Charles Sturt EdX 2021 - Podcast Submissions

It is the beginning of session and students are preparing for their first lecture. They are gathering in their dorms and tuning-in to the radio. The lecturer is not walking into a lecture theatre but instead into the on-air studio at radio station 2MCE. The lectern, projector and whiteboard will be replaced with a microphone, broadcast panel and a text-line. The lecture is about to be delivered over the airwaves. What can teaching on the radio sound like?

This podcast and conference Q&A session will reflect the experience of using airtime on 2MCE community radio station as an innovative attempt at authentic teaching in a foundational undergraduate radio subject in the Bachelor of Communication. In 2021, the subject COM113 was offered in a blended mode, with both an online and on campus cohort participating in the same learning experiences at the same time. Institutional financial pressures, partly arising from Covid-19 required there to be only one shared lecture for the two cohorts. Rather than offering a wholly recorded video lecture, or a live lecture which was then filmed and streamed to online students, we devised a plan to offer the ‘lecture’ as a radio show broadcast live terrestrially and on the internet and archived for later access for all cohorts using the facilities of our University’s on campus radio station. COM113Radio was a weekly educational radio program to deliver subject material and create a collaborative learning environment for students in the subject. The program was hosted by Michelle O’Connor, the subject coordinator and students were invited to contribute to the program through content creation activities in the subject’s tutorials, the program’s text line, a Facebook group, and co-hosting opportunities.

This podcast will include an overview of the tradition of educational radio, reflections about the COM113Radio experience and possibilities for future ideas of using radio for subject learning. The conference Q&A session will invite questions from participants about the process of using radio to teach COM113. The podcast and conference Q&A session will be hosted by Michelle O’Connor and Travis Holland, Course Director and feature interviews with 2MCE staff and students involved with the subject. Podcast listeners and conference session participants will hear what teaching can sound like on the radio and hopefully be inspired to think about the possibilities for using radio to deliver subject content and engage student learning.

Join Doctor Kylie Press and Petriea Skitek (Innovator behind the Girls Day Out in STEM movement and more!). As the Managing Director for KP International Group Pty Ltd, Petriea is an advocate for national science week events aimed at inspiring stage 3 & 4 girls to consider careers in STEM. Her movement: Girls Day Out in STEM has involved an on-campus CSU Port Macquarie event in 2019, followed by an equivalent online event in 2020. And in 2021, this evolved into an online google ‘Machine Learning Bake Off’ event. Petriea is focused on possible future events in collaboration with CSU and other universities, and welcomes the opportunity to discuss this during the forthcoming CSEdX conference.

Co-Presenters: Jennie Stirling, Hannah Stack and Georgina Pickering

The sudden transition to the virtual environment during COVID-19 presented significant challenges for paramedic academics teaching subjects focussed on the practical application of clinical skills. To overcome barriers arising from lack of access to equipment and perceived barriers relating to student bias towards kinaesthetic learning, academics developed an innovative new style of online practicals. ‘Puppet Master’ practicals were facilitated by the academic using equipment and manikins. The scenario was staged and students ‘ran the call’ in real time using the academic as the puppet to perform tasks under their instruction. Students were allocated numbers and performed as a tag-team to ensure universal participation.

Outcomes: Puppet Master allowed students to engage with experiential learning while providing the opportunity to consolidate their knowledge in an inclusive and collaborative environment. It proved an effective medium to provide context and maintain engagement during a period of significant disruption. Feedback from students was overwhelmingly positive, “the ‘puppet’ method was the most useful for me to learn. It was the closest thing to being hands-on” and “being able to see and talk through the process of treating different conditions made learning the material easier since we were able to see it in action.”

Peer-to-peer learning proved invaluable, especially for those struggling to grasp new concepts who thrive on face-to-face interaction. The reflective learning arising from the debriefing was integral to the learning experience, “I found this reflective learning especially useful in consolidating knowledge and highlighting where my own understanding was lacking as mistakes were generally universal”.

Puppet Master also provided a forum for students to maintain social connections with their peers during the lockdown reducing social isolation. Contribution to learning and teaching: Distance students have less ‘hands-on’ time to practice skills and contextualise their knowledge than internal students and online practicals are an effective medium to address these limitations. They also encourage critical thinking and reflective practice, both essential for novice practitioners.

The ‘puppet master’ practicals were adopted by colleagues who found them easy to implement and highly effective in fostering student engagement. They were dynamic and could be tailored to the learners’ scope and revised throughout the scenario as needed.

I will be talking about how I used Zoom during the Covid-19 pandemic to facilitate practical programming exercises online. I wanted this approach to be more than simply the setting of exercises that have a binary right/wrong solution. My intention was rather to have the students engage in a continuous improvement cycle. I gave students a programming problem to solve and a limited amount of time to do so. The Zoom session was paused while they programmed their solutions. When the allotted time was up, we reconvened and students were encouraged to do a voluntary ‘show and tell’. I then critiqued their work on screen, suggesting what I liked, what might be done differently, and often praising solutions that I had not thought of. This was done in a very supportive environment that focused on improvement rather than judgment. 

To ensure that I ‘put myself out there’ as much as my students, I also showed my solution and invited students to critique it using the same format. The benefits of this approach included increased peer to peer interaction, a focus on continuous improvement, and a focus on alternative solutions rather than ‘right and wrong’ answers. This approach also replicated the pair programming / team programming environments that many organisations adopt with regards to software development.

As Librarians many of us have entered the academic library space without traditional teaching training. Producing high-quality learning experiences for Charles Sturt students and staff is a core part of our work (Lewitzky, 2020; Nichols Hess, 2020), as such we have cultivated teaching skills through a variety of avenues. We develop our skills through a broad program of internal professional development and ongoing informal and formal learning experiences. This includes an innovative scheme to progress our capabilities via a peer-to-peer training program. Other elements involve reflecting on our experience in an annual peer coaching exercise and regular community of practice sessions.

One aspect of our teaching role is to assist students to develop the skill of Lifelong Learning (Tammaro et al., 2020), we do this via information literacy training delivered as part of our Embedded Librarian Program. As Librarians we epitomise lifelong learning by embracing constant improvement in the teaching space via continuous reflection, responsiveness to feedback and engagement in training opportunities. By incorporating new techniques such as active learning we have adapted our skills and increased student engagement.

In this podcast, focused on the theme of Innovation and Quality, we will present a round table discussion with Librarians from diverse backgrounds and with different training and teaching experiences. We will touch on how we adapt our teaching approaches to suit a range of groups, including first year students, postgraduate students, overseas cohorts, researchers, academic staff, and our own Library colleagues. Together we’ll demonstrate that by embracing and incorporating innovative technologies and engaging in the scholarship of teaching and learning, we continuously learn and improve our teaching skills.

The researcher of this study identified a gap in the current availability of educational resources that are specifically designed for the undergraduate student studying medical radiation science. This paper explores the implementation of an extracurricular podcast to a large undergraduate Medical Radiation Science (MRS) cohort.

The Charles Sturt University (CSU) Master of Speech Pathology (MaSP) is a minimum three-year blended course with currently over 200 students enrolled. It is the only blended offering of a speech pathology degree in Australia where students graduate with eligibility to join Speech Pathology Australia (SPA). Completion of the MaSP requires that the distance students attend the Albury campus for five residential schools (one in first year, four in 2nd year) and three specialist clinics (all in third year). In addition, students complete 75 days of work-integrated learning split over three clinical blocks. All other learning is completed online. Course accreditation by SPA is a preference of all Speech Pathology courses in Australia, as graduates require eligibility for SPA membership for most job opportunities nationally and internationally.

The CSU MaSP was awarded the full 5-year SPA accreditation period in March 2021. Accreditation requires that students apply theory and demonstrate discrete professional behaviours and client management skills across all speech pathology range of practice areas. In the MaSP most theoretical knowledge is learned in online weekly classes and assessed in constructively aligned assessment tasks. Demonstration of application of theory (i.e., clinical skills) has traditionally been assessed in face-to-face contexts at residential schools and specialist clinics in Albury. Accreditation requires that any significant changes to course structure or delivery are reported to SPA who then determine if the change/s should alter the course accreditation status. COVID-19 had little initial impact on the MaSP as much of the day-to-day teaching was already online. However, the true impact of COVID-19 began to be felt when staff were no longer able to deliver the required face-to-face residential school and specialist clinic components of the course. Suddenly staff were faced with the dilemma of working out how to deliver 25 days of practical online learning that involved more than a dozen staff and over a hundred students located around the country in different time zones. Most importantly, staff needed to do this whilst maintaining the academic rigour and integrity of that online learning so that course accreditation was not at risk.

This presentation aims to outline the process of pivoting practicum learning and assessment activities in the MaSP from face-to-face to online delivery. In discussing this process, student and staff responses to these changes are presented. Method Two subjects that include residential schools are presented as case studies. Four staff involved with organisation and teaching of these residential schools during 2021 and 2022 residential schools provide in-depth critical reflections on how they innovated and adapted teaching methods, learning materials, and assessment practices for the online learning space. Secondly, data from bespoke student surveys of student beliefs and attitudes about residential school (administered pre- and post- residential schools in 2021 and 2022) is presented to illustrate the students’ perspectives on the changes to teaching and assessment processes and methods. Results Analysis in process. Results to be presented in November.

I have been coordinating, managing, and lecturing four subjects of the CSU Bachelor of IT program. The BIT has three Cisco subjects that integrate the Cisco Certificated Network Associate (CCNA) program for better career prospects. CCNA is an IT certification with high-grade industry recognition provided by Cisco, a worldwide leading corporation in networking. It not only provides knowledge and skills but also offers better job opportunities. However, online teaching is challenging in that facilitating and supporting interaction and relationship development is hard. I believe that learning is a dynamic and life-long developing process. Learning should be collaborative and interactive where the student must be the center.

Clear communication is important to good teaching. I create meeting agenda on the screen to guide the lecture and clearly identifies sections: quick review questions for what learned last week, main topics of this week, demonstration of a cast study, Q&A to wrap up. I build on students’ prior knowledge from previous lectures and expanded their understanding by linking abstract concepts with real-life examples and case study demonstrations via simulation software. Particularly, I chunk the information into manageable sections for students to comprehend. During the demonstration, I ask questions and link the solutions with the concepts covered in the lecture. Through sequential tasks designed in the packet tracer simulation activity, students are giving opportunities to propose their ideas and solution, as well as learning from their peers. The concepts are delivered in an interactive way. Thus, it incubates their problem-solving skill and critical thinking capability.

Positive feedback from students shows that students like such kind of demonstration. In such a way, teaching has been well organised and interactive, encourages active learning showing and foster students’ enthusiasm for the subject. Students have been training with more practical skills and get them ready for their future workplace.

In these times of uncertainty and information bombardment, it’s essential that our future professionals have the skills to find and evaluate current, accurate and relevant information to support their clients’ needs. This is particularly important in the health and law professions where clients are often dealing with high stakes and need to be able to trust the advice they receive. In many cases, clients will arrive with information they have already garnered from various sources. A well-trained professional must confidently address possible misinformation and misunderstandings while providing a firm foundation of evidence to support their response.

Our graduates should be ready to take up an informed practice and enjoy lifelong learning. The Library’s embedded program aims to help students achieve the Graduate Learning Outcome of Information and Research Literacies. The GLO outlines the skills students need to locate, evaluate, manage, and use information and research, and become work-ready professionals.

This podcast will showcase how Charles Sturt Library connects with teaching teams to produce information literate health and law professionals of the future. Listeners will hear why the skills of being information literate contribute to future success and how the embedded program is incorporated into the curricula. Academics and past students from law and health will comment on their experiences with the embedded program, and how they see it impacting on student success and the development of future work-ready professionals.

Join Yahnadarambal Jade Flynn, as he talks about the work the Gulaay team and the Indigenous Cultural Competency Program at Charles Sturt.

Three lecturers reflect on their experiences of international study and collaborative teaching and learning to consider the possible benefits of international online collaborative study.