Collaborative scholarship as a means of improving university teaching practice The general consensus in the literature is that generic professional development workshops in the Scholarship of Teaching & Learning rarely have a lasting impact on changing teaching practice. In an attempt to develop an alternative model, a four-stage Collaborative Scholarship Model was designed by academic development practitioners. This model used small individually-supported projects to mentor individual academic staff into the scholarship of teaching while implementing an innovation into their own teaching. Individual project outcomes included sustained change to teaching practice, demonstrated openness to new ideas, and contribution to the scholarship in the field. Success was measured by tangible outcomes-such as sustained improvement for students, successful implementation of innovative approaches, and peer-recognition (in the form of awards, publications or invited presentations). These project outcomes were used as measures of the effectiveness of the model itself. The Collaborative Scholarship Model appears to have a greater and more sustained impact on the teaching practice of individuals involved, leading to increased research outputs by the participants; however, the labourintensive nature of the model means that only few faculty members can be mentored at any one time by a single academic developer. There are significant benefits to this individualised approach, and the longterm benefits for Faculties and their students may outweigh the limitations in scalability.
This paper reports the findings of a study undertaken by the authors to investigate the ability of students in an introductory statistics subject to undertake a report writing task. It was found that students find such a task quite difficult, and generally are able to score much higher marks on questions where they carry out analyses from first principles using a standard procedure. However, it is also suggested that the report writing task may be classified as a metacognitive activity, and of itself provides a means of facilitating the development of conceptual understanding in students.
A new simulation has been developed to facilitate developmental learning of statistical inference. This simulation has been designed in the light of current multimedia design principals and cognitive theory. While many simulations have been developed to help students understand a variety of statistical concepts, evaluations of what these simulations actually achieve have been relatively scarce. This paper presents a model for the evaluation of simulations. In particular, the paper discusses the way in which the development of the students’ conceptual understanding has been assessed. Some preliminary results from the evaluation of this specific project are presented.
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