With the closure of RMIT campuses due to Covid-19 restrictions in March, there was a massive push to quickly move courses online for remote delivery to students situated overseas, interstate, and locally. This was a huge undertaking for teachers and program managers to merge synchronous (e.g., real-time online lectures) and asynchronous (e.g., activities students could complete on their own time) learning and teaching methods in a very short amount of time. As part of this rapid transition, the VE design team worked in coordination with Studios and other departments to support teachers by providing them with the information they needed to get their content and assessments up on Canvas. This included helping teachers to set–up and host online lectures/tutorials, uploading a variety of learning materials, and devise work-around solutions for previously taught face-to-face learning activities, demos, and labs. The VE Essentials and Flexible Delivery websites were created as starting reference points for teachers looking for teaching, tech, and tool resources. Additionally, training and PD sessions were offered, and teachers were encouraged to ask questions and share their experiences through Yammer, online chats, emails, one-on-one phone/video calls, and online drop-in sessions. With the closure of campuses extending from weeks to months to possibly the rest of 2020, a QC Framework review of all VE Semester 1 courses was conducted at the end of April. Courses were evaluated across seven dimensions: clarity of instructions given to students in Canvas presentation and accessibility to the course content (e.g., online lectures, recordings, and PowerPoint slides) type of learning materials available (e.g., embedded or link-outs to library or external resources) use of learning activities for students to practice developing skills and knowledge teacher contact and availability details student engagement and collaboration through regular […]
POSTPONED: Think Tank Series – Overcoming barriers to learning in the digital age
Due to changing priorities as part of RMIT’s Coronavirus response initiatives, we have decided to postpone this Expert Panel Series event until later this year. Thanks for your interest and resharing across your networks. As soon as we have a date for the next panel event we’ll let you know. —- The focus for this session is on overcoming barriers to learning in the digital age and we will be asking our panellists: “How can we overcome barriers to learning in the digital age in VET, industry and skills training?” Our panellists include: Campbell Craig, Digital Learning Solutions Consultant Julie Day, Instructional Designer at TAFE Gippsland Karen Manwaring, Teacher, Learning Skills Unit at Melbourne Polytechnic This event will be facilitated by Haley Gunn in the VE Design team. You can view the live stream and interactive panel session by clicking here. Note: If the video doesn’t work after pressing the play button, click on the link to ‘watch this video on YouTube and a new tab will open. […]
Lessons Learned in Assessment Design
On the 30th January the Vocational Education Design Team’s VE Assessment Lead Haley Gunn and Assessment Writer Janet McHardy travelled to RMIT’s Bundoora campus to attend a meeting held by the Learning and Teaching Community of Practice group. Speakers Dr Jess Danaher from the School of Science and Associate Professor Sophia Xenos from the School of Health and Biomedical Sciences discussed the innovative ways that they are approaching assessment in their courses. Dr Jess Danaher spoke about allowing choice for students when it comes to assessments. This could include negotiating the modality or format of the assessment used to collect evidence of the student’s competency. Examples include a presentation; the student choosing to frame it as a pitch meeting to a brand sponsor or a how-to demonstration. Or a student creating a set of blog posts rather than undertaking a traditional literature review. Other examples include students helping to develop questions that may be included in the end of semester exam, narrowing that down to five appropriate options and drafting an appropriate answer. This approach helps to develop student problem-solving skills as well as helping them to prepare for the exam. Dr Danaher’s talk of embracing creativity in assessments and […]
We built a hospital!
We built a hospital! Well sort of. We built a simulation of a fictional hospital called Bagwan Health. Bagwan is a Woiwurrung/Boonwurrung word which means ‘life’. The virtual hospital consists of a realistic staff intranet and a virtual tour of the hospital. How did it get started? Simulation of a workplace environment is often required for workplace training and assessment. Many courses create scenarios to simulate workplace environments, but they often lack the realistic connections with a workplace to meet auditing and assessment. The Vocational Education Design Team (VEDT) had investigated some examples of virtual workplaces to meet the requirements for course content, however they were not scalable and shareable across units, schools and courses. That is when the idea of creating a fictional health care facility came about by Elissa McKenzie and Jack Dunstan as a way to provide a broad range of services delivered by qualified staff whose competencies match with RMIT’s educational delivery model. In April 2019 Elissa and Jack successfully pitched the project entitled The Virtual Workplace at the RMIT Education Innovation Pitch Tank. The successful pitch gained access to $50,000 to fund the project. How was the virtual hospital created? A co-design approach was taken […]
How might learning design promote innovation?
On the 23rd January, Janet McHardy, Sinead Murphy and I headed to Academy Xi to listen, learn and discuss, prompted by the question ‘how might learning design promote innovation?’ The session was facilitated by Zoe Fitzgerald and included presentations from Frank Guzman, General Manager of Academy Xi and Simon Kavanagh, International Manager of Kaos. After an entertaining warm-up activity, Guzman pointed to the learning design approach used at Academy Xi and his thoughts on learning design that promotes innovation. Guzman reminded us that tools and theory were only a small part of the equation. These are constantly changing. Rather, the focus should be on the mindset to understand why we use tools or processes. Understanding the ‘why’ behind the ‘doing’. Understanding why enables problem solving. We don’t always know what the solution will be but working through the problem is an important step. A key part of this is looking at how people navigate ambiguity. Some may be a little resistant and want to focus on technology and processes, however it is up to our educators to provide evidence to convince them that just learning the technological skills is not the driver. Kavanagh opened his presentation with the quote: “Life […]
What’s in store for 2020?
I love the beginning of a new year. Everything seems fresh. A feeling of relaxation and fun hangs in the air as everyone settles back into work after their summer break. Walking around campus, there is calm and quiet, mixed with signs of preparation for the year ahead. While our team was getting ready to face a new year, I asked for their predictions on the trends we are likely to see in 2020. Here is what they came up with. Personalised learning Personalisation of the learning journey is still on the agenda. At VEDT, we are looking at different streams of interactions and assessments. In 2020, we envisage that students will have more opportunity to choose their own learning pathways through content, and hopefully also through the assessment experience. 3P Learning predict that customised, student-centred and adaptive learning experiences will take centre stage. This involves students being able to select the mediums and lessons based on their interests and needs. The Digital Marketing Institute points out that new tools are deepening the capacity for personalised learning, with artificial intelligence and machine learning offering the ability for content to be responsive and to evolve with the learner. Learning analytics Of […]
2019 Wrap up
VE Design Team – 2019 Wrap up For the last five months I have had the pleasure of working in the VE Design Team as a Project Coordinator. During this time, I have gained a holistic overview of what it takes to run a project, and how many moving parts must come together to ensure its success. As my secondment comes to an end, I would like to take this opportunity to reflect on the achievements of the team. Taking pride in your work is something I value greatly, and I am proud of the exceptional work that we delivered across a number of varied and highly-nuanced projects. Before I get too sentimental, here is everything the VEDT has achieved in 2019. Media Communications Designed to support the program transition for the Diploma of Interactive Media, the VEDT provided a digital uplift of two units of competency. These units provided training for students wanting to improve their understanding of online platforms and how best to engage with them. Emble Senior Multimedia Designer, Oliver Lorraine-Wedd led VEDT’s collaboration with RMIT Studios Digital Media Team and RMIT Online to develop the Canvas authoring tool, Emble. Emble is a course building tool created […]
Podcasting in VE
Podcasts are used by most of us. They’re (usually) free, easy, convenient and enjoyable. We can learn from them and listen to podcasts about our specific interests or favourite presenters while we are in transit, performing other tasks (washing the dishes while listening to a podcast is a personal favourite) or in thousands of other situations. So, can we use podcasting effectively in VE to improve the student experience? If so, what’s the most effective way? This blog is a look into podcasting research through the lens of application in VE. As a VE teacher, I always summarised critical content that I knew was important to prepare students for assessments and the industry. Early in 2019, I recorded two 7-min podcasts that summarised the previous six weeks of study. The students enjoyed the podcasts, asked for more in the future, and used them to help prepare for an upcoming assessment. As well as summarising content, within VE, podcasting could be used to interview industry representatives and subject matter experts. This creates a sustainable resource that, if appropriate, could be used for future cohorts while reducing lecture time. Abdous et al (2011) suggested that podcasting can be an effective study tool […]
Think Tank Series – Gamification
Gamification is a word heard a lot in the learning world. Have you ever wondered why we should use it? How? When? In this month’s Think Tank expert panel session on 14 November, the VE Design Team proposed the following question: “What is best practice in gamification for VET, industry and skills training?” Our experts for this panel discussion were: Aliki Christou – Learning Manager at Clear Horizon Dr Charles daCosta – Lecturer Animation at Queensland University of Technology Andrew Del Mastro – Design Thinking and Innovation Leader at St Aloysius college Diana Swift – Executive Manager – Transforming Learning Pathways & Vocational Education (PAVE) at Swinburne Uni VE Design Team’s Gordon Napier hosted the discussion and topped and tailed it with his own amusing take on gamification. You’ll have to watch the video to find out more… First up was Aliki, who invited us to answer, ‘What comes to mind when we think about gamification?’ We contributed our answers straight onto the screen via Mentimeter. Aliki described gamification as follows: Gamification is the use of game elements in a non-gaming context to drive user engagement, loyalty and motivate the desired action. In VET, industry and skills training, gamification focuses on motivating a learner […]
Quality, compliance and auditing
On Wednesday 30th October, the Vocational Education Design Team’s VE Assessment Lead Haley Gunn and Assessment Writer Janet McHardy attended a half-day professional development course on quality, compliance and auditing for assessment. Andrea Bateman facilitated the session at the VET Development centre. The purpose of this workshop was to discuss essential content for assessment tools, identify what ASQA auditors are looking for and evaluate the quality of assessment tools for learners. Participants were asked to bring finalised assessment documents to the workshop to undergo a shared validation process. Validation – a process all assessments go through – evaluates the validity of an assessment tool and identifies if it meets the rules and requirements of a good assessment. The creation of assessment documents is guided by the principles of assessment and the rules of evidence. The principles of assessment guide the development of any assessment task and maintain best practice. The four principles of assessment are fairness, flexibility, validity, reliability. The rules of evidence are used to ensure the evidence provided can be used by an assessor to make a decision on a student’s competency. The rules of evidence are validity, sufficiency, authenticity and currency. Examples of these in practice would be ensuring there […]
