TDU Talk
ISSUE 1 ▪ APRIL/MAY 2012
REFRESH YOUR TEACHING
YouTube to the rescue
Rob Weir
A refreshing approach to appraisal
Dr Trudy Harris, Teaching Developer (Evaluation & Quality), Teaching Development Unit
Keeping teaching fresh
Dr Kirstie McAllum, Department of Management Communication
Refreshing your teaching
Dr Colin McLeay, Geography Programme, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences
Professional reading as a way of refreshing practice
Dr Pip Bruce Ferguson, Teaching Developer, Teaching Development Unit
Refreshing your teaching
Dorothy Spiller, Senior Lecturer, Teaching Development Unit
Co-teaching invigoration
Dr John Buchanan and Prof Paul Childerhouse, WMS Management Systems
Refreshing your teaching
Ms Bridget Tulloch, Department of Biological Sciences, Faculty of Science and Engineering
Refreshing my teaching through redesigning assessments
Ms Hine-iti-moana Greensill, Reo, School of Māori and Pacific Development
Refreshing reading: some favourites
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Editorial
Kia ora koutou
I hope that you all had a happy Easter, enjoyed the glorious
autumnal weather and have come back feeling refreshed and
revitalised. Teaching is a demanding part of our work and it is
important to find ways of invigorating ourselves and our
classroom practices. In this edition of TDU Talk we offer you a
few examples of strategies that can enliven and enhance your classroom and
assessment practices. The edition also includes reflections from academics on
the strategies, activities and approaches that help them to refresh their teacher
thinking and practices.
ISSUE 1: APRIL/MAY 2012
Teaching Development Unit
Wāhanga Whakapakari Ako
Private Bag 3105
Hamilton 3240
New Zealand
Phone: +64 7 838 4839
Fax: +64 7 838 4573
[email protected]
www.waikato.ac.nz/tdu
APRIL/MAY 2012 • TDU TALK
I will be away on sabbatical from the beginning of May and I would like to take
this opportunity to say au revoir to the many colleagues across campus whom I
work with and who contribute so generously to the work of the TDU and to
teaching quality across the university. Thank you all for your support and the
way in which so many of you are willing to give your time to collaborate with
us in our endeavours. I know that you will support my colleagues in the TDU
during my absence and I look forward to coming back and sharing plenty of new
ideas with you.
Best wishes
Dorothy and the TDU team
.”
•2•
YouTube to the rescue
Rob Weir , http://www.insidehighered.com/advice/2012/03/21/essay-how-use-youtubeteaching-tool, March 21, 2012 - 3:00am
This reprint was kindly authorised by Rob, who was a Fulbright scholar in NZ in 2001.
Most of my columns have been directed at new professors, but this one
may be more germane for experienced faculty looking to try something
different, or those whose circumstances have changed.
Put me in the latter category. After six years of special projects and
assignments at a research institution where I never had more than two
courses per semester, I took a job at a teaching institution. As many know,
the latter term generally means faculty members have a heavier course
load, departments offer fewer graduate degrees and, hence, there aren‟t
teaching assistants to help with discussion and grading. A four-course load
didn‟t daunt me; I used to teach at a 5/5 college, have often voluntarily
taught overloads, and came from high school teaching, where I was on duty
six periods per day. What I forgot was that was then and this is now! The
good news is that the proverb is wrong: you can teach old dogs new tricks.
A scheduling foul-up put me in a situation where I have four classes each
day I‟m on campus, three of which are the same introductory class. No
problems with my elective for majors, but the surveys were another matter
– until YouTube and iMovies bailed me out. Some say that stories get
better in the telling, but there isn‟t much I care to repeat three times in one
day. More to the point, the physical grind knocked me for a loop. I simply
wasn‟t used to speaking for five hours. Of course, I tried other teaching
methods, but early in a semester before students know what to expect,
prolonged discussion or cooperative group work is as rare as a tap-dancing
Teamster. It took me all of two days to figure out that I needed a Plan B.
For those who‟ve used it, this statement comes as no revelation: YouTube
(and other video repositories like it) aren‟t just for music; they are filled
with wonderful footage on virtually every subject you can imagine. They
are also filled with garbage, ideologically unsound screeds, and amateurish
films, so you have to spend time to separate the grain from the chaff. This
takes surprisingly less time than you think. A few culling tips:
•3•

Look for videos of under 10 minutes in length. There are uploads of
entire documentaries, movies, shows, etc. but you probably can‟t devote
one or more classes entirely to that source.

A bad video declares itself so almost immediately. In most cases you
don‟t need to settle for it. Test-drive another.
APRIL/MAY 2012 • TDU TALK

Try to find videos that do more than replace your talking head with
another. The idea is to change the class pace, not replicate it.

Make sure that you watch a promising video to the end before you
choose it. Few bad videos become good, but quite a few good ones go
bad.
Now comes the fun part. Those who already use PowerPoint in classes can
simply copy the URL of the clip selected, paste it into a slide, hit the space
bar, and the link becomes "live." Assuming that you teach in a classroom
that‟s connected to the Internet, all you need to do is click on the link
within the slide and it will connect to the video. You have instantly created
a more dynamic lesson.
In a lesson on imperialism for my U.S. Since 1865 class, for instance, I
used a three-minute clip on Fordlandia, a Ford Motors experimental
plantation in Brazil.
[Link can be accessed from URL at top of article]
After some general remarks about imperialism and a few remarks about
Fordlandia culled from Greg Grandin‟s fine book on the subject, students
viewed the YouTube clip. I asked students to comment on the embedded
imperialist assumptions of what seems on the surface to be simply a
business investment. The clip allowed students to see that imperialism has
more forms than simple military conquest; it also allowed them to ponder
problems associated with cultural misunderstanding, muse upon the role
that idealism played in some imperialist ventures, and consider the shortand long-term effects of overseas adventurism. (In the future I will circle
back to Fordlandia and ask students to compare and contrast early 20thcentury imperialism with early 21st-century free trade.)
I mentioned that I embedded my URL into a PowerPoint slide. If you don‟t
use PowerPoint, no problem; you can do the same thing with a projected
Word document such as an outline. Simply paste the URL into your
document, hit the space bar, and it will turn blue, making it a live link.
If you choose clips wisely, students will view archival footage, lectures,
or demonstrations that you could waste a lot of breath describing (and
re-describing). In a case such as mine, 15 minutes of video footage per
class saves me at least an hour of talking and puts students inside
primary sources. I like to use several short videos rather than one long
one as it gives me the chance to change the flow several times during a
single class.
APRIL/MAY 2012 • TDU TALK
•4•
A few suggestions:

Don‟t immediately return to regularly scheduled programming, as it
were. As in the example above, take a few moments to ask for student
feedback on what they saw.

A good listening exercise is to ask students to jot down the three major
points or details they see in the video. Have your class roster in front of
you and call on students randomly to share that feedback. Accept
volunteers only after calling on three. (This avoids the “I had the same
things” response.)

Gently push those who don‟t wish to speak. You need to send the
message that the videos are part of the learning experience, not a
"commercial break" in which their minds can turn off.
You may not need to do much of the last suggestion. One word is a
message I‟d like senior colleagues to contemplate. If you, like I, have been
teaching for more than 10 years, you may not have the highest opinion of
video. I too assumed that it was, too often, the above-mentioned excuse to
tune out. I think I subconsciously bought into the critique that MTV-like
pacing was shortening attention spans. Now I think that‟s old information
that's no longer the case.
This generation of undergraduates grew up with video, but it‟s no longer
dazzled by it. It sees video as a ubiquitous vehicle in which information is
communicated, but that doesn‟t mean that students are any better at
evaluating what they see than the pre-video generation was at evaluating
what they read.
In essence, our jobs just got a bit harder. Professors are in the decoding
business; we teach students textual analysis, the application of theorem and
theories, how to evaluate ideas, how to synthesize, etc. To this list add
visual literacy. It‟s (too) often a buzz phrase in education, but it doesn‟t
change the fact that professors are uniquely positioned to show students
how to think about images, production values, and message manipulation in
sophisticated ways. It‟s rather sobering to see how much students are
amazed when we take a video and begin to deconstruct it for embedded
messages.
I've mentioned YouTube in this piece because it‟s so easy to use, not
because it's necessarily the best source. Nor is it tailored to what any one of
us does in the classroom.
•5•
APRIL/MAY 2012 • TDU TALK
To that end, I‟ve begun to produce some of my own videos using iMovies.
There is a decided learning curve involved in making videos and my advice
for this is three-fold. First, take advantage of on-campus instruction on
getting started offered by IT staff; seeing how it‟s done is way easier than
learning from a book. Second, consider uploading your completed video to
YouTube as: (a) it‟s easy, and (b) it gives you "street cred." (Students are
surprised to learn we can enter their worlds.) Third, don‟t make the URL
public unless your video is good enough to not add to the YouTube clutter,
and it won‟t get you into trouble. You need to own rights to any images you
use before going public, but you can use most things for educational
purposes as long as you don‟t distribute them.
So give video a whirl, even if you don‟t need a physical break. You may
find that it revitalizes tired classes. Best of all, you may find that you‟re
teaching students how to think about images that might otherwise wash
over them. Film critic Roger Ebert observed, "Most of us do not
consciously look at movies." Professors can make a dent in such ignorance.
Suggested Sources: (This is a very, very small sample.)
1. YouTube: Just type what you‟re looking to find. If that doesn‟t work, try
permutations.
2. TED: Some of the most incredible talks and demonstrations imaginable
in the fields of technology, entertainment, design, global concerns, and
science are available here.
3. Academic Earth: It offers amazing online videos in many disciplines.
The downside is that many of them are long. You should preview them and
use segments.
4. Make Use Of has a list of six sites with links to sample classes.
5. So too does Online College Courses
Read more: http://www.insidehighered.com/advice/2012/03/21/essay-howuse-youtube-teaching-tool#ixzz1qvLumNyp
Inside Higher Ed
APRIL/MAY 2012 • TDU TALK
•6•
A refreshing approach to appraisal
Dr Trudy Harris, Teaching Developer (Evaluation & Quality), Teaching Development
Unit
When refreshing your teaching, one of the main sources of data to underpin
any change should be the students, those people who experience your
teaching on a daily basis. Feedback can be achieved in a number of
different ways, using a range of formative evaluation techniques, but one
method is through the use of the appraisal. While many teachers might
view the appraisal as a university compliance instrument, it is still the main
vehicle for students to provide their feedback on your teaching and the
paper. Many teachers criticise student feedback because of students‟ lack of
pedagogical knowledge. While that may be the case, the students are well
aware of what forms of teaching and activities help them to learn. If we
look past the compliance issues and look at the appraisal specifically as a
feedback mechanism, then what we have in the summative data is a series
of indicators around some core aspects of teaching. The main issue is how
to interpret the data in such a way that it is useful for improvement of
teaching.
In the appraisal reports that are sent out at the end of each semester, the
summative data is presented as frequencies and mean values for each
question on the questionnaire. To start unpicking the data, one of the easiest
approaches is to identify those questions where students might have
identified that they „Seldom‟ or „Never‟ observed a particular behaviour, or
even if there are none of these then look at those questions that have
particularly high numbers of „Sometimes‟. At this point it would be helpful
to reflect on the previous semester‟s teaching - you might have
acknowledged yourself in class if something did or did not work which
could account for these responses, or perhaps there are some aspects in the
context of your teaching that do not correspond to the questions asked. If
however, there is nothing that you can perceive straight away that might
account for these responses then the next recourse is to the qualitative
feedback.
The qualitative feedback, in the form of the appraisal questionnaires, is sent
back to teachers after the sitting of the Board Examiners. The
questionnaires allow teachers to correlate the comments with the
summative responses. In most cases the students will make comments if
there is something troubling them, but the quality of the comments can vary
greatly. This is an issue that teachers raise constantly when listing the
limitations of the appraisal process. One way to overcome this issue is to
explain to the students, prior to completing the questionnaire, why it is
important for them to be reflective when completing the survey. Indeed
APRIL/MAY 2012 • TDU TALK
•7•
students do want to improve teaching; work by Chen & Hoshower (1998)
showed that the predominant driver for students when filling out student
evaluations is to improve teaching. However, they also noted that students
need to see that the information that they provide is being used for
improvement. Your discussion will go some way to achieving this.
To help with the quality of the feedback the Teaching Development Unit
has produced a small film explaining why it is important to think carefully
about the feedback that students give. The film can be accessed from the
TDU website at: http://www.waikato.ac.nz/tdu/appraisal/index.shtml
If you would like help with interpreting feedback from appraisals or other
ways of obtaining feedback from your students during the course of the
semester then please contact the Teaching Development Unit.
Reference
Chen, C. & Hoshower, L. B. (2003). Student evaluation of teaching
effectiveness: An assessment of student perception and motivation.
Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, 28(1), 71-88.
•8•
APRIL/MAY 2012 • TDU TALK
Keeping teaching fresh
Dr Kirstie McAllum, Lecturer, Department of Management Communication
Tutors who mark students‟ work often feel overwhelmed when they need to
interpret and use assurance of learning strategies such as marking criteria
and assessment rubrics. In a recent workshop exercise to show tutors that
rubrics enable more consistent marking and more precise feedback for
students, tutors marked the same essay three times, by impression marking
(“I feel this deserves an “A”), marking according to the assessment criteria,
and marking with an assessment rubric. Since reviewing the same material
over and over again is reminiscent of the movie Groundhog Day and is an
aspect of the marking process that can put any marker to sleep, the sample
essays needed to be high interest. Tutors from a range of disciplinary
backgrounds also needed to understand the content of the essay.
Hence, I used the fairytale, Goldilocks and the Three Bears, which was
familiar to nearly all the workshop participants, as the topic for the sample
essays. Fairytales are easy to analyse since they have a clear plot and
obvious goodies and baddies. Goldilocks usually gets a bad rap in most
versions of the tale, so the fictitious essay question asked the students to
consider whether or not she was the real culprit in the Three Bears‟
housebreak. In the spirit of Roald Dahl‟s (2008) Revolting Rhymes and
James Garner‟s (1994) Politically Correct Bedtime Stories, reading a
version of the tale with a twist creates surprise and promotes thinking. In
addition, writing these new versions was fun! I have included a brief
excerpt from one of the essays below:
Goldilocks probably thought that she could get away with it all because
she had a good image. I am afraid to say, however, that her image did
not move me much at all. She is nothing more than a frizzy, over-fussy
little missy who does nothing constructive for her community. In
addition, Goldilocks is a whinger. She does nothing but complain from
the minute she enters the house. If the food and the accommodation
were not good enough for her, she could always have left and looked
for better. The poor bears were the innocent victims in this entire sad
saga. They had only popped out for a few minutes to the Beds‟R‟Us
store to buy a bigger bed for baby bear. Finding an altogether unknown
and highly offensive, grouchy, non-morning person tucked up in a bed
was enough to give both parents a heart palpitation. Goldilocks‟ parents
are the ones who should be having health troubles due to her bad
behaviour. Not the bears.
APRIL/MAY 2012 • TDU TALK
•9•
Tutors marked and compared both sample essays three times. They noted
that impression marking led to grades that varied up by to 24%. The use of
marking criteria narrowed the gap, and the assessment rubrics enabled
tutors to give the same letter grade with only minor variation.
References
Dahl, R. (2008). Revolting rhymes. London: Puffin.
Garner, J.F. (1994). Politically correct bedtime stories. New York:
MacMillan.
• 10 •
APRIL/MAY 2012 • TDU TALK
Refreshing your teaching
Dr Colin McLeay, Geography Programme, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences
Since beginning my university teaching career in the mid-1990s I have
been a regular participant in Teaching Development Unit workshops and
Teaching Network meetings. I have also attended courses hosted by the
Waikato Centre for eLearning and I recently completed the Postgraduate
Certificate in Tertiary Teaching. Reflecting on these various professional
development opportunities, I believe that it is exposure to the teaching of
colleagues that contributes most to the renewal of my enthusiasm for
teaching. Indeed, my experience confirms there are some excellent and
innovative teachers working at the University of Waikato.
Two recent workshops exemplify the value of talking to university
colleagues about their teaching innovations. The Waikato Centre for
eLearning conference in February 2012 (WCELfest 2012) introduced me to
methods staff from two different Faculties had employed to gather
immediate feedback on student engagement with lecture content and
concepts. The methods discussed ranged from a cellphone-linked rating
system, a feedback application using hand-held ActivBoard units, and the
paper-based „immediate feedback assessment technique‟. Having described
the methods employed, the presenters discussed the good and bad aspects
of their chosen approach. It was stimulating to gain insight into the
dedication of colleagues in pursuing the learning experiences of students.
I felt a similar sense of inclusion and interest when I attended the Teaching
Development Unit workshop on „Maximising Learning in Large Groups‟.
Held as part of the annual TDU summer workshop series, this session
provided excellent examples of ways in which staff had sought to „breakdown‟ traditional barriers associated with large class teaching. Thus, rather
than relying on traditional lecture method, presenters described and
discussed the use of small group strategies for large classes, the process of
„flip teaching‟, and the application of in-class assessment tasks. The
presenters were open with their reflections on their chosen teaching
method, providing insights based on both conceptual and operational
aspects of their practice.
I always get a „buzz‟ out of seeing the excellent, interesting, innovative
methods colleagues are employing in terms of their teaching. Part of this is
seeing how staff from outside my School are negotiating issues that all
teaching staff face, regardless of their area of scholarship. I am humbled by
the efforts my colleagues are putting in to finding new ways of engaging
students and advancing the learning process. My challenge remains in the
way I adopt and adapt the methods of others.
APRIL/MAY 2012 • TDU TALK
• 11 •
Professional reading as a way of refreshing practice
Dr Pip Bruce Ferguson, Teaching Developer, Teaching Development Unit
Most of us here have very busy lives, and building in time for professional
reading can be difficult. One book that Dorothy Spiller suggested to me last
year, however, has to be the best thing I have read on teaching in the last
twenty years. It is Parker J. Palmer‟s (1998) The Courage to Teach.
In this book, Palmer explores „the inner landscape of a teacher‟s life‟ and
encourages us to reflect on who we are when we teach („We teach who we
are‟); how we teach, with different techniques working well for some but
not for others; how to cope when things don‟t go well and we lose heart;
how to maintain our own personal integrity when we work within systems
that may violate that integrity; how to manage and overcome fear; how to
appreciate and make space for paradox; how to build iteaching and learning
communities; and how to „teach from a heart of hope‟.
In his reflections on the tenth year of this book‟s publications, Palmer put
forward „five immodest proposals regarding the education of a new
professional‟ (2007, 205). These are
1. We must help our students debunk the myth that institutions possess
autonomous, even ultimate, power over our lives.
2. We must validate the importance of our students‟ emotions as well as
their intellect.
3. We must teach our students how to “mine” their emotions for
knowledge.
4. We must teach them how to cultivate community for the sake of both
knowing and doing.
5. We must teach – and model for – our students what it means to be on
the journey towards “an undivided life”.
It would be great to know what teaching and learning-related books have
helped you to refresh your own practice.
• 12 •
APRIL/MAY 2012 • TDU TALK
Refreshing my teaching
Dorothy Spiller, Senior Lecturer, Teaching Development Unit
Ever since the days when I used to dragoon all my playmates into playing
schools, teaching and learning have been at the centre of my life. I remain
fascinated by the complexities and rich possibilities of the teaching and
learning process and sometimes frustrated by the elusiveness of that exact
constellation of ideas, people and experience that helps to change the way
people think, feel or behave, the measure of genuine learning.
In some ways I am extremely fortunate, because this absorbing quest is also
at the heart of my professional life. In my practice and research as a
teaching developer and as I work alongside my colleagues in their search to
find ways of creating meaningful and transformative learning opportunities,
I am constantly revisiting my own assumptions, beliefs and habits. This is
not to say that I always respond to the challenges to my own thinking and
practice; just like any professional, I have times when I fall back on the
comfort of old habits, but I also know that unless I regularly revitalise my
teacher thinking and practice, I will lose the energy that can illuminate a
subject and inspire learners.
The reality is that to be an effective teacher requires a vigilant and
reflective disposition, as well as an openness of mind and spirit. We need
these qualities to be attuned to our learners and our teaching and learning
contexts and to design learning opportunities that are responsive to what we
see, learn and intuit. One of the most useful ways of refreshing teaching, is
then simply to listen attentively.
I find that there are certain activities and resources that help me in this
process of attentive listening and responding. Undoubtedly, the literature
and scholarship on higher education is a continual stimulus for reflection
on practice and teaching renewal. As teaching is my trade, the higher
education literature provides both current research-informed content that I
can share with my learners, but also often invites me to question aspects of
my own practice and provides me with insights into my learners, teachers
in higher education. Not surprisingly, since I have spent most of my
working life in academia, whenever I am about to teach something, I make
sure that I read something new in relation to the particular area. I do this,
even when the subject or topic area is a specialist area that I have taught
many times. I need new reading to revitalise my connection with the
subject matter.
APRIL/MAY 2012 • TDU TALK
• 13 •
Equally important to me is talking about teaching. Again I am privileged as
this is the essence of my job. For me these conversations occur in many
different forums, such as a chat outside the library, conference
participation, teaching network discussion, faculty advocacy sessions,
workshops or sustained dialogue with academic colleagues contemplating
teaching and assessment interventions in the context of the Postgraduate
Certificate. Working alongside teachers who are compiling portfolios for
teaching excellence awards and probing their teacher thinking and practices
is another conversational space that energises me and helps me to sustain
my sense of excitement about teaching and learning.
When I‟m not talking, reading or writing about teaching and learning I find
that I‟m constantly watching the world with the eyes of a teacher and
learner. Sometimes this is in formally designed situations. For example,
every year, many of my teaching colleagues generously share their teaching
and learning ideas and strategies with colleagues attending TDU
workshops. As Colin McLeay writes in this edition of TDU Talk, watching
other teachers at work is a wonderful stimulus for revisiting one‟s own
practices. For me, these sessions also give me the opportunity to see the
ideas that I think about and play with in action in a variety of different
disciplines and contexts. Sometimes I immediately can share the learning
with other colleagues and it is fun to see certain ideas and approaches being
examined, trialled or reformulated across the campus. Observation of these
teachers at work also helps me to keep interrogating the ideas and practices
that I value and see how they need to be refined and modified. Other formal
contexts for watching teachers at work include the teaching observations
we offer to academic staff and which are a requirement of the Postgraduate
Certificate in Tertiary Teaching. But I never really remove my teaching and
learning spectacles. If for example I‟m at a conference I inevitably find that
I‟m watching how people communicate and engage the participants and
thinking about what works and doesn‟t work for me as a learner. Even if
I‟m sitting on the bus or watching sport and other activities, I find myself
noticing the way people talk with their children, the ways children learn
from each other and the strategies people use when providing guidance or
instructions. And of course when I‟m reading or at the movies, I catch
myself connecting back to teaching and learning, such as when reading
these words on playing the violin from Yehudi Menuhin‟s autobiography:
“I have understood that no experience can be isolated from violin playing,
that the flexibility with which one holds violin and bow, the mastery which
does not grab or dominate, has illuminating parallels in human relations.”
And in teaching and learning.
• 14 •
APRIL/MAY 2012 • TDU TALK
Co-teaching invigoration
Dr John Buchanan and Professor Paul Childerhouse, WMS Management Systems
In some sense, many of us have co-taught papers – we share a paper with a
colleague if only to balance workloads. Typically we say, OK, you do this
half and I‟ll do that half. Partitioning, however, is not co-teaching. To be
honest, co-teaching is not very efficient and if you don‟t like your coteacher, it‟s not very effective either. But in our experience (and maybe
we‟re lucky) it has been a joy and incredibly stimulating.
This has taken place in the context of a large, compulsory first year class in
the Management School. It‟s probably fair to say that effectiveness of coteaching is more easily seen in large classes; for in smaller classes we can
more easily engage personally with students. What is this effectiveness? It
stems from the ability to have a genuine conversation with a colleague
who, like yourself, has a vested interest in the same course. Advice is so
easy to give when one does not experience the consequences of that advice.
Thus ideas get tested and scrutinized and what finally emerges is somehow
„better‟.
In our experience, much of our co-teaching takes place outside the
classroom – in the design (or far more frequently in the redesign) of aspects
of the paper, although we do co-teach (that is, we are in the classroom
together) for about 15-20% of the classes. So we do get to observe first
hand each other‟s strengths and weaknesses and springboard off each other
in the conversations with the class. We also provide honest and (usually)
constructive advice to one another on how to enhance delivery and student
engagement. For example John often tells Paul „you are talking too much‟
and Paul frequently suggests to John that „less is more‟.
Our diversity as teachers is a significant strength when carefully combined
for joint delivery. It takes considerable time and willingness to integrate our
teaching approach and respective content and, in this regard, we are
helped by an overarching focus of the paper of integrated thinking; that
is, we have to practice what we teach. Rather than simply doing what
we think is best (as in the case of sole-taught papers), we have to state
clearly to one another why we teach and assess in certain ways and
how this aligns to the learning objectives. Given our different teaching
experience and more importantly beliefs, we challenge each other to
experiment with different approaches to teaching, often in ways we
would have never considered.
APRIL/MAY 2012 • TDU TALK
• 15 •
A constant dialogue is needed between us to ensure continuity and clarity
for our shared students. This on-going dialogue allows us to jointly explore
ways to enhance the student learning experience and, importantly, is a
significant component of our professional development (something that is
arguably much harder to achieve in sole-taught papers). We jointly
consider student feedback and adjust our teaching approaches where
appropriate to address any identified shortcomings. In summary, we feed
often one another‟s enthusiasm to continuously enhance the paper and it is
the constant dialogue that invigorates our teaching. As an ancient proverb
says, “You use steel to sharpen steel, and one friend sharpens another”.
Here is a good
idea for timing
class activities. Just click
on the
link below to access the ticking time bomb.
Set the time required on the clock then
watch the fuse go down and KABOOM!!!
This is a good way to keep track of time
especially for group work in class and it is
sure to be amusing. There are also other
timers on the website such as an egg timer
or metronome but the exploding bomb is
definitely a fav. http://www.onlinestopwatch.com/bomb-countdown/
• 16 •
APRIL/MAY 2012 • TDU TALK
Refreshing your teaching
Ms Bridget Tulloch, Department of Biological Sciences, Faculty of Science and
Engineering
Anyone in academia realises that there just aren‟t enough hours in the day.
When I first started teaching I had plans of learning more about teaching, I
envisioned myself understanding pedagogies and theories and thought I‟d
regularly read education journals. I was soon to realise that while it was a
nice idea it was not going to happen. However, I was still determined to
learn more about teaching. The biggest resource, I was to learn, was not
the myriad of academic journals but my colleagues both within and
external to my department.
Communication with others in the university has been the biggest factor in
keeping my teaching fresh. Through participating in TDU seminars and the
teaching network meetings I‟ve been able to talk to teachers outside of my
faculty. This has been invaluable. It opened my eyes to the fact that we
become very entrenched in the way we do things. It’s always been that
way so it must be right. Going through university right from the
undergraduate level we become accustomed to a certain style of teaching
and assessing, and as students we accept that this is the norm. When all the
papers are presented in a certain way it seems that must be the right
way. And thus when moving roles from student to teacher it is
unsurprising that we emulate the styles with which we were taught. As a
new teacher, I knew no different, I had not been exposed to many different
ideas.
Being able to converse with teachers from different disciplines opened a
new world. At the TDU seminars I would hear what seemed like
impossible ideas. What do you mean we should give them a marking
schedule? Shouldn’t they have to work out the question, interpreting what
I’m asking is all part of the mystery. The more I talked with others the
more I realised that teaching has to evolve and sharing ideas is such a
valuable tool.
Even within a discipline, the act of just talking with colleagues about what
they are doing in the classroom can open you to new ideas. A simple
conversation in the tea room, or attending the School Teaching advocacy
sessions allows for this exchange of ideas. We tend to think of teaching as
something we do in isolation (even with 200 students watching us) but we
need the feedback and advice of those around us if we hope to keep our
teaching alive and avoid the tedium that can come with repetitive teaching.
I am lucky that I teach in a role that allows me time to regularly talk to my
APRIL/MAY 2012 • TDU TALK
• 17 •
students and from them I can gain feedback. In every class students are
given an opportunity to write down comments through the use of a
“feedback box”, in addition to being encouraged to post on Moodle.
One of the natural ways I keep my teaching fresh is purely through
identifying a need. In the first year of teaching it seems to be more about
getting through (and hoping you don‟t make a fool of yourself). Once
you‟ve made it through that year it is like you‟ve passed this first test and
you start to settle in to teaching. This is when I was able to change my
focus and started identifying problem areas both in my teaching, and the
courses I taught in general. Any good teacher is going to address these
problems. Sometimes the problems are easy to fix, other times they take
some creative thinking.
A few years ago I realised that one area of my teaching just was not
working, the students were disengaged and found the topic a bore. So like
most of us I started thinking how I could alter this, and as I started planning
I started to keep a journal with ideas. At first it was very factual and
rudimentary, focusing on experimental change. To my surprise the nature
of the journal changed. As I implemented my new teaching strategies I
started recording students‟ reactions. The changes brought about
conversations with students that were unexpected, they moved beyond what
I was teaching and asked questions. Writing down these conversations I
began to see the value in keeping a journal. I was later to learn that this
was called being a reflective practitioner. This one small change helps
keep my teaching fresh because it is a constant reminder of what I‟m doing,
what is working, what I did in the past and how the students are reacting.
With time and confidence you start casting your net wider. I‟ve joined
online communities, forums and blogs all allowing us to share our
problems, successes and ideas. I‟ve become more familiar with some of
the education terminology and while I‟m not quite at the stage of regularly
reading journals, articles from education periodicals are becoming more
frequent in my reading list.
• 18 •
APRIL/MAY 2012 • TDU TALK
Refreshing my teaching through
redesigning assessments
Ms Hine-iti-moana Greensill, Reo, School of Māori and Pacific Development
2010 was for me a landmark year - ten years of teaching Te Reo Māori! In
reflecting back on those ten years I decided that 2011 should be a time for
me to reinvigorate my teaching like never before, a time to breathe new life
into old papers and to make learning Te Reo Māori “sexy”. Essentially,
what I wanted to do was to strengthen the connection between what the
students were learning in the classroom and what they were doing, or
experiencing in the real world. The most meaningful way in which I could
do this was through assessment. The papers that were the foci of this
transformation were Te Reo Māori: Post-Introductory 1 (MAOR211) and
Te Reo Māori: Post-Introductory 2 (MAOR212). For the purpose of this
article, my discussion will focus primarily on the first of these two papers.
In designing the assessment for this course I had two objectives - to create a
formative type of assessment where students could try out their new
language before completing major assessment tasks and to make sure that
as much of the assessment as possible had a “real-life” application that
would resonate with the students. Three types of assessment were designed
to meet these objectives: Moodle Posts, Mahi Kāinga (homework
assignments) and Kōrero ā-waha (oral assessment).
Moodle Post # Topic/Context
Task
1
Native Birds
Write a description of a native bird to be included in a book on New
Zealand birdlife.
2
Describing objects
Write a newspaper advertisement for a house for rent/sale.
3
Describing people
Write a Facebook profile including a description of physical
characteristics.
4
Tourism
Write about a tourist attraction in the Waikato to be included in a tourist
brochure.
APRIL/MAY 2012 • TDU TALK
• 19 •
Moodle Posts
The idea of having regular postings on Moodle struck me as something that
could be utilised as means of formative assessment, by creating a series of
discussion topics that would in effect enable students to have a practice run
for a major assessment. Four discussion topics were devised in total, each
of which was aimed at eliciting descriptive language appropriate for a
particular type of context.
The posts were typically 50 - 100 words long and gave students an
opportunity to put into practice sentence structures and vocabulary learnt in
class. Initially, I would send feedback to students about their posts for them
to consider before completion of their next major assessment. After
trialling this approach, however, I decided to turn it into a peer review
activity where each student would comment on the work of another, thus
engaging students in a process of reflection.
Real-world homework assignments
The assessment for this course consisted of three homework assignments,
two of which I will elaborate on here, Mahi Kāinga 2 and Mahi Kāinga 3.
The task for Mahi Kāinga 2 was for each student to select 2 - 3 items to sell
and to write a description of the items, complete with photos, to be
advertised on Trade Me. Mahi Kāinga 3 was divided into two sections.
For section one students were required to submit an application for a
contestant for New Zealand‟s Next Top Model with a description of the
model and a photo attached. Section two of the assignment was to create a
one page fashion spread for a magazine, which included written
descriptions of clothing and accessories as well as photos.
Fashion show
The final piece of assessment that was an innovation
was the oral assessment. Students were paired up with
a classmate and asked to do a segment for a fashion
show. The students worked together to choose clothes
and to work on descriptions for the fashion show. Each
student had a turn at being a model and a compare with
the end result essentially being a fashion show.
• 20 •
APRIL/MAY 2012 • TDU TALK
Student response to assessment
The response to the assessment for this course was overwhelmingly
positive. Feedback from students indicated that they enjoyed the
assessment and they found it helpful to their learning. This came through
in the paper appraisal with responses to the open-ended questions. As an
example, when asked which aspects of the paper should be maintained
some typical responses were as follows:
“The speeches, homework and Moodle posts as they enable us to use the
reo more and utilize what we learnt.”
“I liked how we had assessments each week. I can see my progression
from the start of the year to now. From having little assessments my over
all learning increased heaps.”
“I liked the fashion show…”
“Assessments - Moodle Posts were excellent.”
“Assessments were great - leave as is.”
The Teaching Development Unit presents the:
June 2012 Programme
13—22 June 2012 (Hamilton)
HAMILTON
Week 1
Maximising Learning in Large Groups
Wed, 13 June, 9.00-12.00
TBC
A Beginner’s Guide to eLearning
Thu, 14 June, 9.00-12.00
TBC
Week 2
Starter Strategies for Teachers
Tue, 19 June, 9.00-11.00
B.G.24
Becoming a Reflective Practitioner
Wed, 20 June, 9.00-12.00
B.G.24
Research and Teaching
Thu, 21 June, 9.00-12.00
B.G.24
Evaluating Your Teaching
Fri, 22 June, 9.00-12.00
B.G.24
**Note: workshops marked with* are required for PGCert(TertTchg) plus one eLearning
To register, visit http://www.waikato.ac.nz/tdu/events/index.shtml or email [email protected]
APRIL/MAY 2012 • TDU TALK
• 21 •
Refreshing reading: some favourites
Barnett, R. (2000). Realising the university in an age of super complexity.
Buckingham. UK: Society for Research in Higher Education.
Brookfield, S.D. & Preskill, S. (1999). Discussion as a way of teaching.
Buckingham: Open University Press.
Boud, D. & Falchikov, N. (Eds) (2007). Rethinking assessment in higher
education. London & New York.
Davidson, C. & Tolich, M. (eds.) (2003). Social Science Research in New
Zealand. Pearson Education, Auckland.
Eleris, K. (ed). (2009). Contemporary Theories of Learning. Abingdon,
Oxon, U.K: Routledge.
Gabriel, Y. (2008). Against the tyranny of PowerPoint: Technology-in-use
and technology Abuse: Organization Studies, 29,255-272.
McNiff, J. (2010). Action Research for Professional Development. Dorset:
September Books.
McIntosh, P. (2010). Action Research and Reflective Practice: creative and
visual methods to facilitate reflection and learning. Abingdon, Oxon,
U.K: Routledge.
Moon, J. (2008). Critical thinking. London & New York: Routledge.
Palmer, P.J (1998). The Courage to teach. San Francisco: Jossey Bass.
Rowland, S. (2006). The Enquiring university. Maidenhead England: Open
University Press.
• 22 •
APRIL/MAY 2012 • TDU TALK
May/June
Professional Development at a Glance
Tue, 1 May (1.00-3.00) eLearning Workshop—Turnitin and Plagiarism
Wed, 2 May (1.00-2.00) How Green is Our Campus & Do We Care
Wed, 9 May (12.00-2.00) Teaching Network
Tue, 15 May (10.00-12.00) Digital Literacy Session—Finding Answers
Wed, 16 May Kingitanga Day
Tue, 22 May (12.00-2.00) Postgraduate Supervision Conversation
Wed, 30 May (9.00-12.00) Postgraduate Certificate in Tertiary Teaching
Wed, 6 June (8.45-12.00) Introductory Session for New Staff
Wed, 6 June (1.00-3.00) eLearning workshop—Online Collaboration
Tue, 12 June (1.00-4.00) Managing a Budget
Wed, 13 June (9.00-12.00) Maximising Learning in Large Groups
Thu, 14 June (9.00-12.00) A Beginner’s Guide to eLearning
Thu, 14 June (10.00-12.00) Digital Literacy Sessions—Presentations
Fri, 15 June (9.00-12.00) Starter Strategies for Teachers
Tue, 19 June (10.00-12.00) Google Docs The Whole Story
Tue, 19 June (12.00-2.00) Chairpersons’ Leadership Forum
Tue, 19 June (1.00-3.00) Moodle One Getting Started
Wed, 20 June (9.00-12.00) Becoming a Reflective Practitioner
Wed, 20 June (10.00-12.00) Gmail and Calendar
Wed, 20 June (1.00-3.00) Moodle Two Communication Tools
Thu, 21 June (10.00-12.00) Video Capture
Thu, 21 June (9.00-12.00) Research and Teaching
Fri, 22 June (9.00-12.00) Evaluating your Teaching
Tue, 26 June (10.00-12.00) Google Sites
Tue, 26 June (1.00-3.00) Moodle Three—Assessment Tools
Wed, 27 June (1.00-2.00) Moodle Four—Groups and Groupings
Wed, 27 June (2.00-3.00) Moodle Five—Completion and Conditions
For details or to register, visit www.waikato.ac.nz/pod/pd
Produced by:
TEACHING DEVELOPMENT UNIT | WĀHANGA WHAKAPAKARI AKO | UNIVERSITY OF WAIKATO
Private Bag 3105 | Hamilton | New Zealand
Phone: +64 7 838 4839 | Fax: +64 7 838 4573 | [email protected] | www.waikato.ac.nz/tdu