SEED projects
SEED Grants provided funding to support innovative or experimental approaches to learning and teaching.
The Schuler Educational Enhancement and Development (SEED) Fund for Innovation in Teaching sowed the seeds for innovative teaching practice at the University of Auckland, New Zealand.
The short-term objective of the grants was to cultivate small-scale teaching initiatives that might have otherwise failed to take root. The longer-term aim was to propagate an institution-wide culture of educational innovation, experimentation and on-going professional development, thereby lifting the quality of teaching across the University and building stronger communities of practice amongst tertiary teachers.
These pages describe the SEED projects and their outcomes.
2020 SEED projects – Designing for learning
The 2020 theme, Designing for Learning, focuses on empowering University of Auckland staff to design transformative learning opportunities that are innovative, active/experiential and culturally sustaining and that bridge face-to-face and online learning environments.
In-class and asynchronous student response systems for enhanced learning in engineering classrooms
Using student to teacher feedback to enhance feedback use in a large course
English academic writing as language barrier: A learning framework
Fostering multidisciplinary mind-sets and transferable skills in a student: the development and evaluation of an assessment framework
Quantext pilot study
Innovation in mechanical design teaching through synthesis challenge
Encouraging change through an innovation in teaching incubator
To ask or not to ask: Chatbots in education
Enhancing and enriching innovations for LAW301 Land Law
Reflective feedback journals to develop feedback literacy
Go big or go home! Exploring ways to maximise the learning benefits of lectures for students in large-scale statistics and data-science courses
Designing for learning with H5P
Post-graduate pathway in Music education
Evolution in 3D: students use 3D-printed moa bones to learn measurement and phylogenetic mapping of evolutionary characters
The delivery of capstone courses in undergraduate education
Claire Donald is co-coordinator for the 2020 SEED projects.
Ashwini Datt is co-coordinator for the 2020 SEED projects.
Victoria Wynne-Jones co-coordinated the 2018 SEED projects.
2019 SEED projects – A new Canvas for teaching and learning
The University of Auckland was the first tertiary institution in Australasia to introduce the new generation learning management system (LMS), Canvas. Canvas offers opportunities for innovation in teaching, learning and assessment, accessibility, the use of learning analytics and blended learning design. A range of plugins and bespoke applications extend the affordances far beyond the capabilities of the LMS.
Integrating and customising Canvas course packs provided by book publishers
Peer-marked presentations in large-scale classes
Auto-text analysis for just-in-time teaching
Rethinking post-class “on-task” activities using H5P / Canvas
Badges in higher education: worthwhile intrinsic or extrinsic motivation?
In Italia con Giacomo
Scalable personalised auto-marked assessments
Digital communication ethics in Arts
Enhancing feedback and feed-forward for teaching and learning with Canvas
Large-scale interactives for large-enrolment courses
Who are we as a bicultural educators? A module for Canvas
Following the threadz in online Canvas discussions
Using Canvas to enhance student experience and success in a large scale course
A New Canvas: Piloting the use of an integrated Canvas app to increase the use of formative feedback in large Bioscience classes
Enabling Canvas with real-time audience interaction
COIL: Collaborative Online International Learning
Remote teaching lab for mobile robots
In-class and asynchronous student response systems for enhanced learning in engineering classrooms
Development of pedagogically informed learning resources for pathology teaching using an H5P.com cloud-hosted solution
TFC online orientation project
Steve Leichtweis co-coordinated the 2019 SEED projects.
Bettina Schwenger co-coordinated the 2019 SEED projects.
Victoria Wynne-Jones co-coordinated the 2018 SEED projects.
2018 SEED projects – He vaka moana: Navigating Māori and Pasifika student success
What are the most pressing equity challenges in your department, school or faculty? How might you reframe your assessments, classroom activities and online interactions to foster inclusivity and celebrate diversity? And how can the changes that you make on behalf of specific groups – for example, Māori and Pasifika students navigating the pākehāpalagi mainstream; female students in male-dominated disciplines; international students struggling to understand diphthong-laden Kiwi accents – be leveraged to benefit all students?
Missed opportunities – Neal Curtis and Natasha Ah-Hing
Pepeha – Tūmanako Ngawhika Fa’aui, Jorja Heta, Alice Mills, and Gerard Rowe
Leadership through inclusive learning and teaching innovations
Enhancing Success for Pacific first-year Social Work Students
Explicitly Addressing the Importance of Diversity & Equity in Physics
Decolonising the curricula – sharing understanding of Māori and Pasifika values
Papakupu – revitalising a glossary of te reo terms for an educational setting
Global methods, local data: Activating Māori and Pacific data stories for culturally responsive teaching and learning
The art of wayfinding: Navigating Pasifika student success
Designing Māori and Pasifika inspired mathematical tasks
He waka eke noa – We are all in the same boat: Intercultural competence
Akongia Kia Ako: promoting learning to learn for Māori and Pasifika students
Vaka Moana – an academic enhancement programme promoting student collaboration
Developing Tikanga and Tapu practices in a neuroimaging lab space: Engaging Māori and Pacific in EEG research
I am who I am: enhancing teaching, learning and research success for Pacific students
Staff-Led Manaakitanga (hospitality)
Māori Mai-Me (‘Māorify Me’)
The Journey to Motutapu: Mapping, navigating and sailing through the moana of Psychology
Embedding indigenous knowledge, values and culture for Māori and Pasifika success
I hear voices in my head, and they’re singing!
Work-Related learning and Māori student success
‘Ema Wolfgramm-Foliaki co-coordinated the 2018 SEED projects.
Hinekura Smith co-coordinated the 2018 SEED projects.
Victoria Wynne-Jones co-coordinated the 2018 SEED projects.
2017 SEED projects – Writing, writing everywhere
How can we encourage our students to write more accurately, more imaginatively, more elegantly, more persuasively, more thoughtfully, more critically, more creatively – or simply more? Where has writing gone in 21st century higher education, and where else could it go? This theme was broadly defined to embrace communications media ranging from conventional printed texts to multimedia blogs, handwritten notebooks, chalked poetry and computer code.
The Writing, Writing Everywhere blog is a portal to showcase their findings and advertise events for academic writers.
Developing a science communications learning activity for a large first-year course
Introducing students to writing elegant computer code
Improving critical thinking and written communication in physics with open-ended experiments and abbreviated argument-based reports
Embedding writing for employability in Arts
Writing code the visual and kinesthetic way
Letting the letters run ahead of me; a study of writing practices that support creative thinking
Interdisciplinary teaching case-study on the global clothing industry
Encouraging collaborative writing via Google Docs analytics
Narrative medicine and critical reflection through poetry and art.
Writing reflective scripts on overcoming misconceptions and difficulties in mathematics.
Technical writing to improve understanding of threshold engineering concepts.
Engineering systems thinking: Experienced-based learning.
Academic Writing at Auckland: A resource of annotated exemplary student writing
The Three Lamps
Critical writing and creative thinking
Learning by writing using scenario-based questions
From ‘thinking like a manager’ to ‘writing like a manager’: The use of online course delivery options to promote effective, industry-relevant communication
Writing for Psychology
From ‘Thinking like a Manager’ to ‘Writing like a Manager’: Part 2
Operations management simulator: Resources for teaching with case studies, hands-on lab and assessment exercises
Vaka: Navigating Pacific Postgraduate Horizons
On-line, discipline-aligned materials to support undergraduate students’ writing development in Arts
Evija Trofimova co-coordinated the 2017 SEED projects.
Alex Thomas co-coordinated the 2017 SEED projects.
These pages are maintained by the Learning Design Team. Email coursebuilder@auckland.ac.nz