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Section 3: Effective Teaching

Providing a high quality learning experience for students is a major goal of UNE. Whether you teach online, at a distance or face-to-face, or whether you are marking, taking tutorials, running laboratories or lecturing, your role as a university teacher is a vital element in the provision of meaningful learning opportunities for students.

UNE is committed to supporting and enhancing high quality teaching and learning practices. The Australian Vice-Chancellors’ Committee (AVCC) has developed a set of guidelines for effective university teaching which you will find useful to help guide your planning, teaching and assessing, and your interactions with your students.

University teaching is a profession and a scholarly activity which draws on a high level of competence and expertise in the discipline and/or relevant professional experience together with highly developed communication and interpersonal skills.

As professionals, university teachers need to be appropriate role models and exhibit to their students a commitment to scholarly values, to life long learning, to professional and personal growth through critical reflection and self evaluation, to accountability for their own professional activities, and to a responsible and ethical practice of their profession.

As university teachers, staff need to acquire and develop knowledge and understanding of a wide range of teaching and assessment methods and of the principles which underlie student learning.

They should work to instil in their students a respect for their discipline and for learning generally, the need for personal progress towards competence and maturity, and a commitment to maximise the opportunities that each graduate will have to contribute to society.

As scholars, university teachers need to contribute to their disciplines or at least be in touch with current research and scholarship, and to integrate into their teaching the knowledge and understanding which they or others create.

Students expect and value their university teachers’ competence in the subject areas they teach; effective communication of their knowledge and experience; interest in and enthusiasm for their subject; concern and respect for students as persons, and a commitment to facilitate learning for each individual student.

Indeed, all university teachers have a professional responsibility to teach their subjects in such a way that all students, regardless of their background or characteristics, have an equal opportunity to learn and to demonstrate that learning, in accordance with the aims of the subject. This means that good teaching practices vary in relation to:

(a)  the context in which particular components of the course are offered, e.g. co-operative education, clinical teaching, laboratory teaching, skills training, or distance education;

(b)  the disciplines and their particular concerns;

(c)  the students, e.g. school-leavers, special admission students, mature-age students, part-time students, overseas students, students with disabilities, students from non-English speaking backgrounds;

(d)  the level and standards commonly agreed to, e.g. first year undergraduate, Honours, graduate level.

However, despite the diversity in effective teaching practice, there are some common aims and principles. Generally, university teaching aims to enable students to reach their highest possible level of learning during their time of enrolment, and to prepare them for lifelong learning. In practice this means that staff collectively are responsible for ensuring that the design, management and teaching of their subjects facilitate effective learning by their students.

AVCC Guidelines for Effective University Teaching

An indication of UNE’s dedication to the enhancement of teaching and learning is reflected in the University’s Teaching and Learning Plan 2002-2006 which can be found on the UNE web site at:

http://planning.une.edu.au/UNE/Planning/Stratplans/plans/T&Lplanv2003.htm

UNE’s Online Teaching Principles will also be a useful reference to guide effective teaching online. It can be found at http://www.une.edu.au/offsect/

Effective university teaching

According to Ramsden (2003: 86) all effective university teachers possess a similar set of characteristics. Of course, there is no one best way to teach and particular teaching contexts will call for different teaching methods and approaches. In general, however, good teachers demonstrate:

  • a desire to share their love of the subject with students
  • an ability to make the material being taught stimulating and interesting
  • a facility for engaging with students at their level of understanding
  • a capacity to explain the material plainly
  • a commitment to making it absolutely clear what has to be understood, at what level, and why
  • concern and respect for students
  • a commitment to encouraging student independence
  • an ability to improvise and adapt to new demands
  • the use of teaching methods and academic tasks that require students to learn actively, responsibly and cooperatively
  • the use of valid assessment methods
  • a focus on key concepts, and enabling students’ clear understanding of them, rather than covering the ground
  • a desire to learn from students and other sources about the effects of teaching and how it can be improved.

Gibbs (1992: 10-11) says that it is through appropriate course design, teaching methods and assessment that deep student learning can be fostered. Creating a high quality learning environment will stimulate and encourage students to treat their learning as a serious and meaningful experience, rather than a series of things to get through to get some marks and complete a semester.

Biggs and Moore (1993: 447-482) suggest that there are key characteristics within learning contexts that we should think about when planning to teach for better learning. They are:

1.  The knowledge base - The more one knows about a topic, and the better organised and more accessible that knowledge is, the easier, deeper and more enjoyable will further learning about that topic become.

How well-structured is the knowledge base which is at the heart of what I am teaching and what I am expecting my students to learn?

How explicit do I make that structure to my students through the learning activities and the assessment program?

2.  The motivational context - A well-structured knowledge base is itself a condition for intrinsic motivation. Good motivation requires that: (a) the task should be valued by the learner; and (b) the learner may reasonably expect success.

What motivates my students to learn?

How do I capitalise upon what motivates them, so that they encounter valuable and successful learning opportunities, that, at the same time, do not misrepresent the discipline or field of study?

3.  The nature of interaction with others - Learning is essentially a social activity. Such interactivity can be ‘vertical’, as in teacher-student interaction, or ‘horizontal’, as in student-student interaction. Each kind of interactivity has its own effects on learning, with the former emphasising deep integration of detail, the latter, elaboration and metacognitive awareness.

What kinds of interaction do I expect to occur?

How appropriate and desirable for learning is the interaction that is stimulated by the learning activities and the assessment program in the unit I teach?

4.  The nature of learner activity - Learner activity is implied in each of the three characteristics above. The key to the effectiveness of any activity is its potential to get students thinking actively about the task or the concepts and applying the knowledge so gained.

What are the students doing, both physically and mentally, to engage with the knowledge they encounter through my teaching?

What am I doing to guide students in how to think in more complex and deep ways about the knowledge and its application in a variety of different situations?

Engage in ongoing discussions about teaching and learning

Teaching is not just about knowing the course or unit content and telling students about it. Teaching is about creating opportunities for students to learn.

Therefore, it is important that you spend time thinking about and discussing the teaching you are expected to do with your course/unit coordinator, so you have a very good understanding of expectations and possibilities for your teaching and for your students’ learning. It is a good idea, where possible, to discuss your teaching on an ongoing basis with coordinators or other colleagues.

It is also important, of course, to discuss teaching and learning with students. Through student feedback on your teaching and on their learning, you can gain powerful insights into their learning needs and how you can best respond to those needs through your teaching (see ‘Evaluation of your teaching’ below).

Attributes of a UNE Graduate

Graduate attributes describe the overarching qualities, skills, knowledge and abilities to be developed by students during their studies in undergraduate programs at the University.

1.  Knowledge of a Discipline
Graduates will be able to demonstrate command of a significant body of knowledge of sufficient depth and its applications.

2.  Communication Skills
Graduates will be able to communicate effectively.

3.  Global Perspective
Graduates will be able to demonstrate a global perspective and inter-cultural competence in their professional lives.

4.  Information Literacy
Graduates will have developed competencies in information literacy.

5.  Life-Long Learning
Graduates will be prepared for life-long learning in pursuit of personal and professional development.

6.  Problem-solving
Graduates will be effective problem-solvers, capable of applying logical, critical and creative thinking to a range of problems.

7.  Social Responsibility
Graduates will be committed to ethical action and social responsibility.

8.  Team Work
Graduates will be able to work collaboratively to achieve common goals.

Attributes of a UNE Graduate

http://www.une.edu.au/offsect/une_grad_attributes.htm

Check with your course/unit coordinator about the nature and extent of graduate attribute development integrated into the teaching you have been given to do.

A handbook of resources to assist integrating graduate attributes into undergraduate curricula can be found at:

http://www.une.edu.au/gamanual/resource_guide.pdf

Assessment for learning

Assessment is an extremely important part of your teaching, as it is through the assessment program that you make judgments about your students’ knowledge development. Your judgments ultimately become student grades.

If students are to learn desired outcomes in a reasonably effective manner, then the teacher’s fundamental task is to get students to engage in learning activities that are likely to result in their achieving those outcomes … It
is helpful to remember that what the student does is actually more important in determining what is learned than what the teacher does (Shuell 1986: 429).

Biggs (1999) argues that it is important to make sure there is a clear link among learning objectives, learning activities and assessment. He calls this ‘constructive alignment’ which means aligning objectives, teaching and assessment with the intention of fostering a deep approach to learning.

Ramsden’s (2003: 204-205) fourteen rules for better assessment in higher education provide a useful set of pointers to guide practice and ensure that assessment does indeed support learning, while simultaneously meeting university credentialling needs.

  1. Link assessment to learning: focus first on learning, second on encouraging effort, and third on grading; assess during the experience of learning as well as at the end of it; set tasks that mimic realistic problems whenever possible; reward integration and application.
  2. Never assess without giving comments to students about how they might improve.
  3. Learn from your students’ mistakes. Use assessment to discover their misunderstandings, then modify teaching to address them.
  4. Deploy a variety of assessment methods.
  5. Try to get students participating in the assessment process, through:
    • discussions of appropriate methods and how the methods relate to the course goals
    • joint staff-student design of assessment questions and negotiation of criteria for success and failure
    • self and peer assessment activities
    • offering students responsible choice among different methods.
  6. Give lucid and frequent messages, both in the assessment questions you set and in your course goals, that memorisation, reproduction, and imitation will be penalised and that success in your courses will only be achieved through decisive demonstrations of understanding.
  7. Think about the relation between reporting and feedback; justify on educational grounds either the separation or the combination of the diagnostic and summative functions of a particular test, rather than blindly applying an algorithm such as “No assessment for feedback should count for a mark” or “Every assessment should count or students won’t bother with it”.
  8. Use multiple-choice and other ‘objective’ tests very cautiously, preferably in combination with other methods. When numbers of students and time permit alternative techniques (see 6 above), use these.
  9. In subjects involving quantitative manipulations, always include questions requiring explanations in prose (such as “What does it mean in this case to say that the standard deviation is 1.8?”) as well as numerical examples.
  10. Focus on validity (is what you are measuring important?) before reliability (is your test consistent?). Try to avoid the temptation to test trifling aspects because they are easier to measure than important ones.
  11. Do everything in your power to lessen the anxiety raised by assessments.
  12. “Examinations are formidable even to the best prepared, for the greatest fool may ask more than the wisest man can answer” (Colton). Never set an assignment or examination question you are not ready to answer yourself. Practise the habit of writing model answers to your questions and using them to help students appreciate what you want.
  13. Reduce the between-student competitive aspects of assessment while simultaneously providing inducements to succeed against a standard (through using assessments of group products and deriving standards from several cohorts of students, for example).
  14. Be suspicious of the objectivity and accuracy of all measures of student ability and conscious that human judgment is the most important element in every indicator of achievement.

A recent report of an Australian Universities Teaching Committee project (James, McInnis & Devlin 2002) stated that assessment should:

  • guide and encourage effective approaches to learning
  • validly and reliably measure expected learning outcomes, in particular, the higher order learning that characterises higher education
  • define and protect academic standards.

That report provides practical advice on five current assessment issues in higher education.

  1. Capturing the potential of online assessment.
  2. Designing efficient and effective assessment for large classes.
  3. Responding to plagiarism and developing policies to foster academic honesty.
  4. Using assessment to guide effective group work.
  5. Recognising the needs of students unfamiliar with assessment practices in Australian higher education.

The full report of that project can be found at: http://www.cshe.unimelb.edu.au/assessinglearning

You may be involved in the assessment program of the unit you are teaching. It is important that you know how UNE views assessment.

UNE’s Assessment Policy (http://www.une.edu.au/offsect/assessment_policy.htm) will explain answers to the following questions:

  • How does UNE view assessment?
  • What kinds of assessment tasks are appropriate?
  • What is the grading system used at UNE?
  • What are my responsibilities?
  • What are the students’ responsibilities?

If the unit you are teaching has an examination as part of its assessment program, you will need to read the Assessment by University Examination Policy and the Examinations Unit Procedures available on the Office of the Secretariat web site at http://www.une.edu.au/offsect/policies.htm

Marking

If marking is part of your teaching duties, you should make an appointment with your unit coordinator to discuss the marking you are to do.

You should make sure that you are given a copy of:

  • Unit Study Guide
    • Unit learning outcomes
    • Assignment details, including assessment criteria
    • Textbooks and reading lists
  • Resource materials provided to students
  • Marking Guide
  • Answer Guide
  • Referencing Guide
  • Plagiarism Policy.

It is important that your understanding of the Assessment Task, the Assessment Criteria, Answer Guide and the Marking Guide matches your unit coordinator’s. Discuss expectations and understandings with your unit coordinator, and also with other markers, if possible.

Additional questions to ask the unit coordinator:

  • How many assignments/exams will I be expected to mark?
  • How long is it estimated that each one will take to mark?
  • What turnaround time is expected?
  • Who do I speak to for advice?
  • If there is more than one marker, what moderation processes will be put in place?
  • How do I submit the marks?

Things to discuss with the unit coordinator:

  • What you both understand about the assignment - what is the assessment task asking of the student?
  • What you both understand by each of the criteria.
  • Expectations of what will constitute evidence in an assignment to demonstrate that a student has met the criteria.
  • What you both understand about the marking guide.
  • The nature and form of the feedback to provide to students.

Check the procedure for submitting timesheets within the School - when do they need to be in, who signs them, etc.

Plagiarism

Plagiarism is the intentional or unintentional use of the work of other persons, copying (in whole or in part) the work or data of other persons, or presenting substantial extracts from written, printed, electronic or other media in a student’s written, oral, electronic/on-line or group assignment work without due acknowledgment. Plagiarism involves giving the impression that a student has thought, written or produced something that has, in fact, been taken from another. Any act of plagiarism constitutes a breach of this policy.

Plagiarism, cheating, and falsification of data are dishonest practices that contravene academic values of respect for knowledge, scholarship and scholars. These practices devalue the quality of learning, both for the individual and for others enrolled in the unit. The University views with the greatest concern the action of students who act dishonestly or improperly in connection with their academic work and imposes strict penalties on those students who are found to contravene the University plagiarism policy. To avoid plagiarism, it is important for students to understand how to attribute the work and ideas they use to their proper source.

UNE Policy on Plagiarism and Improper Conduct

http://www.une.edu.au/offsect/plagiarism_policy.htm

It is important that teaching staff are aware of the UNE plagiarism policy and are familiar with what to do if plagiarism is detected.

Students need to fill in a plagiarism declaration form

The plagiarism declaration form that all students must sign before submitting an assignment can be found at: http://www.une.edu.au/offsect/Plagiarism Declaration Form.rtf

Check with your Faculty and School about whether special procedures or practices have been established for the students you teach.

If you detect plagiarism

If you do detect plagiarism, you should notify the unit and course coordinator and/or your Head of School, who will coordinate the investigation.

Teach to inform students about plagiarism

Many instances of plagiarism occur because students are unfamiliar with what constitutes plagiarism or do not know how to avoid plagiarising another scholar’s work. It is important that strategies for developing understandings about plagiarism, and how to reference and use other scholars’ work should be made explicit to students as part of regular teaching and learning activities.

Evaluation of your teaching

All good university teachers, whether full-time or part-time, review their teaching regularly. They reflect upon their teaching practices and their students’ learning outcomes with the aims of learning from experiences and enhancing both the quality of their teaching and the learning opportunities they provide for their students.

It is important that you collect evaluative data about your teaching, even if you have casual or part-time teaching duties. This means that it is important to plan early.

UNE runs a standard collection of student feedback scheme as well as providing assistance with planning a whole evaluation program that would include the gathering of both informal and formal evaluation data and the making of plans to review, reflect and take action to enhance teaching and learning.

The standard feedback scheme uses two survey instruments for the collection of evaluation data: the Student Feedback on Unit and Lecturer/Teaching Performance surveys. Heads of School and unit coordinators look after ordering the Student Feedback on Unit questionnaires, but you as an individual can nominate to have your students give formal feedback on your teaching performance using the Lecturer/Teaching Performance survey.

Go to http://www.une.edu.au/tlc/evaluation/ to find out about the processes and procedures involved.

The formal feedback gained through these surveys is only one type of data you can draw upon to inform your teaching. Other forms of evaluative data include:

  • feedback from colleagues
  • your own reflection upon your actions
  • consideration of your teaching approaches and practices in the light of published research and other literature on teaching and learning
  • your students’ learning outcomes.

If you would like assistance with planning your own evaluation program, help can be sought through the Teaching and Learning Centre (see http://www.une.edu.au/tlc/evaluation/).