In this project, a collaborative three-way partnership approach to assessment design utilising the combined skill set of a lecturer, librarian and first year learning advisor was taken. The project aimed to design a first year assessment task that encouraged success and confidence by allowing for the development of core skills in information literacy and academic writing whilst maintaining disciplinary standards. Team skills were identified, tasks were negotiated and carried out collaboratively, and the process documented and reflections noted. The agreed-upon key tasks underpinning the success of the new scaffolded design were selective topic selection and careful question formulation to improve student engagement and understanding. The new scaffolded approach to assessment was rewarding for staff, and preliminary student feedback suggests an enhanced learning exercise for students.

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This paper examines where students prefer to find information, and then matches survey results with students' assignments. Surveys showed that half the surveyed students used library databases (e.g. ProQuest) as their first preference to locate scientific information; however, of these students, one third did not have any journal articles cited in their assignment. Furthermore, of those students with no journal articles cited in their reference list, 65% claimed to feel comfortable using library databases, against a figure of 100% who felt comfortable using Google Scholar. This indicates a mismatch between students' expressed preferences and their actual ability to locate, evaluate, and include refereed journal articles in their assignments.

This article describes a new 14-step process for using student evaluations of teaching to improve teaching. The new process includes examination of student evaluations in the context of instructor goals, student evaluations of the same course completed in prior terms, and evaluations of similar courses taught by other instructors. The process has steps to help maximize instructor motivation as well as to help identify good targets for improvement. The article describes as an initial case study the experiences of academics in three disparate fields in using the new process. This initial use of the process led to deeper reflection than usual for the instructors and to ideas for ways to improve their teaching. The results indicate that the new process holds potential as a systematic way of using student numerical ratings and comments to produce plans for improvements in teaching.Instructors at many universities routinely receive student evaluations of their teaching. Some instructors read the comments, look at the numerical ratings, and then put the evaluations away. We wanted to use a systematic method of taking information in the evaluations and applying it to improve our teaching.We started by searching for expert-recommended methods of using teaching evaluations to improve teaching. We found several valuable suggestions. These ideas include looking for rating patterns over time and comparing ratings with those for similar courses ("Using Your Student Ratings" 2006), identifying aspects of teaching that received significantly less positive ratings than other aspects (Theall and Franklin 1991), looking for signs of teaching strengths (Stanford University Center for Teaching and Learning 1997), and looking for comments made by a substantial number of students (Lehigh University 2006). One suggested method has meta-analytic support for its value: reviewing the evaluations with a consultant (Penny and Coe 2004). However, we did not find a comprehensive set of guidelines.Failing to find a comprehensive set of steps for using teaching evaluations to improve teaching, we set out to develop our own set of steps, test them, and provide examples of their use. We incorporated in the process the ideas of the experts mentioned above, as well as ideas, such as the importance of setting goals, of psychological theorist Alber Bandura (1985) and ideas, such as importance of reflecting on teaching experiences, of John Dewey (1933). Through several iterations of discussion and revision, we settled on a 14-step process, which we then used with regard to our most recent student evaluations. This article describes as an initial case study the 14-step process and our experiences in using the process in an effort to improve our teaching in three disparate fields: environmental engineering, statistics, and psychology.The environmental engineering course, taught by a lecturer with 11 years of teaching experience, had 148 oncampus students and 61 distant students. The statistics course, taught by an instructor with 20 years of teaching exp...

A First Year Teaching and Learning Network was established in a regional university with a strong focus on distance education for a very diverse student cohort. The purpose of the Network, which consisted of a Coordinator in each of nine schools, was to support staff teaching students transitioning into tertiary education. The paper explores the theoretical bases of the structure, its current method of operation, its impact so far, and future plans. The development of the Network illustrates how a university can consciously embed opportunities for staff to take ownership of transition pedagogy and thus encourage widespread capacity building amongst their peers. The experiences of the Network in its first two years provide a case study of how institutional support for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, in particular scholarship around capacity building, can be used as a mechanism to promote both staff and student engagement with transition pedagogy resulting in a shift from a second generation approach towards a third generation approach to transition.