Search

This paper documents the outcomes of a study that focused on identifying what motivates students to use mobile devices for learning and to engage in m-learning. An outcome of this study was to provide a better understanding of what educators should consider when adapting their course for mobile learners. The research included seven classes from three Australian universities. The students in this study used laptops or tablet PCs, and in three of the classes, these were provided by the university as part of a laptop/tablet program. The findings indicated that mobility was the key motivator for the use of laptops, and the learning tasks that students found to be most motivating involved accessing information, authoring (e.g., writing, blogging, note taking) and communication. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In tertiary institutions in Australia, and no doubt elsewhere, there is increasing pressure for accountability. No longer are academics assumed a priori to be responsible and capable of self management in teaching and assessing the subjects they run. Procedures are being dictated more from the 'top down'. Although academics may not always appreciate 'top down' policies on teaching and learning, they should at least be open to the possibility that the policies may indeed have merit. On the other hand, academics should never be expected to blindly accept policies dictated from elsewhere. Responsible academics generally also need to evaluate for themselves the validity and legitimacy of externally introduced new policies and procedures. At one Australian tertiary institution, the Academic Board recently endorsed a new assessment policy, to implement criterion referenced assessment (CRA) throughout the university. This new policy is being promoted by the university's teaching and learning support services and is to be implemented gradually throughout the university. As stated in the university's manual of policies and procedures (MOPP) the 'fundamental approach' to the assessment of students was to be one based on 'criterion referencing'. Such Assessment was to be free of any notion of awarding grades dependent on a bell curve, and the criteria against which a student's work was to be assessed would have to be communicated in a detailed and clear way in advance of the actual assessment. Thus, for each piece of assessment, criteria must be given to students, with performance standards for each criteria detailing clearly what standard must be reached on each criterion to achieve a certain result. It is stated in the MOPP that CRA will give the assessment process 'a great deal of objectivity' and will contribute to the 'reliability and validity of the assessment task'. Moreover, it is stated that high, but attainable, standards will 'motivate students and focus their energy on learning rather than on competition with peers'. The teaching team of the final year Information Technology Project Management subject had a strong commitment to continuous improvement processes in the presentation and running of the subject. Given that the university had endorsed a new assessment policy that would soon relate to third year courses, the team decided to apply for, and were subsequently awarded, a faculty grant to implement and test the possible benefits of the endorsed CRA policy. An independent project, funded at faculty level, was undertaken to evaluate the effect of the new assessment policy on a final year unit. The project took a team-based approach to studying the use and effectiveness of criterion referenced assessment. All seven members of the unit's teaching and marking groups were included in the decision making surrounding the design, development, and implementation of CRA and an environment was created in which the team members could openly communicate their experience of CRA. Members of the group initially held a variety of beliefs about CRA that ranged from a dismissal of CRA as merely the latest teaching and learning fad, to keen interest in how it might practically operate in the unit. This diversity of thought was regarded as valuable and in keeping with the attempt to take an impartial 'warts and all' view of the CRA implementation, noting equally its positive and negative impacts. It was found that many of the purported advantages attributed in the literature to CRA were not forthcoming. Moreover, some unexpected results were uncovered. While prior research suggests that CRA's failures are due to implementation errors, our work suggests that the real problem is that the assumptions behind CRA are flawed. This paper discusses the outcomes of the project for the students, for the academics, and for the institution. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Year-long team projects with external clients provide a well recognized opportunity for students to gain industry experience, whilst being supported and guided by staff to minimize risks. Each group should be supervised to ensure that they have enough direction and confidence to approach a new problem of significant size, without being daunted. A structure is needed that is flexible and adaptable to suit various institutional cultures but, at the same time, provides the safety net to ensure that success is likely. This paper presents a reflective analysis of teaching at three different institutions and presents the resulting distilled wisdom of experience that has produced a structured framework for capstone project units. The proposed structure is scalable to any class size and portable across institutions and potentially across technical disciplines. The structure leads to team student projects that are successfully engaging and provide excellent experience toward producing work-ready graduates. The structure is flexible in design so that the teaching workload does not increase too much as class sizes increase, but students are still well supported with appropriate scaffolding and mentoring. We detail the key factors in our framework: careful project selection, appropriate sign posts, and helpful guides that together improve upon overall project success. We argue that students need appropriate projects, 'good' clients, and a well formed team. The sign posts support students through the 'uncharted waters' of ill-defined problem-based learning. Sign posts include: deliverables, deadlines, team notebook, progress reports, and accountable time-tracking. Helpful guides spread the teaching workload broadly: relying on cultural expectations, technology, team supervisor, feedback, and clear marking guidelines. This structure has been successfully implemented in at least three different universities in Australia and several remote partner teaching sites in different countries over many years. We have provided case study examples of implementations in three different Australian Universities: a large urban university (The University of Melbourne), a small urban university (Victoria University) and a regional university (The University of Ballarat). Students benefit from such an experience in their final stages of an undergraduate computing degree. The scaffolding and support provided by the structure enables students to improve their skills in technical development, communication, team work, project management and client negotiation. The project unit provides opportunities for independent self directed learning and realistic experiences in an environment that allows for experiential learning. Students are engaged when working with real problems for real industry clients. Our student feedback supports our view that students' confidence in their ability to manage a project is enhanced through their project experience. Based on our own observations and anecdotal feedback, we believe that our students benefit and are helped to become 'industry ready' graduates through the learning experienced in the capstone project course. This same structure could be used successfully in similar programs. We would encourage others to consider adapting this framework to their institutional context, as we have collectively found it a positive model to help us manage the considerable workload in offering successful year long undergraduate software projects with clients. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

With the rapid expansion of the transnational education market, more and more universities join the ranks of transnational education providers or expand their transnational education offerings. Many of those providers regard fully-online provision of their programs as an economic alternative to face-to-face teaching. Do transnational students accept this model as a viable and effective educational alternative? A recent research study investigated students' attitudes towards fully-online provision of computing education programs in one of the most important Australian transnational education markets: Hong Kong. Of interest were students' perceptions about the suitability of fully-online mode of teaching and learning with respect to computing studies, and their views on the importance of face-to-face interaction in their programs. Students from three transnational computing programs, offered in Hong Kong by Australian universities in co-operation with Hong Kong partners, participated in the study; the programs are delivered in face-to-face sessions and rely on the Internet for support and communication (unit Web sites, bulletin boards, email, etc.). The rationale behind the choice of locale and participants for the study was threefold: first, Hong Kong is one of the largest Australian transnational education markets (hence, the results of the study would be of importance); second, it is a well-developed territory where English is commonly spoken (hence, participants would not be biased towards online education because of lack of suitable technological infrastructure or inadequate linguistic skills); and thirdly, computing students were technology savvy and, therefore, would not be biased in their views of online education because of technophobia. Approximately three hundred students participated in the study, which was based on analysis of data collected though a survey and group interviews with students. Results from the survey revealed that students did not regard fully-online provision of transnational programs as a preferred alternative to the current model -- that is one that is based on face-to- face communication and uses the Internet for support. Their opposition was pronounced and ranged from total rejection of fully-online provision in one of the programs (100% of students against the idea), to marginal support of fully-online provision from students in the other two programs (9% and 13% respectively). Students repeatedly stated the importance of face-to-face communication as the most important reason for preferring the current program model. The subsequent group interviews with students sought to explore further the reasons behind the students' views. Students again responded in favor of the current model of the programs reiterating the importance of face-to-face interaction. They regarded face-to-face communication as more conducive to the learning process, affording better opportunity to sharing knowledge and asking for help, "easier" and more interactive, and more compatible with the needs of Hong Kong students. However, the respondents acknowledged the usefulness of the Internet as a means for providing course material, facilitating submission of assignments, and enabling communication with lecturers outside classes. The findings of the study endorse the current trends of Australian transnational education in South East Asia and support the prediction that Web-supported face-to-face delivery is likely to continue as a principal model of transnational tertiary education programs. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]