Happy Lunar New Year - Year of the Dragon - 2012

As we enter the Year of the Dragon, have a wonderful and prosperous Lunar New Year and to all my Vietnamese friends chúc mừng năm mới

In my recent presentation Using Work Integrated Learning (WIL) in the classroom for success at University of Canberra Stuff that Works series, 19 August 2011, I discussed my approach of using ‘texts’ that are developed by industry leaders – that are a good read, informative and discuss the concepts (theory) along with professional practice. I talked about how these ‘texts’ (well actually ‘non-texts’ because they really are books) motivate and inspire students because it isn’t about going page by page in a ho-hum academic text book (not that all academic text books are like this!), and how students learn by discussing the professional practice of leading industry practitioners. http://canberra.academia.edu/SallyWebster/Talks/51353/Using_Work_Integrated_Learning_WIL_in_the_classroom_for_success

In one of my subjects, Client Relationship Management, I use Robert Solomon’s The Art of Client Service, which I’ve discussed previously on this blog. In addition to using this brilliant read as an information source, I’ve also engaged with Robert and established a network with him that supports my students. Robert’s generosity towards my students is inspiring. Due to this, I wanted to reward him even though any gift would only be a small token for all his effort.

Recently one of our Advertising-Marketing Communication students at University of Canberra Nala Annous visited New York with much wonderful support from Robert Solomon (who assisted in organising meetings for Nala with leading agencies and industry professionals). http://www.canberra.edu.au/monitor/2011/june/30-nala

Nala kindly ‘schlepped’ The Gruen Transfer book by Jon Casimir (Harper Collins, Sydney 2010) around the globe to give to Robert as a gift on behalf of myself and my students. I stress it was a small gift for all of Robert's amazing and motivational support. It seemed only appropriate to give this book to Robert – a New York adman / Madmen! – especially as I use The Gruen Transfer book and series http://www.abc.net.au/tv/gruentransfer/ in my subject Advertising Strategy.

My goal was to enlighten Robert to the wonders of the Australian advertising industry. It’s great to see he’s now a fan! http://adventuresinclientservice.com/post/9379756372

Presentation on: Using Work Integrated Learning (WIL) in the classroom for success

If you are in Canberra on Friday 19 August, and interested in hearing me talk about innovative and creative approaches that motivate university students: 'Using Work Integrated Learning (WIL) in the classroom for success', come along to 'Stuff that Works' presentation - 12.30pm-1.30pm, Teaching Commons, Building 1, University of Canberra.

http://canberra.academia.edu/SallyWebster/Talks/51353/Using_Work_Integrated_Learning_WIL_in_the_classroom_for_success

How important is Feedback?

Feedback is the issue that students complain most about at a University. From my limited observation and experience, the students only get worried about their grades – either for individual assignments or final grades – if they haven’t received what they consider to be adequate and appropriate feedback during their studies. So what does this look like and will students ever be satisfied?

As a relative new academic, I started in August 2009, in my first semester of teaching I delivered as best as I could using Stephen Brookfield’s autobiographic lens approach (even though I didn’t know about Brookfield at the time!). I provided feedback as I had experienced as a student. Sadly with academia, often a new academic is given the keys to the office and that’s all the induction and training that’s offered. It’s a sink or swim approach – and as someone who swims between 1-2 kilometres a day, I was determined I would not sink! Not possible!

In this first semester of teaching, I offered feedback as best I could within an incredibly heavy teaching load, developing and teaching a unit that hadn’t been taught before and course convening (program coordinator) for the first time. By the end of the semester, reviewing the student feedback on my own performance, I realised I had a lot to learn. While I thought I had been giving students ongoing feedback – via emails, conversations, in-class discussions, etc, I realised that I hadn’t explained to students that this was feedback. They were so used to receiving written comments on an Assignment Coversheet believing this was the only type of feedback there was. While I was providing this approach to students, I realised I had to change my ways if I wanted to ‘educate’ them about other styles of feedback. This is something I have now been exploring since this time.

In an effort to educate students about the different approaches to feedback, I now include in the Unit Outline (Course or Subject Outline) the following:

Feedback can be given to students through a variety of ways, including individual, group, whole of class, self or peer feedback. This can be through written comments, student consultation, private discussions, email, phone conversation, before and after classes, through class discussion, by formal peer feedback, peer discussion, postings on Moodle, etc. For this assignment, feedback will be offered through these approaches and not through the traditional assignment feedback sheet (hand written comments). As assignments within this unit are formative, which means they build upon learning skills from one activity and assessment to the next, tutors may privately provide feedback to individual students to assist with ongoing skills development.

‘Feedback’ is an ongoing discussion within classes – and I now label Feedback as ‘Feedback’ on all appropriate communications – emails, Moodle posts, in class discussions, when students offer peer feedback in class, etc. I Call it, I name it, I label it as much as possible. It would be an interesting exercise to count the number of times I now use the word ‘feedback’ and then compare it to that first semester of teaching in 2009! There would be a dramatic increase.

As well, for individual and group assignments, I now provide detailed feedback via Moodle – it’s all electronic. This has proved to be a great time saver and enables me (and my tutors) to offer more detailed, lengthy feedback than the traditional approach of handwritten comments on the assignment sheets. All of us can type reasonably fast, so this is a much quicker approach than the laborious hand written comments – and it also means students can read my comments! (I often can’t read my own writing!).

It’s critical to find time saving approaches as the University (University of Canberra) has a policy that feedback on assessment tasks must be provided within 10 working days (essentially two weeks) of their submission. However, marking about 100 assignments makes this is almost impossible if I want to provide valuable feedback that will assist the student in their development. This is one of the many challenges for the academic: delivering against university operational requirements that have been introduced with the belief that it assists the students, but in reality it could be counter to what is trying to be achieved. I refuse to send back assignments with comments like ‘good work’ or ‘needs improving’. I try to offer feedback as I would want to receive it – which means that I need to consider the students work. I thought I did well getting feedback to all assignments back within three weeks. If I had continued to use the old approach of writing the feedback on the assignment cover sheet the students would not have received the feedback within this time period as I would have handed them back at the next class, wasting valuable time. However, due to Moodle and posting the feedback online, students receive the feedback and their grades as soon as it is posted; making it far more efficient for them and for me. This doesn’t mean I won’t consider continuous improvement. Something I now realise is a key role for any academic is to consider ways to save time: how to be effective, yet find efficiencies!!

Considering the reflections I have undertaken on the most effective ways to deliver feedback, it was disappointing to receive the feedback in my own studies for the Education Technology subject I have been undertaking for my Graduate Certificate in Tertiary Education. The reason I decided to undertake the GCTE was to learn, develop, improve and have the ability to effectively reflect on my teaching and learning. I want to be pushed and challenged.

The feedback on my Wiki Assignments as posted here on this blog, was as a Rubrics (refer Rubrics Feedback above) – but not what I considered to be an effective rubrics that would assist me to value add and reflect on my skills and abilities – and assist with my teaching. Sadly, it was the most amount of feedback I had received in this subject to date.

However, there have been lots of positives from receiving this limited, somewhat vacant feedback. As a result of my own disappointment and concern that this is a standard offered to academics eager to learn about best practice teaching and learning approaches, I have further reflected on feedback approaches and considered how best to offer and shape it for students. As a result, it was a key discussion that my sessional tutors and I had in our regular end of semester working dinner catch up. We have decided that a suitable feedback approach would be to use a rubrics as well as incorporating detailed, individual, personalised feedback in the comment section – not just three sentences that could be applicable to anyone. We will continue to post this electronically as we all agreed this was a great time saver and gets to the students quickly. We feel that by introducing a rubrics – and including this in the Unit Outline (subject guide), this will assist students further to understand what they will be achieving against. While I have always included detailed Marking Criteria and Expectations of Grade Standards, we believe that with a rubrics it can add another dimension that will further support the student. Our goal is to provide more detailed feedback, and more quickly. Fingers crossed we will achieve this!

Reference:
Brookefield, S. (1995) Becoming a Critically Reflective Teacher. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

and the journey continues...

I originally established this blog as an assignment task within the Education Technology subject that I have been studying in Semester 1 2011 as part of my Graduate Certificate in Tertiary Education. As a relatively new academic, I started working in academia full time from August 2009, I’ve decided to continue this blog as I thought it a great opportunity to document my reflections on teaching and learning – and how I (and others) challenge myself, develop and grow into a role (that of an academic), a role that I am passionate about and find extremely fulfilling.

I welcome all comments and contributions.

The following five blogs are Sally Webster's (S0210757) Wiki for Assignment 1 for Education Technology, EDED20485, CQUniversity, a unit within the Graduate Certificate in Tertiary Education.

Pages include:

What the Wiki… www.wikipedia.org

It’s all about You…YouTube! www.youtube.com

You want evidence...you get research... www.warc.com

Shake up Your Inspiration! www.vimeo.com and http://theinspirationroom.com/daily/

Message in a (online) Bottle http://mumbrella.com.au/ and http://www.adnews.com.au/

Message in (online) Bottle

Due to my extensive professional experience in marketing communications throughout the past 20 years, and my passion to share this knowledge along with my industry contacts with my students, I am frequently asked by my students ‘what can I do to get ahead in the industry?’

My goal is to guide students so they can achieve and be successful creative leaders in the industry, not as Harley (1993) suggests how ‘in many university courses, the teacher’s role is a didactic one, “telling” students what they need to know rather than a coaching role.’

I have the strong belief that if we learn and inquire about others and everything we are in a better position to understand each other, demonstrate respect and be willing to share ideas. I aim to lead by example and encourage my students to be a sponge: to question, consider and create ideas through their learning (as supported by Light and Cox, 2005).

I also reflect on my teaching and consider a range of approaches that will assist me to be an effective teacher who engages with students and peers. I support the leading academic writer and critical thinker, Stephen Brookfield’s concepts of the four ‘lenses’ (1995). These being: theoretical, student, peer, and autobiographical lenses.

In one of the subjects that I convene at University of Canberra, Client Relationship Management 8137, I use as a textbook, ‘The Art of Client Service’ by Robert Solomon (2008). This ‘text’ is symbolic of the way I teach as it is the furthest thing from a text book. It is an advertising industry professional’s honest and at times brutal account of the industry. It achieves what Herrington and Herrington (2006) explain provides a ‘multitude of perspectives to enable students to examine problems from the point of view of a variety of stakeholders (and this) is more conducive to sustained and deep exploration of any issue or problems’ (page 6).

Last year I contacted Solomon in an effort to establish a relationship between this leading industry professional and my students. Even though he is based in New York, Solomon has demonstrated tireless ongoing support and encouragement to my students. He wrote to them suggesting one thing that they could do to get ahead in the industry is to ‘be voracious consumers of everything, and I mean everything, in both old and new media. Ideas can come from anywhere, and you will find inspiration in the most unlikely of connections. Be open to this, and pursue this, with passion and dedication.’ (personal communication, 2010).

At the beginning of each semester I provide students with an information sheet on ‘Useful Advertising-Marketing Communications Resources and Websites’. I do this as I encourage and support my students to be ‘sponges’. Included on this list is the Australian industry’s e:bulletins Mumbrella http://mumbrella.com.au/ and AdNews http://www.adnews.com.au/ These online resources offer free daily e:bulletins that can be delivered direct to an email in-box featuring up-to-date information and news on the advertising-marketing communications industry. Anyone and everyone in the industry subscribe to these bulletins, and industry also makes itself available to be interviewed or showcased – as it is acknowledged that both these online resources are influential and can influence.

I know my teaching challenges students as I place high demands and expectations on them, including being aware of industry trends and current affairs issues, but I want them to be the future leaders of our industry. Students appear to respect this approach and applaud it. This is demonstrated through the strong results I receive in the University’s Unit Satisfaction Surveys on which academics performances are measured. Comments from my Advertising Strategy 6809 2011 anonymous student survey include:

‘Sally Webster has so far made Advertising Strategy a good experience. Her strengths include knowing exactly what she expects of herself and her students. for example, she often critiques professionals in the field of advertising and explains why she does this. I appreciate that she emphasises the fact that advertising is constantly changing, that the consumer and customer will not respond positively to the same tactics they were exposed to years ago.’

‘I have never had a tutor who knew so much about everything, Sally seems to be one of those people that is always on the ball - something extremely rare to find these days, she is the best tutor I've ever had.’

‘Sally is very informed about the material and tries to get us as the students involved and uses a lot of examples to show us and link that to the \"theory\"’

‘Sally is very enthusiastic and passionate about advertising. She's concise and clear in the strategies and theories she teaches us and provides examples we can relate to which makes it fun and easy to pay attention.’

As Race and Pickford (2007) explain: ‘Possibly the most pleasant feedback that any teacher can be given is that their enthusiasm was inspirational to students’ (p15).

Race and Pickford highlight how satisfying this is, however they do not focus on how students and peers can inspire and motivate teachers, which also relates to the Brookfield ‘Student and Peer Lenses’(1995). For me, this inspiration from my students and my peers supports and motivates me to be an even more informed, effective and innovative teacher.

References:
AdNews http://www.adnews.com.au/ accessed 7 May 2011.

Brookefield, S. (1995) Becoming a Critically Reflective Teacher. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Harley, S. (1993). Situated learning and classroom instruction. Educational Technology, 33(3), 46-51.

Herrington, A. and Herrington, J. (2006) What is an Authentic Learning Environment? Idea Group Inc.

Light, G. & Cox, R. Learning & Teaching in Higher Education: The Reflective Professional. Sage Publications, London, 2005.

Mumbrella http://mumbrella.com.au/ accessed 7 May 2011.

Race, P. & Pickford, R. Making Teaching Work: ‘Teaching Smarter’ in Post-Compulsory Education. Sage Publications, London, 2007.

Solomon, R. (2008), The Art of Client Service, 58 things every advertising & marketing professional should know. New York, NY: Kaplan