Keeping the body in mind
Curriculum enhancements
Dr Craig Bellamy BA (Hons) MA Ph.D
28 April 2016, University of Melbourne
Identifying needs
What problem
is being
solved?
Retention
(transform
practice)
Teaching /
Active Learning
(responding)
Teaching and learning (and retention)
• What is the teaching/learning climate? (ie.
negative reinforcement is worse than positive)
• Applauding undergraduate success! (partly
through assessment. ie formative, low-stakes
quizzes, students reflect on their learning)
• Teacher feedback has a powerful effect on
students expectation of success (Biggs, Tang)
• Peer assessment (grading with rubrics)
through a ‘flexible learning’ approach.
Learning outcomes (align, raise
expectations)
• Appreciate how a critical comparative perspective and a
tradition of ethnographic enquiry can inform developments
in theories of the body.
• Articulate an understanding of a range of debates on the
relations between bodies, minds, and the social, cultural and
physical environments in which they circulate.
• Be able to communicate effectively in a variety of written
and oral formats.
• Work reflexively and independently to appreciate the huge
diversity of bodies in the world as well as a large (and
sometimes challenging) range of beliefs, ideas and
experiences people have with bodies and their parts.
• Work collaboratively in a group and effectively negotiate
and manage group work (vital 21C skills)
Assessment
• A 1500 word report (40%) due during the
semester (Group work)
• A 2500 word essay (60%) due during the
examination period.
Report (field trip)
A trip to St Kilda beach using a ‘cultural probes’
approach (Gaver, Dunne and Pacenti in 1999)
Using the Ethos ethnographic observation system
app observe the ‘Australian body’ at the beach. The
beach is often described as the great Australian
social leveller, but it this true? Is there an idealised
body, are strangers interacting? How are they
interacting? Are groups of ‘bodies’ formed around
certain cultural or physical norms?
Different modes of delivery (online)
Summary/questions?
Issues are complex in making students successful!
‘Technology’ doesn’t always impact in a positive way upon the teaching process (needs to
be considered with all other aspects of teaching). Teaching is a social process
No grand theory or one size fits all to effective teaching with technology etc; teachers
understands what works and what doesn’t work with their own content and context (but
good approaches can be shared, a need to be flexible and willing to experiment)

cbellamy_presentation1

  • 1.
    Keeping the bodyin mind Curriculum enhancements Dr Craig Bellamy BA (Hons) MA Ph.D 28 April 2016, University of Melbourne
  • 2.
    Identifying needs What problem isbeing solved? Retention (transform practice) Teaching / Active Learning (responding)
  • 4.
    Teaching and learning(and retention) • What is the teaching/learning climate? (ie. negative reinforcement is worse than positive) • Applauding undergraduate success! (partly through assessment. ie formative, low-stakes quizzes, students reflect on their learning) • Teacher feedback has a powerful effect on students expectation of success (Biggs, Tang) • Peer assessment (grading with rubrics) through a ‘flexible learning’ approach.
  • 5.
    Learning outcomes (align,raise expectations) • Appreciate how a critical comparative perspective and a tradition of ethnographic enquiry can inform developments in theories of the body. • Articulate an understanding of a range of debates on the relations between bodies, minds, and the social, cultural and physical environments in which they circulate. • Be able to communicate effectively in a variety of written and oral formats. • Work reflexively and independently to appreciate the huge diversity of bodies in the world as well as a large (and sometimes challenging) range of beliefs, ideas and experiences people have with bodies and their parts. • Work collaboratively in a group and effectively negotiate and manage group work (vital 21C skills)
  • 6.
    Assessment • A 1500word report (40%) due during the semester (Group work) • A 2500 word essay (60%) due during the examination period.
  • 7.
    Report (field trip) Atrip to St Kilda beach using a ‘cultural probes’ approach (Gaver, Dunne and Pacenti in 1999) Using the Ethos ethnographic observation system app observe the ‘Australian body’ at the beach. The beach is often described as the great Australian social leveller, but it this true? Is there an idealised body, are strangers interacting? How are they interacting? Are groups of ‘bodies’ formed around certain cultural or physical norms?
  • 9.
    Different modes ofdelivery (online)
  • 10.
    Summary/questions? Issues are complexin making students successful! ‘Technology’ doesn’t always impact in a positive way upon the teaching process (needs to be considered with all other aspects of teaching). Teaching is a social process No grand theory or one size fits all to effective teaching with technology etc; teachers understands what works and what doesn’t work with their own content and context (but good approaches can be shared, a need to be flexible and willing to experiment)

Editor's Notes

  • #2 Thank you very much for having me, it is a honour to be here. And I am glad that you assigned me a Anthropology class to assess as I volunteered with a team of Anthropologists last year in the Southern Peruvian Amazon looking at the impact of illegal gold mining within the district. This is a picture that I got online of one of the ‘uncontacted tribes’ in the region that live in the Manu National Park and have been adversely impacted by the new Inter-oceanic highway and the illegal gold mining that it promotes.
  • #3 So in terms of the Subject, Body and Mind, rather than simply redesign the whole curriculum for the sake of redesign (in which I was sure to get lost), I take a more focussed, problem-solving approach and reflect upon the process I undertook to solve the problem. After consulting with the course coordinator, Dr Tammy Koln, we discovered that the major problem was one of retention in that 30% of the students weren’t competing the subject. So I looked at some ways to address the problems of retention, particularly through introducing a group assignment, field work, a peer-assessed rubric, and a mobile app to aid in the field work.
  • #4 In terms of choosing the right technology to address the particular teaching learning outcome or problem, I use this simple matrix that groups technologies in terms of their teaching potentials (and this is from a fantastic online professional development site called Lynda). The x axis looks at where the learners are. At one end of the spectrum, they're in a specific physical location, like a classroom or lab and at the other end we have a virtual environment The y axis looks at when the students are learning. On one end, they're learning at a specific time, synchronous, like a class meeting or field trip. On the other end, they're learning at a time of their own choosing, asynchronous. The z axis looks at how many students are learning. On one end, they're learning individually. On the other end, they're learning collaboratively, such as small groups or a whole class. So the particular App I chose for this exercise is on the Virtual end of the X axis as it is a field trip, and it is Collaborative, so it on the collaborative end of the Z Axis.
  • #5 And I looked at some of the broader issues around retention, particularly in relation to some of these considerations to see if there is a technical solution aligned with a teaching method that may assist. What is the learning climate of the class, perhaps there is a way of introducing low-stakes quizzes as a formative assessment where students may reflect upon their learning early into the class. And I recommend that the subject could be better aligned around the learning outcomes, particularly through extending the learning outcomes to include group work as student engaging through teams has shown to greatly improve retention). And also, I thought I would include a peer-marked rubric to grade the group assignment.
  • #6 And these are the learning outcomes, and although I could have aligned them all to assist ‘retention’ I realise that we do have limited time so as a succinct example, I simply added collaborative team work as another learning outcome and aligned one of the assessments to this task, to help solve the problem of retention. There is a whole bunch of other stuff we could have done around reading strategies and tools and methods to aid this, and about including recorded lectures as part of the course content, but again I realise we have limited time.
  • #7 And this is the particular assessment task being aligned, it is the 1500 word report that lends itself to an active learning and group-work approach as it is based upon field work and there are lots of good technologies out there to aid in collaborative field work (and again if we think back to the XYZ Axis that I showed you before, this can assist in choosing the right technology for this particular task.
  • #8 This is the question that the students will be addressing on their field trip to St Kilda Beach (and the trip would have to happen early in semester or during a Summer semester). The particular ethnographic method they are using is called cultural probes ‘cultural probes’ developed by William Gaver etc. And a cultural probe is basically a Kit of diaries, cameras etc. that are used to record situations. And there is also a lot of literature using this particular methods to influence the design of learning spaces as well. The group, of say 3-5 students may have a ‘technologist’ and a ‘presenter’, with others in the group assuming different roles such as ‘photographer’ or ‘scribe’ etc.
  • #9 At the beach, the students gather ethnographic data in an non-obtrusive way using the ETHOS Ethnographic observation system to record observations of ‘the Australian body’. The data will be gathered on the SmartPhone App that requires no centralised support (which is always a consideration in choosing technology). They may take photos, record diary entries, audio reports (or even go for a swim).
  • #10 The data is then analysed by the group and then put together as a presentation to be presented in one of the new classrooms in Arts West. As Ethos does not have a presentation layer, something very important for education software, the presentation will have to be constructed using screen capture software etc. Then using the Turn-it-In’s Peer Mark system, students will be are able to access the Rubric for the particular assignment and mark each others work. The teacher then aggregates and normalised the marks to be submitted to the Gradebook. And Rubrics are now often used to grade student work but they can teach as well as evaluate. When used as part of a formative, student-centered approach to assessment, rubrics have the potential to help students develop understanding and skill, as well as make dependable judgments about the quality of their own or others work. Students should be able to use rubrics in much the same way that teachers use them to clarify the standards for learning and to guide progress toward that learning.
  • #11 To briefly conclude on a reflective note: