professional development program to embed inclusive and
TRANSCRIPT
Professional development program to embed
inclusive and explicit teaching practices in higher
education first year units
Final report, February 2016
The Victoria Institute, Victoria University (lead institution)
Edith Cowan University (partner institution)
Project team
Ms Claire Brown (lead), Professor Roger Slee, Associate
Professor Katie Hughes, Dr Kathy Tangalakis, Associate
Professor Kerry Dickson, Ms Monika Taylor, Dr Brian Zammit –
Victoria University
Assoc. Professor Mark McMahon – Edith Cowan University
Report authors
Ms Claire Brown, Dr Vida Voncina Vodeb, Professor Roger
Slee, Dr Maxwell Winchester
www.vu.edu.au/the-victoria-institute/publications
Support for the production of this report has been provided by the Australian Government Office for Learning and Teaching. The views expressed in this report do not necessarily reflect the views of the Australian Government Office for Learning and Teaching.
With the exception of the Commonwealth Coat of Arms, and where otherwise noted, all material presented in this document is provided under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/. The details of the relevant licence conditions are available on the Creative Commons website (accessible using the links provided) as is the full legal code for the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/legalcode. Requests and inquiries concerning these rights should be addressed to: Learning and Teaching Support Student Information and Learning Branch Higher Education Group Department of Education and Training GPO Box 9880 Location code C50MA7 CANBERRA ACT 2601 <[email protected]>
2017 ISBN PDF 978-1-76051-044-2 ISBN DOCX 978-1-76051-045-9 ISBN PRINT 978-1-76051-046-6
Improving Higher Education Teaching Practice 3
Acknowledgements The project team comprised, Dr Kathy Tangalakis, Associate Professor Kerry Dickson, Ms
Monika Taylor, Dr Brian Zammit and Associate Professor Mark McMahon under the
leadership of Ms Claire Brown, Professor Roger Slee and Associate Professor Katie Hughes.
Dr Vida Voncina Vodeb undertook analysis of data and case studies’ research.
Dr Maxwell Winchester provided the economic analysis for the project.
The broader project team comprised of an interdisciplinary team of teaching and research
staff recruited from across Victoria University and Edith Cowan University. The team thanks
both universities for providing support and encouragement throughout the project. The
collaboration of the various groups within and across both universities became a highlight of
the project as we sought to cross silos and build a professional learning community of higher
education educators who were collaborative, cross-disciplinary, and collegiate.
We thank AVID Center for their generosity in supporting this project. The Advancement via
Individual Determination (AVID) professional learning materials and programs are grounded
in over 36 years of research to develop sustained, rigorous, high quality professional
learning. Currently in the USA there are over one million AVID students. In 2015, over
35,000 teachers participated in the annual AVID professional learning programs known as
the AVID Summer Institutes.
The project team is very grateful to teaching staff at both universities who generously
agreed to undertake the AVID for Higher Education professional learning program over two
years, and to subsequently be surveyed, interviewed and filmed.
We also acknowledge the support of our professional team at the Victoria Institute for
Education, Diversity and Lifelong Learning without whom the research and teaching could
not be completed and presented in its final form. We thank our videographers and digital
media colleagues from Kine Graffiti for their contribution to this project.
For their various contributions to the project, the team would especially like to thank:
Mr Jim Donohue, Mr Granger Ward and Ms Evie Hyatt, AVID Center
Mr Andrew Ewing, Edith Cowan University
Professor Mark Hackling - initial project lead, Edith Cowan University
Improving Higher Education Teaching Practice 4
List of acronyms used
ALTC Australian Learning and Teaching Council
AVID Advancement via Individual Determination
AHE AVID for Higher Education
BLASST Benchmarking Leadership and Advancement of Standards for Sessional
Teaching
College of H&B College of Health and Biomedicine, VU
ECU Edith Cowan University
OLT Australian Government Office for Learning and Teaching
ROI Return on investment
SCA School of Communication and Arts, ECU
VU Victoria University
WICOR Writing for purpose
Inquiry-based learning
Collaborative learning strategies
Organisational skills
Critical Reading strategies
Improving Higher Education Teaching Practice 5
Executive summary
Background Higher education institutions across Australia employ large numbers of teaching staff, many
having minimal or no teaching qualifications. As the Benchmarking Leadership and
Advancement of Standards for Sessional Teaching (BLASST) Report noted: Up to 50% of
teaching in Australian universities is provided by sessional staff (Percy, Scoufis, Parry,
Goody, Hicks, Macdonald, Martinez, Szorenyi-Reischl, Ryan, Wills, S & Sheridan, 2008). At
individual departmental levels, this can rise to levels of 80% and more (Harvey, Fraser &
Bowes, 2005). Sessional staff members do not have the same opportunities as ongoing staff
to access learning and teaching professional learning programs. In addition, teaching by
sessional staff members has typically not been highly valued by universities (Bexley, James,
& Arkoudis, 2011, p. 46). In some universities, less experienced and temporary teaching
staff are given the most important classes – large undergraduate classes of first-year,
foundation units. This project focused on teaching staff of large, first year foundation units,
both sessional and permanent.
The current project explores issues about the quality of higher education teaching similar to
concerns raised in the 2010 United Kingdom based Browne Report (2010), and to
complement recommendations from the Southwell (2012), Devlin, Kift, Nelson, Smith, &
McKay, (2012) and Harvey (2014) reports. The Southwell (2012) report provides
recommendations for raising the quality and status of higher education teaching and
identifies professional development in teaching for all academics as a key activity for
achieving this improvement. The Devlin et al. (2012) report looks more holistically at
providing practical advice for both teaching academics and institutional leadership to
address concerns over the quality of teaching and support, especially for students from low
socioeconomic status backgrounds. The BLASST project “refined and validated national
standards to support and enhance quality learning and teaching by sessional staff” (Harvey,
2014, p.9).
The project approach In this study, the term educators was chosen to describe the people teaching higher
education classes who had no formal teacher training qualifications. The term teacher is
used only to describe a person who has undertaken formal teaching qualifications. This
point is important as it underlines the value and recognition of formal teacher education
skills in the higher education context. Although out of the scope of this project, the
difference in the quality and teaching abilities, skills and practises of higher education
practitioners with formal teaching qualifications and those without, appears to be a
significant variable worthy of further investigation.
Improving Higher Education Teaching Practice 6
The aim of this project was to investigate whether providing an ongoing, scaffolded
professional learning program to higher education educators who had little or no formal
teacher training and who were teaching large, first year foundation units led to more
engaged teaching. At Victoria University (VU), the targeted first year foundation units were
originally to be taught by sessional staff only, but staffing changes meant that a mix of
sessional and permanent staff taught the units. At Edith Cowan University (ECU), selected
first year foundation units were taught largely by sessional staff.
An existing professional learning and teaching framework from the USA, the Advancement
via Individual Determination (AVID) college/university readiness program, was selected to
test its viability for the Australian higher education context. The AVID program has been
operating for over 35 years and currently has over 1 million students across 46 states and
territories in the USA. The AVID for Higher Education (AHE) component of the AVID program
was developed about six years ago in response to requests from universities in the USA that
had often enrolled AVID secondary school students and found them to be better prepared
and more successful than non-AVID students.
Delivery of the AHE professional learning sessions uses an immersion model where the
theory underpinning explicit teaching strategies is explained, and the strategies are then
modelled and practised by the participants. Sessional and permanent staff from VU in
Victoria and ECU in Western Australia were given the option of attending between one and
six professional learning sessions. The sessions were offered over two years to help the
educators build a repertoire of inclusive, explicit teaching strategies. Sessional teaching staff
were paid for the hours they attended the professional learning sessions at a rate equivalent
to marking or other activities. They were also provided with ongoing professional learning
support from coordinators through the semester to build a collaborative professional
learning community across discipline areas within their own university and with colleagues
from the other university.
An earlier paper, The use of Explicit Teaching Strategies for Academic Staff and Students in
Bioscience Foundation Subjects (Tangalakis, Hughes, Brown, & Dickson, 2014) published
during the project provides detail about the customisation of the AHE professional learning
model for Australia. It explains how the AVID explicit learning and teaching framework was
implemented at VU for the Bioscience Foundation units. In addition to that paper, this
report provides a summary of the findings from both case study sites, VU and ECU. The data
have been used to formulate two short vignettes that demonstrate the implementation of
the AHE professional learning model and its impact as experienced by the participants (see
Appendices B and C). The data for these vignettes were derived from semi-structured
interviews with educators, workshop attendance data, survey data, and video recorded
teaching observations. ECU data contains students’ evaluation survey data from the
coordinator of the unit. These data were collected over a three-year period prior to and post
Improving Higher Education Teaching Practice 7
AVID training. VU data contains the data on pass rates for one of the target units pre- and
post-AVID. Following the case studies, three additional findings are discussed:
The impact of the AHE professional learning program on teacher capabilities and
identities.
The economic argument: The return to universities on investing in professional learning
for sessional teaching staff.
The case for videos of effective higher education teaching: How do educators with little
or no teaching training know what effective higher education teaching looks like?
Summary of findings This research investigated the issue of professional learning from both sessional and
permanent teaching staff perspectives. The focus was on analysing the educators’
experiences in terms of their teaching capabilities and their identities as educators.
Traditionally, teaching has not been as highly valued as research in universities. This project
sought to give voice to the professional teaching experience and professional learning needs
of these educators. Consistent with findings in the Southwell (2012), Devlin et al. (2012),
and Harvey (2014) reports, findings from this research identified the need for universities
that wish to improve the quality of teaching to commit resources and to foster a change of
culture, which encompass both teaching and institutional factors.
Findings relating to teaching factors
No single professional learning activity can provide a short cut to the years required to
master the complex art of becoming and remaining an effective, accomplished teacher.
Professional learning programs should themselves be engaging and model effective
teaching practices that can immediately be implemented in the next class.
The AHE collaborative, inquiry-based, practical model of professional learning was
positively received by participants and customisable for Australia.
Effective higher education professional learning programs should include a mix of
generic teaching strategies and examples customised for specific disciplines.
Video examples of highly effective higher education teaching are necessary. Video
examples viewed in a context that includes clearly articulated standards for effective
higher education teaching and that encourages a culture of supportive peer observation
may help raise the quality of higher education teaching.
Findings relating to institutional factors
Paying sessional staff to attend professional learning appears to provide a return on
investment in terms of improving the quality and engagement in teaching over time, but
payment alone is not sufficient to ensure institutional factors allow all staff to attend
and invest in professional learning opportunities. The tenuous nature of sessional
employment disempowers educators to commit to or regularly attend.
Improving Higher Education Teaching Practice 8
Professional learning for both sessional and permanent staff needs to be collaborative,
practical, sustained, scaffolded, supported and ongoing.
Changing teaching practice is hard, especially when those teaching have no formal
teaching training to draw upon.
Improving Higher Education Teaching Practice 9
Table of contents
Acknowledgements .................................................................................................................... 3
List of acronyms used ................................................................................................................ 4
Executive summary .................................................................................................................... 5
Background ............................................................................................................................ 5
The project approach ............................................................................................................. 5
Summary of findings .............................................................................................................. 7
Tables ....................................................................................................................................... 10
Project context and aims ......................................................................................................... 11
Project context ..................................................................................................................... 11
Purpose of this project – the project questions .................................................................. 11
Project approach and methodology used ............................................................................... 13
The Learning and Teaching Framework ............................................................................... 13
Delivery of AHE professional learning program................................................................... 14
The AHE participants ............................................................................................................ 16
Project outputs and findings .................................................................................................... 18
Outputs ................................................................................................................................ 18
Key findings .......................................................................................................................... 19
Contribution to existing knowledge..................................................................................... 22
Interdisciplinary linkages ..................................................................................................... 22
Critical success factors ......................................................................................................... 23
Implementation in other institutions .................................................................................. 23
Project impact, dissemination and evaluation ........................................................................ 26
Impact .................................................................................................................................. 26
Dissemination ...................................................................................................................... 27
Evaluation ............................................................................................................................ 27
Suggestions for further research and development ............................................................ 27
Conclusion ............................................................................................................................ 27
References ............................................................................................................................... 29
Appendix A:
Certification………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………31
Appendix B: VU Case Study ...................................................................................................... 32
Appendix C: ECU Case Study .................................................................................................... 34
Appendix D: External evaluator’s report ................................................................................. 37
Improving Higher Education Teaching Practice 10
Tables
Table 1: ECU professional learning schedule ........................................................................ 15
Table 2: VU professional learning schedule ........................................................................... 15
Table 3: VU Arts Unit Pass Rates ............................................................................................ 33
Table 4: Selected Items from ECU Student Evaluation Survey .............................................. 35
Improving Higher Education Teaching Practice 11
Project context and aims
Project context Higher education institutions across Australia employ large numbers of teaching staff, many
having minimal or no teaching qualifications. As the 2014 Benchmarking Leadership and
Advancement of Standards for Sessional Teaching (BLASST) report noted: Up to 50 % of
teaching in Australian universities is provided by sessional staff (Percy et al, 2008). At
individual departmental levels, this can rise to levels of 80% and more (Harvey et al, 2005).
Sessional staff members do not have the same opportunities as ongoing staff to access
learning and teaching professional development programs. In some universities, these less
experienced and temporary teaching staff are given the most important classes – large
undergraduate classes of first-year, foundation units. “Estimates show that 40 per cent to 60
per cent of undergraduate teaching is now tasked to causation [sic] sessional academic
staff” (Matthews, 2014, p. 1). Teaching by sessional staff has typically not been highly
valued by universities (Bexley et al., 2011, p. 46). In the last six years, at least three Office of
Learning and Teaching (OLT) reports have focused on the need to improve the quality of
higher education teaching (Chalmers, 2010; Hirschberg, Lye, Davies, & Johnston, 2011;
Probert, 2015).
Purpose of this project – the project questions This project investigated whether the Advancement via Individual Determination (AVID)
professional learning framework could be adapted for an Australian context to stimulate
greater engagement in higher education learning and teaching that leads to improvements
in the quality of both. The focus was on higher education teachers who had had little or no
formal teacher training and who taught large, first year foundation units. Typically, but not
always, these were sessional teaching staff. Shortly after this project commenced, one of
the case study sites, VU, experienced extensive staff restructuring. As a result, some of the
identified first year units that were originally to be taught by sessional staff were re-
timetabled to use permanent staff. This project readjusted to offer professional learning for
both sessional and permanent staff who taught these large first-year foundation units.
In particular, this research picks up on a specific issue raised in the BLASST report (Harvey
2014) on the need to identify effective higher education teaching practices and share them
more widely. For sessional teaching staff, this is a particular issue given they are often only
on campus for their actual teaching contact hours and do not receive much, if any,
professional learning during the semester and have limited interaction with other
colleagues. As Matthews points out:
Regardless of who is teaching, however, building teaching capacity is a process that
unfolds over time…. Responding to the changing knowledge, abilities and
Improving Higher Education Teaching Practice 12
motivations of students is difficult and is at the heart of teaching…the capacity for
university teaching develops over time and with experience (Matthews, 2014, p. 2).
The AVID learning and teaching framework and AVID for Higher Education (AHE)
professional learning program were selected because AVID has been operating successfully
in the USA as a not-for-profit whole school and university teaching and learning
improvement system for more than 36 years. The AVID framework is constructed around
well-researched, evidence-based, effective explicit teaching strategies. AHE was developed
about six years ago in response to requests from universities in the USA that had enrolled
AVID secondary school students and often found them to be better prepared and more
successful than non-AVID students. AHE is implemented in over 40 universities across 13
USA states. http://www.avid.org/higher-education.ashx
This project provided evidence for the following questions:
1. Does providing ongoing professional learning using the AVID for Higher
Education (AHE) explicit teaching framework stimulate more engaged teaching?
2. Is there a return on investment for a university from providing
regular/continuous, supported professional learning to sessional and permanent
teaching staff?
3. Is there value in building a prototype database of effective higher education
teaching video exemplars that could be further developed to build professional
learning activities around them?
Improving Higher Education Teaching Practice 13
Project approach and methodology used Sessional and permanent staff from two universities in different Australian states, Victoria
University (VU) in Victoria and Edith Cowan University (ECU) in Western Australia, were
given the option of attending between one and six professional learning sessions offered
over two years to build a repertoire of inclusive, explicit teaching strategies using the
Advancement via Individual Determination’s (AVID) for Higher Education (AHE) learning and
teaching framework and program. Sessional teaching staff were paid for the hours they
attended the professional learning sessions at a rate of $37.49 per hour, which is the rate
equivalent to marking or other activities. In some cases, they were also provided with
additional professional learning support from unit or course coordinators through the
semester with the aim of building a collaborative professional learning community across
discipline areas within their own university and together with colleagues from the other
university. Although this was not mandated in the aims of the project, where it occurred, it
proved to be an important additional level of ongoing professional learning support.
Quantitative and qualitative data were collected using anonymous survey data, individual,
semi-structured interviews conducted at different points in the research with two different
members of the research team, attendance data, and a small number of teacher
observations that were captured on video. The videos provided evidence about the
potential value in building a prototype database of effective higher education teaching
video exemplars that could be further developed to create professional learning activities.
Using the AVID learning and teaching framework, a number of illustrations of effective
higher education practice were edited for each of the practices. Having multiple examples of
each of the practices as taught in different disciplines illustrates that there is no one “right”
way to teach, but rather shows how effective higher education teaching is achieved by
educators considering a number of factors for each class and every student at every contact
period. Such considerations include both student and institutional factors (Brinkworth,
McCann, Matthews, & Nordstrom, 2008; Coates & Goedegebuure, 2012; Devlin et al., 2012;
Henard & Leprince-Ringquet, 2008; Kofod, Quinnell, Rifkin, & Whitaker, 2008; Krause, 2014;
Reason, Terenzini, & Domingo, 2006).
The Learning and Teaching Framework The AVID learning and teaching framework uses an acronym, WICOR, which encompasses:
Writing for purpose
Inquiry-based learning
Collaborative Learning strategies
Organisational skills
Critical Reading strategies.
Improving Higher Education Teaching Practice 14
The WICOR learning and teaching framework promotes engaging, interactive learning
activities that use inquiry-based strategies to stimulate deeper learning, facilitated by
collaborative learning strategies. The WICOR framework builds a common language around
learning and teaching for students, teachers and their communities that is shared across
AVID schools and universities. This approach is consistent with strategies identified in
related literature (Brinkworth et al., 2008; Coates & Goedegebuure, 2012; Henard &
Leprince-Ringquet, 2008; Kofod et al., 2008; Krause, 2014; Reason et al., 2006). AVID’s suite
of explicit teaching strategies builds teachers’ and students’ metacognitive thinking
capabilities through the use of strategies like Socratic methodologies that engage students
in dialogue in ways that promote critical thinking and that progressively work towards more
abstract levels of thinking.
Promoting student engagement and learning communities is also likely to
enhance the quality of student learning. Universities or teachers that give
students incentives to study in groups will improve learning outcomes ... Indeed
this teaching strategy enables the students to see the topic from multiple
perspectives, thus gaining more deep understanding of the subject. (Kofod et al.,
2008, p.28).
An OECD report investigating quality teaching in higher education described the
fundamental strategies upon which AVID’s WICOR framework is built. The report, Equity and
Quality in Education: Supporting Disadvantaged Students and Schools (OECD, 2012) cited
AVID as a case study of excellence for providing a highly effective college/university
readiness system. AVID focuses particularly on diverse, disadvantaged and underachieving
students seeking to raise their aspirations, sense of identity, academic, social and emotional
capacity so that ultimately they are fully prepared for university entry and are equipped
with the necessary social and academic skills to be successful once they get to university.
AVID is a system of school-wide reform with specific programs for implementation at
primary and secondary schools and post-secondary institutions.
Delivery of AHE professional learning program Delivery of the AHE professional learning sessions used an immersion approach where the
teaching strategies were modelled and practised by the participants in every professional
learning session. Sessional staff members at both universities were paid for the hours they
attended the professional learning sessions. For both VU and ECU permanent staff
attendance at the professional learning sessions was timetabled around their availability.
For sessional teaching staff, their attendance was dependent upon whether or not they
were to be employed at the start of each semester to teach in the target units. That decision
was typically not made until the week before semester began and student numbers were
confirmed. This ultimately restricted the availability of sessional staff to attend professional
learning sessions no matter how worthwhile they felt the sessions would be.
Improving Higher Education Teaching Practice 15
Table 1: ECU professional learning schedule
DATE
No. TRAINING DAYS
ECU TYPE OF SESSION No. PARTICIPANTS
Feb 2013 2 days initial training 8
April 2013 2 days Booster 10
July 2013 2 days mid-semester new staff initial training 7
Sept 2013 2 days Booster 23
Dec 2013 3 days AVID Australia Summer Institute 38
Feb 2014 2 days Beginner and intermediate sessions 8
July 2014 1 day + optional day Staff chose to attend one or two days 20
Dec 2014 3 days AVID Australia Summer Institute 4
TOTALS 17-18 days
Table 2: VU professional learning schedule
DATE No. TRAINING DAYS TYPE OF SESSION No. PARTICIPANTS
Feb 2013 2 days + 1 day initial training – 2 days for College
H&B; 1 day College of Arts
18
April 2013 1 day Booster 9
July 2013 1 day mid-semester new staff initial training 30
Sept 2013 1 day cancelled Booster 0
Dec 2013 3 days AVID Australia Summer Institute 38
Feb 2014 2 days Beginner and intermediate sessions 45
May 2014 1 day Booster for College Arts 5
July 2014 2 days Beginner and intermediate sessions 45
Dec 2014 3 days AVID Australia Summer Institute 22
TOTAL 14-15 days
Time in each professional learning session was provided to review teaching materials to
determine how the AVID strategies could be embedded in the target units. An initial two-
day training was provided before semester commenced with a one-day follow-up workshop
provided mid-semester. This model was repeated for semester two, and the same process
was applied in the subsequent year. At the end of each year, an additional three-day
intensive training was offered through AVID’s main professional learning training event,
known as the AVID Australia Summer Institute. Fees for attendance at the Summer Institute
were paid for each participant, and sessional staff members were also paid an hourly rate
for attending each day of the Summer Institute.
Participants were taught a range of explicit teaching strategies that aimed to increase
student engagement in deeper dialogue about key concepts. Educators were introduced to
and practised teaching strategies that promoted collaborative and critical thinking skills
Improving Higher Education Teaching Practice 16
progressively working towards promoting higher levels of thinking. Participants practised
how to make explicit the metacognitive thinking processes for analysing increasingly
complex ideas incorporating real-world connections, encouraging students to become more
independent learners motivated to take intellectual risks. Participants practised how to
scaffold lectures, tutorials, seminars and laboratory exercises using collaborative learning
and small group strategies to provide more interactive learning experiences that better
engaged students in deeper learning. Particular emphasis was given to the specific
strategies of critical reading and writing, which AVID materials teach explicitly for each
discipline. In addition, participants were trained to make explicit vital organizational skills
necessary for tertiary academic success, such as the Cornell note-taking system.
The AHE participants At both VU and ECU, the participating faculties and colleges in this project made a financial
commitment to have a core group of staff trained in the delivery and use of AHE explicit
teaching strategies for specific units. At VU, target units in the College of Health and
Biomedicine (H&B) and the College of the Arts were identified by academic, unit and course
coordinators based on need identified through trend analysis of progress and attrition rates.
The H&B foundation units were targeted because the College was experiencing a high
attrition rate in first year. Staff in Health and Biomedicine had been aware that significant
areas of its first year teaching had relied on sessional staff with limited teacher training or
experience and it was difficult to attract any staff to teach first years. The target College of
Arts unit was a foundation unit required for all students undertaking a Bachelor of Arts
degree. It too had experienced variable progression rates and was rewritten several times.
Attendance in the AHE professional learning for both VU Colleges was optional.
Conversely, permanent and sessional staff members from ECU’s School of Communication
and Arts (SCA) were required to attend the AHE professional learning program in order to
teach in the target unit. Additional teaching staff from ECU’s School of Education and
UniPrep opted in to attend sessions. The UniPrep cohort reported that many of the AHE
explicit teaching strategies were familiar given that their teaching focused on providing
additional social and academic scaffolds for students who had not initially met requirements
for direct entry in to ECU university courses. The School of Education cohort reported that
AHE pedagogical approaches reinforced strategies they were using in teacher education
courses and added some teaching practices that they would incorporate into their teaching.
The SCA staff targeted a first-year foundation unit that was experiencing high levels of
disengagement, poor attendance rates, and low levels of preparation by students when they
did attend. Students usually had not done any of the pre-reading tasks prior to class.
Two staff members from The Victoria Institute qualified in the USA as AHE staff developers
and delivered the AHE professional learning program customised for Australian contexts.
One of these staff developers had a formal secondary school teaching qualification. They
Improving Higher Education Teaching Practice 17
taught the professional learning sessions and offered additional support to the pilot group
of sessional and permanent teaching staff throughout the project trial.
Improving Higher Education Teaching Practice 18
Project outputs and findings
Outputs The project deliverables were:
1. Adaptation and trial of AVID AHE professional development program with sessional staff
tutoring in first year units in a range of disciplines.
This deliverable was achieved. AVID’s AHE program was successfully adapted for
Australian educators and delivered at two sites over a two-year trial period. All of the
educators who participated in the professional learning program reported that the
training was very useful and that they had incorporated explicit teaching strategies into
their teaching. They reported that their teaching was now more interactive and
students appeared to be more engaged in their learning as a result. In the final year, a
random sample of classes from both universities were observed and filmed by the
project leader. To varying degrees, where the educators were observed explicitly using
high engagement interactive AHE teaching and learning strategies, students were more
actively engaged in the learning activities than had been observed previously.
2. Development of prototype of practical resources to improve professional learning
activities across the sector, including: a suite of video exemplars on tertiary teaching
strategies; and professional learning workshops utilising the video exemplars.
This deliverable was achieved. A prototype website housing a suite of video exemplars
showing various AHE explicit teaching strategies as they are taught across different
disciplines can be found at www.vu.edu.au/the-victoria-institute/publications. These
video exemplars could be incorporated in subsequent professional learning workshops.
3. Benchmarking of project findings with findings from AVID universities in the USA, where
similar projects are being coordinated.
As the project progressed, the customisation of the AHE program for the Australian
context meant that this deliverable was no longer relevant. The way that the AHE
framework was adapted for the Australia universities did not provide data that was
similar enough to the USA model to allow for meaningful benchmarking activities.
4. Development of a project website to disseminate resources and build a professional
learning community.
This deliverable was achieved. A full report on the project and the two case studies are
available on the project website at www.vu.edu.au/the-victoria-institute/publications.
VU Case Study. This vignette describes how AHE strategies were incorporated and
practised in one of the foundation units in the College of Arts. This unit is compulsory
Improving Higher Education Teaching Practice 19
for several courses and typically has an enrolment of about 450 students (see
Appendix B).
ECU Case Study. The team at ECU focused their implementation of AVID on one of
their first year core units. The unit’s main focus was creativity, however, being a first
year core unit it also aimed to develop academic practices and metacognition. This
feature was recognised as particularly well aligned with the AVID learning and
teaching framework (see Appendix C).
5. Additional dissemination: journal articles, conference presentations and written report.
Brown, C.,Tangalakis, K. and Hughes, K., (2013). Engaged Teaching for Engaged Students:
Explicit, Inclusive AVID. 16th International First Year Higher Education Conference.
Wellington, New Zealand.
Hughes, K. and Brown, C. (2014). Strengthening the Intersections Between Secondary and Tertiary
Education in Australia: Building Cultural Capital, Journal of University Teaching & Learning Practice,
11(2). Available at: http://ro.uow.edu.au/jutlp/vol11/iss2/6
Tangalakis, K., Hughes, K., Brown, C. & Dickson, K. (2014). Explicit Teaching Strategies for
Science Foundation Subjects. International Journal of Innovation in Science and
Mathematics Education, 22(3), 42-51. http://www.ijisme.org/
Brown, C. (2015). What’s the best way to take notes on your tablet or laptop? The
Conversation. http://theconversation.com/whats-the-best-most-effective-way-to-take-
notes-41961. 14th July 2015. (Impact: >70,000 hits, tweets and reprints)
Brown, C. (2015). What’s the best, most effective way to take notes? The Conversation.
http://theconversation.com/whats-the-best-most-effective-way-to-take-notes-41961.
22nd May 2015. (Impact: >300,000 hits, tweets and reprints)
Key findings
AVID learning and teaching framework was successfully implemented
The evidence-based, AVID explicit learning and teaching framework, WICOR, built around a
collaborative, inquiry-based model of teaching and learning was successfully implemented.
Analysis of the data showed that all interviewees valued the professional learning sessions.
Both sessional and permanent teaching staff from VU and ECU reported that their teaching
capabilities and sense of teacher identity were enhanced by undertaking the AHE
professional learning program. Most participants believed that the positive impact on their
teaching was due to particular features of this type of professional learning including:
Improving Higher Education Teaching Practice 20
Modelling of explicit teaching practices in an interactive, practical, hands-on workshop
style format that enabled participants to practise strategies as they learned them.
Timing of the professional learning activities before and during teaching semesters.
Providing ongoing, supported, scaffolded professional learning rather than ad hoc,
disconnected, one-off activities.
Modelling and practising an inclusive, collaborative approach to learning and teaching.
Learning and practising a range of strategies anchored in AVID’s WICOR framework.
No single professional learning activity can provide a short cut to the years required to
master the complex art of becoming and remaining an effective, accomplished teacher.
The reported impact on participants’ teaching capabilities depended on the participants’
levels of higher education teaching experience. Teachers who had more than five years
higher education experience reported that the workshops provided an effective scaffold
that enabled them to:
Learn new teaching strategies that they could apply immediately to their classes.
Build on their existing knowledge of effective higher education teaching practice.
Reinforce good practices already being used.
Adapt and modify higher education teaching strategies to suit their discipline area.
Educators who had no teaching training and less than five years of higher education
teaching experience were often sessional or new recruits to their university. They reported
that the AHE professional learning sessions helped them to build an initial understanding of
the importance of developing foundation skills and theories of learning and teaching that
they did not previously have, which helped restructure their teaching initially. Educators
noted that having background knowledge of the science behind the complex art of teaching
was essential. They observed that it was unlikely that their teaching would improve with
random “snapshot” training. They commented that their teaching was more likely to
improve if they could access ongoing support and mentoring, and if they had the
opportunity to form professional learning communities that would allow them to reflect and
improve on their teaching practices.
Professional learning needs to be collaborative, practical, sustained, scaffolded, supported
and ongoing
Consistent with other research, the AHE professional learning framework reinforced several
important conditions required to build the competence and confidence of teaching staff,
particularly those without any formal teaching qualifications and minimal experience.
Increasingly, research into academic development suggests sustained,
ongoing teaching development activities are far more effective in
transforming how academics teach than one-off workshops or short programs
(Matthews, 2014, p.2).
Improving Higher Education Teaching Practice 21
Professional learning programs should model effective teaching practices
Professional learning programs should themselves be engaging and model effective teaching
practices that can immediately be implemented in the participant’s next class.
As Tangalakis et al. (2014) indicated, the AHE professional learning program and explicit
teaching strategies prompted higher levels of engagement in teaching by higher education
teaching staff because they had enjoyed learning the strategies as they were modelled and
had practised them in an interactive, scaffolded way that enabled them to apply them
immediately. Because participants saw value in the AHE training, they were motivated to
reflect on students’ learning and their teaching throughout the semester.
Experienced academics who participated in this study have started to lead
change in their discipline areas and formed communities of practice. In
response, student satisfaction with teaching appears to be improving
(Tangalakis et al., 2014, p.48).
The AHE collaborative, inquiry-based, practical model was positively received
The AHE collaborative, inquiry-based, practical model of professional learning was very
positively received by participants. The evidence-based, AVID explicit learning and teaching
framework, WICOR, built around a collaborative, inquiry-based model of learning and
teaching was successfully implemented. Evidence for this is that teaching staff from both
universities will continue using the AHE teaching strategies. A second College at VU plans to
use the AHE framework, strategies and AHE professional learning model in 2016 to create a
new foundation unit in another Bachelor program. Participants felt that the WICOR
framework provided a range of collaborative teaching practices that improved the
interactivity of the traditional lecture and tutorial structures. As a result, they reported that
students appeared to be more engaged and participated more actively in learning tasks.
Higher education professional learning requires both generic and customised strategies
Feedback from participants indicates that higher education professional learning requires a
mix of generic teaching strategies and customised examples for specific disciplines. The
initial professional learning sessions were offered to a mix of participants from different
discipline groups, Arts, Education and Health Sciences, who participated and worked
together. While the inclusion of different discipline groups was successful in building a
professional learning community across the universities, difficulties arose when examples
were given in one particular discipline. For example, strategies were modelled to change a
standard tutorial format from being teacher-centred to building in more student interaction.
The introduction to these strategies used a social science example, but the participants from
Health and Biomedicine reported they found it difficult to apply the same strategy in their
tutorials without seeing a specific example in their discipline context. It took two years
before educators in the Biomedicine unit developed the confidence and skill to embed these
practices more intentionally and frequently in their teaching.
Improving Higher Education Teaching Practice 22
Talking to staff about set questions in tutorials is finally paying off. Staff are
changing the way they teach their tutes!! Tutes are becoming collaborative
sessions with better integration of [lecture] material. I think our discussions at
AVID sessions and thereafter have obviously influenced this change (report
received from VU course coordinator, March 2015).
Krause’s (2014) research on “academic staff perspectives on disciplinary communities and
skill development in disciplinary contexts” also found this to be a complex issue. “Findings
highlight discipline-based patterns in staff views about the value of generic skills” (Krause,
2014, p. 2).
Contribution to existing knowledge This project explored findings from three reports focused on improving the quality of higher
education teaching and examined some of the recommendations made in each. The
Australian Learning and Teaching Council’s (ALTC), Good practice report: revitalising the
academic workforce, noted that: “… the challenge is to equip all academics, not just some,
with teaching responsibilities for effective learning by their students in the 21st century”
(Southwell, 2012, p. 3). This report made recommendations for improving the quality and
status of higher education teaching.
A second project funded by a strategic priority grant from the ALTC, (now the OLT), Effective
teaching and support of students from low socioeconomic status backgrounds: Resources for
Australian higher education (Devlin et al., 2012) advised universities to prioritise better
teaching for students from these previously identified backgrounds, in particular.
A third report, Benchmarking Leadership and Advancement of Standards for Sessional
Teaching, observed that:
The ongoing importance of sessional staff as teachers in higher education in
Australia, and internationally, required a mechanism to identify effective
practices and share them more widely. There was a need for multi-level,
multi-disciplinary and cross-institutional standards (Harvey, 2014, p. 4).
This project’s intent and strategies were informed by these projects, national and
international literature relating to the teaching challenges of wider participation in higher
education, and literature relating to improving first year higher education student
experience. Detail is available in the full project report at www.vu.edu.au/the-victoria-
institute/publications.
Interdisciplinary linkages The broader project team comprised of an interdisciplinary team of teaching and research
staff recruited from across VU and ECU. The collaboration of the various groups within and
across both universities became a highlight of the project as the project sought to bridge
Improving Higher Education Teaching Practice 23
silos and built a professional learning community of higher education educators who were
collaborative, cross-disciplinary, and collegiate. Providing ongoing professional learning
combining both generic skills training and discipline-specific material stimulated more
engaged teaching. The sessions engaged all staff and the collegiality shown across the
discipline groups were frequently nominated as a strength and a highlight.
Critical success factors An important difference between VU and ECU ’s implementation of the AHE trial was that
the Associate Director of Teaching and Learning in the Faculty of Education and Arts at ECU
directed the AHE trial and oversaw the administrative and organisation of the professional
learning sessions. With a single point of contact who was a senior academic in that Faculty,
the ECU professional learning sessions were intentional, better organised and well
communicated in advance to potential participants. At VU, four course coordinators from
two different Colleges were required to manage their regular responsibilities as well as
organise and coordinate the professional learning sessions. During the period of this
research, VU also underwent a restructure and reduction of professional staff across the
institution, which meant that time consuming administrative tasks, such as organising and
coordinating training, fell to the course coordinators. This proved to be less efficient.
Implementation in other institutions In this project, the AHE WICOR strategies were customised across several higher education
disciplines to deliver supported, ongoing professional learning sessions in Australia. The AHE
professional learning model has been employed in many institutions in the USA and this
project has demonstrated its potential to contribute to enhancement of learning and
teaching in an Australian context.
This project reinforced previous research findings that universities wanting to improve the
quality of teaching need to commit resources and foster a change of culture. In particular,
institutional factors deemed to be important to effect institutional change, such as those
identified in the Devlin, et al. (2012) report include:
Articulating and promoting higher education teaching standards.
Identifying senior staff who can direct, value, support and encourage sessional and
permanent teaching staff to participate in professional learning activities.
Building supported, ongoing professional learning programs for all teaching staff,
and particularly for those who have no formal teaching training.
Supporting professional learning programs that are intentional, scaffolded,
continuous, valued and supported financially with appropriately qualified
instructors/teachers/mentors.
Putting structures in place to support and prioritise research and ongoing
professional learning around highly effective higher education teaching.
Improving Higher Education Teaching Practice 24
Providing time for all teaching academics to plan curriculum and teaching material
responsive to the inclusive learning needs of more diverse student populations.
Providing greater support for sessional teaching staff within their discipline and the
broader university.
Providing financial and structural support and incentives for sessional teaching staff
to engage with regular professional learning programs to improve the quality of
higher education teaching.
Identifying leaders who can refocus university priorities that develop academics as
highly skilled teachers as well as academics as highly skilled researchers.
In the VU case study, pass rates for this unit rose significantly from 53 per cent (N=58) in
2012 to 81.01 per cent (N=179) in 2013 after AHE strategies were embedded, particularly
the community building activities at the start of semester. An observation shared by all
tutors in the unit was that the improvement in the pass rates was indicative of more
engaged students who were responding well to the new interactive approach to learning
and teaching. The unit coordinator observed an important effect on the way the tutors were
now teaching and collaborating. Having the common AHE framework encouraged the team
to reflect and discuss their teaching experiences regularly using a shared language, which
was not a practice they had engaged in previously before participating in the AHE training.
Similarly, in the ECU case study, student unit evaluation data showed a significant
improvement on most items in the survey, which educators attributed to using AHE
strategies in an explicit and coordinated way. Educators spoke about the students’
responsibility for learning increasing significantly from using the AHE strategies. They felt
that this greater responsibility came particularly from having established stronger personal
relationships within the class, more collaborative activities, and conveying an explicit
purpose for learning tasks. Educators also reported that using the AHE scaffolded critical
reading strategies resulted in more engaged students and consequentially a more satisfying
teaching experience. All of the staff found the AHE training very beneficial, and that through
the AHE professional learning activities, they became more engaged with their teaching. For
the staff with more than a decade of teaching experiences, learning about AHE teaching
strategies meant acquiring a very useful set of practices and a consolidation and
improvement of strategies they had been using already. For staff with little teaching
experience this professional learning experience had a significant impact on their
engagement with their teaching, their sense of capability and feelings of confidence. One of
the sessional staff in reflecting on the continuity aspect of AVID training emphasised the
importance of ongoing professional learning in relation to building professional learning
communities within their faculty.
Improving Higher Education Teaching Practice 25
Findings against the questions investigated
1. Does providing ongoing professional learning using the AVID for Higher Education (AHE)
explicit teaching framework stimulate more engaged teaching?
It appears that implementing the AHE explicit teaching strategies stimulates more
engaged teaching, but further longitudinal research is recommended to see how
learning is sustained over time. More generally, it appears that paying sessional staff to
attend professional learning appears to provide a return on investment in terms of
improving the quality and engagement in teaching over time, but payment alone is not
sufficient to ensure institutional factors allow all staff to attend and invest in
professional learning opportunities. The tenuous nature of sessional employment, in
particular, disempowers educators to commit to or regularly attend professional
learning activities.
2. Is there a return on investment for a university from providing regular/continuous,
supported professional learning to sessional and permanent teaching staff?
From the data in this project, it appears that there is a return on investment, but further
longitudinal research is recommended and suggestions for how to conduct future
research is discussed in the full project report available at www.vu.edu.au/the-victoria-
institute/publications
3. Is there value in building a prototype database of effective higher education teaching
video exemplars that could be further developed to build professional learning activities
around them?
Findings from this project indicate that both experienced permanent and sessional staff
valued having videos of effective higher education teaching to analyse and draw upon. It
is likely that a database of effective Australian higher education video exemplars that
focuses on a repertoire of teaching strategies illustrating effective teaching practices
being taught across a range of disciplines would make a valuable contribution to higher
education professional learning programs and would improve the quality of learning and
teaching. Ideally, video exemplars of effective higher education teaching should also
include a set of clear teaching standards and encourage supportive peer observation
with accompanying observation frameworks that educators could use to reflect on their
own and colleagues’ practice in order to raise the quality of learning and teaching.
Improving Higher Education Teaching Practice 26
Project impact, dissemination and evaluation
Impact This project has had a positive impact for project team members and the sector more
generally. All participants who were trained with the AVID teaching strategies reported that
they continued to use the AVID explicit teaching strategies after the project ended as they
felt using the explicit teaching strategies was improving their teaching and consequently,
student learning. Since the conclusion of the official data collection period, participants have
subsequently reported additional positive changes to their learning and teaching practice.
These educators reported that students’ feedback in their 2015 Unit and Course Teaching
Evaluations was more positive and they received higher satisfaction ratings than in previous
years. AVID’s explicit teaching strategies and the AVID professional learning model has
subsequently been implemented in a second VU College for delivery in 2016. Key staff in
those units attended the AVID Summer Institute in December 2015 and will implement a
new, revised unit with AVID’s student-centred, high engagement teaching strategies
embedded throughout. The educators are using the collaborative strategies to work as a
team and will meet weekly to ensure their teaching across the unit is consistent, highly
engaged and student focused.
The relevance of customising a USA-developed university readiness system for an Australian
context shows potential for growth. Having attended a presentation by members of the
project team on the AHE project, another university in Melbourne has requested AHE
training for several groups of staff across that university. Customised workshops will be
provided on site in 2016.
A significant impact of this project is a connection between the Victoria Institute and
Professor Eric Mazur, Harvard University, winner of the 2014 Minerva Prize. The Minerva
Academy is an honorary institution “dedicated to promoting and rewarding extraordinary
advancements and innovation in higher education teaching around the world”
(http://institute.minervaproject.com/). Professor Mazur has invited the project leader to
collaborate and develop a professional learning program for building high engagement
learning and teaching strategies with peer support using electronic, interactive e-texts.
On a personal level, participating in this project assisted another VU staff member to
achieve promotion to Associate Professor. Two staff members from Health and Biomedicine
published or are in the process of publishing academic papers that focus on the learning and
teaching of their discipline rather than their usual publication field of discipline content.
Interdisciplinary research partnerships focused on improving learning and teaching across
disciplines including Business, Health and Biomedicine, Education, Creative Arts and Science
developed and are continuing as a result of this project. Similarly, at ECU, several staff have
Improving Higher Education Teaching Practice 27
been professionally acknowledged and rewarded with a university prize for their work that
acknowledged their contributions to this OLT project.
Dissemination To date, the project has yielded two published journal articles, one international conference
presentation, and two related articles published in the international e-publication, The
Conversation with very high impact results. Two more journal papers are being written
based on this project and it is anticipated that they will be submitted for publication in 2016.
The two case studies are available for download from the project website. The prototype
website with video examples of educators using AVID’s explicit teaching strategies in
different contexts is available at www.vu.edu.au/the-victoria-institute/publications. A
summary of these outputs can be found earlier in this report.
Evaluation A reference group was established and met at critical points during the research. The
reference group members included AVID Center AHE curriculum and staff developers, the
Dean of an Education faculty from a university external to this project, and project team
members from both case study universities. An external evaluator was appointed to the
project and his summative report was prepared at the conclusion of the research period.
Suggestions for further research and development Further research is needed to determine the best mix of generic versus discipline-specific
professional learning models. Future research could build on developing the video
exemplars of explicit teaching strategies with online professional learning modules. A digital
repository could be developed to showcase illustrations of effective higher education
practice. The Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership has developed a digital
repository to exemplify effective school teaching that illustrates the Australian professional
teaching standards and shows how effective teaching develops by career stage in different
subject areas, see: http://www.aitsl.edu.au/australian-professional-standards-for-
teachers/illustrations-of-practice/find-by-career-stage.
Further examples of effective higher education teaching could be gathered from across
disciplines to build a prototype website demonstrating how a digital repository with
illustrations of highly effective higher education teaching could provide continuous, online
professional learning activities for higher education educators. Further research should also
be conducted to elicit the return on investment to universities, students and the economy
from investing in professional learning for higher education educators over time.
Conclusion This project investigated whether a US professional learning program, AVID for Higher
Education that uses a teaching and learning framework of high engagement, explicit
teaching strategies, could be customised and implemented in the Australian context to raise
Improving Higher Education Teaching Practice 28
the level of engagement in teaching for sessional and permanent staff. We investigated
whether more engaged teaching improved students’ levels of engagement and success in
large first year foundation units that had previously sustained high rates of failure.
We analysed any change over time on educators’ teaching capabilities and their identities as
educators given that, traditionally, teaching has not been as highly valued as research in
universities. This project sought to give voice to the professional teaching experience and
professional learning needs of these educators. An unanticipated finding was that although
sessional staff appreciated being paid to attend professional learning activities, of greater
value to them was the act of being included in a professional learning community at their
university. Several participants stated that the initial professional learning activities opened
up opportunities for them to collaborate with permanent staff on unit redesign in a way
that valued their expertise, and this positively impacted their personal and professional
identities as educators.
The research found that the impact of the AHE professional learning program improved
educators’ capabilities and sense of identity as an educator, particularly for those educators
with little or no formal teaching training. Every unit in which the AHE strategies were
implemented with fidelity experienced significant improvement in student achievement and
evaluation data. This finding indicates that for universities there is potentially a significant
return on investment to improve both student learning and teaching outcomes by
implementing high quality, ongoing, scaffolded professional learning for sessional and
permanent teaching staff.
The research also identified the need for Australian video exemplars of effective higher
education teaching to be created for higher education staff with little or no teaching training
in order for them to be able to see a variety of examples and learn what effective higher
education teaching in their discipline might look like.
Consistent with findings in the Southwell (2012), Devlin et al. (2012), and Harvey (2014)
reports, findings from this research identified the need for universities that are serious
about improving the quality of teaching to commit resources and foster a change of culture,
which encompass both teaching and institutional factors.
Changing higher education teaching practices will take time. All students deserve high
quality teaching. To achieve this consistently requires a commitment by universities to
actively demonstrate to teaching staff that they will value the investment educators make
to improve their teaching. Old academic cultures catered for an elite group of students who
were likely to succeed regardless of how they were taught. With more diverse groups of
students now entering universities, highly effective teaching must be prioritised to ensure
all students can succeed in their learning.
Improving Higher Education Teaching Practice 29
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Improving Higher Education Teaching Practice 31
Appendix A: Certification
Certification by Deputy Vice-Chancellor (or equivalent)
I certify that all parts of the final report for this OLT grant provide an accurate
representation of the implementation, impact and findings of the project, and that the
report is of publishable quality.
Name: …………………………………………......…....................................
Professor Kerri-Lee Krause
Provost, Higher Education (Teaching, Research and Engagement)
Date: 29/2/2016
Improving Higher Education Teaching Practice 32
Appendix B: VU Case Study This vignette describes how AHE strategies were incorporated and practiced in one of the
foundation units in the College of Arts, which is compulsory for several courses and typically
has a large enrolment of about 450 students. This unit aims to build a strong foundation of
core academic skills and academic metacognition. After participating in AHE professional
learning sessions, a team of teaching staff decided to strategically embed AHE learning and
teaching strategies for each of the 12 weeks of lectures and tutorials. They worked together
with the two AVID staff developers to realign the curriculum. The unit coordinator, who is a
permanent staff member with 14 years of higher education teaching experience, together
with two of the sessional tutors who had a maximum five years of teaching experience, all
participated in at least three AHE sessions. The unit coordinator had also participated in
additional AHE sessions in previous years. One of the sessional and experienced tutors did
not attend any of the AHE sessions, but was team teaching with colleagues who participated
in several AHE professional learning activities.
In semester one, 2013, the team taught this foundation unit together. In the first four
weeks, like ECU, they focused in particular on gradually introducing community building
activities. One of the tutors reported:
...It was insane, it was absolutely unbelievable how quickly rapport was built,
how people were relating to me differently themselves, definitely there was this
air of just honesty and connection and mutual support that I don’t think I often
see until weeks, weeks in once people opened up a bit more, and it was instant
from first class and I thought that was unbelievable. (VU tutor #)
Later in the semester, different metacognitive frameworks such as Bloom’s Taxonomy
(Bereiter & M., 1998; Krathwohl, 2002) and Costa’s Levels of Questioning (Costa, 1985),
were introduced. By week four they started using strategies to promote critical thinking
through discussion and dialogue using Socratic Seminars, Philosophical Chairs and World
Café activities. Throughout the unit AHE strategies were used to develop critical reading and
writing skills in the context of the unit’s topics.
The unit coordinator used two interviews, one conducted during the project and the second
after the completion of the project, to reflect on the AVID experience. The training resulted
in two significant changes to the unit coordinator’s teaching. First, more intentional and
consistent explanations were given to students about the purpose of all activities
undertaken in the class. Second, intentional and explicit introductions were used for the
community-building activities beyond the first week of class. These two aspects together
with consistently using some of the other strategies, have had a significant impact on
students’ engagement. The unit coordinator observed an important effect on the way the
tutors now teach and collaborate. Having the common AHE framework has encouraged the
Improving Higher Education Teaching Practice 33
team to reflect and discuss their teaching experiences regularly using a shared language,
which was not a practice they had engaged in previous to participating in the AHE training.
All teaching staff spoke very positively about their AHE professional learning experience.
One stated:
So my experience of it, well personally it gave me a greater sense of control and
also confidence in knowing what to do to sort of make sure engagement is high
and get good outcomes out of students. In terms of how students experienced it,
they were incredibly engaged, motivated. You don’t see people sitting around
kind of just daydreaming when everyone has to stand and contribute to
something and you’re on a team, you know what I mean? (VU teaching staff #)
The pass rates for this unit have risen significantly from 53% (N=58) in 2012 to 81.01%
(N=179) in 2013 after AHE strategies were embedded. An observation shared by all tutors in
the unit was that the improvement in the pass rates is indicative of more engaged students
who are responding well to their new interactive approach to learning and teaching.
Table 3: VU Arts unit pass rates
2012 2013 2014
53% (N=58) 81.01% (N=179) 72.41% (N=145)
Improving Higher Education Teaching Practice 34
Appendix C: ECU Case Study The team at ECU focused their implementation of AVID on one of their first year core units.
The unit’s main subject was creativity, however, being a first year core unit it also aimed to
develop academic practices and metacognition. This feature was recognised as particularly
well aligned with the AVID learning and teaching framework.
The typical cohort enrolled in this unit comprised a significant number of non-traditional
students studying different majors from across the University. There were four staff
members teaching this unit at the time of this research, two of them as permanent staff
with at least 12 years of teaching experience and two sessional staff with at least five years
of teaching experience. None of them had any relevant previous teaching training or
qualifications. They all participated in AHE training, two of them in six sessions, and the
other two in at least three sessions.
After the initial session, the unit coordinator analysed the unit’s curriculum to incorporate
AHE learning and teaching strategies, and invited the sessional staff to contribute to that
review process. Sessional staff commented that they felt a greater sense of commitment to
the unit and felt valued as colleagues from their inclusion in this process. The AVID staff
developers and the Associate Dean Teaching and Learning also provided support for this
process.
The first significant change was an introduction of gradual community building strategies,
which were incorporated into the first four weeks of the unit instead of only in week one.
Tutors observed that these strategies were initially met with resistance from students (“it’s
a waste of time”). Tutors persisted and following the AVID principle of explicit teaching
which entails explicitly explaining to students the purpose of any given activity. Tutors
reported that the inclusion of the additional community building activities made a
significant, positive difference in the level of students’ engagement. Tutors spoke about the
students’ responsibility for learning increasing significantly from using the AHE strategies.
They felt that this greater responsibility came particularly from having established stronger
personal relationships within the class, more collaborative activities, and conveying an
explicit purpose for learning tasks. One of the tutors explained how he experienced the
impact of using AHE explicit teaching strategies:
I think it lets them in more. I think that allows them to feel more comfortable. But
also, the flip side of that is it puts more onus and responsibility on them…. But when
you give them that idea that they’ve actually got control and a bit of power, they run
with that and they turn in work that’s just exceptional. (ECU tutor #)
The second change involved the incorporation of more scaffolded critical reading strategies.
Previously students in this unit were disengaged regarding their reading assignments. They
planned to use AVID’s critical reading and writing strategies in weeks 2, 3 and 4,
Improving Higher Education Teaching Practice 35
incorporating a number of scaffolded, collaborative reading activities with non-traditional
texts. Tutors reported that using these strategies resulted in more engaged students and
consequentially a more satisfying teaching experience.
All of the staff found the AHE training very beneficial, and one of them stated:
It’s been a major factor in my rediscovering my love of teaching, but also my
ambition to want to do more of it. (ECU staff member #)
For the staff with more than a decade of teaching experiences, learning about AHE teaching
strategies meant acquiring a very useful set of practices and a consolidation and
improvement of strategies they had been using already.
One of the participants reflected upon the strategies:
They give you some structure and they provide you a safe base from which to then
explore teaching. So it allows you to sort of formalise and operationalize your
teaching in such a way, that you're not having to worry about what you're doing in
the classroom. (ECU staff member #)
For the staff with little teaching experience this professional learning experience had a
significant impact on their engagement with their teaching, their sense of capability and
feelings of confidence. One of the sessional tutors reflecting on the continuous aspect of
AVID training pointed out the importance of this type of professional learning in relation to
their own need for a professional learning community:
The refresher things are important. Repetition only in the sense that you come back
to that same space. The space itself, I think, is very important. Because as a sessional
staff member, I get my three hours at university this semester, because I’ve only got
the one class. I don’t get a chance to talk much or interact much with other teachers.
So for that reason, it’s incredibly valuable. (ECU sessional tutor #)
Student evaluation survey data was shared by the unit coordinator, who is an experienced
higher education teacher. The data show a significant improvement on most items in the
survey, which was attributed to using AHE strategies. In the table below are data on the
most relevant items in the survey.
Table 4: Selected Items from ECU Student Evaluation Survey
Student evaluation survey 2012 pre-AVID 2013 2014
(relevant items) Agree %
I am satisfied with this unit 54 83 76
Improving Higher Education Teaching Practice 36
This unit extended my learning 71 88 84
This unit challenged my thinking 73 93 85
In the students’ evaluation survey, one of the students affirmed the experience that the
tutors had described in their observations about the change in their students’ level of
engagement:
The tutorials generated my confidence and diminished my fear of public
speaking due to an extremely clear understanding of each week’s unit topic. The
tutorial discussions were stimulating as majority of the class seemed very
engaged and I made friends who share similar interest as I. (ECU student survey
respondent #)
Improving Higher Education Teaching Practice 37
Appendix D: External evaluator’s report Evaluation Report
Research and Development Project: Professional development program to
embed inclusive and explicit teaching practices in higher education first year
units
Peter Ling
February, 2016
The project evaluated
The project as defined in the proposal
The project evaluated was funded by the Office for Learning and Teaching (OLT) in the
Grants Program as an Innovation and Development Grant in the Research and Development
category. The project was entitled ‘Professional development program to embed inclusive
and explicit teaching practices in higher education first year units’
The project proposal stated:
The project addresses significant issues in the practice of employing sessional
staff with discipline expertise but no formal teaching qualifications as tutors in
large, first year HE units.
To raise the status and quality of teaching in these units, sessional staff will be
trained in a suite of inclusive, explicit teaching strategies with ongoing support
provided to build a professional learning community around a quality teaching
focus for tutors. Quantitative and qualitative data, including teacher
observations, will measure any improvements in teaching and learning
outcomes.
Using a long-established US professional learning and student support system
entitled AVID (Advancement via Individual Determination) this project will
ascertain whether equipping tutors with explicit, inclusive pedagogies
improves teaching quality and the student learning experience as measured
by improvements in academic progress, retention, student engagement,
student satisfaction with tutoring staff and teaching quality.
Findings from this project will be benchmarked with findings from AVID
universities in the USA where similar projects are being conducted.
Improving Higher Education Teaching Practice 38
The project was proposed by Victoria University (VU). In consultation with the OLT, Edith
Cowan University (ECU) was added as a project partner.
The project intent as reported
The project was retitled ‘Professional development program to embed inclusive and explicit
teaching practices in higher education first year units’.
The aim of the project was specified as:
To investigate whether providing an ongoing, scaffolded professional learning
program to higher education educators who had little or no formal teacher
training and who were teaching large, first year foundation units led to more
engaged teaching. AT VU, the targeted first year foundation units were
originally to be taught by sessional staff only, but staffing changes meant that
a mix of sessional and permanent staff taught the units. At ECU, selected first
year foundation units were taught largely by sessional staff. (Report, p.5)
The evaluation process
The evaluation involved:
1. Review of pertinent OLT grant guidelines
Here the OLT 2013 Innovation and Development Grants, Program information and
application instructions’ Version 1.0, was utilised.
2. Review any documentation on the original grant proposal
The documents utilised here were the final version of the project proposal and the
Funding Agreement between the Commonwealth of Australia as represented by the
Department of Industry, Science, and Tertiary Education, and Victoria University
regarding funding for Professional development program to embed inclusive and
explicit teaching practices in higher education first year units (ID12-2561)
3. Review of the grant final report and any interim reports or records
The documents utilised here were the Professional development program to embed
inclusive and explicit teaching practices in higher education first year units, Final
report, February 2016 The Victoria Institute, Victoria University (lead institution) and
Edith Cowan University (partner institution) together with Minutes of the Reference
Group Meeting, 28th January 2014 and 19th June 2014
4. Face-to-face or phone interviews and correspondence with the Project Leaders and
team members.
Here interviews were conducted with at Victoria University: Professor Roger Slee,
Director of the Victoria Institute for Education, Diversity and Lifelong Learning,
(initially Project Sponsor and for a time Project Leader); and the final Project Leader
Ms Claire Brown, Associate Director, the Victoria Institute, Victoria University
(initially Project Director at VU).
A written response to evaluation questions was received from Associate Professor
Improving Higher Education Teaching Practice 39
Mark McMahon, Associate Dean Teaching and Learning, School of Arts and
Humanities, Project Director, Ethic Cowan University.
Telephone conversations and emails were used to clarify some points.
In citing of data below contribution of Ms Claire Brown are identified as VU Project
Leader; contributions of Associate Professor Mark McMahon are identified as ECU
Project Leader.
5. Review of any statistical or evaluative data collected in conjunction with project
activities.
Here statistical data available was limited to data contained in the Project Report
6. Review of any project artefacts and deliverables.
A sample of video recordings of project participants teaching was reviewed.
PowerPoint slides supporting professional development workshops based on AVID
were reviewed. A project web site will be available. It was under development at the
time of the evaluation.
Format of the evaluation and rationale
This evaluation was commissioned at the conclusion of the project and therefore is
summative in nature.
The project evaluation has three broad components:
1. The first is an evaluation against objectives. Here both the broad objectives of the
funding body for the category of grant are considered along with stated objectives of
the project. These reference points are employed as they reflect the purposes of the
funding body in commissioning the project and the expectations of the project
proponents in engaging in the project.
2. Evaluation against stated objectives alone would be inadequate. Project proposals
are framed in expectation of conditions, possibilities and desirable outcomes. In the
event projects take place in a dynamic environment, which may include changes of
personnel involved. As a project advances fresh understandings of possibilities,
obstacles and preferable courses of action and outcomes can evolve. For this reason
the second broad criterion is to evaluate against available information on the
intentions of key project personnel as the project progressed and against any
formally agreed modifications to the project proposal.
3. There is the possibility that, for better or worse, the project produced some
outcomes undefined in the original agreement and unexpected in modifications
made along the way. For this reason the third criterion involves identification of
unexpected outcomes.
Note: Project expenditure and budgetary performance are not dealt with in this evaluation.
Financial acquittal will be handled separately.
The evaluation report addresses these components in the following sequence:
1. Specification of the original objectives and expectations
Improving Higher Education Teaching Practice 40
2. Changing understandings of the project in action
3. Reported activities and outcomes, including dissemination
4. Reflections against intentions and expectations
5. Unintended outcomes
Expressed intentions and expectations
The broad OLT objective for projects in the grant category
In broad terms the Funding Agreement states that the funding body, the Department of
Industry, Innovation, Science, Research and Tertiary Education in conducting a program –
the Grants Scheme – is ‘responsible for providing grants to the higher education sector to
advance learning and teaching in higher education’. ‘Objectives include the dissemination of
good individual and institutional practice in learning and teaching in Australian higher
education.’ Under the agreement Victoria University is ‘committed to helping achieve the
program through its conduct of the project. (Agreement p.1)
The Innovation and Development Grants program has the following objectives:
1. Promote and support strategic change in higher education institutions for the
enhancement of learning and teaching, and the benefit of the student
experience.
2. Raise the profile and encourage recognition of the fundamental importance of
teaching in higher education institutions and in the general community.
3. Develop effective mechanisms for the identification, development, dissemination
and embedding of good individual and institutional practice in learning and
teaching in Australian higher education.
4. Develop and support reciprocal national and international arrangements for the
purpose of sharing and benchmarking learning and teaching processes.
5. Develop and enhance a deep understanding and knowledge of the learning
process appropriate to the disciplines being taught.
The project was funded in the research and development category of the Innovation and
Development Grants program. Research and development focussed on issues of emerging
and continuing importance not featured in the other priorities but considered by the
Standing Committee of the OLT to be of national significance or addressing a major concern
in a discipline area.
The evaluation findings in respect of the OLT objective for Innovation and Development
Grants projects follow in the ‘Evaluation against expectations section below’.
The specified project objectives, including the intended deliverables
The project objectives were not specified per se but can be inferred from the project
proposal.
Improving Higher Education Teaching Practice 41
The project proposal focused on sessional staff and the role of the subject coordinator in the
professional development of all staff, but especially sessional staff brought into teaching
teams, often for limited periods. The point of difference in this proposal with previous
related ALTC projects was its ‘emphasis on the concept of student transition and the
importance of this in supporting students to engage with the learning process, and
ultimately, continue with their studies’. (Proposal, p.2)
It was proposed to investigate the value of the use of the professional development AVID
for Higher Education (AHE) program in Australia with academics engaged in teaching first
year units, especially sessional academics. The proposal stated ‘Three of VU’s six Faculties
have committed to exploring implementation of the AVID for Higher Education model,
which includes a professional learning system of ongoing pedagogical training and support
for students, teaching and support staff, and administrators’. (Proposal p.3).
The outcome specified was an increase in sessional staff’s teaching capability in a systematic
approach to implement inclusive, explicit strategies in first year units at VU where over 20%
of students (up to 40% in some of our target HES units) come from LSES backgrounds. This
should contribute to improved student engagement and success, in turn leading to
increased retention and completion rates in keeping with the Commonwealth’s aim of 40%
of all 25-34 year olds having a Bachelor level degree by 2025, and 20% of all domestic
undergraduate enrolments coming from LSES backgrounds by 2020. (Proposal, p.4)
It was expected, given the early experiences from other tertiary institutions implementing
AVID in the USA, that students directly involved in this AVID project would have greater
retention and success rates, and that this would lead to some level of cultural change to
embed good institutional and individual practice in HE learning and teaching within the
courses where these first year units were housed. The proposal involved testing this
assumption. (Proposal, p.5)
Implicit objective are summarized here as:
1. Improving the quality of the teaching experience for sessional tutoring staff
2. Improving student engagement with the learning process
3. Investigation of the value of the use of AVID for Higher Education program in
Australia
4. Development of a collaborative, inter-departmental, multi-disciplinary model
improving teaching and learning experience for sessional teaching staff and students
In addition the specified purposes of the project were to:
1. Trial a holistic, systematic approach to improve the quality of the teaching
experience for sessional tutoring staff and the quality of the learning experience for
students.
2. Develop a collaborative, inter-departmental, multi-disciplinary model that has an
evidence-based, data-driven approach to informing and implementing
Improving Higher Education Teaching Practice 42
improvements in teaching and learning experience for sessional teaching staff and
students.
Components of the project were to be based on the model for AVID implementation being
developed under the leadership of The Victoria Institute for Education, Diversity and
Lifelong Learning with partners from the Victoria University Faculty of Health, Engineering
and Science, Faculty of Arts, Education and Human Development, and staff from the School
of Language and Learning in the Student Learning Unit.
The project in action: Expectations of the Project Leaders
The project provided a short program of professional development on learning and teaching
to sessional and other untrained teaching staff with responsibility for teaching first year
subjects. The professional development program was based on the AVID for higher
education program used in USA, which was reported to be working well there. The program
was provided according to a VU Project Leader
In the hope of improving student satisfaction with teaching at VU – which was
rated as among the worst in Australia in the Good Universities Guide.
The proposal was to trial it in Australia. That is to take action that would hopefully
improve student engagement in first year at VU whilst investigating the
effectiveness of the intervention.
That remained the key issue.
ECU was added as a partner and the units of study selected for involvement were changed
and the way the participants interacted with each other differed between sites. At ECU
participation was mandatory for the unit selected and the group met weekly, building a
learning community, whilst at VU it was done on a voluntary basis but the key issue
remained the same.
At ECU the project was aimed primarily at teaching and sessional staff in the Schools of
Education and Communications and Arts.
The ECU leader’s understanding was:
That the key focus in enhancing student engagement in teaching to address the
issues of academic staff, particularly sessionals, who may lack formal education
qualifications and typically don’t receive much teaching professional development.
Also it addresses the issue of non-traditional students who don’t have a strong
academic background as many of the strategies address fundamental academic
skills. This focus was maintained throughout the project.
I wasn’t involved in the initial planning of the project. I was pleasantly surprised
about the validity of the strategies being implemented and the ability of [VU
Project Leaders] to meet the needs of our sessional staff for training.
Improving Higher Education Teaching Practice 43
The building and operation of the team project was affected by changes in personnel at the
partner institutions from the initial proponents of the project. Nevertheless key elements of
the project were delivered and a pertinent investigation was conducted.
Reported activities and outcomes
Nature of the intervention
An existing professional learning and teaching framework from the USA, based on the
Advancement via Individual Determination (AVID) college/university readiness program,
titled AVID for Higher Education (AHE) was selected to test its viability for the Australian
higher education context (Report, p.6). While the professional learning program was based
on the AVID for Higher Education program the VU Project Leader stated:
We did not go in with a hard and fast plan of what the professional development
modules would look like. We had always planned to keep an element of
customization and adapt the strategies for those who participated in the trial.
‘The foundation of the AVID’s Postsecondary curriculum is WICOR: Writing, Inquiry,
Collaboration, Organization, and Reading.’ AVID postsecondary strategies for success, AVID
Press, San Diego, 2011, p.6. The process involves instructors working with students to
develop foundational skills that will enhance the development of higher level skills. It
involves ‘scaffolding’ starting with basic skill development in students and building toward
greater complexity. Strategies are informed by taxonomies of levels of learning and are
consistent with constructivist understandings of learning. See for example the use of KWL –
Know, Want/need to know, Learned. (AVID postsecondary strategies for success, p.80). The
PowerPoint slides supporting the professional learning activities indicate the application of
principles and practices of the AVID program.
Reflecting on the AVID base for the professional learning program the ECU Project Leader
stated:
AVID was what formed the basis of the program. It defined the teaching strategies
that we used and it was workshopped and delivered as a package, though we
didn’t necessarily communicate that this was AVID to students.
Sessional and permanent staff from Victoria University (VU) in Victoria and Edith Cowan
University (ECU) in Western Australia were given the option of attending between one and
up to six professional learning sessions. The sessions were offered over two years to help
the educators build a repertoire of inclusive, explicit teaching strategies. VU offered 14-15
days of professional learning sessions and ECU 17-18 days of professional learning sessions
(Report, p.14). Sessional teaching staff were paid for the hours they attended the
professional learning sessions at a rate equivalent to marking or other activities. They were
also provided with ongoing professional learning support from coordinators through the
semester to build a collaborative professional learning community across discipline areas
within their own university and with colleagues from the other university.
Improving Higher Education Teaching Practice 44
In the AVID for Higher Education program undertaken by participating staff scaffolding was
demonstrated, participants’ lessons were observed and video recorded. Delivery of the AVID
for Higher Education professional learning sessions used ‘an immersion approach where the
teaching strategies were modelled and practiced by the participants in every professional
learning session’ (Report, p.13). ‘Time in each professional learning session was provided to
review teaching materials to determine how the AVID strategies could be embedded in the
target units’ (Report, p.14). Participants were provided with feedback.
Investigative elements
The research component of the project investigated the issue of professional learning from
both sessional and permanent teaching staff perspectives. Specifically the project
investigated whether the Advancement via Individual Determination (AVID) professional
learning framework could be adapted for an Australian context to stimulate greater
engagement in higher education learning and teaching that leads to improvements in the
quality of both (Report, p.10). The focus was on analysing the educators’ experiences in
terms of their teaching capabilities and their identities as educators (Report p.7).
The research questions were framed as:
1. Does providing ongoing professional learning using the AVID for Higher Education
(AHE) explicit teaching framework stimulate more engaged teaching?
2. Is there a return on investment for a university from providing regular/continuous,
supported professional learning to sessional and permanent teaching staff?
3. Is there value in building a prototype database of effective higher education teaching
video exemplars that could be further developed to build professional learning
activities around them? (Report, p.11)
The report provides a summary of the findings from both case study sites, VU and ECU. The
data has been used to formulate two short vignettes to demonstrate the implementation of
the AHE professional learning model and its impact as experienced by the participants. (See
Appendices B and C). The data for these vignettes were derived from semi-structured
interviews with educators, workshop attendance data, survey data, and video recorded
teaching observations. ECU data contains students’ evaluation survey data from the
coordinator of the unit. These data were collected over a three-year period prior to and post
AVID training. VU data contains the data on pass rates for one of the target units pre- and
post-AVID for Higher Education (Report, p.6). At VU units with high fail rates were selected
and offered a professional learning program. These came from the Faculty of Health and
Bio-med, which had high fail rates. Anyone was allowed to attend. Participation was on a
voluntary basis. (Report, p.6)
The VU Project Leader reflected that:
Course co-ordinators tracked student results but in nursing and biomed they
undertook a major re write of their courses so there were other variables. We
Improving Higher Education Teaching Practice 45
planned to use comparative data overtime rather than to use a control group
which would involve withholding the intervention from some students. In the
Faculty of Arts, a first year foundation unit was taught on two campuses and AVID
training was provided to the group at the campus where students entered with
lower ATARs and typically had lower achievement rates. Over the course of this
project, we did see significant improvement in the students’ results on the campus
where the AVID professional learning program was provided.
The research was focused on the participating teachers rather than on students.
We got participants to do a questionnaire after each professional learning session.
We asked them how they felt as educators? Did they know what to do? What had
changed? We observed they had difficulty in determining what highly effective
teaching was.
At ECU a lot of the work around investigation and evaluation of the AVID program has
happened at secondary schools engaged in the AVID primary and secondary programs.
Investigation of the university program was more limited but vignettes were video recorded
and case studies developed.
Reported findings and outcomes
Findings relating to teaching factors and to institutional factors are presented (Report, p.7).
These relate to both the participants experience of the professional development
intervention and to effectiveness, including cost/benefit observations, of the intervention.
1. Does providing ongoing professional learning using the AVID for Higher Education
(AHE) explicit teaching framework stimulate more engaged teaching?
The Project Report states ‘the AHE collaborative, inquiry-based, practical model of
professional learning was positively received by participants and customisable for Australia’.
(Report, p.7)
Analysis of the data showed that all interviewees valued the professional learning
sessions.
Both sessional and permanent teaching staff from VU and ECU reported that their
teaching capabilities and sense of teacher identity were enhanced by undertaking
the AHE professional learning program. Most participants believed that the
positive impact on their teaching was due to particular features of this type of
professional learning (Report, p.17).
There is evidence that the teaching of participants improved in terms of adoption of
strategies that could be expected to improve student engagement. The reported impact on
participants’ teaching capabilities depended on the participants’ levels of higher education
teaching experience.
Teachers who had more than five years higher education experience reported that
the workshops provided an effective scaffold that enabled them to:
Improving Higher Education Teaching Practice 46
• Learn new teaching strategies that they could apply immediately to their
classes.
• Build on their existing knowledge of effective higher education teaching
practice.
• Reinforce good practices already being used.
• Adapt and modify higher education teaching strategies to suit their
discipline area.
Educators who had no teaching training and less than five years of higher
education teaching experience tended to be sessional or new recruits to their
university. They reported that the AHE professional learning sessions helped them
to build an initial understanding of the importance of developing foundation skills
and theories of learning and teaching that they didn’t previously have, and which
helped structure their teaching. (Report, p.18)
The team concluded that a six session teaching preparation program was beneficial but was
not sufficient to produce substantial change in participants’ approach to teaching and
adoption of engaging strategies. This is referenced in the final project report (p.18), which
refers to understandings that ‘sustained, ongoing teaching development activities are far
more effective in transforming how academics teach than one-off workshops or short
programs’.
2. Was there a return on investment for a university from providing regular /
continuous, supported professional learning?
One question addressed was ‘is there a return on investment for a university from providing
regular/continuous, supported professional learning to sessional and permanent teaching
staff?’
The Project Report states:
Paying sessional staff to attend professional learning appears to provide a return
on investment in terms of improving the quality and engagement in teaching over
time, but payment alone is not sufficient to ensure institutional factors allow all
staff to attend and invest in professional learning opportunities. The tenuous
nature of sessional employment disempowers educators to commit to or regularly
attend. (Report, p.7)
An investigation of return on investment was attempted at VU but there were problems in
accessing data critical to the analysis. A methodology – an algorithm – for determining
return on investment was devised by Dr Max Winchester and could be applied in future. The
Project Leader at VU stated:
There needs to be a separate study on return on investment that considers
longitudinal data and evidence to confirm attribution across multiple variables
appropriately. I would expect a big return on investment.
The ECU Project Leader stated:
Improving Higher Education Teaching Practice 47
There would undoubtedly be a return on investment in terms of retention, though
this is difficult to measure because it is subject to multiple variables beyond
engaged teaching. The problem for sessional staff attending workshops is that our
EB requires us to pay them if they’re required to attend. [This could not be
sustained beyond the project.]
3. Is there value in building a prototype database of effective higher education teaching
video exemplars that could be further developed to build professional learning
activities around them?
It was proposed that a prototype database of effective higher education teaching video
exemplars that could be further developed to and professional learning activities structured
around them.
The report states:
A small number of teacher observations that were captured on video. The videos
provided evidence about the potential value in building a prototype database of
effective higher education teaching video exemplars that could be further
developed to create professional learning activities. (Report, p.12)
The ECU Project Leader stated:
This [providing video exemplars] is probably the strongest value that I can see in
the project overall because I can’t see how the impact itself can be sustained
without the funding. As mentioned previously, the development of explicit
strategies outside of AVID would be even better – maybe another project!
Dissemination
The following publications and papers produced during the life of the project relate to the
project.
Brown, C.,Tangalakis, K. and Hughes, K., (2013). Engaged Teaching for Engaged Students:
Explicit, Inclusive AVID. 16th International First Year Higher Education Conference.
Wellington, New Zealand.
Hughes, K. and Brown, C. (2014). Strengthening the Intersections Between Secondary and
Tertiary Education in Australia: Building Cultural Capital, Journal of University Teaching &
Learning Practice, 11(2). Available at: http://ro.uow.edu.au/jutlp/vol11/iss2/6
Tangalakis, K., Hughes, K., Brown, C. & Dickson, K. (2014). Explicit Teaching Strategies for
Science Foundation Subjects. International Journal of Innovation in Science and
Mathematics Education, 22(3), 42-51. http://www.ijisme.org/
Brown, C. (2015). What’s the best way to take notes on your tablet or laptop? The
Conversation. http://theconversation.com/whats-the-best-most-effective-way-to-take-
notes-41961. 14th July 2015. (Impact: >60,000 hits, tweets and reprints)
Improving Higher Education Teaching Practice 48
Brown, C. (2015). What’s the best, most effective way to take notes? The Conversation.
http://theconversation.com/whats-the-best-most-effective-way-to-take-notes-41961. 22nd
May 2015. (Impact: >200,000 hits, tweets and reprints)
Evaluation against expectations
Evaluation against broad OLT objectives for Innovation and Development Grants
1. Promote and support enhancement of learning and teaching, and the student
experience
The proposal appeared to have the potential to promote strategic change that will
enhance learning and teaching, and the student experience. The PowerPoint slides,
which reflect the structure of the professional development workshops, are based on
sound teaching principles and are designed to have participants engage in active,
reflective learning. The professional learning process was designed to model teaching
strategies it was hoped participants would embed in their own practice.
The ECU Project Leader reflected:
I think that there is an implicit learning theory which is based on metacognition
and self-regulated learning.
Asked whether the project activities promoted and supported enhancement of learning and
teaching, and the student experience the Project Leader at ECU stated
I’d say yes, it definitely promotes strategic change, though the nature of the
project as it ran at ECU was quite grass roots, working with individual academics.
The fact that we ran several workshops over a long period of time meant that
there was an opportunity for this to be embedded in practice.
Feedback from the project participants was very positive and many have told me
that they are now using explicit teaching strategies in their classrooms.
The Project Leader at VU claimed that participants, who were without teacher training,
demonstrated improved teaching techniques following the intensive professional
development program. Staff engaged in the program reported improvement in their
techniques to engage students. In the event improvements were apparent but they were
more modest than hoped.
There is some evidence, referred to in ‘Findings and outcomes’ below, that student
engagement improved following the introduction of the program. However the situation
was dynamic, there were many variables so it is not possible to demonstrate a causal
connection.
2. Encourage recognition of the fundamental importance of teaching in higher education
Improving Higher Education Teaching Practice 49
The professional learning program did have participants who were sessional staff and other
staff who were not teacher qualified taking action to improve their approaches to teaching
and word of the intervention has spread.
The AVID for higher education program is popular and is still being used in a number of
instances in the partner institutions and beyond. The VU Project Leader has been invited to
provide professional learning workshops based on the AVID for higher education program at
two Melbourne institutions.
3. Develop good individual and institutional practice in learning and teaching
The project did contribute to developing effective mechanisms for the identification,
development, dissemination and embedding of good individual and institutional practice in
learning and teaching.
The ECU Project Leader reported
We did share our experiences through things like papers at ECUlture (ECU’s main
teaching and learning conference) and with schools and learning consultants who
were involved.
Two journal articles related to the project have been published and other forms of
dissemination employed. See ‘Dissemination’ above. The project web site is in final stages of
development and is scheduled to be online by the end of March 2016.
4. Develop and support sharing and benchmarking learning and teaching processes
There has been sharing of the experiences of the project through the avenues listed under
‘Dissemination’ above. The Project Leader at VU states that benchmarking has not been
attempted at the national level as it would involve a longitudinal process going beyond the
life of the project.
While the international benchmarking proposed did not occur AVID USA has taken and
interest in the project and requested the report. As a consequence of involvement in the
project the Project Leader at VU has been invited to contribute to professional development
modules with Professor Eric Mazur from Harvard University. See ‘Evaluation of unintended
outcomes’ below.
5. Enhance a deep understanding and knowledge of the learning process
The project was designed to develop and enhance a deep understanding and knowledge of
the learning process in the participating staff. The ECU leader reported ‘This was one of the
key strengths. The explicit teaching strategies are inherently metacognitive in nature and
create opportunities to embrace multiple perspectives and negotiate understanding. I think
it created a great focus on self-regulated learning that the participants bought into.
The program was tailored to particular disciplines but there were also opportunities for
cross-discipline networking that were appreciated by participants.
Improving Higher Education Teaching Practice 50
In the units of study to which the intervention applied student retention improved.
Evaluation against objectives indicated in the project proposal
Improving the quality of the teaching experience for sessional tutoring staff?
The intent was that sessional staff were also to be provided with ongoing professional
learning support from coordinators through the semester to build a collaborative
professional learning community across discipline areas within their own university and with
colleagues from the other university.
Intensive, ongoing professional learning in AVID’s explicit teaching strategies for sessional
staff who teach as tutors in large first year units but who have little or no teacher training
was successfully provided.
In the event the VU Project Leader reported:
While it was intended that sessional staff would be provided with ongoing
professional learning support from coordinators this happened in some cases but
not all due to workload issues and redundancy measures. In some cases sessional
staff were supported in the second year of the project by First year champions.
It worked in bio-med where First year champions trained in AVID and then worked
with first year tutors.
The proposal indicated an intent to build a collaborative professional learning community
across discipline areas within their own university and with colleagues from the other
university. Reflecting on this intention the VU Project Leader stated:
The teaching teams came together during the workshops and discussions from
different contexts and discipline areas were had, but ultimately the professional
learning communities relocated back to within disciplines rather than between
them.
At ECU the Project Leader reported:
It did happen. By having multiple workshops, we really did engage with staff over a
period of time and I think that for those who were involved there was real
salience.
A qualification to the success of the initial intervention was also mentioned:
The big problem is sustainability. Sessionals are a highly mobile staff so I don’t see
the impetus being maintained over the long term unless we can programmatise it
over a longer period.
The ECU Project Leader stated when asked whether explicit learning and teaching
pedagogies were embedded in first year units employing a significant number of sessional
staff to improve the quality of teaching and learning and therefore improve retention:
Improving Higher Education Teaching Practice 51
This was a real strength. The strategies became embedded in many of our first year
units such as the example above as well as our Study Skills unit. It’s hard to pin
retention causality, though, as there are so many other compounding factors.
Improving student engagement with the learning process
The project title refers to embedding inclusive teaching practices. Participants claimed to be
taking a student-centered approach and did for example employ more questioning of
students than previously. In some cases, however, the participants’ estimation of the extent
of improvement exceeded the improvement observed by the project team members. The
project team video-recorded teaching sessions conducted by participants in the hope of
having video exemplars that could be disseminated through the project web site. The VU
Project Leader reported that participants claimed that the program had changed their
approach to teaching and that they were now interacting with students.
When I looked at the video that was not exactly what I was seeing. There was
certainly improvement but not to the extent that we would now call them highly
effective teachers, and I’m sure they wouldn’t claim to be, either. They were now
asking questions but the person answering the questions was often the one up the
front. What people say/think they do and what they really do is not always the
same thing.
Improvement was evident but not to the point of being exemplary. Nevertheless examples
of effective application of teaching strategies addressed can be found in the video-
recordings and will provide a valuable resource to support professional development of
higher education academics who currently lack training in teaching.
In relation to this the VU Project Leader claimed:
The AVID program gave teachers some explicit strategies for the planning of their
tutorials and lectures. So yes the AVID program could be adapted for an Australian
context. But teaching is a craft and an art that cannot be acquired quickly in six
workshop sessions even with related application.
At VU Bio-med academics reviewed their course delivery following the AVID professional
learning workshops. The Project Leader reported still getting requests from Bio-med
academics ‘so they do value it’.
The ECU leader reported of student engagement with the learning process that:
This was a major focus and one of the key reported successes. Students
appreciated the level of structure that the teaching strategies provided and they
kept the classroom moving.
Nevertheless there were instances of academics reflecting on curriculum and planned
learning and teaching activities:
[An ECU staff member] completely revised his unit outline. Reduced the number of
required readings from a large number per week and refocused on the essentials.
Improving Higher Education Teaching Practice 52
The Report provides case studies on the effects of the AVID-based intervention on student
engagement. The information provided is selective and no other data is provided in the
Report. Nevertheless the information that is made available does provide prima facie
evidence of substantial improvement in student engagement. Concurrent with the AVID-
based intervention there were other changes in the teaching context that may have had
some effect on outcomes.
Appendix B of the Project Report provides a case study relating to the application of AHE
strategies in one of the foundation units in the College of Arts at VU. In this instance ‘the
pass rates for this unit have risen significantly from 53% (N=58) in 2012 to 81.01% (N=179)
in 2013 after AHE strategies were embedded’.
An observation shared by all tutors in the unit was that the improvement in the
pass rates is indicative of more engaged students who are responding well to their
new interactive approach to learning and teaching. (Report, p.29)
Appendix C of the Project Report provides a case study relating to the implementation of
AVID in a first year core unit. In this case student satisfaction with the unit improved from
54% in 2012 (pre-AVID) to 83% in 2013. Responses to the survey item ‘This unit extended
my learning’ improved from 71% to 88% and responses to the item ‘This unit challenged my
thinking’ improved from 73% to 93%.
The ECU Project Leader reported that improving student engagement with the learning
process:
[Was] a major focus and one of the key reported successes. Students appreciated
the level of structure that the teaching strategies provided and they kept the
classroom moving.
The vast majority of participants valued it and reported that it increased
engagement in the classroom
Further evidence of improved student engagement and/or retention at ECU was provided
by the Project Leader who reported improvement:
Particularly in the unit [selected]. As I was the coordinator of that unit previously
and I had the current coordinator involved I was able to ensure that we embedded
this in lesson planning. In the first semester we ran it, student satisfaction doubled
in our teaching evaluations.
Investigation of the value of the use of AVID for Higher Education program in Australia
The AVID for Higher Education program was successfully adapted for Australian educators
and delivered at two sites over a two-year trial period.
All of the educators who participated in the professional learning program
reported that the training was very useful and that they had incorporated explicit
teaching strategies in to their teaching. They reported that their teaching was now
Improving Higher Education Teaching Practice 53
more interactive and students appeared to be more engaged in their learning as a
result (Report, p.16)
The intent was to target staff in the units of study specified below:
Name of University Faculty and Unit Enrolments Number of sessional/other tutors
VU Health, Engineering & Science
Frameworks for Nursing/Working with Families
Foundations in Biomedical Sciences A and B
565
180
10
5
VU Arts, Education and Human Development
Knowing and Knowledge A
360
6
ECU Faculty of Education and the Arts
CCA1103 Creativity: Theory, Practice & History
200
5
Student Learning Unit staff for AVID training 4
In the event a series of professional learning sessions were conducted, each involving 1 to 3
training days. At VU the full program provided the opportunity for participation in six
sessions. The total workshop days offered amounted to 14 -15. Total of the of individual
session attendances (as distinct from total number of participants) was 212 (Report, p.14,
Table 2). At ECU workshop days offered were 17-18. Total of the of individual workshop
attendances (as distinct from total number of participants) was 118 (Report, p.14, Table 1).
At VU participation, for the units selected, participation was voluntary. Staffing
reorganization led to the number of sessional staff employed being reduced so the
proportion of sessional staff to contract staff participating in the program was less than
anticipated.
Involvement of staff whether sessional or contracted in the full professional learning
program was more limited than hoped. The VU Project Leader reported:
Many sessional staff did not attend the full six sessions as they had other
commitments or priorities. Some contracted staff did not attend as research rather
than teaching was seen as the key to career advancement.
The ECU Project Leader reported:
We paid sessionals to attend the workshops. The plan was to have the same cohort
go through. This did work to a large extent with some key teachers, though
because of the inherent mobility and difficulty in accessing sessionals as they often
have other jobs, there were a few that dropped in an out during the period.
The ECU leader reported that ‘Sessional staff were particularly grateful because it allowed
us to pay them to attend Professional Development’.
Reflecting on the AVID base for the professional learning program the ECU Project Leader
stated:
Improving Higher Education Teaching Practice 54
Ultimately, to my mind, AVID was a good basis but problematic because of IP
issues – we would be better in the long run developing our own explicit teaching
strategies so not having to be tied to their system and restrictions.
Development of a collaborative, inter-departmental, multi-disciplinary model improving
teaching and learning experience for sessional teaching staff and students
With regard to development of a collaborative, inter-departmental, multi-disciplinary model
improving teaching and learning experience for sessional teaching staff and students at ECU
the Project Leader reported:
That’s not going to happen unless you have multiple departments involved. This
was very faculty based and didn’t involve our Centre for Learning and
Development so the advantages were pretty much tied to two schools.
Evaluation of unintended outcomes
Engagement in the project led to a discussion between the VU Project Leader, Ms Claire
Brown and Professor Eric Mazur, Prof Physics and Applied Physics at Harvard University and
Member of the Faculty of Education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Professor
Mazur has expressed interest in working with Claire Brown to design professional learning
modules for an e-learning platform he is developing.
There were no other unintended outcomes of the project but a number of the findings
differed from expectations.
An unexpected point of contention in the higher education application of AVID was
participant questioning of the US origin of the material and suggestions Australia should
develop their own materials rather than negotiating around the American intellectual
property issues. When this issue has surfaced in the Australian schools’ implementation of
the AVID program, the availability and ease of access to more than 36 years high quality
learning and teaching materials and resources already available is offered as a counter
argument. .
Another issue raised was how the AVID program related to other professional development
in teaching and learning offered by the universities involved, including the award programs
relating to learning and teaching in higher education.
Participants stated that they wanted discipline-specific professional development but in the
event valued interaction across disciplines.
The ECU Project Leader stated that he:
Found that by attending workshops with sessional staff I was able to get a better
insight into some of their experiences, particularly in terms of the lack of
information they receive from their unit coordinators. They’re typically not very
aware of assessment policies, addressing English Language proficiency etc. It gave
me an opportunity to discuss these things with them.
Improving Higher Education Teaching Practice 55
Conclusion
The project title indicates the intent of the project was to embed inclusive and explicit
teaching practices in higher education first year units. The focus was on teachers of first
year units who lacked teacher training, including teachers employed on a sessional basis.
The means to achieving the broad intent was intended to be engagement of higher
education first year teachers without teacher training in a professional learning program
based on the US professional learning and student support system AVID (Advancement via
Individual Determination) for Higher Education. The project included investigation of the
effectiveness of the implemented professional learning program in improving student
engagement in first year units.
The project has delivered in provision over two years of a professional learning program
informed by the AVID for Higher Education program. Both sessional and contracted
academics teaching first year units undertook the program at the participating institutions,
Victoria University and Edith Cowan University. Evidence is provided of both improvement
in the teaching practices of the participants and in the retention and satisfaction of students
in n the units involved in the study.
The investigative element of the project indicated that:
Providing professional learning informed by the AVID for Higher Education (AHE)
explicit teaching framework stimulates more engaged teaching. The extent to which
this is so difficult to determine but it appears that this six session program did result
in improvement in the teaching practices of participants but that the extent of
improvement was modest. This aligns with findings in the final report (pp.7 &18).
There is the potential to maintain this level of improvement but it is too early to
claim inclusive and explicit teaching practices have been embedded.
There may be value in building a prototype database of effective higher education
teaching video exemplars that could be further developed to build professional
learning activities around them. At the time of this evaluation the website of video
exemplars is in the final stages of construction so the value is yet to be determined.
There is evidence that the project has made a contribution to each of the broad objectives
of the OLT Innovation and Development Grant Scheme and has, at least to an extent, met
the each of the specified and the implicit objectives of the project.
The evaluator
The evaluation was undertaken by Peter Ling, B.Comm., M.Ed., Ph.D., Adjunct Associate
Professor, Learning Transformations Unit, Swinburne University of technology.
Peter Ling has acted as evaluator for several national projects including: Developing multi-
level leadership in the use of student feedback to enhance student learning and teaching
practice, Carrick Leadership Grant Project, 2007, RMIT University; Peer Review of Teaching
Improving Higher Education Teaching Practice 56
in Higher Education, The Australian Learning and Teaching Council project, 2009, Centre for
the Study of Higher education, The University of Melbourne; and Evaluation of Learning
Spaces, Australian Learning and Teaching Council project, 2010, Swinburne University of
Technology, The University of Queensland, and Victoria University.
Peter Ling has been principal researcher in several national projects including: The
development of academics and higher education futures, Australian Learning and Teaching
Council, 2009-2012; The effectiveness of models of flexible provision of Higher Education in
Australia, Department of Education Training and Youth Affairs, 2001. Peter was co-
researcher for Multiple modes of delivery, A Higher Education Innovation Program project of
the Australian Universities Teaching Committee, 2004. Peter was engaged as Project Officer
for Learning Without Borders, Enhancing Leadership in Transnational and International
Education, Australian Office for Learning and Teaching, 2010-2013.
For the purposes of the evaluation Peter Ling was engaged as a consultant by Victoria
University.
Dr Peter Ling
913/58 Jeffcott St
West Melbourne
Vic., 3003
P: +61(0) 418 313 755
ABN: Peter Newson Ling 26 224 408 956