Teaching Innovation Unit

The International Society for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (ISSOTL) annual conference presents an exciting opportunity to meet with international colleagues from diverse backgrounds and situations to commune on our common interest in the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL). As with every ISSOTL conference, the enthusiasm for SoTL was palpable in Los Angeles in 2016. Rich discussions took place, networks were formed, and promises to keep in touch were made. Unfortunately, previous conference experiences have taught us that these good intentions often fall short once the conference bubble has burst and the reality of daily life sets in once more. In an attempt to circumvent this phenomenon, we—seven colleagues from three different countries—embarked on a research project that enabled us to maintain the relationships and fruitful discussions we had initiated at ISSOTL16. We established Small, Significant Online Network Group, or SSONG, inspired by a conference works...

This report is a response to local, national and international imperatives in tertiary education. Locally, the Vice-Chancellor, Professor Bill Lovegrove has opened the debate with his request for ideas for improving flexible learning and e-pedagogy as part of a broader initiative of ...

This report is a response to local, national and international imperatives in tertiary education. Locally, the Vice-Chancellor, Professor Bill Lovegrove has opened the debate with his request for ideas for improving flexible learning and e-pedagogy as part of a broader initiative of ongoing development at USQ. These efforts are a response to increasingly competitive higher education markets; expectations of transnational education; and the re-conceptualisation of learning communities on a global scale. Nationally, debate surrounds the recent Nelson (2004) report (Backing Australia's Future), which focuses on universities' obligation to demonstrate a strategic commitment to learning and teaching. The report raises a number of critical issues for regional Australian universities such as USQ in the reimagination of the core business of higher education providers and the degree to which they are able to meet the needs of contemporary Australian society. These issues are also being debated internationally with evidence of significant research activity into the role of higher education in postmodern societies and the related studies of lifelong learning, workplace learning, open and flexible learning, adult and continuing education and the impacts of globalization on education.

This report is a response to local, national and international imperatives in tertiary education. Locally, the Vice-Chancellor, Professor Bill Lovegrove has opened the debate with his request for ideas for improving flexible learning and e-pedagogy as part of a broader initiative of ongoing development at USQ. These efforts are a response to increasingly competitive higher education markets; expectations of transnational education; and the re-conceptualisation of learning communities on a global scale. Nationally, debate surrounds the recent Nelson (2004) report (Backing Australia's Future), which focuses on universities' obligation to demonstrate a strategic commitment to learning and teaching. The report raises a number of critical issues for regional Australian universities such as USQ in the reimagination of the core business of higher education providers and the degree to which they are able to meet the needs of contemporary Australian society. These issues are also being debated internationally with evidence of significant research activity into the role of higher education in postmodern societies and the related studies of lifelong learning, workplace learning, open and flexible learning, adult and continuing education and the impacts of globalization on education.

Agent-based systems are one of the most important and exciting areas of research and development that emerged in information technology (IT) in the past two decades. In a nutshell, an agent is a computer program that is capable of performing a flexible, autonomous action in typically dynamic and unpredictable domains (Luck, McBurney, Shehory, & Willmott, 2005).

There is an emerging trend in higher education for the adoption of massive open online courses (MOOCs). However, despite this interest in learning at scale, there has been limited work investigating the impact MOOCs can play on student learning. In this study, we adopt a novel approach, using language and discourse as a tool to explore its association with two established measures of learning: traditional academic performance and social centrality. We demonstrate how characteristics of language diagnostically reveal the performance and social position of learners as they interact in a MOOC. We use Coh-Metrix, a theoretically grounded, computational linguistic modeling tool, to explore students’ forum postings across five potent discourse dimensions. Using a Social Network Analysis (SNA) methodology, we determine learners’ social centrality. Linear mixed-effect modeling is used for all other analyses to control for individual learner and text characteristics. The results indicate that learners performed significantly better when they engaged in more expository style discourse, with surface and deep level cohesive integration, abstract language, and simple syntactic structures. However, measures of social centrality revealed a different picture. Learners garnered a more significant and central position in their social network when they engaged with more narrative style discourse with less overlap between words and ideas, simpler syntactic structures and abstract words. Implications for further research and practice are discussed regarding the misalignment between these two learning-related outcomes.

Contemporary literature on online and distance education almost unequivocally argues for the importance of interactions in online learning settings. Nevertheless, the relationship between different types of interactions and learning outcomes is rather complex. Analyzing 204 offerings of 29 courses, over the period of six years, this study aimed at expanding the current understanding of the nature of this relationship. Specifically, with the use of trace data about interactions and utilizing the multilevel linear mixed modeling techniques, the study examined whether frequency and duration of student–student, student–instructor, student–system, and student–content interactions had an effect of learning outcomes, measured as final course grades. The findings show that the time spent on student–system interactions had a consistent and positive effect on the learning outcome, while the quantity of student–content interactions was negatively associated with the final course grades. The study also showed the importance of the educational level and the context of individual courses for the interaction types supported. Our findings further confirmed the potential of the use of trace data and learning analytics for studying learning and teaching in online settings. However, further research should account for various qualitative aspects of the interactions used while learning, different pedagogical/media features, as well as for the course design and delivery conditions in order to better explain the association between interaction types and the learning achievement. Finally, the results might imply the need for the development of the institutional and program-level strategies for learning and teaching that would promote effective pedagogical approaches to designing and guiding interactions in online and distance learning settings.

With the steady development of online education and online learning environments, possibilities to support social interactions between students have advanced significantly. This study examined the relationship between indicators of social presence and academic performance. Social presence is defined as students' ability to engage socially with an online learning community. The results of a multiple regression analysis showed that certain indicators of social presence were significant predictors of final grades in a master's level computer science online course. Moreover, the study also revealed that teaching presence moderated the association between social presence and academic performance, indicating that a course design that increased the level of meaningful interactions between students had a significant impact on the development of social presence, and thus could positively affect students' academic performance. This is especially important in situations when discussions are introduced to promote the development of learning outcomes assessed in courses. Another implication of our results is that indicators of social presence can be used for early detection of students at risk of failing a course. Findings inform research and practice in the emerging field of learning analytics by prompting the opportunities to offer actionable insights into the reasons why certain students are lagging behind.

One of the striking differences between massive open online courses (MOOCs) and previous innovations in the education technology field is the unprecedented interest and involvement of the general public. As MOOCs address pressing problems in higher education and the broader educational practice, awareness of the general public debate around MOOCs is essential. Understanding the public discourse around MOOCs can provide insights into important social and public problems, thus enabling the MOOC research community to better focus their research endeavors. While there have been some reports looking at the state of the MOOC-related research, the analysis of the public debate surrounding MOOCs is still largely missing.

In this paper, we present the results of a study that looked at the content of the public discourse related to MOOCs. We identified the most important themes and topics in MOOC-related mainstream news reports. Our results indicate that coverage of MOOCs in public media is rapidly decreasing: by the middle of 2014, it decreased by almost 50% from the highest activity during 2013. In addition, the focus of those discussions is also changing. While the majority of discussions during 2012 and 2013 were focused on MOOC providers, the announcements of their partnerships, and million dollar investments, the current focus of MOOC discourse seems to be moving toward more productive topics focused on the overall position of MOOCs in the global educational landscape. Among different topics that this study discovered, government-related issues and the use of data and analytics are some of the topics that seem to be growing in popularity during the first half of 2014.