Successful TLS Grants 2007 – VU College
In 2007 Teaching and Learning Support made funds available for educational development grants to support innovative practice related to Making VU a New School of Thought. VU College staff have led a number of these projects.
Implementing the new CGEA in line with ‘Making VU priorities’
Project manager: Lisa Bartels
Project outline: The project will identify potential community partnerships, both within and beyond VU, which will enable delivery of components of the course through a community participation model. While the VU College has significant existing relationships with a range of potential partners, this project will seek to establish an ongoing sustainable model of engagement, to underpin the delivery of these course components. The project also involves the development of a new course overview, teaching and learning plans and assessment tasks for the new delivery model, which will be consistent with new AQTF requirements. The model will also embed the development and documentation of Employability skills into the course. The new delivery model will then be piloted and evaluated in semester 1 2008, in CGEA programs within the VU College.
Learning in Public spaces – Liberal Arts (with HE)
Project manager: Karen Charman
Project outline:
- Involve the production pf self-guided and teacher-mediated web based learning materials to support active student engagement with the Melbourne Immigration Museum
- Provide an inaugural community based multimedia learning opportunity to 3rd year multimedia students and Certificate 1V Liberal Arts students in the form of a shared student multimedia installation to be exhibited at the Immigration Museum’s Community Gallery.
- Through a mentoring relationship, introduce Liberal Arts students Multimedia pathway options.
- Provide school leavers studying Liberal Arts with a more integrated, targeted, relevant learning experience.
- Facilitate the development of increased cultural competency through active participation in the Immigration Museum.
OET online – enhancement
Project manager: Bob Keith
Project outline: The project will develop an online ‘teaching presence’ to help facilitate learners’ ‘social’ and ‘cognitive presence’ In addition it will enhance existing material in line with the identified pedagogy and expand the range of resources for other health professionals.
The project will follow VU’s PDRI planning cycle to improve on the initial course/project.
- Plan—identify a usable online methodology/pedagogy (e.g. Salmon’s ‘five step model’) and effective online materials design.
- Do—FLU Blackboard workshops in skills for teachers (design, course management and communication/facilitation tools and pedagogy); development of online orientation materials and activities for learners
Pilot the enhanced course with ongoing FLU mentorship. - Review using teacher and learner feedback
RPL for Employability skills
Project manager: Virginia Saint James
Project outline: Firstly, this project will develop an RPL tool/s for Skill-up clients to assist them to identify and articulate the Employability Skills that they have gained during their employment thus far. The project will also develop documentation which clients can use as evidence of their skills as an outcome of the RPL process.Secondly, where clients do not have the language skills to articulate their skills, they will be provided with an intensive short course as part of the Skill-up program to develop the language of employability skills and how to use this language in the job seeking context, The course will also assist them to analyse their employment experiences and identify their employability skills and expertise in order to collate a portfolio.
Integrating literacy in law and legal studies
Project manager: Peter Moraits
Project outline: This project will involve the development of a customised legal discourse unit, with accompanying learning and teaching materials, for students undertaking 2nd Year Advanced Diploma in Legal Practice.
- The unit, with accompanying support material, will prepare students for the writing demands of Higher Education courses to which they pathway.
- It will also complete the modelling of adjunct writing subjects that can be generalised to other TAFE Diplomas.
International student pathways in law
Project manager: Helen Murphy/Tao Bak
Project outline: Building on previous work, this project will concentrate on the systematic development of students’ language skills in the law subject in the Diploma of Business and in Corporate Law, to improve the learning outcomes of onshore and offshore international students pathwaying into HE. A coherent set of flexible and sustainable language and learning resources will be developed and implemented in a number of mediums, including embedded and supplementary materials, both hard copy and online, a DVD and parallel workshops.
Language and the law -community of practice/network
Project manager: Peter Moratis
Project outline: This project will establish a VU wide, cross-disciplinary and sustainable Community of Practice. The Community of Practice will be an umbrella entity for work on legal discourse in university. It will particularly support the legal projects by providing opportunities for discussion of issues and input from a range of educators. Staff will be supported by a range of supports including a website for materials and also PD for staff. The Legal Discourse Community of Practice may be a novel institutional form for the university. It is based on the premise that pedagogic problems thrown up by the challenge of inclusively may be best solved not within the confines of a discipline or sector but through new institutional forms devised to bring together the expertise of staff cross sectorally and across disciplines. The Legal Discourse Community of Practice will model an approach which may have university-wide application.
Low level course for CALD sts – pathways into law and legal studies
Project manager: Phil Moore
Project outline: Four teachers from three Schools will collaborate to:
- Identify the language and learning skills required of students to successfully complete the customised Diploma of Business (Legal Services).
- Identify language and learning strategies, practices, and resources that will assist students to acquire these skills.
- Identify where each element of this approach is best placed within the course - either embedded within existing modules or within a customised Concurrent Studies module.
- Customise a Concurrent Studies module.
- Develop resources.
- Trial the approach with students in semester 1, 2008. Evaluate and report on outcomes.
- Deliver professional development sessions.
TESOL students mentoring ESL further study students
Project manager: Sashi Mani / Venny Smolich
Project outline: In this project, students from the School of Education undertaking TESOL method courses will be linked to TAFE ESL students. The education students will act as mentors to the ESL students. They will work with the ESL students to develop targeted learning activities which respond to the particular needs and preferred learning style of these students, in collaboration with TAFE ESL teachers. The HE students will also be providing information to the TAFE students about studying in the HE sector.
Multiple literacies in ESL – innovative pedagogies for youth ESL
Project manager: Peter Newnhan
Project outline: The project develops the idea that there are many types of literacies that students use to communicate with. These literacies are not limited to the traditional paper-based forms of reading and writing English. Through action learning, seven (7) ESL teachers who currently make up the ESL Access (Youth) program team will explore and develop techniques to teach English which use speech, image and movement as a form of communication. The media for this teaching will be, but is not limited to, speech, internet images and text, email, video conferencing and video images conveyed and developed on computers and mobile phones. Each member of the team will be required to produce a unit of work which can be integrated into the ESL Access (Youth) curriculum as an outcome of the project.
Models for Literature reviews
Project manager: Rob Walker
Project outline: Develop and trial a usable, interactive, web-based tutorial for Literature Review for Social Work research for year 2 and year 4 students and Social Work practice. The project will
- Deconstruct a model literature review to identify its key successful characteristics
- Highlight and annotate each of these characteristics
- Provide interactive opportunities for students to apply their understanding
- Provide interactive language support to develop and extend students’ command of effective expressions
Learning to learn for VCE
Project manager: Susheel Chand
Project outline: The project is predicated on the idea that developing the Learning to Learn skills of adult students returning to study will assist them to strengthen learning capability, improve their capacity to complete VCE and enhance satisfaction with the learning experience. Through a facilitated process, with the input from professionals with expertise in Learning to Learn and the use of multimedia in its application, VCE teachers will develop an ‘Online Resource on L2L: Students and Staff’, integrated into the VCE curriculum. The resource will be accessible on the ‘myvce’ website and professional development seminar(s) for staff will be delivered.
Multimedia assignment support resource of interviews with community leaders
Project manager: Fiona Henderson / Alan McWilliams
Project outline: The project will produce a learner-centred DVD of structured interviews with business leaders from the western region of Melbourne, and with business leaders from Malaysia, mainland China and Hong Kong. The interviews will be conducted in English and where appropriate bilingually in Cantonese, Mandarin and Malay. This resource will be used by the target student groups to support Learning in the Workplace and Community project assignment. The assignment requires students to interview a manager in industry which many students in the target groups do not have the local social networks or cultural context to undertake. The DVD will provide these students with materials for analysis and will also present to M&OB students models of management practices in other cultures.