Scholarly, Scholarship, Excellence – a model for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning

The article presents some personal thoughts about Boyer’s scholarship of teaching concept. It considers how the existing literature informs the notion of the scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL) and how it intersects with ideas of teaching excellence and expertise

Developing robust assessment criteria for postgraduate research oriented papers

Assessment criteria designed to fully evaluate prescribed learning outcomes is a significant aid to both student and staff alike. For the student, it allows them to fully understand the requirements for a specific grade and for staff, it simplifies marking (grading) and minimises the likelihood of student appeals against assessment. Whilst criterion referencing is common place in the more traditional analytical type taught papers common in the Engineering degree curriculum it is perhaps less commonly utilised for research based papers. Presented here is a case study where both learning outcomes and achievement criteria have been proposed for a postgraduate research methodology paper which prepares students for their thesis. It has significant cross over to a descriptor for the thesis paper itself and is considered a template which could be equally applied to other subject domains where research methodology is taught

BE (Hons) final year project assessment - leaving out the subjectiveness

Final year projects for BE(Hons) programmes are the linkage between the academic and the industrial domains. Projects are often judged by respective employers as the measure by which students are considered and are also closely surveyed by professional bodies when accreditation is sought. In some instances, final year projects can lead to publications in conferences and journals and also allow students to continue their academic study into research degrees. However, the assessment of both the final thesis and the process of conducting the project are often subjective and open to challenge. This paper discusses a comprehensive strategy for removing some of the inconsistencies and proposes a transparent and robust assessment model which can be applied in similar areas elsewhere. This approach has been developed at the School of Engineering at AUT University in Auckland

Pain, Gain - Mission

We present a short conceptual framework as an opinion piece for considering learning gain based on Biesta’s three domains of educational purpose: qualification, socialisation and subjectification. We invite readers to reflect on the perspectives given in relation to different institutions mission statements around teaching and learning, and consider if the focus on developing methods for measuring learning gain is premature, given the lack of consensus regarding the nature of the learning to be measured

Police officer physical fitness to work: A case for health and fitness training

There is no reference point currently available to the Irish police force (An Garda Síochána) for measurement of baseline physical fitness or for tracking its current members, as no such data exists. Currently there is no defined health and fitness policy or strategy following a trainee Irish police force two year training period. Measurements of the various health-related components of physical fitness have been developed and, in some cases, standardised, with good to excellent accuracy and reliability (American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM, 2011), as physiological measures (as a proxy for actual physical fitness) with predictive accuracy of an individual’s health outcomes better than physical activity recall (Bovet et al., 2007). These measures were utilised within this research to ascertain if there were fitness changes within a group of Irish police force trainees during their period in college training. An improvement was predicted for the trainee group that was at odds with the actual findings. The focus of this particular study is to provide the information to establish if there is a need for mandatory health and fitness testing (while allowing for individual differences) for this unique Irish work force

Undertaking an institutional ‘stock-take’ of SoTL: New Zealand university case studies

A working group was established at AUT University in 2005 with a brief to identify initiatives that might be taken to promote and support staff engagement in the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL). The working group recognized that a ‘stock-taking’ exercise would need to be undertaken before appropriate initiatives could be identified, trialled and evaluated. In this article the methodology and specific methods used for the stock-take, which included bench-marking with other New Zealand universities, are outlined and key findings are presented and discussed. These findings provide a helpful snapshot of the presence of SoTL within New Zealand universities and within the everyday lives of New Zealand university teachers. They highlight the complexity of those lives and tertiary institution environments that can make it challenging for teachers to become more scholarly and to engage in SoTL. They also point to ways in which those environments may be made more conducive to the realization of these goals. In this article, the methodology and specific methods used for the stock-take, which included bench-marking with other New Zealand universities, are outlined and key findings are presented and discussed

Trapped Deep Beneath the Sewage: Representation of the University in Popular Music

This article reviews the lyrics of popular music in order to uncover how the ‘university’ is represented in this art form. The lyrics that feature university are coded into themes and these are discussed. The lyrics are initially coded to negative/positive/neutral, but group of more refined themes is also presented. The analysis reveals that whilst the university is still seen as a place of learning, the lyrics of these songs tend to present and represent the university in a negative light. The intention of this article is to promote debate into the way that the university is perceived by popular music songwriters, but also to demonstrate the importance of assessing the place of the university from outside of the (at times) myopic lens of higher educational research

Cross-boundary communities, an alternative vision for academic development

This opinion piece presents material derived from a thought piece about the future of academic development and a phenomenographic study in which the collaborative open learning experience was explored within two cross-institutional academic development courses and. The proposition for academic development shared in this article is based on some of the study’s findings around cross-boundary community synthesized with conceptual ideas to present an alternative approach to academic development that connects academic staff, students and the public, diversifies the offer, and turns it into a dynamic practitioner-driven collaboration

Towards Collaboration as Learning: Evaluation of an Open CPD Opportunity for HE Teachers

Flexible, Distance and Online Learning (FDOL) is an open online course offered as an informal cross-institutional collaboration based on a postgraduate module in the context of teacher education in higher education. The second iteration, FDOL132, was offered in 2013 using a problem-based learning (PBL) design(FISh) to foster collaborative learning. How this was experienced by participants and how it affected learning within facilitated small groups are explored in this paper. Findings show that authentic learning in groups can be applied directly to practice, and greater flexibility and a focus on the process of collaborative learning has the potential to increase engagement and learning

Using a bespoke, triad narrative analysis approach with Gen Z students: telling the story of their values

This paper presents an innovative narrative data analysis approach, used in a narrative research project exploring student values. The work of three different authors was drawn upon to create a novel, rigorous and synergistic analysis tool. A novel approach to data analysis, using the stories told by one Generation Z (Gen Z) student and the personal values elicited, which are drawn from Schwartz’s theory of universals in basic human values is presented. This leads to a restorying of the data, from which the reader finds meaning. The participant was interviewed at the beginning of their first year as undergraduate and is presented as an example from the larger study of seven Gen Z students. How this approach is effective is examined, demonstrating that combining theory and the narrative analysis approach enabled the values of self-direction, security, benevolence and power to be exposed within the resulting restorying. This is a new and innovative approach to narrative analysis that can be applied in a wide range of contexts internationally and utilised in future studies