Audio and screen visual feedback to support student learning

Feedback has been highlighted as the most powerful influence on student achievement, but students are often less satisfied with feedback than with other aspects of the student experience. It is hence important that ways of offering feedback are found that are useful both for improving learning and for gaining student satisfaction. This ongoing study was designed to explore and to improve feedback in a variety of differing contexts, two of which are reported here: i) audio feedback on a first year undergraduate written assignment in Geography (product-oriented feedback); and ii) video feedback from ongoing laboratory sessions with first-year Biosciences students (process-oriented feedback). These contexts have been selected as offering different ways of working and for highlighting a number of issues and areas for further development. Student and staff views have been gained via surveys, focus groups, individual interviews and ‘stimulated recall’ sessions. Findings suggest that students have high expectations in relation to feedback; many anticipate the kinds of individual face-to-face interaction they experienced in school and are not easily satisfied by other ways of working. In addition, offering audio or video feedback that is supportive to learning in both affective and cognitive terms is not necessarily easy. In the context of written assignments there is still much to be learned about appropriateness of length, tone, the register of language, the balance between praise and criticism, and the best contexts and timing for audio feedback. In the context of large classes for laboratory sessions, further research is needed on how lecturers and demonstrators can give ongoing feedback that is useful when captured for replay in video form, and also about how effective video taken in class might be then used for training purposes in order to enable student demonstrators to be more effective and knowledgeable when offering feedback to student

On Polyporus pulcherrimus

Brief description of the fungus Polyporus pulsherrimus, n.s

Botanic evidence in favour of land connection between Fuegia and Tasmania during the present floristic epoch

Tasmania is rich in plant vestiges, that is, in the presence of isolated species or small groups which appear to be the last remnants of various migrants or passed floras, and it is an interesting speculation whence came those forms and what topographical conditions of past ages they may indicate. The only part of this history that has received any attention up to the present is that which appears to give weight to the theory of continuity of land between Tasmania and Fuegia, by way of antarctic or subantarctic regions, during comparatively recent times. The only plants which appear to give any weighty information are those belonging to the genus Fagus, commonly known as beech

Additions to the Bryophyte flora

The mosses of Tasmania have had a very fair amount of attention paid to them, so that it is improbable any large number of new species will in future be added. The Hepatics have not been neglected, but their variability and the exceptional richness of form found in Tasmania have made their study more obscure. No doubt in the future many new species will yet be discovered, also some which we now recognise will be suppressed. Still, we can safely say that the hepatic flora of Tasmania approaches three hundred, which means it is almost the richest in species of any locality in the world. Of the following mosses the Andreaeas would by some collectors be clubbed with A. petrophila, but then they would have to be treated as varieties. A. petrophila is most variable, and it is certainly desirable that prominence should be given to the principal forms. Blindid acuta was recorded as Tasmanian by J. D. Hooker. It is a European species, and as no specimen was present in any available collection it was left out of the previous work. The Tasmanian form differs from the type, its leaf margin being quite entire, and the absence of quadrate cells at the basal angles. It may yet be described as a distinct suecies

Botanical notes

List of Tasmanian specimens (fungi and lichens)

Tasmanian Discomycetes

The students of Tasmanian Fungi have very insufficient means of becoming acquainted with described species, and further, such a small number of those indigenous in the Stat~ have been described that there is fair reason to justify a paper to bring our knowledge up to date. It is probable that some, perhaps many, of those described as new may eventually be recognised to be identical with forms already named elsewhere, but if we wait till we shall commit no errors the purpose of this paper will not have been met. It is essentially one to afford a student an easy means of recognising the local species of the large fungus group known as Discomycetes. The only work already available to students is Cooke's Handbook of Australian Fungi, and the information in that book is too fragmentary, and often erroneous, to be of much assistance. The Gymnoascaceae have been included at the end of the paper, though they belong to another group, Plectomycetes. The disc-fruiting fungi, which have.adopted a parasitic habit, commonly known as Lichens, are excluded from convenience, and not from any supposition that they are genetica1ly distinct. The Histeriales are almost continuous with some of the smaller plants of our group, but their distinction may soon be recognised

Botanical descriptions of Eucalypti

Eucalyptus globulus (Labillardiere) —Tall, erect tree, even in exposed situations, tending to preserve a preponderating main-stem till the high forest age is reached, the branches few and acutely diverging; bark deciduous. Mature foliage alternate, stalked, lanceolate, acute, oblique, 6 to 12 inches long, 1 to 2 inches wide. Flowers solitary in the leaf axils. Outer operculum smooth, shed while the bud is approaching maturity ; calyx and inner operculum rough, warted, and obscurely four-ribbed ; mature calyx about | inch in diameter; anther-cells parallel. Fruit broadly obconic, | to 1 inch in diameter ; capsule slightly protruding ; valves obsolete. In Eastern Victoria the common form of this tree bears a three-flowered umbel in the axil, the flowers being half the size recorded in the type, and less warted. In Tasmania, where this species and E. viminalis are mixed, a form will occasionally be found consisting of odd trees in which the flowers are in threes, the operculum and fruit quite smooth, and the fruit about three quarters to one inch in diameter, the valves much protruding. This, though very close to the Victorian form, may be a hybrid

Additions to Tasmanian flora

Before the year closes I am anxious to place on record a brief description of three interesting plants. Of these two are new species, the other doubtless introduced.Description of species and the habitat. Ranunculus setaceus. ns. Pseudanthus tasmanicus. ns. Rumex dumosus, A. Cunn

Notes on some rare and interesting Cryptogams.

Among the enthusiasts who have pushed the study of plants to its present high level, few have done much research amongst the lower groups, especially the fungi. Little more has been done than could be classed as simply scratching the surface. There is plenty of new material at hand ready for the worker. The only trouble is that sometimes when returns are copious it is not always easy to induce an estimable society to publish it. The plants brought before you in the present paper are of exceptional interest, though few. The Hepatics here described by Pearson are the last lot collected by our old friend, W. A. Weymouth. Pearson, who died only a short time ago, was for many years a corresponding member of this Society. Terfezia tasmanica., n.s. An irregular subterranean tuber, just emerging from the ground when mature, usually 1-3 cm. diameter, chestnut-brown, tough fleshy. Slopes of Mt. Wellington, 300 ft. Xylaria tolosa, n.s. Sporophore usually arising with a long root from a loose subterranean sclerotium; erect, black surface. includes notes and description of species

Notes and additions to the fungus flora of Tasmania

Of the Agarics which may be gathered in Tasmania we have but a poor record. The reason is not far to seek ; they are incapable of satisfactory preservation. The softness of their structure causes such a distortion in drying that means of critical comparison are lost. Certainly they may be preserved in spirits or formaline, but then the colour will go, and colour in this group of plants is of first importance. The only satisfactory way to proceed is to make a faithful watercolour copy, also accurate notes of all features, and trust that some expert may recognise and name them. The following four species may certainly be added, Collybia protracta, Fr.; Collybia butyracea, Bull,; Flammula prasine, C. et M.; Pholiota adipose, Fr. Also listed here are other Hymenomycetous Fungi not hitherto recorded as Tasmanian