Reshaping dominant stories : a poststructuralist approach to online role play

Online role play is an increasingly popular teaching/learning technique in higher education (Wills & McDougall 2009) but there has been little research into ways a poststructuralist approach may be supported in this format. This paper describes two very different means of incorporating a poststructuralist approach into role plays in higher education to problematise dominant assumptions in the language and content of the subject matter. The first method was a series of interventions in a face-to-face role play in which medical students practised consultations with adolescent school students. The consultations were interrupted repeatedly with activities designed to interrogate assumptions and the school students acted as coaches to improve the medical students\u27 technique. Although this role play was performed face-to-face, some of its activities may be redeveloped to suit an online role-playing format. The second method was a feature of an online role play involving Middle-East politics and journalism students, in which daily online newspapers provided a reflecting and distorting mirror to the political events simulated by the politics students. Indications of ways in which the two methods produced changes in understanding were gathered using a mixture of qualitative and quantitative methods: questionnaires, focus groups, interviews, participant observation and analysis of online discussions and artefacts

Designing online role plays with a focus on story development to support engagement and critical learning for higher education students

Online role plays, as they are designed for use in higher education in Australia and internationally, are active and authentic learning activities (Wills, Leigh & Ip, 2011). In online role plays, students take a character role in developing a story that serves as a metaphor for real-life experience in order to develop a potentially wide range of subject-related and generic learning outcomes. The characteristics of these stories are rarely considered as factors in the design―and success―of these activities. The unspoken cultural assumptions, norms and rules in the stories that impact on the meanings students make from their experiences are also rarely scrutinised in the online role play literature. This paper presents findings from a case study of an asynchronous text-based online role play involving politics and journalism students from three Australian universities. The findings highlight the centrality of students’ collaborative story-building activity to their engagement and learning, including their development of critical perspectives. The study underlines the importance of certain aspects of the role play\u27s design to support students\u27 story-building activity

Linking law: practical guidelines for delivering law to rural Victoria using e-learning technologies

Provides information, analysis and practical tips for organisations seeking to use digital technologies to enhance general and professional legal education for people living in remote, rural and regional (RRR) Victoria. Introduction These guidelines provide information, analysis and practical tips for organisations seeking to use digital technologies to enhance general and professional legal education for people living in remote, rural and regional (RRR) Victoria. Given the difficulties people living in RRR areas still face in having to take time away from work and home and travel long distances to attend many legal educational events, it makes sense to explore these options. However, it can be particularly difficult for organisations seeking to engage with RRR people to choose between educational technologies and techniques, given the considerable hype and movement in the field at present. Options are plentiful and complex, with multiple practical and organisational considerations attached to each, and the situation changes frequently as technologies improve. The increasing reach of high-speed internet and mobile networks is creating opportunities for different and more engaging educational methods to be used in most regional and rural areas, but fast internet is not the be-all and end-all. There is much that can be achieved with intelligent use of a range of lower-tech options including low-speed internet, phone, DVD and regional site-based educational technologies. These guidelines aim to identify a range of practical, digitally based options that are available for different educational purposes, and provide sets of protocols for implementing these options so that RRR people can gain maximum educational benefit and organisations can access guidance on best practice. In many cases, standard good practice in the use of these technologies is all that is needed to include people living in RRR areas effectively in community and professional education. Many metropolitan participants can also benefit from the availability of low-bandwidth options, recordings, provision for individual online access to videoconferenced events and so on. This document begins with an overview of the landscape for digitally based legal community and professional education in RRR Victoria. The requirements of RRR people for legal information and assistance have been described well in recent publications. There is no doubt that digital technologies can help address some of these needs, but technical and non-technical barriers exist, and section 3, ‘Needs, capabilities and barriers in the legal digital education landscape’, sets out briefly what the relevant capabilities and barriers are for RRR people in Victoria. The major part of this document contains guidelines for choosing and implementing a wide range of digitally based education options. The guidelines highlight a range of factors reflecting important practical and pedagogical concerns, including access, cost, need for specialist IT support, cohort size, and ability to support particular learning designs and types of communication. A planning framework focusing on educational approaches is provided as a starting point in section 4, ‘Planning for learning using digital technologies’

Role play in blended learning : a case study exploring the impact of story and other elements

Role play is an increasingly popular technique in tertiary education, being student centred, constructivist and suitable for a range of subject areas. The choice of formats is wide open, with options ranging from the traditional face to face performance through to multi-user online computer games. Some teachers prefer to take advantage of features of both online and face to face formats and offer a blended form. This case study describes an innovative blended role play in which the online component plays a small but important part. The findings show that decisions on not only how to make the best use of technology but also how to design and facilitate a role play can have a profound effect on the creation of an engaging first-person story from which powerful learning can be drawn&mdash;in this case, learning outcomes including deep insights into strengths and weaknesses of participants\u27 personal change management styles.<br /

Leading an evidence-based, multi-stakeholder approach to evaluating the implementation of a new online learning environment : an Australian institutional case study

An Australian institutional case study is presented on the evaluation approach being adopted for the implementation of a new online learning environment. Well conceived and inclusive evaluation is seen as essential for the quality management of online learning environments. The focus is on identifying and reconciling the informational needs of various stakeholder groups in the institution, and developing a plan of action covering the key period of implementation. The significant judgements required to carry out evaluation in a multi-campus environment cannot be under-estimated. This is particularly the case given the more recent move to devolving resources and responsibility for the successful implementation of the environment to faculties in the institution concerned. It calls for a more sophisticated conception and set of practices around distributed leadership, as aided by institutions&lsquo; teaching and learning centres. A set of strategic recommendations are offered to help with the evaluation task

Introducing a learning repository using a blended professional development approach

This paper outlines the professional development program used to introduce a learning repository at Deakin University. Providing appropriate, timely and effective professional development programs to support academic and other staff is one of the objectives of the Deakin University Teaching and Learning Functional Plan 2008. Our blended program combines web-based and face-to-face training with a wide variety of resources to support staff. Issues noted in the literature relating to the introduction and use of learning repositories informed the planning and development of our program. Challenges and issues we experienced at Deakin are also outlined.<br /

Persisting students' explanations of and emotional responses to academic failure

Academic failure is an important and personal event in the lives of university students, and the ways they make sense of experiences of failure matters for their persistence and future success. Academic failure contributes to attrition, yet the extent of this contribution and precipitating factors of failure are not well understood. To illuminate this world-wide problem, we analysed institutional data at a large, comprehensive Australian university and surveyed 186 undergraduate students who had failed at least one unit of study in 2016, but were still enrolled in 2017. Academic failure increased the likelihood of course attrition by 4.2 times. The students who failed and persisted attributed academic failure to a confluence of dispositional, situational, and institutional factors. There was a compounded effect of academic failure on already-vulnerable students resulting in strong negative emotions. Viewing persistence as an interaction between individuals and their sociocultural milieu opens up different avenues for research and considerations for support

Persisting students\u27 explanations of and emotional responses to academic failure

Academic failure is an important and personal event in the lives of university students, and the ways they make sense of experiences of failure matters for their persistence and future success. Academic failure contributes to attrition, yet the extent of this contribution and precipitating factors of failure are not well understood. To illuminate this world-wide problem, we analysed institutional data at a large, comprehensive Australian university and surveyed 186 undergraduate students who had failed at least one unit of study in 2016, but were still enrolled in 2017. Academic failure increased the likelihood of course attrition by 4.2 times. The students who failed and persisted attributed academic failure to a confluence of dispositional, situational, and institutional factors. There was a compounded effect of academic failure on already-vulnerable students resulting in strong negative emotions. Viewing persistence as an interaction between individuals and their sociocultural milieu opens up different avenues for research and considerations for support

How are examinations inclusive for students with disabilities in higher education? A sociomaterial analysis

As a form of assessment, examinations are designed to determine whether students have met learning outcomes. However, students with disabilities report avoiding examinations, selecting units of study where the assessments align with their strengths. To ensure examinations do not contribute to the systematic exclusion of students with disabilities, it is important to explore their experiences. In this paper, we use a sociomaterial frame to analyse how examination arrangements construct inclusion in examinations. Interviews with 40 students were conducted across two universities. Inclusion or exclusion was variably constituted for students through emergent combinations of social and material arrangements. Covid-19 pandemic related social distancing related changes such as shifting examinations online, using technology, increasing time limits and moving to open-book examinations contributed to increased inclusion for most students, who were able to use familiar equipment in spaces they had adapted to their own needs. Staff acceptance and implementation of access requirements and assessment flexibility also contributed. While the attitudes and actions of staff involved in examinations can facilitate inclusion, reducing the need for adjustments through assessment design is important. This requires consideration of how time, technology, equipment and materials contribute to inclusion or exclusion, which may have benefits for many students