Creating supportive learning environments

When I started teaching in the unit I noticed that there were a lot of applications for special consideration or submitting late. I thought something must be happening to receive so many of these applications. I initially investigated by checking with the students. A lot of them identified that there were issues with transitioning to University. I found that this was not just a single unit issue but a broader issue experienced in first-year units.

I thought about what I could do to help the students to develop coping skills that can help them transition from school to university. When students are struggling with their studies, their motivation drops, they stop coming to class, their academic performance suffers and dropout rates increase. This is the impact I wanted to address.

The following interventions were a result of a number of iterations. The combination of these interventions helped the students stay engaged with the material and be confident in their learning.

	Improve student engagement through the creation of interactive online resources: With the help of an education designer, we used Adobe captivate to create online interactive resources to improve student engagement with the foundational content of the unit. These resources featured videos interspersed with questions, drag and drop activities, hotspots with explanations of diagrams, pop-up text, and in-built scenarios (e.g. Undercover boss series)
	Encourage student self-efficacy through chunking and scaffolding. The interactive materials allow for multiple attempts and provide immediate feedback on questions embedded in it. We designed it so that the students were encouraged to persevere when attempting the questions. We started with the basic concepts and then progressed to more complex theories or frameworks.
	Amplify engagement, self-efficacy and resilience through carefully designed classroom activity: We used a team-based learning approach, so students had an opportunity to learn from each other. Students apply the concepts and theories learned in the online interactive resources in analysing a case study. By explaining concepts, theories or methods to each other enhances self-efficacy and reinforces understanding. As teams present their analyses and solutions, constructive feedback from the teacher and other teams helps refine their ideas and learn from their mistakes, building self-efficacy and resilience.
	Develop resilience by scaffolding assessments: I created challenging assessments that were scaffolded, e.g. assignments with two parts where the first part was submitted and students received feedback before they wrote the remaining part of the assignment. The assessments also used skills that were developed in the classroom, e.g. case analysis skills. Students are given support by providing detailed instructions and marking criteria; sample student assignments; mark and discuss the sample student assignment during class in teams and in plenary, provide annotated examples, and examples of different standards. The feedback given for the first assignment is clear, detailed, and personalised, helping students improve for the second assignment. This process develops resilience by teaching students how to learn from feedback and apply it to future work.
	Applied UDL principles. We initially developed a text-only version for a vision-impaired student. However, we found out that a lot of students ended up using this version to support their note-taking. As we considered the accessibility for one student, it benefited the whole cohort. Students could use this text-only version in a screen reader program to help them learn the content better using audio. We also added captions to all of the videos.

The number of accesses by students on the online resources have at least doubled and the accesses were spread out over the semester (compared to mainly during SWOTVAC and exam period previously).

We also saw significant improvement in results from the first assignment to the second assignment. The feedback from the student’s indicated that they found the feedback from the first part of the assignment really useful. It allowed them to get a better idea of what was expected and what they needed to work on for the second assignment. Academic performance of the students has also improved which we attribute to the combined effects of the changes we have made to the unit. Although the failure rate has slightly increased, there were more students receiving HDs and Ds which suggests that the unit helps students excel while distinguishing those who have not satisfactorily achieved the learning outcomes.

Overall, student satisfaction scores (SETU) have improved and qualitative feedback from the students on the unit has been positive.

The teaching innovations have been recognised in the Faculty, University and National level. It was validating to receive the Australian Awards for University Teaching (AAUT) Citation for Outstanding Contributions to Student Learning. This has inspired me to continue to explore other improvements that I could make in my teaching practice.

The first thing to think about is, what is the biggest problem that you want to address? This can then drive any transformation. By addressing the biggest problem there is an opportunity to make the biggest difference by doing one thing.

Being aware of different teaching practices in different disciplines can assist in the process of resolving issues. Discuss with the Faculty Ed Designer. They will give a good idea of what is possible and support the changes in relation to the solutions you want to implement.

To get the teaching team on board with the changes in the unit, we ran a training session that covered how to teach using case studies. This ensured that all teaching team members understood the rationale behind the changes as well as how they would deliver the teaching. When we redesigned the assessment, to ensure that quality of feedback is consistent across tutors, we ran a feedback training session with the teaching team. This covered both how to give feedback and how to improve the feedback that they have been giving to the students. We always have a marking calibration meeting and discuss assignments that are borderline.

Don’t try to solve all the perceived problems in a unit at the one time. This can lead to interventions that are not designed well. Identify the core problem. In this case, by addressing the transition challenges, we were also able to improve other aspects of learning such as academic performance and student satisfaction.

Expose yourself to what is happening across the University and broader. Look at other people’s teaching practices. Education conferences can be a good way to do that.