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SEED projects 2020 – Designing for learning

Encouraging change through an innovation in teaching incubator

Dr Elizabeth Anderson

Dr Elizabeth Anderson

Dr Elizabeth Anderson, Paul Neveldsen, Toni Driller, and Damon Ellis (Faculty of Education and Social Work)

“Our project involved establishing an “innovation in teaching” incubator within a community of practice, acting as a catalyst to support staff within the Faculty of Education and Social Work and assisting them in adopting different teaching approaches as this faculty implements new programmes, manages multiple campuses, and boosts blended online/face-to-face delivery modes. Our principal aim was to strengthen the capacity of staff as this faculty moves to accommodate these changes.

Delivering both new and legacy programmes is likely to increase class size, and delivery on multiple sites will require increased flexibility and adaptability from teaching staff. Developing a successful community of practice enabled the support of others in the faculty as the impending changes approach and became reality in the next two years. We hope those who participated will go on to advise and assist others within their departments. To this end, the project drew together a number of teaching staff from a range of disciplines within the faculty. This community of practice aims to collaboratively develop and trial a number of learning objects, or prototypes, that model various new methods for teaching and learning across a range of programmes. Within a pedagogy-driven, design for learning framework, such prototypes, learning objects, or digital artefacts may look like: A teacher using a flipped classroom model, with students bringing artefacts to examine, then using face-to-face activities and online broadcast to bring together discussion of findings across several settings; a teacher using a common resource to shift students’ experiences into forward-looking planning, with live discussion and online collaboration across sites or a teacher modelling the use of a learning object with a class. Students then replicated this by locating their own learning object to use for peer engagement and evaluation.

Prototypes were developed, trialled, and evaluated, with the potential for further staff development and integration into teaching practice as courses are built and put into action in coming semesters. The purpose of this incubator is thus to develop these prototypes so that online and face-to-face learning and teaching approaches will be broadened.