Interesting Stuff
This section contains recommendations of articles, podcasts/vodcasts and other resources that have been recommended by (and others) as having changed the way they think about teaching and education. If you would like to recommend something to be included on this page, please email Tutors@anu.edu.au and make sure you include a reference and reason for your recommendation.
Index of Contents
Classroom Demonstrations – Are They Useful?
Papers on Tutoring and Demonstrating in Australia
Women and Maths
I Dar-Nimrod and S J Heine, “Exposure to Scientific Theories Affects Women’s Math Performance”, Science, Vol 314 p 435 (2006)
Recommended by: Ruth
The most amazing paper I have ever read – and it’s only one page long! The researchers compare how female students perform on a maths test after reading essays about why males do better on average in maths tests than females. After controlling for the results in a pretest, the group found that the students who read that the difference was no to the experiences of female students or that there was in fact no difference outperformed the students who read that the difference was due to genetic differences. Even more amazingly, the scores of the first two groups were more than 50% higher.
Classroom Demonstrations – Are They Useful?
C Crouch, A Fagen, J Callan and E Mazur, “Classroom Demonstrations: Learning Tools or Entertainment?”, American Journal of Physics, Vol 72, p835-838
Author’s Website
Recommended by: Ruth
A totally counter intuitive result that makes sense when you think about it. Crouch et al argue that traditional lecture demonstrations have little or no effect on student understanding. There is good news however, as they also show how to easily improve the way the demonstrations are performed.
The ANU Teaching Forum
You can also be part of a broader community interested in teaching at ANU: the Teaching Forum.
TSN faciliatated two Teaching Forums in 2008 on the roles of the tutor/demonstrator.
“...sessional teachers make a
significant but largely invisible
contribution to the quality of
teaching and learning in higher
education.”
The University of Wollongong and the Council of Australian Directors of Academic Development (CADAD), released The Red Report in 2008 which investigated the contribution of sessional teachers to higher education.
Recognition Enhancement Development
This large-scale study into the recognition, enhancement and development of sessional teaching in higher education builds on the Australian Universities Teaching Committee Report (2003a) Training, Support and Management of Sessional Teaching Staff. The aim of the current Project was to identify and analyse current national practice and refocus attention on the issues surrounding sessional teachers in the university sector.
The Project had three objectives: to establish the extent of the contribution that sessional teachers make to higher education; to identify and analyse good practice examples for dissemination; and to consider the possible developments for institutional and sector-wide improvements to the quality enhancement of sessional teaching.
Sixteen Australian universities were involved in the Project, representing the ‘Group of 8’ (Go8), regional, Australian Technology Network (ATN), transnational and multi-campus institutions in all states and territories. At each of the participating universities, the number and typology of sessional teachers was audited across the institution and sixty interviews were conducted with the full range of participants, from sessional teachers to university executive staff.
The project investigated the contribution sessional teachers make to higher education. The Project found that:
- All universities depend heavily on sessional teachers;
- Universities are unable to report comprehensive and accurate data on the
- number of sessional teachers and their conditions of employment;
- The DEEWR (formerly DEST) FTE1 figures do not represent the magnitude
- of the contribution of sessional teachers to higher education;
- The FTE disguises the supervisory load on permanent staff;
- Sessional teachers are responsible for much of the teaching load, estimates
- suggest this could be as high as half the teaching load; and
- Sessional teachers perform the full range of teaching-related duties, from
- casual marker to subject designer and coordinator.
In summary, sessional teachers make a significant but largely invisible contribution to the quality of teaching and learning in higher education. Both the quantitative and qualitative dimensions of this contribution need to be investigated and accounted for at an institutional level if risk management and quality enhancement policy and practice are to be effective.
HERDSA
The Higher Education Research and Development Society of Australasia is a scholarly society for people committed to the advancement of higher and tertiary education. It promotes the development of higher education policy, practice and the study of teaching and learning.
Papers on Tutoring/Demonstrating in Australia
Influences in the design of a faculty-wide tutor development program. Prpic, J.K. and Ellis, A.E.
Catching academic staff at the start : professional development for university tutors. Barrington, E.
Tutor Traing Guides
The University of Melbourne have a series of Tutor Training guides have been written for tutors who are new to tutoring in the Faculty of Economics and Commerce. These guides are intended to be useful sources of ideas and advice for good tutoring practice, based on sound educational principles and research.
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