Teaching Tuesdays@CSU
Teaching Tips & Links for SELF-DIRECTED LEARNING
Issue 65 - Quality Assurance and Course Design
QUASAR workshops are being held at Charles Sturt University this week (see details below).
QUASAR is the acronym for the Charles Sturt Quality Assurance and Reflection system for recording quality assurance processes. A key feature of the system is that it gives all teaching staff a place to reflect upon their subjects and plan improvements for the future.
Our main article this week focuses on how such information can be used in the ongoing improvement of courses and subjects to improve student outcomes and the student learning experience. The Division of Learning and Teaching has a large number of resources to help with these improvement processes and our second article includes links to some of these.
This week's topics:
7 Wise Practices for the Continuous Improvement of Curriculum
- Resources to support course and subject improvements
Professional Learning Opportunities this week
QUASAR the new moderation system Moderation and Grades. These workshops will introduce you to the Moderation and Grades form in the Quality Assurance and Reflection (QUASAR) system. You will undertake the processes of moderation with worked examples for each role and stage.August 20, 21 & 22.
See below for details and for more Professional Learning opportunities this week at Charles Sturt University.
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1. 7 Wise Practices for the Continuous Improvement of Curriculum
Moving Beyond Data Collection to Meaningful Quality Assurance and Curriculum Improvement: The Future of Curriculum Mapping
By Peter Wolf
Reading Time: 3 minutes (64 minutes for original video).
Peter Wolf commences by recognising the worldwide trend towards increasing accountability in course and subject learning outcomes for students. However, the drive for compliance driven quality assurance often does not lead to continuous improvement in courses and subjects. He notes the "curriculum fatigue" from data collection can result in little ongoing reform.
QUOTE: "faculty are spending so much time collecting the data and filling out the forms and making sure they meet the requirements in quality assurance that they don’t have the capacity to get to the actual enhancement."
The aim of this session is to provide principles and tools to streamline the continuous review and improvements in the curriculum. The principles that Wolf provides for curriculum improvement have universal application, drawn from his own context in Canadian higher education.
7 Wise Practices for the Continuous Improvement of Curriculum
- Evidence-based - a more comprehensive evidence base of data.
- Faculty-driven - foster a number of champions at the faculty level, ideally at least one per subject.
- Stakeholder-informed - stakeholder informed processes and evidence.
- Administratively-aligned - straighten out the alignment so that people aren’t spending all their time assessing and reporting.
- Outcomes-focused - students would be able to know, do and value their end of the course and how we would know that the outcomes were achieved?
- Recognised and valued - make sure to recognise the effort and the scholarship and the intensity that goes into curriculum level work in our systems, in our culture.
- Ongoing engagement - foster ongoing, sustainable engagement of staff in the process.
These need to be EFFECTIVE and EFFICIENT processes.
In this interactive workshop, participants feed into the session and provide some of the considerations to take into account for course and subject mapping. These include:
- signature pedagogies, work-integrated learning, high impact practices, lab skills, ethical behaviour, simulations, teaching techniques, essential learning outcomes, experiential practice/learning, indigenisation, technology skills, median class size and who is doing the teaching, case studies, problem-based learning, adaptive learning analytics, student engagement, active learning, shared knowledges across subjects, courses, programs, schools, word use and vocabularies.
QUOTE: “Outcomes mapping is primary but not exclusive. In my experience and in my advice, I would say do not limit yourself to just outcomes mapping and when you hear the term curriculum mapping, ask what they mean, because it could mean mapping [subjects]. It could mean mapping anything from the individual [subject] up.”
Four Levels of Evaluation
(Donald Kirkpatrick)
- Level 1 – Reaction - In what ways did students like a particular course /program?
- Level 2 – Learning - New skills /knowledge /attitudes? What was learned?
- Level 3 – Behaviour - Is the learning being applied?
- Level 4 – Results - What are the impact/results?
At Charles Sturt, we have existing institutional procedures such as standardised course review processes and the course design principles that underpin the institutional CourseSpace system for course review. The templates included in the supplemental material for this webinar include a map based on Kirkpatrick's Model that may help you to visualise the components of your course from a different perspective that still delivers on the institutional requirements.
References
Kurt, S. "Kirkpatrick Model: Four Levels of Learning Evaluation," in Educational Technology, October 24, 2016. Retrieved from https://educationaltechnology.net/kirkpatrick-model-four-levels-learning-evaluation/
The PROFESSIONAL LEARNING OPPORTUNITIES AND RESOURCES section below has details about how to get FREE access to our Magna Publications quality Learning & Teaching resources subscription.
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2. Resources to support course and subject improvements
- signature pedagogies, work-integrated learning, high impact practices, lab skills, ethical behaviour, simulations, teaching techniques, essential learning outcomes, experiential practice/learning, indigenisation, technology skills, median class size and who is doing the teaching, case studies, problem-based learning, adaptive learning analytics, student engagement, active learning, shared knowledges across subjects, courses, programs, schools, word use and vocabularies.
The Division of Learning and Teaching at Charles Sturt University has many existing resources to support these considerations.
The key resource is the staff of the Division, with experienced educational designers and other specialist staff to support and advise on all aspects of course and subject design as well as technical specialists to support development of your learning and teaching resources and activities. Some of the online resources are:
Course Review, Design and Development web pages include
- Principles of course design - a set of best practice principles that address the components and drivers of quality course design.
- Quality course design - for new courses or those under review
- Course Design Process - aligns the principles for quality course design with the first element of the Curriculum, Learning and Teaching Framework.
- CourseSpace - the bespoke software that supports course teams to engage in course review, design and development
- explore these pages for resources to support your professional learning, regulatory requirements, FAQs and a glossary of terms.
Assessment, Moderation and Benchmarking web pages
Designing new and analysing existing assessment across a course requires consideration and application of a number of steps in a process.
- Explore the NEW Assessment across a course web page.
- Download the template for Analytical Course Mapping.
Analytics and Evaluations - enhancing learning and teaching through the use of data and analytics
- Learning Analytics - Learning Analytics refers to the collection and analysis of student and teacher data for the purposes of improving learning and teaching.
- Evaluating Learning & Teaching - Seeking and acting upon feedback from students can enable us to better adapt to student learning and students' needs.
- Educational Intelligence Dashboards - present key learning and teaching data
Workplace Learning - We use workplace learning (WPL) as a powerful learning and teaching strategy to help students become future professionals and enhance their employability skills and practice capabilities. This extensive suite of resources includes:
- WPL Implementation - the phases involved in running a quality workplace learning (WPL) program.
Peer Review of Educational Practice templates for teaching practice, subject design and course leadership and design include advisory notes with links to a large range of resources to support the practices under review.
This is just a small sample of the online resources available to support you in your course and subject design practices. Other resources include:
- Indigenous Curriculum
- Online Learning
- Technologies for Learning and Teaching
- Learning Spaces
- Open Education
- Professional Learning
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Implementing the CSU Value IMPACTFUL in your teaching.
As a community of impactful professionals we are each thinking about how to best direct our efforts to secure results for our students and our communities.
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Follow Teaching Tuesdays on Twitter.
Our Twitter feed includes links to further hints, tips and resources in the broader field of teaching in higher education.
https://twitter.com/TeachingTuesday
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Charles Sturt Ed 2019 (formerly CSUed)
Registrations and the Call for Contributions are now open.
September 15 is the deadline for submission of abstracts.
This year's Charles Sturt Ed conference, Working together for student success, will be held on 20-22 November on the Wagga Campus. This will be an opportunity to discuss learning and teaching in the context of our Student Strategy which is part of the University Strategy 2017-2022. The main themes for the Charles Sturt Ed 2019 conference are:
- Student-centred courses, teaching, services and culture
- Quality learning and teaching
- Innovative learning environments
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PROFESSIONAL LEARNING OPPORTUNITIES AND RESOURCES
1....Teaching support resources at CSU
2....CSU Professional Learning
3....Bonus CSU resource - LinkedIn Learning
4....Magna Publications Subscriptions
5....Links to previous bulletins
6....Subscribe
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1. Teaching support resources at CSU
You have access to a range of quality CSU resources to help you incorporate educational resources and techniques into your teaching. Check out the following:
- Teaching at CSU - the Division of Learning and Teaching website with links to resources for Teaching Staff, Online Learning, Assessment, Curriculum, Indigenous Curriculum, Workplace Learning, Technologies, Feedback and Analytics, and Learning Spaces.
- Professional Development and Teaching Resources - topics are listed alphabetically to make it easier to find what you need.
- Resources for Learning and Teaching Academic and Professional Staff - searchable CSU database.
- Learning Technologies - the starting point for a range of learning design options
- CSU Learning Exchange: Technologies in Context - a searchable database to promote online learning and teaching strategies.
- The CSU Wiki - a faculty-based source of learning and teaching information and strategies.
- The CSU Learning Spaces Portal - how to use your learning environments to promote learning.
- DOMS Learning and Teaching Shared Resources - CSU login needed to access more than 750 resources uploaded for CSU staff to use.
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2. CSU Professional Learning
The monthly bulletin lists available Professional Learning opportunities from CSU Division of Learning and Teaching (DLT).
Teaching-related topics are listed on the
DLT Professional Learning Calendar
DLT Calendar
Quality Assurance and Reflection - QUASAR
This workshop will introduce you to the Moderation and Grades form in the QUASAR system. You will undertake the processes of moderation with worked examples for each role and stage. Additionally, you will learn the new processes for declaring grades are ready. The QUASAR tool is available from https://teach.csu.edu.au/quasar.
Detailed help is available from http://thinkspace.csu.edu.au/quasar/
3. Bonus CSU resource - LinkedIn Learning
This online subscription library provides high-quality instructional videos to teach the latest business, creative and software skills, as well as an extensive range of teaching tips.
NOTE: Lynda.com is now LinkedIn Learning and all Charles Sturt University Lynda.com accounts were transferred to LinkedIn Learning accounts on July 8. View some introductory videos for LinkedIn Learning with the links in Issue 64 of Teaching Tuesdays@CSU.
Some topics related to this week's theme:
Teaching Techniques: Developing Curriculum (43 min)
Creating and Deploying MicroLearning (61 min)
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4. Magna Publications Subscriptions
All staff with a CSU email address have free access to our annual
CSU subscription to the four different high quality resources for enhancing practice.
Video seminars: Mentor Commons (20 minutes) and Magna Commons (40-90 minutes) also include the presentation handouts, full transcripts and supplementary resources that are available for download if you don't have time to listen to the seminar.
Text-based resources: The Teaching Professor (for teaching staff) and Academic Leader (for those in academic and administration leadership roles).
How to subscribe
There is a single CSU subscription code to access all four of these resources.
Staff with a CSU login can obtain the code and subscription instructions from this What's New link.
Alternatively, contact
Ellen McIntyre elmcintyre@csu.edu.au or
Matthew Larnach mlarnach@csu.edu.au
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5. Links to previous bulletins
Upcoming Teaching Tuesdays issues...
Share your own teaching tips article.
Contact Ellen McIntyre elmcintyre@csu.edu.au to offer your suggestions.
6. Subscribe
click on the orange Follow Teaching Tuesdays @CSU button (below, or at the top of the bulletin)
Teaching Tuesdays@CSU Contacts
Learning Academy, Division of Learning & Teaching, Charles Sturt University
Lecturer, Academic Development in the Learning Academy at Charles Sturt University
Email: elmcintyre@csu.edu.au
Website: https://www.csu.edu.au/division/learning-and-teaching/about-us/learning-academy
Phone: +61 2 6933 4726
Twitter: @TeachingTuesday
Kogi Naidoo
Email: knaidoo@csu.edu.au
Website: http://www.csu.edu.au/division/learning-and-teaching/about-us/learning-academy
Phone: +61 2 6933 4804