Anne Gardner

Investigating the capacity of self and peer assessment activities to engage students and promote learning

The authors have previously reported the effectiveness of using self and peer assessment to improve learning outcomes by providing opportunities to practise, assess and provide feedback on students’ attribute development. Despite this work and the research of others, a significant number of students and, indeed, many academics focus on the free-rider deterrent capability of self and peer assessment, rather than its capacity to provide opportunities for developing judgement and facilitating reflection and feedback to complete the learning cycle. The advent of web-based tools such as SPARKPLUS allows the frequent and efficient implementation of self and peer assessment activities even in large classes. This article reports the results of an investigation into whether the regular use of self and peer assessment in different contexts promoted effective peer learning, increased engagement and encouraged students to learn.

Developing team skills with self‐ and peer assessment: Are benefits inversely related to team function?

Purpose – Self‐ and peer assessment has proved effective in promoting the development of teamwork and other professional skills in undergraduate students. However, in previous research approximately 30 percent of students reported that its use produced no perceived improvement in their teamwork experience. It was hypothesised that a significant number of these students were probably members of a team that would have functioned well without self‐ and peer assessment and hence the process did not improve their teamwork experience. This paper aims to report the testing of this hypothesis.Design/methodology/approach – The paper reviews some of the literature on self‐ and peer assessment, outlines the online self‐ and peer assessment tool SPARKPLUS, and analyses the results of a post‐subject survey of students in a large multi‐disciplinary engineering design subject.Findings – It was found that students who were neutral as to whether self‐ and peer assessment improved their teamwork experience cannot be assume...

Collaborative learning frameworks to promote a positive learning culture

Engineers are often required to make critical judgments involving decisions that extend beyond traditional discipline boundaries. This requires professional engineers to undertake ongoing learning. Much of this learning is informal, learnt on the job from peers. Hence, to prepare students for professional practice they require opportunities to experience, practise, reflect and improve their ability to work in collaborative learning environments. While few would argue the benefits of collaborative learning these benefits are not automatic. Thoughtful design including scaffolding to motivate desired approaches and behavior is required. In this paper we report the results of several studies investigating the components of successful collaborative learning activities. We found that assessment scaffolding directed at promoting a culture of learning rather than a focus on passing a series of assessments was effective in engaging students, that formative activities allowed students to focus on learning and that learning from collaborative activities improved if the activities included variation for learning and a confirmation task. Using the results of these studies we developed two frameworks characterizing the elements of collaborative learning activities. In this paper we report investigating the capacity of these frameworks to develop an effective and integrated learning experience for students.

Improving self- and peer assessment processes with technology

Purpose – As a way of focusing curriculum development and learning outcomes universities have introduced graduate attributes, which their students should develop during their degree course. Some of these attributes are discipline‐specific, others are generic to all professions. The development of these attributes can be promoted by the careful use of self‐ and peer assessment. The authors have previously reported using the self‐ and peer assessment software tool SPARK in various contexts to facilitate opportunities to practise, develop, assess and provide feedback on these attributes. This research and that of the other developers identified the need to extend the features of SPARK, to increase its flexibility and capacity to provide feedback. This paper seeks to report the results of the initial trials to investigate the potential of these new features to improve learning outcomes.Design/methodology/approach – The paper reviews some of the key literature with regard to self‐ and peer assessment, discusse...

Reimagining site-walks: Sites for rich learning

ABSTRACT This paper presents the preliminary results of a multi-phased qualitative investigation of continuing professional learning. The study focused on the identification of common engineering practices that contribute to learning. This paper examines a particular practice, that of the site-walk. It draws on practice theory, an emerging set of conceptual resources used in workplace learning research. Data was elicited via qualitative methods such as interviews, focus groups and site visits with experienced engineers employed in a large Australian engineering company. It was analysed using the lens of practice theory. The findings suggest that site-walks, while an everyday practice for engineers, are also highly learning-rich. This understanding has implications for continual professional learning, and for educators of novice engineers.

Academic identity reconstruction: the transition of engineering academics to engineering education researchers

The field of research (FoR) that an academic participates in is both a manifestation of, and a contributor to the development of their identity. When an academic changes that FoR the question then arises as to how they reconcile this change with their identity. This paper uses the identity-trajectory framework to analyse the discourse of 19 engineering academics in relation to their educational research. The findings reveal insights into the identity changes experienced in the transition from typical engineering academic to engineering education researcher. Participants’ responses illustrate how various aspects of their research activities contribute to the development of the networking and intellectual strands of their academic identity as engineering education researchers, and the effect of their university environment on this development. Conference participation was found to be an important contributor to progression of the intellectual and networking strands of identity-trajectory for researchers at all stages of development, although for different reasons.

Developing Teamwork and other professional skills while teaching reinforced concrete design

Professionals, in addition to being technically competent, need a range of generic skills. These include teamwork, communication, being able to think both critically and independently, being able to critically appraise one’s work and the work of others and an appreciation of the need and value of reflection in both their personal and professional life [1, 2]. However, there is a reported competency gap between the skills required by employers and those developed by students during their undergraduate courses [3, 4]. At the University of Technology, Sydney, we are using self and peer assessment in our Engineering program to develop professional competencies in undergraduate engineering students. Its co-ordinated use is providing opportunities for students to practise, develop and assess their professional skills and develop their judgement [5] within subjects where traditional discipline content is taught.

Investigation of students’ experiences of gendered cultures in engineering workplaces

ABSTRACT Women remain severely under-represented in engineering in Australia as in all Western countries. This limits the pool of talent, standpoints and approaches within the profession. Furthermore, this under-representation equates to restriction of the benefits of being an engineer mainly to men. Gendered workplace experiences have been found to contribute to women leaving the profession. In this study we explore students’ experiences of gendered cultures in engineering workplaces, using interviews with a purposive sample of 13 students (4 male) recruited following a previous survey. Although the overall experience of workplace learning is positive for many students, male and female engineering students reported experiences consistent with masculine cultures. Educators and employers must proactively lead improvements to the culture in engineering workplaces, prepare students for gendered workplaces and support students to reflect during and after workplace experiences. The experiences presented here could be adapted to enhance inclusivity training.

The role of peer review in identity development for engineering education researchers

ABSTRACT Peer review has been the focus of an ongoing study at a series of recent annual conferences of the Australasian Association for Engineering Education (AAEE). A further development of this study has been to explore the perspective/s of the authors of these conference papers and the impact that peer review can have on their development as researchers. This paper uses the identity-trajectory framework to illustrate relationships between peer review and academic identity construction for engineering education authors in the AAEE community. Participants’ responses illustrate how various aspects of responding to reviews and writing reviews for other authors, contribute to the development of the networking and intellectual strands of their academic identity as engineering education researchers. We suggest that members of the global engineering education community should be mindful of how they write their peer reviews of conference papers to ensure the opportunity to constructively contribute to their peers’ successful transition into this different research paradigm is not missed.

Flipping on a Shoestring: A Case Study of Engineering Mechanics at the University of Technology Sydney

University-wide decisions are rarely made from purely pedagogical motivations so it was that the institutional pressure to use a flipped learning environment was driven by the objective of reducing face-to-face teaching time. In response to this pressure, I started flipping part of a first year civil engineering subject in the spring semester (September, October and November) of 2013. I have subsequently flipped this subject for both semesters in 2014. Since this subject, Engineering Mechanics, traditionally has a high failure rate, I saw it as an appropriate subject to trial a new approach so that I could comment on the institutional initiative from a position informed by personal experience. A flipped learning environment also appeared to align with the collaborative learning framework developed progressively over several years by Dr. Keith Willey and myself (see Fig. 10.1), and this guided the overall subject design. This chapter is an explanation of how I use the collaborative learning framework to support a flipped learning environment.