Area of Activity 1: Design and Plan Learning Activities and/or Programmes of Study

A1: Design and plan learning activities and/or programmes of study

K1, K2, K3, K4, K5, V1, V2, V3, V4

INTRODUCTION

My professional roles have allowed me to influence and design learning activities at the module level and programme levels, as well as overall learning approaches to particular programmes and/or modules. Given the variety of roles I have occupied and the diversity in educational institutions I have worked for, these learning approaches have had a different focus at different points in time to suit specific learning contexts and learning communities. For the purposes of this portfolio, I will restrict the discussion to my last three learning and teaching contexts: Bahrain Polytechnic, Batchelor Institute, and Xi'an Jiaotong-Liverpool University (XJTLU). At Bahrain Polytechnic, the main ways in which I influenced others was through my development of a implementation strategy and plan for Problem-based Learning (PBL) across the whole institution (Coutts, Huijser & Almulla, 2012). Similarly, at Batchelor Institute, I was responsible for the design of a strategy and implementation plan for online learning across the institution, which ultimately morphed into the more appropriately named flexible (or blended) learning. At both institutions, one of my underlying approaches included modelling good practice, so I have always been concerned with showing how particular learning and teaching approaches can work, rather than simply telling academics that they should adopt such approaches. In many cases, this has involved 'getting my hands dirty' and cooperating with 'early adopters' to develop pilots and exemplars for others to follow. An added bonus to this approach is of course that it allows me to then evaluate that what I suggest actually works in the context in which it is meant to be implemented, and thus develop an evidence base. While I worked at Batchelor Institute, I also became the Coordinator of the Institute's Higher Degrees by Research Programme (its postgraduate programme) and was thus able to influence this crucial area of development for Indigenous Australians: the building of capacity through growing the numbers of qualified Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander academics in the Australian higher education sector. This in turn is ultimately expected to have a strong impact on the numbers and experiences of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students in higher education (Behrendt, Larkin, Griew, & Kelly, 2012), and thus contributes to the promotion of participation in higher education and equality of opportunity for learners. I continue to supervise some postgraduate student at Batchelor Institute in an Adjunct capacity. Finally, while at Batchelor Institute, I worked as part of a cross-institutional team on a nationally funded project called Learning analytics: assisting universities with student retention, which developed a framework for sustainable applications of learning analytics across the higher education sector, with a specific focus on student retention and success in an Australian context (West, Heath & Huijser, 2016). 

In my current role at XJTLU, I work as part of a team of educational developers, and I make significant contributions to both the university's CPS Programme (Certificate in Professional Studies in Higher Education) and its PGR Development Programme (Postgraduate Research Skills). The CPS programme is an HEA accredited compulsory programme for all academic staff, while the PGR Programme is primarily targeted at PhD students. The latter also has a training component for Teaching Assistants, which includes Masters students at the beginning of their (potential) teaching careers. In addition, I have played (co-)leadership roles in the establishment of a Communities of Practice framework for professional development in learning and teaching, as well as the coordinating the development of regular Academic Enhancement Centre newsletters about learning and teaching.

A central thread that runs trough my practice in different roles has been, and continues to be, my use of joint scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL) projects as a way of influencing academic staff and building trust. In my view, for an educational developer to be effective, it is crucial to develop relationships of trust with academic staff, so that we are seen as partners in learning and teaching, rather than enforcers of learning and teaching policies. Scholarship projects are a good way of developing partnerships and/or communities of practice in this respect (Wenger, McDermott, & Snyder, 2002). An added bonus is that they also model practice and are part of evidence-based approaches to learning and teaching. I see evidence-based approaches in a similar way as student-centred approaches: both are about starting from 'where students are at', in a Vygotskyan sense of 'zones of proximal development' (Vygotsky, 1978).

As noted above, modelling practice and leading by example are fundamental elements of the way I prefer to lead and plan learning activities. In short, I strongly believe in learning as a social practice and a situated practice (Lave & Wenger, 1991), meaning that I always try to establish and develop learning communities and try to adjust the learning in the context in which it takes place.

At Bahrain Polytechnic, I initially developed a strategy and implementation plan for Problem-based Learning at the institution. A key element of this plan was the establishment of a PBL Steering Group, which deliberately was established as a working party, rather than a committee. The idea was that each Department in the Polytechnic was represented by an early PBL adopter and champion, as a way of disseminating good practice across all departments. The way I chaired the PBL Steering Group was by establishing individual responsibilities and tasks for each of the members, thereby developing a sense of ownership over the process. Each of the members also played significant parts in any PBL-related professional development at the Polytechnic, by facilitating parts of workshops, and by providing exemplars of effective PBL-related practice.

An important reason why some teachers at Bahrain Polytechnic were reluctant to adopt a PBL approach was their perception that Bahraini students would not be able to handle a PBL approach, as they were used to highly teacher-centred approaches throughout their formal education (Al Daylami et al., 2015). This was a powerful argument, and found considerable favour, expecially with teacher who were themselves used to teaching in teacher-centred ways. As I was seen as leading PBL implementation at the polytechnic, it was crucial for me to be seen as 'walking the walk' and modelling good practice, and most importantly, to show that it could be done. I therefore teamed up with a Bahraini colleague and together we redesigned a highly teacher-centred module called Bahraini Perspectives, which we turned into a PBL module (Wee & Kek, 2002) by designing it around problems relevant to a Bahraini context. We then co-taught (or rather co-facilitated) the module. While it was clear that students initially felt challenged, they did adapt quickly to the way in which the module was designed, with generally excellent learning outcomes and feedback. After the initial iteration we were then able to use the module as an exemplar for other to follow (Huijser & Wali, 2012). I proceeded to do something similar with an Introduction to Project Management module at the Polytechnic, with similar results. 

At Batchelor Institute of Indigenous Tertiary Education, the situation when I arrived in June 2012 was that the Institute had a Learning Management System (LMS) (Moodle), but this was significantly out of date and only used by very few teachers. Batchelor Institute is a dual sector (higher education and vocational education) institution, which primarily services Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students, and the predominant model was face-to-face on-campus workshops in intensive two-week blocks. The issue was that the momentum that the learning community had developed during the two week intensive blocks tended to get lost in between those blocks with very little learning taking place. A key part of the blended learning strategy I developed for the Institute was aimed at developing ongoing learning communities in between the face-to-face on campus workshops. This thus required redesigning modules and incorporating blended learning elements. 

Similar to Bahrain Polytechnic, some teachers did not think this would work, as many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students struggle with basic literacy. However, and this the important aspect of using evidence-informed approaches, digital and mobile media and tools are very popular among Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. For example, social media usage rates are much higher among this demographic than among the rest of the Australian population (Huijser & Bronnimann, 2014).

As a way of modelling good practice, I collaborated with a Programme Coordinator and two Educational Consultants to redesign a Certificate IV in Training and Assessment (TAE), which was targeting teachers/trainers in the Vocational Education and Training (VET) sector in the Northern Territory in Australia. Since this was to be offered by Batchelor Institute, the point of difference was that the key focus would be on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander learners. Thus, we were looking from the outset at the learning and teaching approach that would be appropriate for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students, and would respect individual learners and diverse learning communities. The Educational Consultants had specific expertise in the 4MAT system, which in turn appeared to fit well with Batchelor Institute's 'both ways' approach to learning and teaching (Chirgwin & Huijser, 2015). Once we had redesigned the programme, I then co-taught it with the Programme Coordinator. The 4MAT approach was a significant departure from the mostly 'chalk and talk' approach to teaching that is common in the VET sector in Australia, with much more time built in to explore concepts and to connect to students' prior knowledge and experience. Rather than trying to 'cover' all the content of the programme during the face-to-face part, we focused instead on developing a learning community, and establishing an online environment through which that community could be sustained beyond the face-to-face component of the programme (Willis, Willis, & Huijser, 2015).

At XJTLU, I am directly involved in (co-)developing the CPS Programme and the PGR Programme. The CPS Programme is a compulsory learning and teaching programme that targets all academic staff at XJTLU, especially new staff. The PGR Programme is a research skills development programme, but it also contains an important training component for Teaching Assistants, who are either PhD or Masters students who are teaching for the first time. Together these programmes have a strong cross-institutional impact on teaching practice, and thus ultimately on student learning outcomes. This is particularly important in a transnational institution such as XJTLU, where teachers come from a wide variety of national and educational backgrounds (Jin & Cortazzi, 2011). This transnational context requires a strong awareness and acknowledgement of the wider (global) context in which higher education operates, and its implications for professional practice. Once again, in both programmes we model student-centred approaches, which can be quite challenging for some teachers. However, we ensure, through continuous evaluation of the programmes and the individual workshops within it, that we do not push it too far beyond where people are at.

Al Daylami, M., Bennison, B., Coutts, C., Hassan, F., Hasan, J., Huijser, H., McLoughlin, B., McMaster, D., & Wali, F. (2015). The establishment of Bahrain Polytechnic: Assumptions questioned, myths exposed, and challenges faced. In M. Harmes, H. Huijser, & P. Danaher (Eds.). Myths in education, learning and teaching: Policies, practices and principles (pp. 114-132). New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

Behrendt, L., Larkin, S., Griew, R., & Kelly, P. (2012). Review of higher education access and outcomes for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people: Final report. Canberra: Australian Government.

Chirgwin, S. K., & Huijser, H. (2015). Cultural variance, critical thinking and Indigenous knowledges: Exploring a both-ways approach. In M. Davies & R. Barnett (Eds.). The Palgrave handbook of critical thinking in higher education (pp. 335-350). New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

Coutts, C., Huijser, H. & Almulla, H. (2012). A project management approach to sustainable PBL curriculum design implementation at Bahrain Polytechnic. In: 3rd International PBL Symposium: PBL and the Problematization of Teaching and Learning, 7-9 March 2012, Singapore.

Huijser, H. & Bronnimann, J. (2014). Exploring the opportunities of social media to build knowledge in learner-centered Indigenous learning spaces. In S. Feller & I. Yengin (Eds.). Educating in dialog: Constructing meaning and building knowledge with dialogic technology (pp. 97-110). Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company.  

Huijser, H. & Wali, F. (2012). A PBL approach to teaching Bahraini Perspectives at Bahrain Polytechnic. In: 3rd International PBL Symposium: PBL and the Problematization of Teaching and Learning, 7-9 March 2012, Singapore.

Jin, L., & Cortazzi, M. (2011). More than a Journey: ‘Learning’ in the metaphors of Chinese students and teachers. In L. Jin & M. Cortazzi (Eds.) Researching Chinese learners: Skills, perceptions and intercultural adaptations (pp. 67-92). Houndmills, UK: Palgrave Macmillan.

Lave, J., & Wenger, E. (1991). Situated learning: Legitimate peripheral participation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Vygotsky, L. S. (1978). Mind in society: The development of higher psychological processes (Revised ed.). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Wee, K. N. L. & Kek, Y. C. M. (2002). Authentic problem-based learning: rewriting business education. Singapore: Prentice Hall.

Wenger, E., McDermott, R., & Snyder, W. (2002). Cultivating communities of practice. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press.

West, D., Heath, D., & Huijser, H. (2016). Let's talk learning analytics: A framework for implementation in relation to student retention. Online Learning (Special Issue: Learning Analytics), 20 (2).

Willis, J., Willis, M., & Huijser, H. (2015). Learning power: Taking learning-centredness seriously in a blended learning environment. In M. Harmes, H. Huijser, & P. Danaher (Eds.). Myths in education, learning and teaching: Policies, practices and principles (pp. 19-39). New York: Palgrave Macmillan.