Area of Activity 2: Teach and/or Support Learning

A2: Teach and/or support learning

K1, K2, K3, K4, K5, K6, V1, V2, V3, V4

Introduction

When I first moved into an educational development unit at the University of Southern Queensland (USQ), my position was explicitly related to academic learning support. The Learning and Teaching Support Unit was made up of two sections: academic staff development and academic learning support. I was initially mostly involved in the latter. As part of that role, I worked in a Learning Centre in which I provided support to students from all faculties and at all levels on an individual basis, as well as facilitating a number of generic academic skills workshops each semester, for example about essay writing, referencing, and so on. In reflecting on these workshops, we began to build an increasingly strong case in favour of moving away from generic academic learning support, and towards the embedding of academic skills in the curriculum (Huijser, Kimmins & Galligan, 2008). Simultaneously, I performed a main role in developing a suite of online resources, such as templates and information flyers, which academic staff could then draw on in the process of embedding academic skills in their own programs. This idea of embedding and integrating specific attributes, skills and knowledge throughout a curriculum, by carefully scaffolding their development has since become a key element in my practice, as it applies not only to academic skills.

Embedding skills versus a 'bolt-on' approach

At USQ, I was also involved in a pilot project that aimed to embed Indigenous perspectives into curricula. We identified this as important because it had the potential to move away from a tokenistic approach to Indigenous perspectives, which consisted of offering one unit or module in each faculty about 'Indigenous culture', which was then often optional as well (Hagan & Huijser, 2008). Embedding and integrating such skills and attributes throughout curricula has the potential to have a major impact on student learning, as it provides the opportunity to develop and scaffold such skills in context and at a level that students are at. In short, this is an approach strongly influenced by Vygotsky's zone of proximal development (Vygotsky, 1980).

At Bahrain Polytechnic, the project I was responsible for was implementing Problem-based Learning (PBL) as the main learning and teaching approach at the institution. This similarly involved an integrated approach to teaching and supporting learning of a broad range of attributes, skills and knowledge, for example critical thinking skills, research skills, entrepreneurial skills, and so on (Kek & Huijser, 2017). In addition, Bahrain Polytechnic was an English as Medium of Instruction (EMI) institution, which meant that many students had to do one year of Foundation Studies (which was largely English language-based) followed by English language support once they moved into their degrees. This English language support was 'integrated' on paper, and it involved English language teachers being 'attached' to degree programmes. However, in reality, this was in most cases very much a 'bolt-on' approach, where English classes were very much separated from discipline content-based classes. Part of my role and approach was helping academic staff to embed English language learning as part of an integrated PBL curriculum, whereby English teachers would be in the same classroom and responding directly to students' language learning needs in the context of the problems they were addressing as part of the curriculum. As noted earlier in this portfolio, my colleague and I explicitly modeled this approach in a module called Bahraini Perspectives, with considerable success (Huijser & Wali, 2012). 

Developing learning communities

At Batchelor Institute, the main areas through which I aimed to have an impact on learning was through a focus on technology and how this could support learning, especially, but not exclusively, in remote locations and for students with diverse learning styles and educational backgrounds. The student cohort at Batchelor Institute (a dual sector tertiary education institute) is highly diverse in terms of educational backgrounds, learning styles, and levels at which they are studying or training. The only main factor that all students had in common was that they were all Indigenous Australians, which has specific implications for pedagogical approaches, based on how knowledge and learning is conceptualised. Thus, I was involved in leading a number of projects that involved developing culturally appropriate learning environments that would support Indigenous learners in a culturally safe manner. The fundamental element of this approach was the development of learning communities and creating enough space to allow for culturally specific ways of communicating and learning in context. In terms of technology, this involved the development of a suite of both synchronous and asynchronous communication tools, including a variety of social media. Again, a recurrent theme here was the Vygotskyian notion of the zone of proximal development, or meeting students 'where they're at'. The image below shows the result of a brainstorming session about fundamental values that needed to be taken into account when designing an environment that would support learning in Indigenous contexts:

At XJTLU, I am similarly involved in supporting the development of learning communities that are appropriate for the context in which teaching takes place, in this case a joint UK-Chinese university with English as the language of instruction. As part of my role in the Academic Enhancement Centre, I have been involved in the strategic development of a Communities of Practice model to support learning and teaching at XJTLU. It was important to provide an environment in which teaching and learning can be supported from the bottom-up and based primarily on peer support. The Community of Practice (CoP) model, as originally conceptualised by Lave and Wenger (1991), seemed most appropriate in this respect, and there are currently a number of functioning CoPs at XJTLU where academics from a variety of disciplines discuss their teaching practice and try to find solutions to challenges they face. As an educational developer, I am invited to these CoPs from time to time, although not every time, as is appropriate. What comes out of these meetings are specific issues that I can support in my role in the Academic Enhancement Centre.  

Peer review of teaching 

I have long been involved in the peer review of teaching, which I believe is a very effective way of supporting learning and teaching, in particualr if you are aiming to introduce a new pedagogical approach, as I did with PBL at Bahrain Polytechnic. XJTLU already had peer review of teaching structurally built into its learning and teaching practices. However, this was partly linked into to performance reviews of academic staff, which I believe is not good practice, as it removes the 'safety' element that is a requirement of constructive peer feedback, hence making it less effective.  

Recently, my collegues and I in AEC staff have made a conscious effort to become more directly involved in peer reviewing of teaching for academic staff (Rees, Quinn, Davies & Fotheringham, 2015), which is increasingly becoming a key element in identifying good practice as well as supporting learning and teaching. While time-intensive, peer review and the provision of detailed constructive feedback has the potential to significantly improve teaching practice and, through the sharing of good practice, create a potential ripple effect (Thomson, Bell, & Hendry, 2015). From my (and AEC's) point of view, it gives us a better feel for the learning and teaching context at XJTLU, for example in terms of its learning spaces or its students, and thus makes it easier for us to tailor our support for learning and teaching. Furthermore, feedback from teachers for whom I have provided peer reviews suggest that they really benefit from this process, as the following emailed message exemplifies:

Hagan, R., & Huijser, H. (2008). Are the sciences Indigenisable? Of course they are! (Virtual Presentation). Psychology and Indigenous Australians: Teaching, Practice and Theory, University of South Australia, Adelaide, July 2008.

Huijser, H. & Wali, F. (2012). A PBL Approach to Teaching Bahraini Perspectives at Bahrain Polytechnic. Refereed Proceedings of the 3^rd International PBL Symposium, Singapore, Republic Polytechnic, 7-9 March 2012.

Huijser, H., Kimmins, L. & Galligan, L. (2008). Evaluating Individual Teaching on the Road to Embedding Academic Skills. Journal of Academic Language & Learning, 2(1), pp. A23-A38.

Kek, M. Y. C. A. & Huijser, H. (2017). Problem-based Learning into the Future: Imagining an Agile PBL Ecology for Learning. Singapore: Springer Asia.

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

Rees, E., Quinn, P., Davies, B., & Fotheringham, V. (2015). How does peer teaching compare to faculty teaching? A systematic review and meta-analysis. Medical Teacher, 38(8), 829-837.

Thomson, K., Bell, A., & Hendry, G. (2015). Peer observation of teaching: The case for learning just by watching. Higher Education Research & Development, 34(5), 1060-1062.

Vygotsky, L. (1980). Mind in society: Development of higher psychological processes. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.