Possible future directions and areas of focus for your personal / professional development as an educator

I’ve learned many significant points through ‘Tertiary Teaching and Learning’ unit to improve my teaching. But this is just a kick-off of long way forward to develop myself as a teacher. Planning is a dynamic subject which is affected by politics, economy, social change, and technology (Fischer, 2012). There are many practices all over the world. First of all, I would like to keep synthesizing the academic theories and state-of-the-art practices to the component of my teaching as linked with my teaching briefs. The examples introduced in my class should be always updated to follow the dynamic feature of planning. This requires classic readings but also technology such as YouTube, radio, and Skype to listen to the ‘real’ voice of planners from all over the world. Also, as a course convener of Master of Urban and Regional Planning, I am responsible for designing the course structure. I am considering to re-design the course to let students to learn as much effectively as possible to achieve their study goal, but also nurture them as excellent planner. We have accreditation from Planning Institution of Australia but there is room for improvement. As part of this improvement, we are thinking to expose students to more international practices as Australian examples have limitations for students to obtain high-standard knowledge and experience in this field. We will start new unit next year which is called ‘international planning workshop’. We take students to international host institutions every year under one theme each (for example, transit-oriented development for 2013). Students learn and work with the students from host institutions but also industry/governments there to experience real planning. I also discuss with the two students representatives to understand their needs and what should be improved in our teaching. In this way, we can bridge the potential gaps on ‘what the teacher does’, ‘how student learn’, and ‘expected learning outcomes’.

Secondly, I would like to review of my colleague’s teaching activity at times. I reviewed my colleague’s activity as assignment 1 and learned significant points that gave answers to my questions: how could I put students in the practical/professional situation and let them critically explore how they should address the issues of their task?, how could I give students the feedback of their work effectively?, and how could I let students to refer to the readings and reflect on their learning and assignments? I immediately applied what my colleagues do in my teaching and received positive feedback to students.

Finally, I would like to share teaching experiences with my colleagues more often. There are many excellent teachers who are trying to improve their teaching all the time. But we don’t discuss and share our experience so often. When the connection, engagement, and safety are in place, sustainable conversations about learning and teaching are possible (McCormack and Kennelly, 2011). Fortunately our discipline already has these factors. As I think there is no way to miss the opportunities to learn from other teacher’s experience, I would like to keep sharing experiences at staff meetings, morning/afternoon teas where we frankly discuss.

My personal beliefs about the ways in which students learn and relevant guiding principles in teaching, support for your beliefs about learning, teaching and assessment from the scholarly higher education

Urban planning is a highly practical discipline as my peer-reviewer Richard Hu says. In this context, classical learning style doesn’t help students to develop their skills to be professionals. Because as a planner they are required to play various roles in practice: as analyst, designer, advocate, manager, mediator, educator, and facilitator (Fischler, 2012). My personal beliefs about the ways in which students learn are; students synthesize planning theory and practice, by putting themselves as planner in hypothetical situation in the process of learning. Students critically analyse and evaluate the existing practices to identify how the planners have coped with the issues and challenges and what are the past failures that they shouldn’t repeat. I agree with Schonwetter et al. (2002) that mentions ‘Effective teaching results from a synergy among learning principles, personal characteristics, and discipline and institutional cultures’. In my discipline this ‘synergy’ really helps students to achieve leaning outcomes. Therefore the ‘Deep approach’ (Biggs and Tang, 2007) is applied in my classes. I include ‘visit to local councils’, ‘visit to urban development site’, ‘role-playing’ in my class to help develop skills as planner. I refer to ‘the important thing is that relating all teaching methods to particular goals for student learning’ (Ramsden, 2003), and ‘Informed by intellectual curiosity, methodological rigor, and good judgement, comprehensive approach to urban development enables planners to attend to a wide array of factors and to synthesize a large number of elements into meaningful, creative schemes ( Fischer, 2012). Assignment in my class is to demonstrate their knowledge and its application to practice. For example, the second assignment of my unit ‘Planning theory and process 2’ was group presentation which students were to work together in teams of up to 5 people to present a critique of a local urban plan to provide advice to the local council meeting.

My students exploring new town centre development

Why teaching is important to me?

I realised the importance of teaching and how much I liked and missed teaching after spending 2.5 years with research organisation. I possessed an academic position in Japan (urban and transport planning) and moved to Australia to join the federal research organisation four years ago. I was happy when I started my job in Australia as a research scientist, but realised that something was wrong - I missed teaching. Siemiatycki (2012) describes that planning academics are assuming ever larger roles as participants in practice, as public scholars, as advisor or consultants, as community-based researchers, or as activists. I would add ‘teacher’ on top of this. It never occurred to me to question myself why teaching is important to me when I was teaching in an university in Japan, where the teaching style/norms and students attitudes are different from Australia. It is common that one-third of students at class are asleep, reading comics, and texting in Japan, where conventional and passive teaching is dominant. There is also a clear hierarchy between teachers and students. So it is rare that students argue or make comments. No feedback like USS is given at the end of semester. What is expected for students are, to listen to teachers and to make note. With this teaching style, not many teachers care how their teaching assists/not assists students’ learning and stimulate their intellectual curiosity.  Because ‘how students learn’ is not regarded as ‘significant’ in this teaching norms. But I realised this teaching style isn’t meaningful in my field- urban and regional planning which is very practical. Therefore my answer to the question ‘why teaching is important to me’ is; because teaching is to nurture urban planners who build our living environment in the future and I am honoured to be responsible for contributing to this. I believe in my field of urban planning, teachers have much responsibility in nurturing future planners because their work directly affect people’s quality of life. The second reason is because teaching is also learning. I believe that teaching brings me a lot of opportunities to train myself, through discussion and being inspired by student’s innocent idea which will lead crystallising research ideas and application to planning practice. The third reason is that teaching is fun. I enjoy teaching. If I don’t enjoy teaching, student would notice this and they wouldn’t enjoy either. If they enjoy learning, that would bring better motivation to them.

My students learning about public private partnership in infrastructure planning.

Moderation

UC Assessment Policy is downloaded from here:
https://guard.canberra.edu.au/policy/policy.php?pol_id=2900

 6.1 Key principle: The standard of assessment in a unit will be equivalent wherever and however the unit is delivered. Assessment will be moderated to ensure that judgments of students’ performance are consistent, transparent, reliable and valid.

6.2 Moderation is a process whereby academic staff responsible for assessment in a course or unit reach consensus about levels of student performance in relation to a set of agreed standards. Moderation enables judgments made by different staff involved in assessing student performance to be compared and either validated or moderated.

6.3 Moderation is fundamental to good assessment practice. The purpose of moderation is to:
(a) maintain agreed standards in the assessment of student work through a valid, consistent and transparent process; and
(b) ensure that assessment reflects student performance rather than variable standards among different markers.

6.4 Courses will have documented moderation procedures.

6.5 Moderation requires additional safeguards to ensure consistency when there are multiple markers involved in assessing a unit.

6.6 When the work of a student is awarded a mark or grade that leads to a fail grade in a unit, the work must be reassessed by a colleague in the discipline.

Grades

UC Assessment Policy is downloaded from here:
https://guard.canberra.edu.au/policy/policy.php?pol_id=2900
  
5.1 Key principle: Student performance is recorded in the form of marks and grades in
relation to a set of agreed standards known as grade descriptors. These standards are applicable across all disciplines and professional fields.

5.2 Grades (for example, pass, credit, distinction) are symbols that indicate either the level of student performance in an assessment item or overall performance in a unit against specified standards. The final grade in a unit provides a final statement for the student and the community of the student’s achievement of the learning outcomes in that unit.

5.3 The awarding of a final grade in a unit represents the aggregation of a series of prior
assessments of student performance in that unit.

5.4 Students should not normally be surprised by their final grade if a unit is assessed according to good assessment practice through a variety of items with timely, constructive feedback. However, on occasion final grades may not meet the expectations of students (see examples in Procedures 5.2).

5.5 In some units, it is appropriate to require students to pass all or specified items of assessment to achieve a pass grade in the unit (see examples in Procedures 5.3). A fail grade may be awarded in these circumstances even though an aggregate result from individual assessment items might indicate a pass.

5.6 Grades reflect an individual student’s performance in relation to pre-defined standards set out as grade descriptors. The awarding of grades is an issue of professional judgment. Such judgments will be consistent both within and across units. Moderation processes (see Section 6) help ensure consistency of grade allocation.

5.7 Students will be awarded a mark for each assessment item unless the item or unit is assessed on a pass/fail basis only or the assessment is formative and does not contribute to the final grade.

5.8 Units with ungraded passes will be minimised at undergraduate level. Pass/fail grades only may apply to units or unit components where professional standards call for assessment without marks.

5.9 Students may lodge grievances in relation to unit results through the procedures in the Student Grievance Resolution Policy.

Assessment items

UC Assessment Policy is downloaded from here:
https://guard.canberra.edu.au/policy/policy.php?pol_id=2900

ASSESSMENT ITEMS

Note: Examinations are a form of assessment item. See the Examination Policy.

3.1 Key principle: The performance of each student is individually assessed against the
learning outcomes of the unit independently of the assessment of other students in the unit. This is referred to as criterion-referenced assessment.

3.2 Assessment items are the means by which:
(a) students are able to demonstrate the extent to which they have achieved the specific learning outcomes of the unit; and
(b) staff make judgments about the extent to which learning outcomes have been achieved.

3.3 Assessment items will be reliable and valid indicators of student performance in relation to the learning outcomes (including generic skills).

3.4 Good practice in assessment requires:
(a) assessing the achievement of learning outcomes in a unit through several assessment items so that students have a number of opportunities to demonstrate what they know and are able to do; and
(b) the use of different types of assessment items to address the needs of different students and different learning outcomes.

3.5 Assessment of a unit will not rely on a final examination as the only form of assessment.

3.6 Where assessment for a unit involves group work, assessment items should appropriately balance individual and group work. See Procedures 3.4-8.

3.7 The set of assessment items for each unit will assess student achievement on the full range of specified learning outcomes.

3.8 Design of assessment items will take into account, as appropriate, the signature themes of the University: work-integrated learning; interdisciplinary study; research-led teaching; intercultural student and staff capability; and student access, choice and flexibility.

3.9 Assessment will be based only on judgments of student performance in relation to the learning outcomes of a unit. Students will not be rewarded or penalised for activities unrelated to learning outcomes.

3.10 Participation in activities such as laboratory classes, fieldwork or work placements may be required if essential for successful completion of the learning outcomes for professional reasons such as accreditation. In such cases, this requirement will be specified in the unit outline.

3.11 Student evaluation of a unit, for example in student surveys, for the purpose of providing feedback to academic staff is not part of the assessment of student learning.

3.12 Assessment processes must enable the participation of students with disabilities.

3.13 The onus rests with the student for clarifying with the unit convener any doubts about the requirements of particular assessment items or procedures.

3.14 Special consideration is consideration given to students whose performance in a unit may be affected by unavoidable and adverse circumstances. Special consideration will normally result in extensions of time for submission of assessment items (see Procedures 3.9) or deferred examinations (see the Deferred Examination Policy).

3.15 Supplementary assessment (including supplementary examinations) is a form of assessment designed to give eligible students a second chance to pass a final unit of study. See the Supplementary Assessment Policy.



 

Rublic use in higher education

Reddy, Y.M., & Andrade, H. (2010). A review of rubric use in higher education. Assessment & evaluation in higher education, 35(4), 435–448. doi: 10.1080/02602930902862859

Two studies suggested that rubric use was associated with improved academic performance, while one did not.

A rubric has three essential features: evaluation criteria, quality definitions, and a scoring strategy.

Quality definitions provide a detailed explanation of what a student must do to demonstrate a skill, proficiency or criterion in order to attain a particular level of achievement

Rubrics are often used by teachers to grade student work but many authors argue that they can serve another, more important, role as well: When used by students as part of a formative assessment of their works in progress, rubrics can teach as well as evaluate

The purposes of this review are to examine the type and extent of empirical research on rubrics at the post-secondary level and to stimulate research on rubric use in post-secondary teaching.

is there evidence that rubrics can be used as formative assessments in order to promote learning and achievement in higher education, as opposed to rubric use that serves only the purposes of grading and accountability?

graduate and undergraduate students value rubrics because they clarify the targets for their work, allow them to regulate their progress and make grades or marks transparent and fair.

There is evidence of both positive responses and resistance to rubric use by college and university instructors.

One striking difference between students’ and instructors’ perceptions of rubric use is related to their perceptions of the purposes of rubrics. Students frequently referred to them as serving the purposes of learning and achievement, while instructors focused almost exclusively on the role of a rubric in quickly, objectively and accurately assigning grades.

the use of rubrics to rate student work enabled an instructor to pinpoint the areas of weakness and thereby identify needed improvements in the instruction.

These studies lend support to the view that rubrics have the potential to act as ‘instructional illuminators’ (Popham 1997, 75).

Several studies have shown that rubrics can allow instructors and students to reliably assess performance.

the clarity of the language in a rubric is a matter of validity because an ambiguous rubric cannot be accurately or consistently interpreted by instructors, students or scorers (Payne 2003).

The implication seems to be that simply handing out a rubric cannot be expected to have an impact on student work:

The research reports little study of the validity of the rubrics used.

Future studies should report how the validity of a rubric was established, and the scoring reliability, including rater training and its contribution towards achieving inter-rater reliability, and perhaps even the correlation between rubric-referenced scores and other measures of performance.

Influences on the assessment of graduate attributes in higher education

Hughes, C. & Barrie, S. (2010). Influences on the assessment of graduate attributes in higher education. Assessment & Evaluation in HIgher Education, 35(3), pp. 325-334.

outcomes-based approach to the quality assurance of standards in higher education

advocacy for the establishment of constructive alignment between learning outcomes and assessment without acknowledging other factors that need to be addressed in planning for the effective assessment of graduate attributes.

Assessment often takes the form of tasks such as essays and examinations conducted within the boundaries of discrete courses or modules, traditions which remain unquestioned and unchallenged because of their long association with particular disciplines.

Though outcomes-based approaches to curriculum have been responsible for a shift of focus to the assessment of student learning as a more valid demonstration

that graduate attributes are most effectively embedded in assessment when they frame curriculum development and when students are engaged as active partners in directing their own learning through negotiation of assessment tasks, collection of evidence of progress in relation to specific attributes,

Student perceptions of e-portfolio

D.U. Bolliger & C.E. Shepherd (2010): Student perceptions of ePortfolio

integration in online courses, Distance Education, 31:3, 295-314

electronic portfolios (ePortfolios) – digitized, computer or Web-based versions of traditional portfolios

Online learning environments are also beginning to incorporate ePortfolios to promote knowledge acquisition, facilitate collaboration, and implement authentic assessment.

Many adults who pursue graduate studies opt to enrol in online programs.

When students believe that relationships exist among classmates, they feel connected – which can lead to a sense of belonging (Lee & Robbins, 1998).

ePortfolios may also facilitate supervision.

Although the design and development of ePortfolios is considered an individual task, some researchers advocate the inclusion of social activities to foster collaboration and peer review among online students.

Online students primarily interact and communicate with information technologies that lack audio-visual and nonverbal cues.

little research has addressed their influence on student perceptions of connectedness and communication, the value of the integration of an ePortfolio assignment, and learning in online programs.

little research has addressed their influence on student perceptions of connectedness and communication, the value of the integration of an ePortfolio assignment, and learning in online programs.

However, not all participants valued examining program requirements and goals.

Participants stated they enjoyed the ePortfolio when they were able to align the assignment with their own goals.

Results indicate ePortfolio integration benefited some – but not all

Fewer than half of the participants indicated ePortfolios helped them to communicate

better with their peers or program faculty.

ePortfolios may help to develop connectedness between students, faculty members, and programs.

findings suggest they do influence student perceptions and could become part of a larger plan to increase community among distance education students.

Yet, results from this study suggest that ePortfolios may help mentoring too.

the extent to which the integration and formative peer evaluation of ePortfolios foster connectedness and improve the quality of communication over time is unknown.

Although this study suggests ePortfolios can be a valuable tool for some students in distance education programs, findings indicate not all students benefit.

Integrating a variety of open-source software and/or Web 2.0 tools in the development of ePortfolios and providing learners with options and choices pertaining to their use may provide some learners with the level of personalization they desire.