The University hosts an annual forum on learning and teaching, where it showcases innovation in learning and teaching, and provides keynote addresses from internationally renowned figures in higher education.
|
As social creatures we are wired to connect. Our very well-being and mental health relies upon our developing positive and effective relationships. However, imagine the impact upon us if we are not able to form positive relationships and if the relationships we do form are mostly negative and toxic. Yet that is what marginalised students tell us is happening to them in classrooms in many other places across the world. Therefore, if we are to successfully address educational inequalities, firstly we need to consciously place positive relationship-forming practices at the very centre of whatever we do in education. Unless we attend to this aspect of education, everything else we do will not be as productive as it might be. We need to do this in order that those currently marginalised by negative and toxic educational relationships are enabled to benefit from that which education has to offer. We can do this by invoking the most important organisation in the world, family; not just the nuclear family - the wider extended family. These multi-generational collectives of aspirations, experiences, and practices that make up our connectedness, remain central to our lives. It is in our extended families where we learn to love others, to care for and be cared for, to develop expectations and strive to meet them. It is where older, more knowledgeable others know what we need to learn and how we can best learn important cultural practices and culturally-generated modes of making sense of the world. To constitute our classrooms as if they were extended families would engender totally different relationships than are developed within classrooms based upon the need to transfer knowledge and skills alone. In this sense, the notion of the extended family is used in this presentation metaphorically to invoke contexts for belonging, for support and to promote individual learning of knowledge and skills. It is this latter sense of family-ness that has much to offer those teachers and other educators currently seeking a means of supporting those marginalised from the benefits of education. This process is called Teaching to the North-East because the North-East is a metaphor for the location where effective teachers are positioned by their creating family-like contexts, interacting within these contexts and then monitoring and modifying these practices in light of their impact on learners’ progress. Teaching to the North-East is a combination of moving 'East' on a relational continuum and 'North' on an interactional continuum. Monitoring from the North-East position responds to evidence of the impact of these practices on students' progress, in this way, allowing relationships and interactions to be modified and improved. The combination of these dimensions improves learning outcomes for marginalised learners. This presentation is therefore about how we can include those currently marginalised in education by our creating extended family-like contexts for learning, in ways that are culturally responsive, in our classrooms and learning settings.
Thursday 29th August, 2019
Venue: Japan-Pacific ICT Multi-Purpose Theatre, Laucala Campus, USP
Image source: University of New South Wales |
For more information about transforming assessment, please visit: |
This session will explore the 21st century skills and capabilities that our students will need as they live and work in a world dominated by technology, complexity and increasing uncertainty. Our teaching and assessment practices will need to change; we cannot continue to give students just static content-based learning activities that ignore the contextual consequences of working in a complex environment with many stakeholders. We will need to expand our repertoire of assessment tasks to include a more sophisticated use of the physical and virtual spaces that allow students to interact with each other and construct their assessment responses with access to whatever resources they require in order to make a meaningful response to a meaningful task. We should be able to identify students’ decision making processes when they propose a solution to a real life problem. Students will need to be provided with more engaging assessment tasks that will enable them to demonstrate their full range of capability development. We will examine some of the implications of this new educational environment and reflect on our current learning and assessment practices in relation to the requirements of this brave new world.
Thursday 30th August, 2018
Venue: Japan-Pacific ICT Multi-Purpose Theatre, Laucala Campus, USP
|
The OERu is succeeding in shifting the question from how to achieve a fiscally sustainable OER initiative to how will education in your institutions remain sustainable without OER? With the launch of the OERu 1st year of study, the network is demonstrating that the OERu is a low cost, low risk, but high impact innovation.
The OERu envisions a world where all learners can have more affordable options to higher education. The Open Educational Resource universitas (OERu) is an international collaboration of universities, colleges and polytechnics spanning five regions of the world which provides free learning opportunities using courses based solely on Open Educational Resources (OER) with pathways to obtain university-level qualifications. The OERu offers a philanthropic alternative to the Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) startups.
This year, the OERu is launching a free 1st year of study leading to two exit qualifications. The Certificate of Higher Education Business (OERu), University of the Highlands and Islands and The Certificate of General Studies, Thompson Rivers University. The presentation will highlight how open design and open education practices are implemented by OERu to assemble open online courses available for remix and reuse across multiple delivery platforms and demonstrate how student mobility for credit transfer and course articulation has been resolved within the OERu network. I will share insights into the open business model developed through regional consultations demonstrating how access to education can be achieved for under-served populations, without comprising the fiscal sustainability of the publicly funded tertiary sector.
With USP being a founding partner of the OERu network, the presentation will explore opportunities for the University to widen access to educational opportunity in the region, further building on its leadership role in open and distance learning.
Thursday 31st August, 2017
Venue: Japan-Pacific ICT Multi-Purpose Theatre, Laucala Campus, USP
He specialises in elearning pedagogies, learning technologies, multimodal design, visual and multiliteracies. He has worked in Higher Education for some 26 years and is particularly interested in how constructively aligned and aesthetically enhanced learning environments can better transmit concepts to students, particularly those from diverse backgrounds. In recent years his research has focused on how students interact with technologies online, particularly in relation to accessing learning resources. His other passion area is photography, particularly the democratisation of the photographic medium, largely facilitated by the advent of digital imaging. In addition to his role at USQ, Michael is the Director of the ACODE Learning Technologies Leadership Institute. This is a major initiative of ACODE that is run bi-yearly for those aspiring to become leaders in the area of technology enhanced learning. |
There is a famous line by the poet John Donne (circa 1624) in his work ‘Devotions upon Emergent Occasions’ that reads:
'No man is an Island, entire of itself, every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main.'
In this case the ‘continent’ represents how we are all (in the higher education sector) coming to grips with the rapid advances in technology enhanced learning (TEL), and how we can sometimes feel we are doing things all alone, where in actual fact we are part of a much broader learning community of practice. So you might physically live on an island, but you are part of a much greater learning community that are very happy to work with you to find solutions to your particular needs.
This presentation will look at some interesting, low barrier, technology enhanced pedagogies that have been seen to enhance student learning at a range of institutions. Some of these are common to the institutions learning management system (LMS), while others can easily be integrated into the greater virtual learning environment (VLE). Importantly, it will do this in the context of an institution providing a consistent approach for their students in how they experience the courses associated with an institutions VLE.
This presentation will also suggest that if we can nail down many of the fundamentals around providing TEL, then an institution has a much greater chance of being able to hammer home some of the innovation they would ultimately like to see in place. Not surprisingly, this approach calls on a number of recognized quality instruments that can be aligned with the potential plans and directions of the institution. We will investigate some of these tools and look to develop, together, a way forward, consistent with the support the greater learning community can provide.
Date: Thursday 1st September, 2016
Venue: Japan-Pacific ICT Multi-Purpose Theatre, Laucala Campus, USP
Presentations
His major areas of research include the transition from college to work, early socialization and career progression in the workplace, workforce readiness, and other areas related to college student studies. MSU’s nationally recognized annual college labor market study is done under his direction each fall. He served as senior editor of the Journal of Cooperative Education and Internships. In the spring of 2009 he served as a Fulbright specialist to New Zealand on work-integrated learning. Dr. Gardner currently serves as the Executive Director of the Career Network at MSU. |
Entrepreneurial mindedness has taken the university campus by storm with new curriculum, new space for creativity labs, and incubators for new businesses. Someone who can bring a sense of the entrepreneurial process into their organization has become a high priority for many organizations. Sarasvathy stressed that entrepreneurs need to: know who they are, what they know and whom they know; or in other words, entrepreneurs know their values, traits, abilities, and preferences, gain mastery of a discipline and the system (he refers to knowledge systems) they are engaged, and connect to a social network(s) that can advance their enterprise. Tim Brown of Silicon Valley’s IDEO parlayed the T professional metaphor which was coined in the early 1990s into a movement that captures similar constructs: mastery, self-awareness, and boundary spanning abilities. Both challenge undergraduate education by replacing should and ought questions (What should I major in? What courses ought I take?) With questions of can – what can I do? What can I create or What problem do I want to tackle? But faculty may not be ready for a creative classroom. For example, “teachers dislike students who exhibit curiosity and creative thinking even though teachers acknowledge creativity as an important educational goal (Muller, et.al.). Despite confounding evidence, universities need to ask themselves:
Date: Wednesday 9th September, 2015
Venue: Japan-Pacific ICT Multi-Purpose Theatre, Laucala Campus, USP
Case Studies
Dr. Vijay Kumar provides leadership for sustainable technology-enabled educational innovation at MIT. In his prior roles at MIT as Senior Associate Dean of Undergraduate Education, Assistant Provost and Director of Academic Computing, as well at other institutions, Vijay has been responsible for strategy development and leading units engaged in the effective integration of information technology and media services in education. Vijay was the Principal Investigator of O.K.I (Open Knowledge Initiative), an MIT-led collaborative project to develop an open architecture for enterprise educational applications. Vijay is a member of the Advisory Committee of MIT OpenCourseWare (OCW). He is the Executive officer for MIT’s Council on Educational Technology. He was a member of the steering committee for I-Campus, the MIT-Microsoft Alliance initiative for educational technology. Vijay’s research, as well as his engagements as advisor/consultant are directed toward strategy, planning and implementing technological innovations for education. Vijay was recently awarded an Honorary Professorship by Tianjin Open University, October 2013.
|
New affordances of technology and the open movement are ushering in an educational ecology characterized not only by an abundance of resources but also greater agency to learners and communities. Meanwhile, learning science research has also been contributing to an increased understanding of how people learn and what it means to learn within specific disciplines. New modalities are pointing to the need for inquiry into the development of quality and reach of online learning experiences as well as future research on learning effectiveness in general. Traditional assumptions about the development and delivery of educational resources and practice are being challenged, while hitherto immutable structural relationships in the value chain of education are being disrupted.
This presentation will build on the aspirations and implications of initiatives at MIT and elsewhere to discuss opportunities and readiness for educational innovation and transformation.
Date: Wednesday 10th September, 2014
Venue: Japan-Pacific ICT Multi-Purpose Theatre, Laucala Campus, USP
Dave Cormier is an engaging speaker and an international leader in e-Learning, open source software and open education. Some years ago, in a skype conversation with his friend and colleague, Professor George Siemens of the University of Athabasca, he coined the term MOOC (Massive Online Open Course). Together, Siemens and Cormier were the first to offer any form of MOOC. Their approach to MOOCs is very much grounded in pedagogy and learner-centredness, making him ideal to provoke and lead the discussion on transformative pedagogies and USP’s quest for excellence. Mr. Cormier is a faculty member at the University of Prince Edward Island in Canada. He is also President of Edactive Technologies which specializes in using content management systems and virtual worlds to make friendly and efficient places for people to work, collaborate and build knowledge communities. Proposed Outcomes of the Forum:
|
Date: Thursday 3rd October 2013 and Friday 4th October 2013
Venue: Japan-Pacific ICT Multi-Purpose Theatre, Laucala Campus, USP
Day One (3rd October, 2013)
Day Two (4th October, 2013)
Date: Monday 10 September 2011
Venue: Japan-Pacific ICT Multi-Purpose Theatre, Laucala Campus, USP
Chair: Director, Properties & Facilities
(a) Open Educational Resources (OERs) and Current Practices
Chair: Associate Dean Learning & Teaching, Faculty of Arts, Law & Education – Dr Bruce Yeates
(b) Innovations and Initiatives
Chair: Associate Dean Learning & Teaching, Faculty of Arts, Law & Education – Dr Bruce Yeates
(c) Services
Chair: Associate Dean Learning & Teaching, Faculty of Arts, Law & Education – Dr Bruce Yeates
(d) Emerging Issues
Chair: Acting Dean, Faculty of Business & Economics – Dr Kesaia Seniloli
Chair: Associate Dean Learning & Teaching, Faculty of Science, Technology and Environment – Associate Prof Bibhya Sharma
Chair: Director of Research – Associate Prof Jito Vanualailai
Date: Thursday 22nd September & Friday 23rd September 2011
Venue: Australia Pacific Lecture Theatre (formerly known as AusAid Lecture Theatre) (092-003)
Day One (September 22, 2011)
Day Two (September 23, 2011)
Concluding Remarks
Date: Monday 8th November & Tuesday 9th November 2010
Venue: Australia Pacific Lecture Theatre (formerly known as AusAid Lecture Theatre) (092-003)
Day One
Day Two
Closing Remarks