With the introduction of the Higher Education Support Amendment Bill 2023 and the Support for Students Policy, the Early Feedback Task was implemented across 1000-level units at the University in 2024. In the Faculty of Engineering, this was seen as an opportunity to review and improve existing approaches to early assessment, feedback and student engagement.
In 2020, Engineering surveyed our academics on teaching practices with results showing they predominantly rely on colleagues to learn about new teaching practices. This aligns with broader research that indicates adoption of new teaching approaches is often through communications with peers who have adopted the innovation. As a result, our Faculty ran a series of informal lunch gatherings in both semesters in 2024 to prepare academics for the implementation of the EFTs. We saw the requirement to design EFTs as an opportunity to develop a community of practice (CoP) for our 1000-level coordinators to share their approach to and tips on assessment design and quality feedback. This also had the benefit of consistently conveying critical university information about EFTs and feedback.
Community of practice session structure
Three sessions were held: pre-semester, mid-semester and end-of-semester. We made a conscious decision to run them in-person to foster an informal and discussion-friendly atmosphere. Although the academics’ availability was a difficulty, we persevered with the face-to-face format to encourage interaction as best practice is shaped through exchanges between members of a community of practice. Each session started with a brief welcome with the floor then opened for discussion, aided by prompts from the Associate Dean (Student Life), Tim Wilkinson. His aim:
to share and highlight good teaching practices that have worked well for student engagement and to influence tertiary-level study behaviours in students focussing on self-drive and discipline.
Discussion questions from the sessions have included:
- How do we make an exciting and meaningful first impression (both in-person and online) in our units?
- Can you share an example of best practice in your unit that worked successfully for engagement or helped students that might be struggling?
- What is one thing you have learned or might want to change about your own teaching based on your experiences this semester?
Lessons learnt
- The CoP sessions have been a valuable intra-Faculty opportunity to share across our different Schools. As one attendee noted:
The best aspect is when we bring together all 1000-level unit coordinators to discuss planned methods of implementing EFTs in our units, enabling us to gain inspiration from multiple streams or disciplines within Engineering for a diverse range of teaching environments
- Reinforcing personalisation has been key for both academics and students to feel the EFT communications are worthwhile and not just a checkbox activity
- Sharing recaps and anonymised feedback surveys (both from those who attended but had more to say and those who couldn’t) are next steps to help generate more discussion and action points for future sessions
- As per Wenger, the ongoing benefit of these sessions has been the bolstered support and encouragement from colleagues. Another attendee noted:
In the EFT workshops, I mingle with like-minded people who have been through the same experience so if I struggled with the semester’s requirements and deadlines, sharing the pains with colleagues is a great relief. But if I did well, I can celebrate my accomplishments with them.
What’s next?
We have continued these gatherings in semester 1, 2025 and expanded this approach by inviting 1000-level and 2000-level unit coordinators to coordinate their EFT content. This has been an opportunity to build on the lessons learnt from EFTs from 2024 and improve sharing of practice along the length of the engineering degree
If you’d like the full list of discussion prompts to start your own EFT CoP, please contact [email protected].
Special thanks to Peter Lok for his feedback on draft versions of this article.
