Transforming a University

This unique collection shows what happens when one university takes on the challenge of developing the scholarship of teaching and learning with a view to enhancing students' learning experiences. Authors from the sciences, engineering, humanities and social sciences, and from the health sciences, demonstrate the research they have done to investigate their students' learning. The editors, Angela Brew and Judyth Sachs, have captured the intricacies of teaching and learning in different academic domains in this rich and varied collection. The book explores students' responses to contemporary art, to multicultural music and to architecture for the poor and dispossessed. It explores students' ability to transfer mathematical knowledge from one subject to another; how students learn to talk like a pharmacist, or understand basic concepts in physics; how students are prepared for university study in first year classes or in the operating theatre; how they learn to write like a scientist; how they learn in online discussions and how they understand group work and group assessment. Each chapter is grounded in rigorous research and scholarship and indicates actions that have been taken to improve teaching and students' learning. This book is a remarkable demonstration of scholarly teaching practice from a single institution. It should be read by all teachers and managers in higher and tertiary education institutions interested in developing teaching and learning.

Angela Brew is a professorial fellow in the Learning and Teaching Centre at Macquarie University.

Judyth Sachs is professor emerita of educational studies at Macquarie University.

Preface
About the book
Contributors

1. Approaches to the scholarship of teaching and learning
Angela Brew

Part 1: researching students’ understandings and experiences
2. Same words, different meanings: learning to talk the scientific language of pharmacy
Erica Sainsbury and Richard Walker
3. Learning and teaching of basic sciences in the health related professions in the 21st century
Laura Minasian-Batmanian and Jennifer Lingard
4. Moral conflict, cultural pluralism and contemporary visual arts education
Ann Elias
5. Here, alive and accessible: the role of an inquiry-based fieldwork project in changing student attitudes to cultural diversity in music education
Kathryn Marsh
6. The development of epistemic fluency: learning to think for a living
Peter Goodyear and Robert Ellis

Part 2: researching student assessment
7. Evaluating student perceptions of group work and group assessment
Fiona White, Hilary Lloyd and Jerry Goldfried
8. Assessment of understanding in physics: a case study
Ian Sefton and Manjula Sharma

Part 3: researching students’ preparedness for university study
9. Students’ experiences of learning in the operating theatre
Patricia M. Lyon
10. The student experiences study: using research to transform curriculum for Indigenous health sciences students
Susan Page, Sally Farrington and Kristie Daniel-DiGregorio
11. An integrated approach to teaching writing in the sciences
Charlotte Taylor and Helen Drury
12. Investigating students’ ability to transfer mathematics
Sandra Britton, Peter New, Andrew Roberts and Manjula Sharma
13. Participatory action research in an arts transition program
Nerida Jarkey

Part 4: cycles of research and curriculum change
14. A collaborative approach to improving academic honesty
Mark Freeman, Henriikka Clarkeburn and Lesley Treleaven
15. Transforming learning: using structured online discussions to engage learners
Helen Wozniak and Sue Silveira
16. Informing eLearning software development processes with the student experience of learning
Rafael Calvo, Robert Ellis, Nicholas Carrol and Lina Markauskaite
17. www.theglobalstudio.com: towards a new design education paradigm?
Anna Rubbo
18. Research-led curriculum development in time and organisational management skills at the Faculty of Health Sciences
Barbara Adamson, Tanya Covic, Peter Kench and Michelle Lincoln
19. Competency-based curriculum: permanent transition in dentistry
Tania Gerzina

Part 5: the challenges and triumphs of transformation
20. Encouraging the scholarship of learning and teaching in an institutional context
Tai Peseta, Angela Brew, Kim McShane and Simon Barrie
21. Learning to be a scholarly teaching faculty: cultural change through shared leadership
Rosanne Taylor and Paul Canfield
22. The scholarship of teaching in a research-intensive university: some reflections and future possibilities
Judyth Sachs

References
Index

Format: paperback
Size: 250 × 176 mm
322 pages
20 b&w illustrations, 31 b&w tables, and 9 colour illustrations
ISBN: 9781920898281
Publication: 21 Jun 2007