sufficiently prepared for the\ud world of work.\ud Research reveals that this decision‐making process is rarely underpinned by an explicit educational rationale\ud (Morgan et al, 2002). The decision to implement criterion referenced assessment in an undergraduate\ud microbiology degree was the impetus for developing such a rationale because of the implications for alignment,\ud and therefore ‘levelling’ of expectations across different years of the degree. This paper provides supporting\ud evidence for a multi‐pronged approach to levelling, through backward mapping of two revised units (foundation\ud and exit year). This approach adheres to the principles of alignment while combining a work‐related approach\ud (via industry input) with the blended disciplinary and learner‐centred approaches proposed by Morgan et al.\ud (2002). It is suggested that this multi‐pronged approach has the potential for making expectations, especially\ud work‐related ones across different year levels of degrees, more explicit to students and future employers