NCT02508922.

Providing effective, high quality feedback that students engage with remains an important issue in higher education today, particularly in the context of academic language support where feedback helps socialise students to academic writing practices. Technology-enhanced feedback, such as audio and video feedback, is becoming more widely used, and as such, it is important to evaluate whether these methods help students engage with the feedback more successfully than conventional methods. While previous research has explored students’ perceptions of audio-visual feedback, this paper seeks to fill a gap in the literature by examining the impact of the audio-visual mode on undergraduate students’ engagement with feedback compared to written-only feedback. Evidence from an analysis of feedback comments (n = 1040) and corresponding revisions as well as interviews (n = 3) is used to draw conclusions about the value of providing audio-visual feedback to help students revise their writing more successfully. In line with multimedia learning theory (Mayer 2009), it is argued that the multimodal format, conversational tone, verbal explanations and personalised feel of audio-visual feedback allows for a more successful engagement with the feedback, particularly for students with a lower level of English language proficiency.

The purpose of this case study is to discuss the effectiveness of peer assisted learning as an engagement strategy for first year engineering students. Studies have shown that engagement is critical to student success in higher education and that it requires a multifaceted approach that recognises the diverse needs of contemporary heterogeneous cohorts. By using the case study of a peer facilitator in a Mathematics for Engineers unit at an Australian University we hope to provide some insights into the Peer Assisted Study Session (PASS) model of student engagement and learning support. PASS is the nomenclature commonly used in Australia for Supplemental Instruction; a peer facilitated learning model that has been shown to improve students' academic performance as well as assisting in their transition to the university environment. The authors are the coordinator of the PASS programme and a student facilitator from an Australian university. Kiyomi Dunphy, the student facilitator, provides insight into her experience of running weekly study sessions for students and this is supplemented with comments from the programme attendees. Rather than focusing on quantitative data, we have taken a qualitative approach, with the intention of explicating the model as it operates in our particular context.

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The Transition movement is based on the notion that peak oil, climate change and the precarious economic situation cause the greatest potential disruptions to human society and therefore require a pre-emptive response. As such its focus is on proactively creating a future in local communities that meets people‘s psychological and physical needs rather than reacting to the crises that seem imminent. This paper draws on research into the Transition movement in the Australian context that considers the role of inner Transition which is one of the features that differentiates Transition from other movements for change. However, inner Transition has tended to be marginalised in the movement, because ultimately, action oriented outcomes take precedence over the often difficult work associated with group dynamics and relational experiences associated with inner Transition, even though they can affect the carriage and outcomes of activities and projects. The privileging of outer over inner Transition and action over process is a reflection of broader society’s grappling with the human dynamics inherent in any process of change. Where such concerns are unproblematised, this raises questions about the extent to which movements replicate existing paradigms and structures or take a prefigurative approach and challenge and re-imagine them in their practice.