The Teaching Today’s Diverse Learners module

The Teaching Today’s Diverse Learners module that Teresa De Fazio and I have been working on is aimed at supporting participants to think more deeply about the diverse student cohorts entering higher education and the richness this offers to the learning and teaching experience.

The module is designed to be taken after completion of the Learning and Teaching Theories and Principles and Collaborative Learning: Profiting from Peer Power modules and is intended to build on what participants learned in those modules. Given the breadth of ideas related to diversity we encourage participants to think about what diversity looks like in their teaching contexts, the support for both staff members and students that is available within their institutions and most importantly how they work with diversity so that students feel part of a more inclusive, motivated and inspired learning culture. The module involves the following sections:

1. Introductory Activity: Who are we referring to when we consider diversity?
2. Reflection: Acknowledgement of country
3. Defining diversity
4. Who are we actually talking about when we consider diversity in higher education?
5. Responding through practical strategies
6. Determining the role of the university and its staff
7. Final reflection, review and next steps

 

Each one comprises self-paced activities including videos; readings and reflection exercises. Is there anything missing from the list? We realise it may be difficult to respond as you cannot see what each area includes, but we are trying to determine if there is anything more general that we may be missing, bearing in mind that the idea of this module is to help staff think about how to best support students to learn, it is not about specifically addressing a particular cohort in relation to their diverse needs but thinking about how to be inclusive so all students regardless of their background feel they can participate and learn.

We look forward to hearing from you.

Ann  Luzeckyj and Teresa de Fazio

To quiz or not to quiz?

Dear All

Colleagues from 19 Australian universities are contributing to the development of the ‘Contemporary Australian Teaching Practices’ MOOC which we will pilot in semester 2, 2017. As the MOOC is designed specifically for university staff who are new to teaching, we have designed it to introduce basic concepts such as how to provide constructive feedback or teach a diversity of students.  Ideally I would like to see our new teaching colleagues spend about two hours a week across a semester, exploring a different topic every week.

However, it is possible that some colleagues who have been teaching previously will access the MOOC. While I want to encourage people to dip into all of the 11 modules, people will of course, pick and choose what is of value to them: just in time, just for me.

I wonder if it would be useful therefore to have say one multiple choice question from each module in a preliminary ‘self assessment’ quiz, which colleagues could use to guide their choices.

What do you think? To quiz or not to quiz???

Cheers

Kym