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Improving Teaching & Learning: the initial challenge\u00a0<\/b><\/h2>\n
We are three teaching academics from the Sydney Business School, teaching large postgraduate units of study. At the beginning of 2019, we collaborated to evaluate our individual units of study and, based on these individual evaluations, challenge each other to focus on specific areas of our teaching and learning where we could improve student learning and experience.<\/p>\n
A worthwhile and challenging task but one that left us, like many others, facing the age-old question:\u00a0Where do we start?<\/strong> As educators, we are all aware of the multitude of \u201crecipe steps\u201d that can make or break a unit; creative unit design, engaging material and lectures\/workshops, interesting and relevant tasks, improved feedback on assessments and more\u2026the list can be long and varied. Although we were pleased overall with our USS results, we knew that all these areas could be \u201ctightened up\u201d. We needed a focus.<\/p>\n Through preliminary discussion with peers, students, and consequent literature investigations, it became apparent to us, that there is an informal \u20183 phase Teaching and Learning Lifecycle\u2019 (Figure 1):<\/p>\n This approach seemed logical and practical and planted \u201cImproving Student Learning\u201d at the centre of the unit, but as each of us hurried off to look at various aspects of the lifecycle, we realised that this approach overlooks a fourth crucial phase.<\/p>\n How can we possibly understand \u201cDid the students get there?\u201d at the end of semester if we have little to no understanding of \u201cWhere are students at commencement?\u201d You can\u2019t track a journey if you aren\u2019t clear of the starting point. It was as if we understood the \u201ccooking method\u201d but had no deep awareness of the \u201cingredients\u201d before us. How can we place \u201cimproving student learning\u201d at the center of our focus of our redesign approach without these crucial pieces of information? While we have access to previous semesters USS, this information is difficult to gain deep insights from, as it comes from a former student cohort who have experienced a unit which is often implemented by a different coordinator. \u00a0We also have information in \u201cKnow your student\u201d (KYS) but most of this is demographic and gives little insight into student motivations toward the unit or how they like to learn. Without an effective definition<\/em><\/strong> of our students, the improvements we make in design, delivery and deconstruction are being made in the dark. In light of this, it became crucial that we effectively understand the students before <\/em><\/strong>semester, prior to designing the unit. With this in mind, our fourth phase, \u201cDefine \u2013 Where are students at commencement?\u201d, was realized in the Teaching and Learning Lifecycle (Figure 2).<\/p>\n So\u2026how do we find out about who our students really are<\/em><\/strong>? We know:<\/p>\n However, we had no idea as to why<\/em><\/strong> students have enrolled in our particular unit.<\/p>\n There are endless number of articles and publications that highlight the need to understand what drives students and motivates them to study. As academics, it is easy to mis-project our own interest in a topic or fascination in a subject area as the primary motivation for study. However, by placing ourselves firmly in the student\u2019s shoes, we come to see that there is often quite a different point of view.\u00a0 Brookfield (2017)<\/a> refers to this as observing through the student lens.<\/p>\n From this perspective, it became apparent that other important questions needed to be addressed in understanding student needs and catering for them in course design and delivery. These questions include;<\/p>\n For the most part, we as teachers are in the dark when it comes to these motivations and the actual practicalities as to why students take our units.<\/p>\n Herein lay our challenge; we had no tool or structure to supplement the USS and KYS with an understanding of student motivations and how specific cohorts of students would like to learn. To solve this dilemma, we created the \u201cHow I Like to Learn\u201d (HILL) Program.<\/p>\n The \u201cHow I Like to Learn\u201d HILL program has two parts (see Figure 3):<\/p>\n This workshop would allow time for educators to consider the insights and address the following questions:<\/p>\n With these two pre-semester components, The HILL Program facilitates unit design and delivery enhancements, bridges the gap between student and teacher perceptions, helps to uncover opportunities to support peer-to-peer learning within the learning environment, and improve subject relevance. Ultimately, the HILL program can provide educators with a deeper understanding of the \u201cingredients\u201d in the classroom, improving their capacity to innovate, adapt and make targeted changes that, hopefully, improve student learning using a more directed and meaningful approach.<\/p>\n Robyn was able to pilot the HILL program semester 2 2019 in the unit MKTG5001 Marketing Principles, a foundation unit for the Postgraduate Master of Commerce.<\/p>\n Faced with 620 students, an innovative teaching team of four, and the fact that it was my first time as MKTG5001 coordinator, I felt the pilot HILL program would allow me greater insight into my yet-to-have-met students. My KYS data showed that upwards of 90% of this unit were international students and so my goal was to understand what made these students tick when it came to how they liked to learn.<\/p>\n Beginning of semester being what it is, I choose to have a significantly contracted survey of only 6 questions (see table 1) and distributed these through Canvas, 2 weeks out from semester commencement. I also choose to have a relaxed and, hopefully, more informal manner to the survey to help alleviate any anxiety associated with limited understanding of new units\/systems\/university.<\/p>\n The first thing that was immediately interesting was that, despite the questionnaire being deployed two weeks before any formal classes began, as well as being online, anonymous and optional, there was a 60% response rate (372\/620). This is in sharp contrast to the usual USS response rates which are much lower. It seems students are eager to talk about how they like to learn!<\/p>\n The questions and outcomes, insights and direct impact on teaching design and delivery, coming from the questionnaire are outlined below:<\/p>\n Table 1: HILL survey data from the pilot. You can use and adapt these questions when doing your own HILL survey!\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/sydney.edu.au\/education-portfolio\/ei\/teaching@sydney\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/HILL_Fig1-copy.png\")
<\/a><\/a>Understanding the ingredients (or\u2026who really<\/i><\/b> are our students?)<\/h2>\n
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A new approach \u2013 The \u201cHow I Like to Learn\u201d (HILL) Program<\/h2>\n
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<\/a>HILL in action \u2013 the pilot of the program<\/h2>\n
Robyn\u2019s experience with the MKTG5001 HILL Pilot<\/h3>\n
Refined HILL survey for Pilot<\/h4>\n