![\"\"](\"https:\/\/educational-innovation.sydney.edu.au\/teaching@sydney\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/Capture-egg-Avbs1002.png\")
<\/a>It was clear at the start of 2020 that practicals involving student group animal handling were going to be unlikely, so I reached out to the Educational Innovation video team (Tim Harland amongst others) and we quickly began capturing high quality video of animal handling at Camden \u2013 to take our students on a journey through our University farms virtually. Whilst video could not replace live interaction with animals, it came very close and a significant proportion of this content was better than it had previously been \u2013 students could now get a front row seat to each task<\/strong>.<\/p>\n As my students were going to be accessing the unit from across the world, and given the upheavals ensured by COVID, my focus then went to how the lecture content was to be delivered. We ran a survey on lecture delivery preference with semester 1 students who clearly indicated a preference for pre-recorded lectures<\/a> over live Zoom. As this would reduce interaction between lecturer and student, this was addressed through the introduction of a weekly live Q+A session with our domain experts<\/strong>.<\/p>\n As our need for a \u2018COVID safe\u2019 environment removed a large proponent of face-to-face engagement with students, the need for other ways to provide feedback to our students became apparent. Multiple smaller assessments ranging from MCQs, to short answer questions, to take-home assessments were introduced to the unit, much of it in place of what had been an end-of-year exam comprising 50% of the total mark. Every 2 weeks the students had some form of assessment which enabled the tracking of their academic progress and gave them valuable feedback.<\/strong> This also allowed those students who required extra assistance to be identified and engaged with early \u2013 this was facilitated through the Student Relationship Engagement System (SRES).<\/a> One outcome of this approach was that we had a big reduction in the number of students leaving our unit as compared to previous years.<\/p>\n I had a clunky unit homepage<\/a> with content several clicks in. Working with Chris Hammang, an Educational Designer in the Faculty of Science, we redesigned this page to be current and dynamic, with relevant content one click away<\/strong>. I updated the homepage each week with the topic of focus, broken down by each day alongside an associated \u2018to do\u2019 list.<\/p>\n A key feature that the students loved in 2020 was the personalised feedback enabled through the SRES.<\/strong> Again, our Education Design team played a huge role here with Nick Randal from Educational Innovation teaching me the ins and outs of SRES. SRES filters were set early to identify and reach out to students who may have needed help based on their assessment grades and Canvas interactions. Whilst low or no marks enabled such early intervention, high-performing students were congratulated. The encouragement and congratulatory side of co-ordination was new for me and appeared to spur the students on to seek out more knowledge \u2013 we had a large increase in students requesting further information on topics that were of interest to them.<\/p>\nAssessment of content \u2013 continual feedback on progress<\/h2>\n
<\/a>Engagement with students (the AVBS1002 teaching team) – taking the AVBS1002 team from 11 to 311.<\/h2>\n
<\/a>