Terhi Nurmikko-Fuller and Ian Hart, College of Arts and Social Science 

In this presentation, we report on the last year's success of running "Digital Culture: Being Human in the Information Age". It is a first year subject offered by College of Arts and Social Sciences; it also forms part of the Diploma in Liberal Studies and is taught in parallel by ANU College. There are four learning outcomes: 

1. Understand the implications of digital technologies for the humanities and, more generally, contemporary culture.
2. Analyse and critique the convergence of cultural and social practices that are emerging from the use of digital technologies.
3. Formulate research questions and gather evidence from reliable sources (both digital and material) to construct informed arguments about digital culture.
4. Communicate effectively both orally and in writing, using a variety of media.

In previous years, assessment has been heavily text weighted, comprising two long essays, plus weekly short responses to relevant articles from journals and magazines. In 2018 we decided to radically change the assessment (with consequent implications for teaching), in order to reflect the Learning Outcomes more authentically. This new approach rewarded students for active participation: Over 10 tutorials, students worked in small groups, conducting on-line research and presenting it to the class. These presentation were peer assessed and the marks were averaged across the semester (a great incentive to attend tutorials). Students produced an A1 conference poster and a 1,500 word short paper in publication-ready format (necessitating competence in LaTex and a graphic design app) fore their mid-terms, finally culminating in 5 minute videos, produced in groups of 3-4 to students. These videos were designed to introduce an aspect of the course to future students. All of these assignments, graded against carefully-defined rubrics, reflect the skills and qualities needed to function effectively in the 21st century digital sphere: research, evaluation, collaboration, creativity, peer criticism and self-assessment. 

Michelle Worthington, College of Law 

This presentation will outline and discuss the use of short film as an assessment tool in the Bachelor of Law/Juris Doctor programs at the ANU College of Law. The presentation will outline the rationale for the assessment task, the scaffolding and resources offered to students, and offer the convenor's reflections on the submitted films along with the challenges and successes of the task (extracts of the student films will be used with the permission of their creators). 

Eight Undergraduate and one Postgraduate films were produced as part of this mid-semester small-group assessment task, with students given the option to choose between this task and an individual research essay. Students were provided with a theme 'Power and the Corporation' but were invited to respond to this using any film genre. They were also asked to submit a rationale and process summary and a bibliography alongside their film. To help students prepare for the task a leading film-maker, Gabrielle Brady, was engaged to provide two days of activities to all interested Corporations Law students. Brady was also consulted regarding the design of the short film task. For more information on Brady's work see: http://www.gabrielle-brady.com

Feedback is a fundamental process in learning. In large classes, often with multiple markers, managing the efficient and consistent delivery of feedback to students is challenging if not overwhelming. When markers and coordinators use existing systems, such as Turnitin, their effort is driven by processes, such as rubrics or in-text comments, rather than what the student needs to improve their future work. For the coordinators moderation can be frustrating and time consuming due to the lack of transparency of the data collected. 

We have developed system to help markers and coordinators more easily calibrate their marking effort. This system, suitable for both individual and group assessment, is built with the Moodle Database activity, and allows for the efficient input of grades against a flexible rubric. Markers are given a suggested grade based on the selection of rubric items. These data are then used to run moderation reports by the coordinator to get a broad sense of what biases may be present in individual markers, allowing the coordinator to effectively moderate between markers if required. These data also are used to generate feedback reports, which can easily be made available through the Gradebook. In the case of group assessment the reports can be made available to all group members. 

In this presentation, we will run through a reflection on the frustrations of grading large classes and how this system was used to overcome these frustrations. This will include the tale of how this system was generated and evolved, a step-by-step of our process, and how you could run it with your class.  

Melissa Hickey and Camilo Potocnjak-Oxman, College of Business and Economics 

This presentation seeks to showcase how educators can empower students to take learning and teaching into their own hands, based on my experience doing just that.  

Inspired by techniques commonly used in Design Thinking, I first experimented with this approach during the Venture Lab Skill Development Stream taught by Lab Facilitator and Associate Lecturer, Camilo Potocnjak Oxman. This is an extracurricular course aimed to hone entrepreneurial skills for students interested in building and exploring their own business ventures.  

I was a participant in this course and had identified a potential market opportunity but needed ideas on how to capitalize it. I invited several other student peers into the Venture Lab space and facilitated an ideation session to move my project to the next stage. It was a smashing success and I walked out with over 100 novel ideas on how to position my venture in the market for this opportunity.  

The students who attended my session experienced first-hand how effective the facilitation was for my project. One even asked me to teach her how to facilitate a similar session for her project. I shared with her my preparation materials and she went on to facilitate her own session in the Venture Lab with an entirely different group of students.  

Given the success of this approach and my enthusiasm for employing Design Thinking methods in the classroom, Camilo has invited me to run the tutorials for his undergraduate Design Thinking course in Semester 2 of 2019. Camilo and I plan to teach the students similar facilitation techniques and encourage them to leverage the brilliant minds of their classmates in order to move their semester-long assessments forward while learning from each other.  

For this presentation, I plan to share my journey from student, to student facilitator, to tutor and mentor of future student facilitators.  

Tom Worthington, College of Engineering and Computer Science 

In 2008 I ended my last computer science lecture  for the year by announcing it would be my last lecture, ever. Having become disillusioned with the lecture format, and a lack of suitable alternative teaching spaces, I moved my teaching online. Ten years later a new flexible teaching building became available (built from prefabricated wooden panels, like a giant Ikea bookcase). This is an account of going back to the classroom, to apply a blend of online and classroom teaching in the new building. The task was to teach international graduate computing students how to write a job application, and in the process, reflect on their learning. This is a first-person account, of how to create new interactive ways of learning, and allow each student to choose the blend of online and classroom learning to suit their needs. This approach starts with online course design and then adds face-to-face workshops after each online component (flipped classroom). Tom will discuss how this implements a social constructionist approach with scaffolded peer learning.

Camilo Potocnjak-Oxman, Melissa Hickey and Emma Burns, College of Business and Economics 

This presentation describes how a “live brief” approach to project-based learning can be used to deliver benefits to partner organisations while providing students with life-long skills and tangible work experience.  

Live briefs, also known as “live projects”, are defined as “the negotiation of a brief […] between an educational organisation and an external collaborator for their mutual benefit” (Live Projects Network, 2019). This approach is common in architecture, design and other project-based disciplines. As a learning experience, it emphasises engagement with a client for whom students address a real challenge. The purpose is to empower students to apply theoretical, methodological and practical approaches in the delivery of conceptual solutions that have the potential to provide real value, introducing an element of uncertainty that is reflective of the professional environment that students will face upon graduation.  

Design thinking is a human-centred design approach to innovation that draws upon the practices, mindsets and cognitive processes from the design discipline to tackle open-ended or “wicked problems” by focusing on the human elements of a socio-technical system. Due to its focus on open-ended problems, design thinking is well-suited to “live brief”-based learning. By collaboratively defining broad challenges faced by a partner organisation, students can explore said challenges and identify specific issues to be addressed. This ensures that the projects themselves can be tailored to a wide range of levels of expertise and experience while still delivering valuable insights and potential solutions.  

This presentation will focus on two cases of live briefs: One is in the context of a post-graduate course with an external partner; the other in an undergraduate course with an internal partner. The presentation will highlight some of the processes, teaching methods, and approaches to assessment used with the purpose of providing valuable insights to the live brief client, while focusing on the achievement of learning outcomes for the students. 

The presentation will also reflect on key success factors for live briefs, potential improvements and how to use this model of teaching to benefit the university as a whole.     

There are many educational benefits to students from an interactive and active approach to learning.  This is especially so for project-based learning, which has the advantages of creating opportunities for students to learn practical approaches to teamwork and project management, and how to be more independent learners, as well as discipline-specific content.  

However, facilitating project-based learning can be challenging for large classes of early year students.  In this talk we will discuss our approaches to teaching Discovering Engineering, a project-based course for a large class of first-year students. 

In particular we focus on our strategies for scaffolding project-based learning, to help keep students on track, and to help them learn project management skills.  We also discuss strategies for facilitating interactive learning and for giving rich and timely feedback to large classes of students.  Throughout the course we explain to students the value of what they are learning for both their immediate assessment and their future careers. 

Through these approaches, and the opportunity for students to reflect on their work at the end of the course, students are able to see the value of a project-based approach, and become more confident, capable, and self-directed learners. 

Frances Wild, National Gallery of Australia and Christine Phillips, ANU Medical School 

This presentation will highlight the history, aims and logistics of the Artmed program, which was nominated for an ANU teaching excellence award in 2017 and for the prestigious ANU Vice-Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Education in 2019. 

Artmed is the National Gallery of Australia’s (NGA) suite of programs for medical students and health professionals.  This unique curriculum-based program commenced ten years ago as a collaboration between the NGA and The Australian National University Medical School (ANUMS) and has expanded to also offer a range of professional learning opportunities for trainee physicians and allied health practitioners. 

 Artmed has very clear objectives. These include, but are not limited to:   

• Providing opportunities for students to develop critical and creative thinking skills through discussion and reflection on works of art  
• To expose participants to complex ideas through art that question and challenge their own worldview 
• Engaging participants with the visual arts to assist the development of visual literacy in order to improve their clinical acumen  

First year medical students attend the NGA in small groups and view selected works of art chosen in relation to an aspect of their curriculum. Following their visit, the students develop a short video to present to their cohort highlighting and engaging with the works of art they viewed.  The NGA/ANUMS initiative has evolved into a well-integrated and compulsory program that also includes an enrichment stream and a research project opportunity. Each year, two medical students undertake independent research uncovering the links between the visual arts and health. Students are also encouraged to present their research as a lunchtime talk at the NGA.  

Artmed’s extensive program objectives are translatable to many disciplines and the NGA environment is a stimulating space in which to support and extend professional learning outside the campus setting. 

Why don’t students do the course readings? This is a common concern amongst many academics. In 2018, in an attempt to circumvent this problem, an academic archaeologist and the College of Arts and Social Sciences (CASS) Student Education Office (SEO) developed the Volga Exploration. 

 The Volga Exploration Project aims to enhance the student experience through an online interactive short course inspired by real life archaeological expeditions. Students are given the opportunity to do role play as freelance archeologists both via the online interface (Wattle) and in the lectorials (mix of lecture and tutorial). Through this Mixed Interactive Learning experience, students learn to collaborate in groups to make excavations, request analysis of the artefacts they uncover, and compile information into mini research papers. The whole experience is based on interactive learning approaches and designed and built using simple, affordable, and appropriate educational technologies. 

This year, you also have the opportunity to preview a new game-based short course, expected to run in 2020. In this new game simulation we take interactive learning to the next level by combining real and virtual experiences. Students take on the roles of heritage practitioners with expertise in the archaeology of ritual and religion. They will get to explore, excavate and examine the Sts. Peter and Paul’s Old Cathedral, in Goulburn.