Four University of Queensland academics have been awarded more than $700,000 to improve higher education learning and teaching practices in Australia.
The Carrick Institute for Learning and Teaching in Higher Education has awarded grants to Professor Peter Adams ($134,749), Associate Professor Fred D’Agostino ($183,000), Professor Ian Cameron ($195,000) and Professor David Radcliffe ($200,000).
Professor Adams’ project will help students overcome a fear of mathematics.
“This project will help students strengthen their mathematical skills and overcome much of their negativity towards the material,” Professor Adams said.
“The project will be particularly useful for students taking courses with large enrolments, as it will enable them to work independently and receive individualised feedback on their work.”
Dr D’Agostino’s project will deliver a staff development program for university program directors, while Professor Cameron’s project will help create an advanced virtual reality environment for undergraduate engineering students. Professor Radcliffe’s project will examine the next generation of learning spaces.
UQ’s Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Academic) Professor Michael Keniger congratulated the recipients.
“UQ is the leading University in Australia when it comes to teaching. We have won more national teaching awards than any other university and these grants will help to strengthen teaching at this and other institutions across the country,” Professor Keniger said.
“I congratulate the grant recipients whose projects have the potential to make a real difference to teaching and learning in Australia and internationally.”
The grants were divided into three categories: the Priority Projects Program; the Competitive Grants Program; and the Leadership for Excellence in Learning and Teaching Program.
Professor Radcliffe received a Priority Projects Program grant. Priority grants are designed to promote and support strategic change in higher education institutions for the enhancement of learning and teaching, including curriculum development and assessment.
The 2003 Australian Awards for University Teaching’s Teacher of the Year, Professor Cameron and mathematician Professor Adams were awarded through the Competitive Grants Program, which supports research, development and innovation related to the enhancement of learning and teaching in higher education.
Dr D’Agostino’s Leadership for Excellence in Learning and Teaching Program grant is designed to build leadership capacity in ways that promote and advance learning and teaching.
Further information on all four projects is listed below.
Professor Peter Adams (07 3365 3276) A new enabling technology for learning and teaching quantitative skills
Professor Adams said he loves teaching students who have always been scared of mathematics and who think they will never understand it.
“Many of them undergo an amazing transformation, discovering that they can understand the concepts, and even enjoy doing the work. And projects such as this one play an important role in the process,” Professor Adams said.
His project is run in conjunction with the School of Physical Sciences, the Faculty of Biological and Chemical Sciences and the Faculty of Business Economics and Law.
It brings together expert mathematicians, skilled educators, academics from discipline areas that reply on mathematics, and software engineers.
“We will be developing a comprehensive computing-based framework which enables students to work through a large number of crucial problems and examples. As they do so, they will receive instantaneous, detailed feedback on the processes they have followed, and where any errors may have occurred,” Professor Adams said.
Associate Professor Fred D’Agostino (07 3365 2632) Closing the gap in curriculum development
This project, which has also received funding from the University, will look at developing staff support for those in charge of degree majors.
“The ‘gap’ in this area is an important one. In many degree programs, the Major is an important structural element, and also important for the way students experience their learning,” Dr D’Agostino said.
“However, in many universities, in Australia and overseas, there is little or no staff development support for the people in charge of majors.”
The grant will help to create a staff development program for major convenors and program directors.
“Since the major is structurally important in all generalist and major professional degree programs, and since there is currently very little in the way of support for major convenors, we are hoping that the project will initiate a second phase in university staff development programs, as they relate to teaching,” Dr D’Agostino said.
“The first phase, itself barely 20 years in duration, concentrated on supporting teachers in their development and delivery of courses.
“But courses are, in most cases, constituents of programs or majors and majors too need to be planned, developed and delivered.
“This is the second phase and it will have as much impact on how academic staff understand their role as teachers as the first phase did.”
Professor Ian Cameron (07 3365 4261) Development, deployment and educational assessment of an advanced immersive learning environment for process engineering design and operations
The UQ led project, which is being run in collaboration with Curtin, Melbourne, Monash and Sydney Universities, is based around an advanced virtual reality environment for undergraduate engineering students based on 3D photography of major operating processes.
“It will have application in a wide range of sectors such as petroleum, petrochemicals, food, minerals, dairy,” Professor Cameron said.
It will provide a set of learning activities in areas of understanding process and equipment design principles, key aspects of process operations, systems dynamics and risk management principles for undergraduate students across the curriculum.
“These learning activities will be an invaluable resource for the curricula within chemical and related engineering disciplines,” Professor Cameron said.
“The project will consider deeper understanding and targeted development of visualisation to generate improved student insight into the design and behaviour of industrial process systems.”
The project will use the latest understanding in visualisation and animation methods to provide enhanced learning outcomes.
“Students and teaching staff find access to large scale operating processes an increasingly difficult task due to a range of barriers. Bringing a “real” plant to the university teaching and learning environment provides a vehicle for students to have a range of exposures to plant design and operations,” he said.
The program will act as a systems engineering tool that can be used in a wide range of courses within chemical engineering and related disciplines.
Professor David Radcliffe (07 3365 3579) Designing next generation places of learning: collaboration at the pedagogy-space-technology nexus
The project, which has also received funding from the University, will examine how students and teachers use learning environments.
It will involve the design, demonstration and evaluation of three distinct types of learning environment: fourth generation libraries; collaborative learning centres; and advanced concept teaching spaces.
“While there is some knowledge and experience on the use of these new forms of learning space, there is still much to discover,” Professor Radcliffe said.
The project team includes award-winning architect Hamilton Wilson and Derek Powell, Manager of Teaching Technology Support at UQ, who have both contributed to the design and creative use of new learning spaces at UQ’s three campuses.
“This project is at the leading edge, globally, of the design of new learning environments,” Professor Radcliffe said.
“It will influence innovation in the design of learning spaces in Australia and beyond.
“It will provide an important step to enable the higher education sector to move beyond the design of traditional teaching and learning spaces to consider the creation of ‘places of learning’ appropriate for the 21st Century.”
Media: For more information or photos, contact Chris Saxby at UQ Communications (telephone 07 3365 2479, email c.saxby@uq.edu.au).
