NSW report for the 2015 AALL Executive and Annual General Meeting
1. OLT Grant Workshop
OLT grant, collaboration between Melbourne University, Edith Cowan, University of Technology Sydney and James Cook, What works best: Strengthening the evidence base for English Language Practices in Higher Education. A workshop was held at the University of Technology, Sydney. This workshop hosted by the Academic Language and Learning group UTS, August 28.
2. Reports from Centres
Macquarie University
In 2015 at Macquarie, the central Learning Skills team have been impacted by a wider restructure that will dismantle the Learning and Teaching Centre (LTC) and significantly reduce staff numbers. This is part of a more devolved strategic approach that will see smaller teams with learning and teaching roles operating from within faculties rather than as a central unit. This change will move the staff in the central Learning Skills Group from the LTC into the University Library but with a reduced number of positions to 4 FTE from 2016. Having only moved into the (LTC) in 2014, following the disbanding of the former First Year Experience Unit, and prior to that from within the Dean of Students’ Office, this will be the fourth location for Learning Skills in five years.
In 2015, the Learning Skills team delivered a suite of professional development workshops to assist staff with developing their students’ English language proficiency and to help them build their awareness of academic integrity issues. We also delivered over 200 academic language and learning workshops to in excess of 3000 students, and provided 835 individual consultations. In particular, our e-consultation service grew significantly. We have also focused on building our online academic literacy capacity and have reached 27,476 students in StudyWISE (academic literacies resource) and 21,324 students in our Academic Integrity Module. We also created and piloted a new online Academic and Workplace Ethics Module, which forms the core of Macquarie’s response to the widely publicised MyMaster scandal and subsequent serious cases of academic misconduct.
The HDR Learning Skills team operating out of the Research Office within Macquarie continues to support Higher Degree Research candidates across campus, running workshops and courses in thesis writing, writing for publication, grant writing, oral presentation and other seminars related to HDR candidature and experience. In addition, research writing groups and “Write Now Sessions” (similar to Shut Up and Write, but also offering 1:1 consultations with a learning adviser) are run regularly throughout the year. A research writing retreat and boot-camp were also run in 2015. The Head of HDR Learning Skills continues to convene the Research Communications unit (a semester length unit for credit), which all Master of Research candidates at Macquarie take as part of their first year of research training; the three discipline-specific HDR learning advisers also teach on this unit. The HDR Learning Skills team also now works closely with the HDR Professional Skills Program Manager, who was appointed in 2015 by the Dean HDR and has been given responsibility to design and oversee a program of workshops and other support that educate and equip HDR candidates for careers within and outside of academia.
University of New South Wales
The Learning Centre offers academic skills support for all UNSW students from pre-entry through to HDR.
Staffing: 5.6 FTE Learning Advisers; 0.8 Learning Resource Developer; 1.0 Director; 1.0 Administrator; 1.0 Student Information Officer.
Online academic skills resources: Hundreds of pages of resources on topics such as referencing, essay writing, report writing, grammar, critical thinking, reading, note-taking, time management, oral presentations etc. In 2015 there have been 2 329 634 visits to these pages. https://student.unsw.edu.au/academic-skills
Work in Schools and Faculties: The Learning Centre teaches courses or components of courses in Faculties and Schools in response to requests. Credit-bearing courses developed and taught by the Learning Centre are PHCM9100 Academic Skills for international postgraduate students enrolled in both the masters of Public Health and the masters of Health Service Management and ENGG0360 Communicating in Engineering and Science aimed at undergraduates. In addition, extensive collaborative work in the School of Medical Sciences has led to the embedding of academic skills teaching throughout the undergraduate curriculum. Similarly, in a number of Engineering and Science courses academic skills components are delivered by a Learning Adviser. Each year, several thousand students across a number of Faculties receive explicit academic skills instruction through this collaborative work.
Individual consultations: These are offered through the Peer Writing Assistance Program where PhD students are trained to provide support for any student requesting individual assistance with their academic work. Students may book a maximum of 5, hour-long consultations per semester at Kensington and Paddington campuses. 1738 appointments were made available in 2015.
Academic skills workshops: workshops on key topics such as essay and report writing, referencing, reading and note-taking, giving presentations, academic writing, grammar, literature reviews, critical thinking, etc 127 workshops were offered across Semesters 1 and 2 of 2015.
Conversation classes: 252 peer-facilitated conversation classes for international students were offered in 2015.
Research students: Thesis writing support programs; Talking about your research – an oral presentation course; Advanced academic writing for PG ESL students – a 10 week, 20 hr. course; Thesis writing courses in Faculties and Schools where requested - for example in GSOE9400 Research Essentials for new HDR Faculty of Engineering students, a Learning Advisor has significant input in course design, course delivery , training of tutors and the Moodle course component; thesis writing bootcamps, 3 minute thesis coaching. in November, the LC launched #AcWriMo at UNSW and has been running a number of writing focussed events for HDR students https://student.unsw.edu.au/acwrimo
General Education for credit course: GENY0001, 0002, 0003 Academic Skills Plus. Covers all key academic skills. Offered each semester and in summer. 55 students were enrolled in Semester 2.
Academic writing workshop in Moodle: a standalone series of self access writing modules – over 100 annual enrolments.
Academic English and Communication Skills component of International Academic Program for AusAid scholarship holders- about 70 students each year. 64 hours of classes over 3.5 weeks in summer and winter break.
Enabling Programs: The Learning Centre is the program manager of two Commonwealth-funded year–long access programs and has developed the core academic skills courses for both programs:
· University Preparation Program (UPP) - for mature age students who are 20 or older. 219 new students were enrolled at 31 March 2015 across the 4 streams of Humanities, Science & Engineering and Business http://www.futurestudents.unsw.edu.au/upp
· UNSW Preparation Program - for students 17-19 from socially and educationally disadvantaged backgrounds. 30 students were enrolled at 31 March 2015 across the 4 streams: Arts, Science, Engineering & Business. http://www.futurestudents.unsw.edu.au/unswprep17-19
Academic integrity: The Learning Centre has developed online modules in Moodle for students. The Learning Centre provides advice to students who have either been found to have plagiarised in their academic work or on request to schools where there are academic integrity concerns.
U@UNSW: The Learning Centre has designed the academic component of this program and teaches it twice a year to increasing numbers of school students from disadvantaged backgrounds in their final years of schooling. The 2015 intake was over 300. An on-line version of the course was developed in 2015 for students from remote areas of the state.
Indigenous PrePrograms: The Learning Centre develops and teaches the academic skills components of the Medicine, Law and Education pre programs.
Law peer tutoring: a peer to peer program in collaboration with the Faculty of Law. A group of 11-15 later year undergraduate or JD law students are trained and mentored on an ongoing basis to work with small groups of first-year students.
Collaboration with Researcher Development Unit: Learning Centre staff have been asked to contribute workshops on helping supervisors with developing their students’ writing of theses and literature reviews; writing for scholarly publication and giving oral presentations.
Collaborative research with other schools: Research collaborations with Faculties of Medicine, Law, Arts & Social Sciences, Engineering have led to joint conference presentations and publications.
University of Sydney
The DVCE portfolio within which sits the Learning Centre was restructured in 2015 and we are in the early stages of working within the new structure. The Learning Centre and the Mathematic Learning Centre now sit together within a group named Academic Enrichment with reporting lines through the Head of Academic Enrichment (currently also the Head of the Learning Centre) to the DVCE. The new structure coincides with the development of new strategic priorities for the University and a strong emphasis in the draft strategy and framework documents on communication, and critical and analytical skills. The work to be done in these areas directly relates to the work of the Learning Centre and our work both within the curriculum and co-curriculum spaces. As a consequence of this increased emphasis, we are advertising for two new full time academic positions within the Learning Centre and moving more strongly into blended learning delivery when suitable.
A Selection of Teaching and Teaching related projects (these are in addition to our business as usual work in the curriculum and co curriculum spaces reported at http://sydney.edu.au/stuserv/documents/learning_centre/AReport2014.pdf)
1. Development of a compulsory university wide academic honesty on line module.
2. Development of an additional optional blended learning module on academic integrity.
3. Development of an academic literacy and cultural competence module, framework and resources in partnership with the National Centre for Cultural Competence.
4. Ongoing research and development work on the Academic Writing Tool for HDR students and supervisors within the medicine related disciplines.
5. Successful implementation of a co-developed and co-taught credit-bearing unit of study “Texts and Expectations” open to any enrolled student across the university.
6. Development of additional workshops for the central program focusing on: reading, writing the systemic review, writing for publication.
7. Completion of the Successful writing at University home page with links to all the resources that support the development of student writing across the University, both face-to-face and online, as well as links to other key online resources in Australia and elsewhere.
Research outputs (2014 data only available at this point)
3 book chapters + 5 in press
3 journal articles + 1 in press
15 unpublished conference papers
Research (current funded projects)
- AALL funded project: HDR Supervisor training and development in Australian universities: A scoping study (USydney, team member)
- OLT extension project: Academic Integrity in Action UoW lead, USydney partner
University of Technology, Sydney
There are two AALL units at UTS. The Academic Language and Learning group works with staff, and the Higher Education Language and Presentation Skills centre provides programs and services to all UTS students.
Academic Language and Learning group (ALL)
The ALL group continued to collaborate with faculty academics to embed academic and professional literacies across the UTS curriculum. This was achieved in a variety of ways from collaborative curriculum development to co-design of subject tutorials, guest lectures and team teaching.
Staff Development
The ALL group delivered numerous professional development sessions at the Casual Tutors’ Conference, Faculty and UTS Teaching and Learning Forums. In addition, the cross university implementation of a new model of learning, learning.futures necessitated many workshops for disciplinary staff in all faculties. Learning.futures is a university wide approach to blended learning, aligning face to face and technology based learning with interactive learning experiences in new learning spaces at UTS.
Resource Development
Screencasts and vodcasts for use as micro-presentations and online lectures were designed and implemented along with discipline specific digital resources for learning futures, online reading guides and content quizzes in specific subjects. ALL resources were integrated with UTS Online and Review (faculty wide e-resources). A Vice Chancellor Teaching and Learning grant in collaboration with Faculties of Science and Engineering and IT was provided to share resources for online academic literacy development. Data gathering research on student engagement with ALL online resources was used to monitor and evaluate student use.
Two members of the ALL group worked with the Connected Intelligence Centre to advance learning futures through the use of Learning Analytics. Academic Writing Analytics was used to provide students with a tool to review analytical writing in Business and reflective writing in Engineering. Learning power profiles used in Business provided a visual language for students to build their agency and resilience.
Assessment
The ALL group continued to provide tutor benchmarking, marking moderation, and respond to request to co-design assessments in many subjects across the university. The Online Post Enrolment Language Assessment (OPELA) was implemented in five faculties (two more in 2016). ALL team members worked on follow up programs. Other examples of work in assessment were the creation of feedback templates for tutors and the introduction of a Written and Oral Language Framework in Health courses.
Grants and Research
Congratulations to Deborah Nixon who completed her PhD. Publications for 2015 include three journal articles, seven conference papers and presentations (national and international). Grants included four First Year Experience and three Vice chancellor Teaching and Learning grants. The English Language Working Party (Health) was awarded a grant to continue a project tracking effectiveness of language intervention programs across the nursing and midwifery degrees over three years.
Higher Education Language and Presentation Skills (HELPS)
HELPS U: learn
In 2015 HELPS provided programs and services to 2,685 individual students, accommodating 3,867 drop-ins sessions and 1,035 individual one-to-one consultations. Helps also continued to provide study skills workshops to over 2,125 students and there were 647 attendances in the Write Now! writing support sessions. In addition intensive academic skills courses were also delivered to 564 students during the semester break.
HELPS U:PASS
In 2015 HELPS U: PASS supported 54 ‘killer’ subjects (subjects with high failure and withdrawal rates) and reached 5,421 students across the University.
HELPS U: Connect
HELPS engaged over 360 volunteers in the HELPS U: Connect program. Of these, 50 student Peer Advisors supported students in drop-in sessions and academic skills workshops, 26 ( UTS staff, students and community members volunteered to be conversation leaders facilitating 13, 2- hour weekly sessions to groups of 5 to 15 students. Over 284 students and staff were matched to 335 international students in the HELPSmate buddy program.