Day 2: Curriculum Design

61 thoughts on “Day 2: Curriculum Design”

1. Hi Alex,

   I most identify with point 2 – purposeful organisation and sequencing of content. In linking to the M-BRAC model, in particular, how curriculum design can facilitate positive relationships and foster a sense of belonging. This plays a massive role in student retention (and of course, overall wellbeing).

   I would suggest that facilitating positive relationships starts from enrolment (or even during recruitment?). It is never too early to start laying the foundations for long term effective engagement – establishing the feeling of belonging starts prior to stepping foot in the ‘classroom’ so to speak.

   What keep warm messages are we sending? Are there opportunities to engage with the program prior to arrival (online, in person)? What contacts are available to answer questions/concerns the student might have? Are there welcome events (and are they personable)? Buddy systems with later year students? Opportunities to meet students in their class? Opportunities to volunteer (feel more involved)? What do initial introductions to a college/lecturer/tutor look like?

   The period from enrolment to campus is an interesting space, in highlighting the importance of transition. In doing so we extend the traditional period of Orientation and even curriculum/content – How can we do this better and in turn, help our students feel supported, engaged and that they belong?

   Thanks for a great session Alex 🙂

   Reply

   1. Hey Samantha,

      Thanks for the feedback and great to have you here!

      Your point about facilitating positive relationships early is incredibly important. One of the key take home messages I hope will come through from this course is that we don’t have to (and shouldn’t) wait for a student to be experiencing poor mental health or lower sense of wellbeing to think about these issues. By taking a prevention and promotion approach we have a much better opportunity to target a diverse student cohort and get students (and staff) to be working positively both in terms of academic achievement and overall wellbeing.

      Looking forward to hearing more of your thoughts!

      All the best,
      Alex

      Reply

2. As a current PhD student, I can safely say that I identify with all of these. However for this task and my own personal experience, I would definitely agree that grading greatly impacts upon a student’s well-being.
   I would always be frustrated if I got feedback that seemed too vague or did not actually tell me what an issue was with a certain grade. Particularly when you’re in undergrad, or new to a topic or style of assignment, it can be difficult to not doubt your abilities if you are graded in a way that doesn’t assist in future learning or seem to help.

   One of the ways I have seen a lecturer address this, was his personal method of double marking a small assingment at the beginning of the term.
   He would set a small assignment and give you a due date. He would then notify you that you would get it back with as much detail as possible on how to improve, and what any issues were. You would then have a week to fix/re-write it. This gave not only the student the opportunity to test the teacher on what they expected and their own ability, but also assisted the teacher. As they could then grade the same assignment a second time, they could see what changed, and how clear their feedback was. If not, his open door policy for that week to expand upon the comments meant students could work out his own meaning and teaching style. Which for many students, is something they often stress about. Also meant a student’s best grade was the one which was based off the student given every chance they could to improve. It felt like the teacher genuinely wanted you to succeed as an individual with your own faults and abilities, and you weren’t just a seat to fill a class quota.
   I always found this method a very useful way of grading, although it is only viable on a small scale due to the fact you are grading the same assignment twice. However it was useful to both student and teacher, and gave everyone the opportunity to improve as well as to understand each other and how we work in a class environment.

   I’ve never seen it since, however it highlighted for me how I didn’t appreciate some other methods of feedback from particular teachers and gave me more confidence in seeking further understanding outside of the classroom as to how I could improve. Many forget after they are no longer being graded how much they appreciated the effort of the teacher to give constructive feedback rather than a few vague ticks and crosses.

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   1. Hi Chelsea,

      What an excellent example of how grading can impact on student wellbeing! It makes me wonder if it was also beneficial to the lecturer as they would have (hopefully!) witnessed improvements in the assignment and students engaging with the course.

      Reflecting on what made you feel a sense of belonging or one of the other M-BRAC elements when a student is a great way to identify opportunities to tweak teaching practices such as grading to further support wellbeing.

      All the best,
      Alex

      Reply

   2. Chelsea, it is not quite double marking, but I find it useful to set assignments in two parts: in the first part the student outlines what they are going to do and how they are going to do it, in the second part they do it. This sets an artificial deadline, forcing students to think about what they are going to do, a few weeks before they have to do it. This may be, in part, due to my own fear of assignment deadlines (also perhaps this is why I no longer set end of semester examinations).
      Also I set questions every week leading up to the assignments (usually worth 1% a week of the overall marks). For the students who leave the assignment to the last minute and then panic, I suggest they paste their answers from the weekly questions into a word processing document and use that as the first draft of the assignment. Despite my having explained that the weekly questions are to help with the assignment, I still have to explicitly suggest using the answers in the assignment: some students don’t make the connection and others think it would be plagiarism to reuse their own work.

      ps: Are others having the problem that their posts fail with “ERROR: Unreadable CAPTCHA token file” on the first attempt every time?

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      1. Yes, I do have the same problem with CAPTCHA tokens, but not just in this course but in the earlier coffee courses too.

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      2. Hi Tom,

         Yes, I have these errors and, for example, on Day 1 of the Play to Learn: Gamification for Educators (Module 6), I was not able to enter a comment at all. The page simply becomes unresponsive for 10 minutes or so.

         I like this scaffolding for assignments, and students seem to like it too. The issue I have is precisely getting them to use their plan (graded) and weekly learning activities (not graded_ as support tools. I had explicitly told about this structure on Wattle, Piazza, lectures, lecture slides, assignment specification document, tutorials, tutorial handouts, and the weekly activities. However, still many of them (a diverse range of marks and workload scheduling) missed this and only learnt about the offered scaffolding and allowed use of weekly activity contents in the assignment when studying for the final exam. Any strategies how to make this communication noted? I feel like a broken record already.

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   3. HI Chelsea,

      I have a similar assessment that I run. Basically, every week students hand me a different part of their assignment and I give them one mark for doing it regardless of what they do (unless they give me something significantly shorter than the requirement). I then get it back to them the next week with comments on what they could do better. BY the time they hand in their main assessment I have built up a good rapport with each student and they understand how my comments tie into their learning. I also use audio feedback in addition to written feedback. I think this is important as comments on paper on how to improve can be interpreted in a negative way by a student. By recording audio, students can tell in my voice that I am making comments in a positive tone and have their best interest at heart. (Research shows that this is very important when you give people feedback that may be perceived as negative)

      Reply

3. I’m a communications specialist, so I’m not involved in curriculum design, but I’ll try to relate my answers to my work:

   Why might poor organisation and sequencing of content impact on students wellbeing?
   Ambiguous, irrelevant, poorly timed messaging can contribute to student information overload and lead to confusion and anxiety. It’s important to understand the student experience and their information needs to deliver messages in a strategic way.

   How could providing quality feedback to students impact on wellbeing in relation to assessments?
   Quality and timely feedback enables students to gain an understanding of how well they are doing in the course, identify gaps in knowledge, and provides opportunity and motivation for improvement

   Reply

4. My team runs a number of student experience programs that rely on the input of student volunteers or casual staff. In particular, question 1 makes me think of our volunteering program ANU+, which has been developed to provide clear learning outcomes and employability skills for student volunteers while enhancing their student experience.

   The program provides recognition for volunteering done only after a student has completed a workshop, submitted reflective writing about their volunteering and presented a report or presentation on their whole experience at the end of the 60 (PG) or 100 (UG) hours of volunteering.

   The idea behind this is not only that students are learning more skills as they go along, but that by participating in these activities they become more engaged in the program and their local community – meaning they’re more likely to continue volunteering, and more likely to make real connections in the Canberra community that contributes to their sense of worth. Reflecting on their experiences can remind them what they’ve achieved and learnt, and therefore feel more confident in their abilities and recognise the positive relationships they’ve developed.

   I can see a close relationship between this program and the questions about benefits of meaningful assessment, engaging learning activities and sequencing of content too – without clear learning outcomes and assessment, the program would be no different to the experience of volunteering on their own. The assessment of ANU+ places value in a students’ reflection of their experiences, which in the context of volunteering is positive and fulfilling (in the majority of situations at least!).

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   1. Hi Jade,

      I am a big fan of the ANU+ program so thank you for including this in your response. It would be great to chat with you more about this in relation to student wellbeing. The benefit of clear learning outcomes is key in both academic contexts and the volunteer program within ANU+ and I think many of the M-BRAC elements would influence the positive experience students have with ANU+.

      All the best,
      Alex

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   2. Jade, the ANU’s computing and engineering students in the “TechLauncher” program do an individual project, or an internship. But it has been difficult to get these STEM students to reflect on their learning. An explicit reflective exercise did not work. I have never found the reflective exercises I had to do as a student useful (except one with Lego*). So what we now do is have the students write a job application, where they relate what they have learned during the semester to the requirements of the job. This is reflection by stealth. 😉

      ps: This year, Stephen Dann (who is a Trained LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® Facilitator at ANU), will be taking the ANU TechLauncher students trough an exercise with Lego, to help them reflect. I expect these STEM students, particularly the engineers, with relate well to the physicality of the blocks.

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5. Close alignment of curriculum elements: How might this element of good curriculum design support student well-being in relation to your role?
   If I think back to what I consider to be ‘bad’ learning experiences when I was a student, the worst cases were always those where I was left wondering why I was doing something, what the point of it was. I try to prevent my students feeling this way by being really clear with the expectations around the course and it’s learning outcomes. If we can explicitly let our students know what they can expect to achieve by completing a task, a class, a course, then we can better provide them with motivation to learn. In my field (biology), I think putting things into a real-world context (e.g., show, don’t tell) and designing learning outcomes around concrete, relevant skill acquisition really supports student well-being.

   A focus on assessment for learning: How could providing quality feedback to students impact on well-being in relation to assessments?
   Again, thinking back to ‘bad’ experiences when I was a student (and actually, sometimes even now with collaborators!), my mental health was often negatively affected by receiving poorly-worded feedback on writing assessments. Sweeping statements that offer no constructive advice on how to remedy a problem can leave you feeling really confused. Meanwhile, incorrect critique (e.g., ‘it’s full of spelling errors’ when you can’t find any, or a paragraph that has been misinterpreted when you don’t have a chance for recourse) can leave you feeling misunderstood or like your work has been skimmed over. In those cases, you can’t help but have your confidence knocked back. On the other hand, if you had feedback that clearly indicated you’d been understood, and was constructive, you’d feel like your efforts were worthwhile. And, your ability to learn from the process would be protected. Wow – that’s quite a lot of power involved in something as seemingly simple as marking a paper…!

   Reply

   1. Hi Angela,

      Similar to Chelsea’s point you are very right in regards to reflecting on experiences from your own time as a student can be incredibly beneficial when thinking about how curriculum design and teaching practice can impact on student wellbeing.

      There is a huge amount of power in the task of marking a paper, often much more than we think about on a surface level! Looking forward to hearing more of your thoughts.

      All the best,
      Alex

      Reply

6. 1. How might this element of good curriculum design support student wellbeing in relation to your role?
   Alignment between course content, skill acquisition, individual research and investigation with assessment requirements allows students to take control of their learning. If they can clearly see what the course involves, what it is aiming to cover, and how they will demonstrate these new skills and learning in assessment they are in a good position, and may be more easily autonomously motivated.
   Some students live for the rubric, and follow it to the word, others find ways to break away from it and extend their learning beyond the basic requirements. This poses another challenge of being absolute about assessment outcomes; especially in the School of Art where it is possible for students to extend their learning in different and sometimes imaginative and new ways. Scaffolding and support coupled with freedom is my aim.

   2. Why might poor organisation and sequencing of content impact on students wellbeing?
   I design my courses to develop and progress skills as described in this section. However, I actually (maybe unbelievably….) hadn’t explicitly connected the relationship between setting achievable tasks, well being and continued motivation. I am often most focussed on imparting new information and skills to the students. I will now add this to how I think through the development of the course. What are the bridges I can build between known and new techniques and information? And the challenge therein is the fact that students come with different skillsets and experiences, so tasks may need to be open enough to cater to this diversity.

   Reply

   1. Hi Rebecca,

      Definitely not unbelievable that you hadn’t explicitly connected setting achievable tasks with wellbeing and continued motivation. This area isn’t something we traditionally think about in academic contexts or if we do it is usually when the first warning signs of a student struggling begin.

      Tomorrow will also include some case scenarios and activities so I look forward to chatting with you about this further.

      All the best,
      Alex

      Reply

7. * How might this element of good curriculum design support student wellbeing in relation to your role?

   I design courses top-down: starting with the skills requirements from an external standard, converting these to learning objectives, then assessment tasks and finally learning activities. This provides for close alignment of the curriculum. I tell the students about this alignment, explaining how an activity I want them to do will help with an assessment task and that skill is what industry wants.

   * Why might poor organisation and sequencing of content impact on students wellbeing?

   As a student I find it annoying when I can’t work out why I am being asked to do something, which does not seem to have anything to do with the rest of the course. If the instructor says “this content is not assessed” I think “Well they why is it in the course?”. As an example, I undertook several years of courses where the questions asked in the study notes did not relate to those asked at the end of each week. I spent week after week, year after year, writing answers to questions which seemed completely pointless. After a while I did start using some of this stuff for assignments, but the instructors never suggested that was what the questions were for.

   Another thing I find frustrating is vague statements, such as something is “tomorrow” or at “10am” or “5 pages”. Particularly for international and on-line students, these need to be explicit, stating dates and times with an international standard time zone and specific paper sizes. That might seem silly, but it caused me much worry as a student when I submitted an assignment late and one the wrong length.

   * Keeping in mind the five M-BRAC elements, what types of activities could be included in curriculum design to support student wellbeing?

   In the large “motivation” can be provided by explaining how the course is useful for getting a job. At the small scale, progressive assessment can provide the student with small rewards of marks (although I worry this could lead to a Skinner Box). “Belonging” and “Relationships” can be helped by the instructors introducing themselves at the start of the course and inviting students to do the same. However, students may need some help with how to do this. Some do not want to share and some too much. “Autonomy” can be provided by allowing students to choose their own assignment topics, but with scaffolding, so it is not too daunting. A feeling of “Competence” can be provided by tasks broken into stages, so students can feel that have accomplished something before moving on to the next part.

   * How could providing quality feedback to students impact on wellbeing in relation to assessments?

   As a student for the last three and a half years in North America, a constant worry I had was never knowing how well I was doing. The problem was that I had no idea what was a “good” mark was in an assessment system which was unfamiliar to me. So what I do is each week tell my students how they have done and how the class went. Also I give them suggestions on what to do to improve their work. This is formative feedback with summative assessment.

   * We will be live streaming … followed by coffee …

   Sorry, but how do I access “Periscope” via Twitter at 10am? I understand Periscope is Twitters’ live streaming service and I can find a lot of articles on how to create a live stream, but none on how to simply receive one.

   What time is the face-to-face meet-up after this at Coffee Lab on Thursday?

   This is the sort of thing which gets me anxious as a student. I would normally spend hours searching the web trying to find something on how to use Periscope, afraid to ask. As it is I did a quick web search and looked in the Periscope Help on Twitter, but am none the wiser.

   Also I would arrive at the event an hour early and try to hang around in the background, trying not to be seen as being unfashionably early, but not wanting to be late.

   Reply

   1. Hi Tom,

      Great to hear some of the strategies you have been using in your own teaching as well as some of your experiences as a student. I am interested to know how you have found students respond to your introducing yourself as part of building relationships and belonging. I know I have also felt more connected to lecturers who I have been able to view as ‘real people’ and am always interested to know other people’s experiences of this. You make an important point though that not all students will be comfortable to do this or over share so boundaries are important.

      In regards to the periscope if you are able to access Twitter the @ANUOnlineTeam account will have the live feed there from tomorrow. I believe the plan is also to include the link on this site when the blog goes live tomorrow.

      I am also someone who notoriously turns up early to things but hopefully once you have viewed the live stream you will be able to recognise me and the ANU Online team so please feel free to come up and say hello, would be great to chat with you more.

      All the best,
      Alex

      Reply

8. Reflection question: How might this element of good curriculum design support student wellbeing in relation to your role?
   Reflecting on my own experience as a student, the courses that had well-integrated syllabus, learning outcomes, and assessment were most conducive to me staying positively engaged with the course. An absence of this integration could leave me feeling uncertain as to whether I had mastered the thing I was supposed to master, and this often heightened my anxiety about my studies. Again drawing from my own experience, I also think that communicating the logic of the course design to students, and walking them through the ways in which the course components are integrated and have real-world importance is even more crucial in earlier years of study, when students have fewer internal resources to build that picture on their own.

   Reflection question: How could providing quality feedback to students impact on wellbeing in relation to assessments?
   Even though it’s inevitable that sometimes assessment marks will cause disappointment, ideally they shouldn’t cause a student to become demoralised. In my experience as a student and also as a marker, I think I would echo a lot of the observations that have already been made here. Giving relevant feedback that makes a genuine effort to engage with the student does two things: first, it flags to the student that their work has been read, and considered, and valued. Second, feedback that identifies the strengths and the weaknesses of the student’s work provides a student with opportunities to identify what issues are causing confusion, and to improve. In the College of Law, the instructions provided to markers almost always includes the line: “Never assume that a student has not worked hard.” I think this is a really important starting point for markers, and tells students that we respect them and want them to do well, and hopefully translates into feedback that fosters greater student wellbeing.

   Reply

   1. Hi Radhika,

      Thanks for sharing your experience as a student and staff member. I really like that the College of Law instructions include ‘never assume that a student has not worked hard’. Do you know where this originated from? I have not heard this from other colleges although I didn’t know to ask-I will now!

      Looking forward to hearing more of your thoughts!

      All the best,
      Alex

      Reply

      1. I’m actually not sure where that originated from! It certainly reflects the values of many of the conveners in the College. What I particularly like is that this direction is generally followed by something along the lines of “Please reward good understanding with high marks, but fundamental errors should be penalised” – which indicates that a marker can be respectful but still rigorous.

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9. I think poor organisation and sequencing of content can impact students’ motivation and experience of autonomy. I remember being an undergraduate student and having a lecturer who was so unorganised to the point where there were instances where tutorial readings were uploaded less than 24-hours before the tutorial. I remember how this made me feel. It was difficult for me to find the motivation to do the reading and as a result I was also reluctant to participate in tutorials. It was largely a frustrating experience because I lacked control over the situation. Despite me having other classes to prepare for and a casual job, I didn’t feel like my interests were being acknowledged. In saying this, though, I learned a lesson and have personally become a better teacher because of it. Where possible, I make sure all of the course material (tutorial readings, questions, marking rubrics) is uploaded on Wattle before the start of the semester and I endeavour to have lecture PowerPoints uploaded to Wattle the day before. I probably have become too organised. I wonder to what extent being too organised also impacts on students? I’m assuming there would be students who would feel a loss of control since everything is too organised? As the module emphasises, students value meaningful choices and some room to wriggle.
   Providing quality feedback on assessments impacts students’ experience of competence. From my experience working as a Learning Adviser, it is an all too common experience to see a student who has received a piece of assessment back with a low grade but no feedback to explain the low grade. This is particularly the case with students who have typically received better grades in the same subject area. Students become demoralised when they do not receive meaningful and informative feedback. This causes a ripple effect which impacts students’ motivation, sense of autonomy, and relationships with their tutors and lecturers. I think that’s important to have clear instructions and marking rubrics with any piece of assessment, even something as subjective as tutorial participation. The “sandwich model” of feedback works well when used in conjunction with the rubric to tell a student exactly how they are meeting the learning outcomes. Also, as I mentioned in my post yesterday, just making yourself accessible to students in case they have any questions about their feedback is essential to ensure a student belongs and feels competent.

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   1. Hi Jonathon,

      As a fellow organised person I do shudder at the idea of there ever being a ‘too organised’ however you make an excellent point around needing to give students some room to make choices and express their autonomy. As Tom mentioned in his post allowing students to choose their own assignment topic with structure around this to give support is a great way to try and find this balance.

      It is also excellent to hear yesterday and today that you recognise the importance of making yourself available to students, have you found this helpful in the past?

      Looking forward to hearing more of your thoughts.

      All the best,
      Alex

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   2. Like Jonathon (and Sunny), I am a fan of the sandwich method. I agree, it works well when used in conjunction with a rubric. In my higher-level ESL (English as a second language) classes, I teach my students how to deliver feedback in a constructive way, using this method. And I organise a lot of peer-feedback activities in small groups, so they get plenty of time to practise 😀 So that answers questions 3 (engaging learning activities) and 4 (focus on assessment) >>> I am a fan of small group collaborative learning, especially on the topic of constructive feedback

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      1. I love a good sandwich too! 🙂

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10. I think all of these elements are incredibly important to student wellbeing. As a tutor though, it is nigh on impossible to affect any changes at the curriculum level. Many tutors don’t have control over the activities in their classes either. Thankfully, my discipline is one where the tutors have plenty of agency over their own classes, which means that there are plenty of opportunities to design deep learning activities. One thing in the first section that I was somewhat unsure about was this statement “Such assumptions can be avoided by finding out as much as you can about your students, their circumstances and their prior learning when planning your curriculum.” I don’t see how this is possible for university courses in particular. I can see how this might work if you are designing classes or lectures one by one, but most courses are designed well in advance, with no opportunity to talk to the students beforehand (or even know how many there are until after the course has started).

    The other responses to the reflection questions have really summarised many of my own thoughts on the topic.

    *How might this element of good curriculum design support student wellbeing in relation to your role?
    For tutors, this might be more important to consider in terms of having a good understanding yourself of the curriculum design plan and being able to articulate that to students. When discussing assignments in class, it is important to be clear about the expectations of the assessment, how it fits with what has been studied, how it fits with what they know, and how they should go about completing it. From personal experience, I often see that students get really worried when they don’t know where to start on assessment – especially if it’s connection to lecture materials seems tenuous and difficult to build on.

    *Why might poor organisation and sequencing of content impact on students wellbeing?
    Many students worry about doing things well the first time. If a course is poorly organised, they often feel that they have no chance of doing well, even if they know the material. My partner started a degree at a uni where the lecturers refused to give details about the expectations of the assessments, didn’t have any connection between the lectures and the assessments and only provided surface level instruction. It was almost an impossible course to follow – and I could see how it affected his wellbeing, especially when assignment 3 was most relevant to week 1’s material and so on.

    *Keeping in mind the five M-BRAC elements, what types of activities could be included in curriculum design to support student well-being?
    The opportunities for students to design their own assessment projects by connecting the topics to their broader areas of interest. This should, of course, be done in a supported way, providing lots of time for discussion and verbal feedback before settling on a topic. Opportunities for reflection and for sharing their own experiences could also support their ability to form relationships and feel like they are contributing to the classes.

    *How could providing quality feedback to students impact on wellbeing in relation to assessments?
    I think this is one of the most important aspects – as is possible to tell from my other responses, in my experience, students focus on assessment as their goals in coming to classes, not the overall learning. Feedback then is extremely important. As someone mentioned above, I really love the idea of getting feedback with a chance to improve it before final submission. So long as that feedback is constructive and detailed. The importance of ‘constructive’ cannot be overstated. Simply giving feedback that there are mistakes is not enough, it has to be followed by the actions needed to correct the mistakes. Opportunities to resubmit things with improvement, and a genuine understanding of what the issues are, helps students to feel like they are moving forward in their learning, rather than just feeling like they are being judged based on their inherent abilities.

    I will sadly not be joining you for coffee tomorrow, as I am not on campus. I will follow on Periscope though if I can.

    Reply

    1. Hi Lauren,

       Great to hear you will be joining us via periscope, it is hard to connect in with everyone when this course is open to people on and off campus so it is nice to be able to use the power of technology to touch base with those off campus!

       You raise a great point in relation to the importance of constructive feedback. A few people have mentioned allowing students to submit an outline of an assignment or smaller version of the assessment task to receive feedback on has been useful in regards to students academic performance and wellbeing which is great to hear.

       We will be looking at some more practical examples and case scenarios tomorrow so I look forward to hearing your thoughts.

       All the best,
       Alex

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11. Purposeful organisation and sequencing of content: “Why might poor organisation and sequencing of content impact on students wellbeing?”
    It’s been really interesting to read through the other responses here. Like Rebecca, I don’t think I’d made an explicit connection between the assessment tasks I have set, and the impact on students’ motivation. Reframing things now within the framework of M-BRAC I can really see how the way a course is structured – both in content and the type and timeline of assessments – is so important. Students need opportunities for early success and feedback. I agree with Tom also that the details are really important – I definitely felt better set up for success as a student when I could see exactly how things were going to unfold over the subject. Really simple things, like the location of a tutorial room in an unfamiliar building can make subjects seem so daunting. In my experience lecturing and tutoring I then discovered how complicated finding and booking venues can be and sometimes it is necessary to use a different room! So I think clear communication about things like this is so important.
    A focus on assessment for learning: How could providing quality feedback to students impact on wellbeing in relation to assessments?
    In my experiences marking first year assignments for hundreds of students simultaneously I found I increasingly became more critical as I progressed through the assignments. I found having a master sheet of content related positive-framed responses really beneficial. Its such a trade off between marking quickly and providing adequate feedback though. There is a perception perhaps that when there’s hundreds of students enrolled in a class that the details don’t/can’t matter. I really believe making students feel like you value their effort (even if it’s not correct/misguided) is so important though as it’s a chance to build a great relationship between students and ‘academia’. I think it’s worth investing the extra time into providing encouraging feedback that helps the student improve (like, instead of X try Y etc, not just saying X is incorrect). I read a study once about the types of praise we use – and when we praise the effort not the outcome (eg, you worked really hard at that vs you’re so smart and clever) students are more likely to keeping trying when the tasks get harder.

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    1. Hi Tony,

       I think the idea of a master sheet of content related positive -framed responses is a fantastic idea! Recognising the challenge of marking a large number of assessments and keeping student wellbeing in mind is an important point and I would be interested in hearing other peoples experiences and/or strategies for this?

       All the best,
       Alex

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       1. You can easily create your own ‘bank’ of positive comments and constructive feedback in turnitin. It definitely saves time and keeps you from becoming cranky as you go through the 100’s of first year assignments!

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          1. Hi Sara,

             This is great to know! Thank you for sharing.

             Alex

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12. How might this element of good curriculum design support student wellbeing in relation to your role?

    Core learning objectives can act as a central thread to connect learning material and assessment tasks, to create a more cohesive learning experience. I believe the goal here is that students can see what they’re working towards and what they’ve achieved, supporting autonomous motivation and an experience of competence. In the courses I’m involved in, our learning objectives move away from fact-based learning towards higher-level applied skills. Although knowledge is critical to completing assessment tasks, the marks focus more on the development of those applied skills learning objectives. Many students are in the habit of fact-based assessment, meaning many students struggle with the first few assignments. Thus the challenge has been to effectively relay the focus of the course to not only help students understand assessment tasks, but also to understand the value of the skills practiced in the course. As I’ve improved at relaying and repeating these ideas, more students have expressed a sense of achievement or empowerment by the end of the course. I’m now working to continue improving the communication and integration of these ideas, especially at the start of the course.

    How could providing quality feedback to students impact on wellbeing in relation to assessments?

    It seems like there is often a disconnect between students and instructors on what is considered ‘feedback’. Sometimes even if an assignment is covered in comments, students may still feel they didn’t receive satisfactory feedback. I’ve learned (and it’s always a work in progress) that feedback should be focused on the key learning objectives of the assignments, and that the wording should be focused on how to improve and better meet (or excel, if the student is receiving a high mark) those objectives. I think students also seem to benefit from hearing what they have achieved or done well in an assignment, in addition to how they can improve. I think this connects back to the idea of autonomy in that they can see what they’ve achieved and what they need to do to progress.

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    1. Hi Camile,

       Great to have you back for day two. You raise an interesting point about the disconnect between students and instructors on what is considered feedback. Tony also mentioned the importance of providing positive feedback so it is really good to see this coming from a few posts.

       Tomorrow will be looking at this in more detail with some practical case examples so I look forward to hearing more of your thoughts.

       All the best,
       Alex

       Reply

13. Charles Gretton — TechLauncher @ CECS

    Keeping in mind the five M-BRAC elements, what types of activities could be included in curriculum design to support student wellbeing?

    One activity comes to mind. I did not invent it. Many years ago Stephen Roberts taught the Numerical Linear Algebra course. There was a very small number of students in those days (post the first dot-com bust), and the convener actually had the students give seminars/lectures about important algorithms for the last series of lectures. This ticks lots of the M-BRAC boxes in a non-superficial sense. Autonomy, belonging, relationships and motivation. The mechanics of getting this to work at scale are a little challenging, but not insurmountable.

    Why might poor organisation and sequencing of content impact on students wellbeing?

    Chaos contradicts a bunch of M-BRAC principles. Of course, life is chaotic, so to engineer a chaos sandbox is not a terrible idea. But that has to be engineered in an M-BRAC friendly way. So, this questions would be to unintended/unplanned chaos. This will affect the student’s ability to exhibit competence, and therefore there wellness. Even highly engaged and motivated students will not be able to plan effectively, and manage time effectively, because the schedule of work, and degree of work will be unpredictable.

    Reply

    1. Hi Charles,

       Great perspective on chaos and how this interacts with the M-BRAC principles. I also appreciated your example of students being required to present on certain topics for the last series of lectures, this is something I experienced in my undergraduate degree and the course which included this component remains one of the courses I have enjoyed the most (both undergrad and postgrad).

       We will be looking at some case examples tomorrow so it would be great to hear more of your thoughts and previous experiences.

       All the best,
       Alex

       Reply

14. Why might poor organisation and sequencing of content impact on students’ wellbeing?

    When I have experienced courses that are poorly organised or that progress in a confusing manner, I have felt lost and disengaged. When course content is clearly in context of an overarching theme, and topics are structured with a logical progression, and each linked to the last, I have felt more ‘in command’ of the subject and more likely to engage deeply with the subject matter (and usually, as a result, to perform to a higher standard).
    If students feel lost and disengaged, I imagine they would be more likely to experience high levels of anxiety in regards to their work, and potentially be more at risk of dropping out. Both of these issues have flow on effects – anxiety can affect sleep, which in turn leads to more anxiety, and potentially lower performance and burn out; dropping out of subjects could potentially lead to a longer time finishing a degree, which has impact on students’ lives outside of study.
    In regards to my current role, poor organisation and sequencing of content and materials can sometimes be reflected in course Wattle sites. Courses with clearly defined topics and relevant material often have very cleanly organised Wattle sites. Students are able to easily find resources they need, or assignment submission links, because they are clearly and logically organised. Some sites are used, in contrast, as a repository for resources, rather than as a teaching space. This can become an issue when it results in an uncategorised ‘scroll of death’, which can make it almost impossible for students to find what they need.

    How could providing quality feedback to students’ impact on wellbeing in relation to assessments?

    Relating this to the M-BRAC framework, feedback has the potential to have a huge impact on a student’s experience of competence. Even if their mark for an assessment isn’t great, clear and constructive feedback gives them something to work with next time; a chance to improve. If a student isn’t aware of the areas they need to give attention to (style, structure, referencing, etc.), then they have no chance to rectify this. Feedback can also link to positive relationships – the student may feel they are valued if markers spend time responding to them as an individual – and to experience of autonomy, as it may give them the opportunity to feel more in control of their learning by giving them a chance to improve.
    We often assist convenors with the creation and application of rubrics to assessments: even using a simple rubric gives students an indication of the areas they could improve in, and ensures that feedback and grades are more consistent. We also assist in training within Turnitin, and using the QuickMark function within Turnitin can be a simple – and efficient – way for markers to ensure they are giving meaningful and contextual feedback on assignments.

    Reply

15. I’m going to write from experience here, using my favourite course to explain strategies that I think work well – at least for my field and for a relatively small group format. I always had really good feedback from my students for that unit anyway – although sometimes also some constructive criticism! It’s been really interesting to learn from the ideas of others in the comments above.

    Reflection question: Keeping in mind the five M-BRAC elements, what types of activities could be included in curriculum design to support student wellbeing?

    I’m really interested in strategies to keep students engaged, interested and motivated to learn. I’ll start by noting that I’ve definitely experienced how curriculum design can influence student motivation and engagement (and hence wellbeing) in very different ways. If students really don’t understand why they have to learn subject X for their degree in Y, and they fail to find meaning in what they are learning, they can become very disillusioned. The worst case of this I’ve experienced as a tutor was when decisions about core units were made far removed from the classroom, and students from a different department were required to take a 1st year unit I was tutoring. We had many unhappy students that year because – for a subset of ~20% of students – the teaching examples and the focus of the classes were far removed from their own interests. It did not allow us to build a cohesive classroom. The broad topics they were learning about were in fact relevant to their degrees, but it really wasn’t obvious to them why that was the case at such an early stage in their university experience. The core requirements changed fairly rapidly after that!

    On the more positive side, I’ve had great student feedback when I’ve been able to integrate real and RELEVANT research examples into my teaching. Especially when the students have an element of choice about which examples they work on. I like providing multiple routes to the same learning objectives within a class. This can a) provide different opportunities for students with different learning methods, b) remove some of the competitive element that makes “slower” students feel bad and c) keep the “faster” students engaged by allowing them to take on additional challenges. My most recent undergrad teaching was as part of a team of 3 lecturers for a 3rd year conservation biology unit, around the use of genetics in wildlife management (at another University). So we had a focus on scientific methods, but also a focus on applied outcomes. We combined a variety of teaching approaches with lots of case studies, including (but not in chronological order):
    1. Small groups (2-4 students) each selected and reviewed a research paper (with guidance) and presented the paper to the rest of the class in a conference format. Then the whole class discussed and critiqued the paper. Allowing each group of students to select a relevant paper of interest to them meant that they could build on prior learning according to their degree specialisation and interests.
    2. Each of the lecturers, and some invited guests, presented a mixed format lecture / tutorial session where we introduced a key teaching principle, gave some examples of case studies from our own work to illustrate this principle, and then guided the students through a related group discussion or activity. Students found the applied examples really interesting.
    3. We ran a series of tutorials (some in the wet lab and some in the computer lab) where we presented a recent or current research project, then taught the students some of the methods used in the projects – and always with reference to the research / management questions that inspired the work in the first place. In the bioinformatics tutorials we would always use real – sometimes not yet published – data. The students really got into the idea that they were among the first to learn about new results and this could prompt great discussions about how research results could / should be integrated into policy and management decisions in the “real world”. They were also really interested in the online tools we introduced them to and I know some kept exploring these in their own time. Great to use the same resources and tools for teaching and for your own research.

    To follow on from this and talk about assessment…

    Reflection question: How could providing quality feedback to students impact on wellbeing in relation to assessments?

    When I was a PhD student, I recall an Honours student who sat next to me being in tears over the first draft of her literature review. She’d sent it to one of her supervisors and it came back with whole sections circled in red with highly uninformative comments next to them like “needs more work”. And that was it. Fortunately her other supervisor provided much more detailed feedback and constructive support. It’s not enough to provide negative feedback, we need to show the students how to get to where they need to be.

    As with curriculum design, I think that providing different assessment and feedback options can help students to manage stress. Better to be evaluated for different tasks and to have a gauge of your success as the semester passes, rather than just face that single big exam at the end of semester. In the class I discussed above we had 3 key assessments:
    1. Presentations and participation in the conference-style discussions were evaluated by staff and by peers. But to alleviate student stress we provided a lot of information beforehand about our expectations surrounding personal contributions to group work and to discussions – and the kind of professionalism we expected of the students in their peer assessments. We also tried to actively provide opportunities and encouragement for each person to contribute to discussions in a supportive environment – we know that some students have little experience of public speaking and are very nervous about it.
    2. During the semester, students worked on an essay on a self-chosen topic. We provided a list of essay questions they could select from, but we also made it clear that they could propose alternative (but relevant) topics. These were usually approved following discussion. This meant that each student could really tailor the focus of a core assessment item to their own interests.
    3. Finally there was an exam in the more traditional style, but students went into this knowing their grades for the conference sessions and the essay, and having had the opportunity to view and discuss previous exam questions.

    Reply

16. I identify most with points 2 and 4. I’ll start with point 2 (to keep it logically organised!) – I can see a few ways in which poor organisation of content could impact students’ wellbeing. Last year I participated in a series of workshops on mentoring undergraduate students, particularly for individual research projects, and one of the things that kept coming up was the importance of scaffolding – building up the complexity of tasks and the independence expected of the student – as a way to build their “self-efficacy”. This concept encompasses many of the elements of M-BRAC (e.g. experience of competence, autonomous motivation). Since the question was about poor organisation though, I think that a curriculum that didn’t follow a logical progression would make it much more difficult for students to have experiences of competence, and I think in any task, lack of a clear goal makes it difficult to maintain motivation.
    For the fourth point, I think that it’s incredibly important that students are given regular gauges of their learning progress, where they have improved, and how they can continue to improve. This can be done partly through clear expectations, but also by using assessment activities as learning opportunities. Providing quality feedback to students – which is specific and points out both things that they have done well and what they can improve in the future should give the student more confidence about their progress and what the expectations are for the course. I think it’s also really important that students are given an opportunity, and even encouraged, to discuss feedback with whoever did the grading. When I was in high school, we were actively encouraged to seek clarification about marks and even to argue for extra marks if we thought we deserved them. I found that this open encouragement tremendously helped my confidence and facilitated more positive relationships with the teachers. In general, I sensed that this was discouraged during my undergraduate, by most (though not all) of the lecturers, and I did find that this often left me frustrated because I either didn’t understand what a comment meant, or felt that I was making undue fuss if I approached the lecturer about it. I really like Tom’s idea of two-part assignments – one I’ll keep up my sleeve if I’m designing a curriculum in the future!

    Reply

17. Hi All,
    Point 3, providing a variety of engaging learning activities is part of my teaching philosophy. I have found over the years, that no matter how well I believe I designed and aligned my curriculum, or explain a concept, there always will be a couple of students who ‘don’t get it’. As our student cohort is very mixed, there are varied prior knowledge, maturity, ability and learning styles. Providing a wide range of activities and styles students hopefully can find the best resource to help them learn. I follow this guideline in my teaching sessions, especially in laboratory practicals. We also provide options for students in their main assignment task. They can chose the topic of their work, the group they want to work in and the style/design of their work. In addition, as a final product, they have to create a learning resource that can help fellow students to learn about the concepts they covered. In a sense, we gave the students the task to teach their peers, and by including peer-evaluation we also introduced a friendly competition and increased feel of competence.
    To welcome students to our courses, we post a short welcome video on Wattle, before the start of the course, to introduce ourselves and allow students to know our faces as well as familiarise themselves with the overall aim and structure of the course. This way they come to meet us and feel familiar by the time they arrive to the first session.
    Organising the curriculum, providing clear learning outcomes and aligning assessments and assignment to them is important in setting clear guides through the course for students to be comfortable. It is important to know what to aim for and see what is expected from them at the completion of the course. As I’m mainly teaching anatomy, it is natural for me to give relevant examples of the use of the concept and content. In addition, we use real-time examples in our summative exam as ‘application’ questions. In another course, I was using small group brainstorming sessions where students were given an active research problem (from my lab) and they needed to come up with suggestions about how they would test a hypothesis, or answer research questions. It is great to watch students present their work or discussing research enthusiastically. It is easy to see that students (at least most of them) feel a sense of accomplishment thus enjoying even the challenging tasks we set them.

    Reply

18. Hey Tom! The LEGO stuff sounds amazing. Is there any chance some of the Student Experience team can come as observers?
    And yes, I am having problems with the ERROR thing. I use Google Chrome on a Mac usually, I switched to Firefox and it worked.

    Cheers
    Jules

    Reply

19. Firstly, I’d like to apologise as this may be a long post and acknowledge that I am professional staff, not academic staff, so I am referring to my experiences as a high school teacher – which I know are not the same, but I feel there is a great deal that is transferrable and relevant. In saying that, I think that the smaller numbers in schools makes things like pastoral care and constructive feedback and relationship building much easier. These are not easily scalable skills or programs and I am yet to meet any educator (at any level) that is able to provide the full level of support and attention to their students as they would like, who is not stressed and half burnt out.

    As an adult, I have studied at UC, ANU, ACU and Deakin. My experience at these universities was extremely different. My undergraduate degree was cross-institutional between UC and ANU. I took Theatre Arts at ANU. I thought that it would be amazing. I was expecting to be doing Drama (acting and experimenting). The reality was that we did about 85% theory. I actually hated going to most of the classes. I didn’t make any friends and I always felt like the odd one out. At UC, we did lots of hands-on learning with some accompanying theory. This worked really well for me, because I got it. I made lots of friends, had a great community and excelled. I barely scraped through my ANU courses. Please don’t read this to think that I think that UC is better than ANU. I don’t believe that. What I do know is that everyone has different learning styles (see Howard Gardner’s Multiple Intelligences) and my style suited a particular way of learning.

    Keeping this in mind, as a teacher, I always tried to give students a great deal of choice in their assessment. There isn’t always room to give choice in the content, but there should always be choice in the way it is presented and the assessment tasks. I would run days of rotating activities (reading, puzzles, writing, games, art, videos etc.) covering the key concepts. Students loved these days and they could choose the order they did them in and would take notes as they went. The assessments, whenever possible, would be something like 15 different tasks to choose from ranging from tasks of 5 points value to those of 80 points. Students had to make up 100 points for assessment. As an example, when studying the book ‘Holes’, the 80 point task was to dig a hole the same size as those the characters were digging (6ftx6ft) and keep a reflective journal. A 5 point task could be to draw a timeline of major events in the book. The kids LOVED it. About half of the class would start digging, but never more than 2 finished the hole. But it inspired them and they were completely engrossed in their learning – as were many other members of the school community who would come and watch the hole digging. The diggers become celebrities and break/lunchtime would become a social event for students from all grades as they sat around the edge of the hole chatting and eating their lunch. It was brilliant (and not my idea I might add. I found the foundations of the idea online).

    I tell this story because I think it is the perfect example of number 3. A variety of engaging learning activities: Good curriculum design includes a variety of learning activities that engage students in deep (rather than ‘surface’) learning. In terms of their wellbeing, these kids finished the term feeling empowered, confident and they had all learned something about themselves – even if it was that hole-digging was not their forte.
    The second point that resonated with me was number 2 (obviously I have not gone in order but instead at what jumped out first). My last role as an educator was as a school principal of an international school in Indonesia. We were teaching the British Curriculum. Our student population was made up for about 10% Indonesian, 60% mixed Indonesian/foreign and 30% expats. Many of these students had never been outside of Indonesia. We were teaching maths using pence and pounds and teaching science talking about painting a house black in winter to help with heat… (or something… I never taught science). This was clearly ridiculous. It was irrelevant and confusing. We threw it out and introduced the International Middle Years Curriculum). I loved this. It celebrated diversity, was organised and sequential and, most importantly, allowed for creativity by both the teachers and the students with more collaborating and celebrating than imaginable.
    Basically every topic (there are about 20 I think) runs for approximately one term. It could be something like ‘Resilience’ or ‘Celebrations’. The main point was that there always had to be the following:
    An Entry Point – Some amazing event to blow students away and get them so engaged they want to learn more.
    Knowledge Harvest – Finding out what students already know so that these are the foundations for the unit
    Learning Goals – outline the knowledge, skills and understanding goals (subject and personal)
    Research and Record Learning Activities – likely to be given a variety of tasks
    Reflective Journaling – Teacher provides constructive feedback and has discussions about these, but no grades are given
    Assessment for Learning – Students present something that demonstrates their deeper understanding. Eg. A short film of a plastic bag that floats around for weeks until eventually being picked up and re-used as an example of resilience – perhaps not the best example, but the idea is to show deeper understanding and personal interpretation
    Exit Point – A huge celebration of everyone’s achievements. This could be like a show or exhibition.

    Anyway, looking at this as the lifecycle of an ANU student, I see
    An Entry Point – O-Week
    Knowledge Harvest, Learning Goals, Research and Record Learning Activities, Reflective Journaling, Assessment for Learning – Through studies, but unsure of consistency of standards and methods and would love to learn/collaborate more
    Exit Point – Graduation
    So, apologies for my very long-winded post that I am writing at 2.15am (so please forgive ramblings and typos), but I feel that we are on the right track, but we have to look after our academic staff (in particular) because the pastoral care role is probably not part of the position description, but is potentially the biggest time gobbler to any of you that are doing this course and others that are concerned about the wellbeing of your students. If we don’t ensure staff wellbeing, then there is no student wellbeing either.
    One last thing I wanted to share is that last night during my midnight studies/Facebook scrolling, I came across this Ted Talk clip about the strongest predictor of living to 100, which is probably not what you may thing. The top 2 reasons are (spoiler alert) Close Relationships and Social Integration! https://www.facebook.com/TED/videos/10159879660130652/

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20. I’d like to pick up on the statement:

    “Good curriculum design includes a variety of learning activities that engage students in deep (rather than ‘surface’) learning.”

    This surface/deep distinction, and the unquestioned privileging of “deep” learning, is holy writ in Australian higher education, having been popularised in Australia (not invented) by John Biggs.

    It’s actually a pretty theoretically impoverished idea and not supported by much real evidence as far as I can tell. It’s attractive to academics, I think because through the rose-tinted glasses of time they remember themselves as “deep learners” in their undergraduate years.

    Biggs presents two types of student: Susan, the deep learner, a kind of haloed, idealised undergraduate academic-to-be, and the woeful Robert, surface learner, memoriser, doing just enough to get his meal ticket.

    In the real world, the odds are that Susan is a typical ANU domestic student: the child of high socio-economic status, university educated parents, and Robert is low SES and/or in a state of poor wellbeing or working 40 hours a week to pay for his education, support his family or whatever. Robert may be a NESB international student whose bare IELTS 6.5 forces him to take a surface learning approach.

    The problem with taking this deep/surface idea too seriously is that it leads to course designs that create additional obstacles for students who are either intellectually in the lower 20% or so of the student population, or who, because of wellbeing issues, are using so-called surface learning tactics to cope. It sets a significant subset of students up for poor experiences of competence, and perhaps a poor sense of belonging too, especially if they are “first in family”.

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21. Hello again – and thanks for a very interesting and informative discussion.
    Close alignment of curriculum elements:
    I co-convene a large first year law course called Lawyers Justice and Ethics. It’s a bit different to other law courses because it is very much about asking questions about lawyers’ role, what is justice? how do lawyers fulfil their ethical duties etc. I’ve been reviewing student feedback from last year and also discussing it with an educational designer. While I think our curriculum elements are closely aligned, I can see that how things fit together needs to be explained to students multiple times and in multiple ways through a course – ie not just in the Course Study guide ( which not all students read) and the first session. Because LJE is not like other law courses, this is perhaps particularly important. It is of course very easy as a teacher to assume knowledge (including general knowledge) about how ‘law’ works in our society and to assume that students are making the same connections between aspects of the curriculum that you make. So – yes, it’s important for the curriculum to hang together and to explain to students how it does, so that they have as much autonomous motivation as possible to study the course 🙂

    In relation to ‘How could providing quality feedback to students impact on wellbeing in relation to assessments?’ I agree with the comments others have made about this. One aspect I wanted to consider is ‘joining the dots’ for students so that they realise ‘hey, yes, I’ve just achieved this learning outcome and practised these skills’. Last year we included an assessment requirement of discussion postings – students needed to pick a theme or question from the week’s trigger materials and post a reflection about it. Only then could they see other students postings and they then had to respond to another students posting [ 5 postings over 12 weeks]. On reflection, we need to work out a way to give more feedback on these postings, before they submit their best 2 for assessment). While the quality of the postings was high – and so was achieving what we wanted ( engagement with the course materials), it seems some students felt a bit at a loss in terms of knowing if they were on the right track. SInce we have about 350 students in the course, we’ll need to work out how to give overall useful feedback that doesn’t require too much of the teachers’ time, possibly asking seminar leaders to do this at the start of each seminar session.

    ‘

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22. Dear all,
    In my first year course we’ve tried to build in activities to support student well-being. Following and earlier CHELT seminar, in the second lecture, we present some of the key findings from The Student and Staff Expectations and Experiences Project of student expectations of university and their actual experiences in their first year: http://fyhe.com.au/expectations/ In the first lectures and tutes we also undertake interactive exercises to help students get to know each other and encourage them to set up study groups. We have two field trips in the course which really helps interactions among students and staff. The response through SELT since we started doing this has been very positive.

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23. Keeping in mind the five M-BRAC elements, what types of activities could be included in curriculum design to support student wellbeing?

    Designing in assessment tasks that are deliberately open-ended, while still focused around an achievable goal, helps create an experience of autonomy. For example, in our first-year course we run structured competitions (with prizes) to develop the best puzzle solver or game AI, as a capstone to the major assignment. It’s relatively easy to develop a simple solution, but can be very challenging to develop a good one, and there are many possible approaches. Students really engage with selecting, justifying and implementing a particular approach, and the experimentation required to improve their solutions.

    I think it’s possible to contribute to a sense of belonging by building in activities in which students help each other improve their work. We use ‘In-Flow Peer Review’ in part to encourage the students to think of themselves as a community of professionals.
    https://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=2713612

    —

    Ed Russell picked up on the point about how incorrect assumptions about student experiences can undermine the sense of competence with some very interesting observations about the different pressures on students. For this reason, we need to be explicit as we can be about the expectations and requirements on students. It’s demoralizing to discover that the instructor had assumptions about how the expected quality of a particular piece of work that weren’t ever communicated!

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24. Curriculum design goes beyond the formal information and activities of a course. There is usually some intended learning – sometimes never articulated – which happens through non-verbal aspects and patterns of interaction. A student’s experience of their first class can confirm that they “belong”, that is, they are genuinely expected to become part of a profession or community; they will be heard and have significance in positive relationships; “competence” is possible for them personally, and they can expect to succeed; they have meaningful autonomy around learning – their understanding and intent in the course does matter. I wonder whether there is value in explicitly briefing new teachers in a course about the state of mind of some typical and notable students in the past, and the informal agenda for that first lesson.

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25. NOT FOR PUBLICATION – FOR DIAGNOSTIC PURPOSES ONLY
    I’ve attempted several times over 2 days to post a comment from Chrome and Safari, and usually had Captcha rejected. My successful post was made from Firefox around 15:30 on 25 Jan.

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26. How might this element of good curriculum design support student wellbeing in relation to your role?
    When students come to see me for support and I struggle to figure out what the assessor is after the student feels validated and heard and if they couldn’t figure it out and neither could they what chance did they have. A student’s life is just as the next persons so finding time to catch the assessor can be difficult though most often we can clarify what the assessor is wanting when we sit down together. The student feels confused, doubts themselves and lacks the confidence to attempt let along complete activities or assessments, when the curriculum hasn’t been designed or sequenced in the order of establishing what they know, introducing new concepts and building on these – scaffolding.

    How could providing quality feedback to students impact on wellbeing in relation to assessments?
    I think being a student and a teacher at the same time made me a better teacher as I could relate to how students I worked with were feeling. I sometimes felt the exact feelings they did which made me think about how I gave feedback and what feedback I gave – not just positive or negative but a combination. I think that feedback is also linked to the learning strategy you’ve put in place along the way i.e. I’m not a chef, barely a home cook (nothing like on tele) but if you’ve given me a recipe I’ll try and follow it and possible do OK but I’ll excel if I can read and watch you demonstrate and then replicate. Along the way during the demonstration I’ll also have been told what could happen if I don’t do or over do something. It is a very different approach to problem solving cooking.

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27. In response to Chelsea’s comment earlier – What a great idea your teacher had. As you mentioned, due to class size this is difficult to achieve in our Masters course, although we also have an open odder policy, which means that students can talk to us about their assignment grades and how they might improve next time. We also provide opportunities for students to submit drafts of their assignments and give them feedback on how they can add/ improve prior to submission.

    I think the exercise of identifying learning outcomes with assessment activities is valuable in terms of clarifying why we are asking students to undertake specific activities and what they will get out of it. It also can add to students’ sense of autonomy. In relation to our role, I think it fosters students’ trust that we have planned the course and have reasons for putting together specific assessment activities, that will be of benefit to them in terms of achieving the learning outcomes that they need.

    We encourage our guest lecturers to incorporate interactive activities into their sessions. The students really enjoy it and it generates new ideas and discussions. And as result of doing this course, I can see that it also generates a sense of belonging to the group and can break the ice for those students who find meeting new people challenging.

    Last year we paid PhD students to mark assignments and learnt a difficult, yet valuable lesson from one, who provided no feedback on the marking and was then on leave. While the two markers had met to cross-check the first five assignments that they marked for consistency, they obviously hadn’t discussed the provision of thorough feedback. The first had been marking for us before and did this very well and we had to ask her to go through all of the assignments and provide feedback. This year we know to clarify what our expectations are for marking, as the feedback is so important for students. I will also mark assignments this year as I feel it provides an important element of immersion and understanding of the students.

    Best wishes,
    Jane.

    PS It has taken me some time to post this as the computer would not accept the CAPTCHA Code I was entering, even thought I’m sure it was correct.

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28. I’d also like to add that as our course is about health services research and policy, we make a point of inviting students to compare the Australian system with those in their own and other countries. This facilitates deep and personalised learning opportunities.
    Best wishes,
    Jane.

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29. Allignment of curriculum elements is vital when it comes to student motivation and experiences of autonomy. When students are clear on what they can expect to achieve by completing a task and know how this relates to their particular chosen field of work we can keep them interested and focused on the bigger picture rather than having them focus on (and stress about) individual exam marks.
    Focusing on assessment for learning is a powerful tool with regards to encouraging students even when their actual grade is not great. It can promote positive relationships between teaching staff and students and can give students a sense of competence which will encourage them to ‘have a go’ in future as they feel like their efforts were worthwhile.

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30. I most relate to points 2 and 3 about organisation/sequencing and engaging/deep learning activities. Clear organisation and sequencing is an important precursor to gaining students’ trust and then being able to do more engaging/novel/deep learning activities. If students to not understand the flow of a course and where they are headed and why, they tend to switch off and see each lecture/lesson as a separate compulsory task rather than an important step in learning about a subject or field of research. This is unmotivating.
    I like the idea of using the M-BRAC acronym to think about how wellbeing and learning can be fostered through the activities we do. In particular, I have been thinking that while there is a lot of interaction in my face-to-face tutorials there is not enough *variety* to keep students motivated and feeling competent that they are learning things in several different ways/formats. I think I need to freshen up some of our tutorial activities to make them more relevant to students and interesting.

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31. I think the design of the curriculum to match learning outcomes should work in conjunction with quality feedback to ensure student wellbeing on assessments. There are a few studies that have shown that grades alone are often unhelpful in improving student learning, and that providing meaningful comments means we can show students how to improve, where they might do better, and where they have done well and demonstrated their ability (thus validating their knowledge). Certainly this can all apply to my role as a tutor, but in managing student volunteers, I can make clear the expectations (learning outcomes) and then provide feedback in accordance with those expectations throughout the students volunteering experience.

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32. Reflection question: How might this element of good curriculum design support student wellbeing in relation to your role?

    I agree with what has been said of good curriculum design and having everything aligned. One interesting “twist” on this that hasn’t been mentioned is to think of curriculum at the program level. At the individual level this is relatively easy to do as you only have yourself and the content/assessments to think about. Last year we ran some courses and due to the way the course conveners ran their courses, we discovered that students who were likely to take a set of courses had zero exams but very large major assignments all due at the same time. This added unnecessary stress to the students. By getting the course convenors to talk together we rescheduled assessments to help balance the assessment load for students likely to take this set of courses together

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33. I am tutoring a first-year course. The marking criteria for exams are very harsh, while those for tutorial quizzes are much more friendly. Some tutors are very responsible but receive complaints about the low grades. Some tutors give full marks for merely attendance (which is the aim of the quizzes) but the class didn’t perform well in the mid-semester exam.
    I got some positive feedback about my method of marking quizzes. I gave my students two marks: a higher one according to the quiz criteria (“I was a student and I know we’re all hoping for a higher grade, so this is what I report to our system”), and a strict one based on the exam criteria (“But you guys must know what you’re expected for the course”). Then I wrote a short feedback in the form of “encouragement-behavior-impact-next steps”, which is a combination of “sandwich method” and “CBIN approach” I learned in the PTD training. A student described this feedback as “assuring but also informative”. So I think, on one hand, a quality feedback can improve the students’ academic performance. On the other hand, it could build up the students’ confidence and curiosity to discover more about the material.

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34. Elements 2 and 4 are particularly relevant for me. Poor organisation and sequencing detrimentally impact all 5 elements of M-BRAC. Courses should be both individually, and collectively, cohesive. They should gradually develop the theoretic and practical skills that students will require in the “real world”. A law school in a previous university did a fantastic job in fostering student wellbeing through ensuring this consistency and gradual development. Teaching foundational courses in a certain order ensured that students were on an equal (as possible) playing field and minimised references to assumed knowledge. More importantly, the assessments for each course built upon each other. For example, a first-year course required students to submit an essay outline and a bibliography as individual assessment tasks prior to the final essay. This enabled students to receive substantial feedback, and indeed, feedforward, throughout the semester. Subsequent courses then developed on the essay skills students had acquired in their first year. This approach was also applied to other skillsets, especially practical skills such as mooting and case file management.

    A large part of this system’s success lies in the *timely* provision of *quality* feedback that enables students to improve over their degree. However, I have noticed at ANU that a lot of feedback comes late and is in the form of ticks, question marks, grade, and a throwaway comment such as “well done!”. This sort of “feedback” does not foster wellbeing, as it neither meaningfully informs students about the positive or negative attributes of their work, nor provides recommendations or opportunities for improvement. These are both areas where ANU could improve significantly.

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35. Why might poor organisation and sequencing of content impact on students wellbeing?
    It’s very stressful for students if a course isn’t organised. Content needs to build gradually and in an obvious way so that students can feel like there is a progression. If it’s too haphazard, it’s difficult to see how all the content fits together, which can cause an uneasy feeling that you’re not “on top” of everything. Some of the more difficult courses I took as an undergraduate were those where it was difficult to work out the structure of the course and how the parts were supposed to fit together. Even worse is when the assessment items seem to have nothing to do with the lecture content. Students can have no idea what it is they’re supposed to know and what it is they’re supposed to show that they have learned. This can be very stressful and disorienting.

    How could providing quality feedback to students impact on wellbeing in relation to assessments?
    Of course, I do think that quality feedback is very important. Students need to be told in a compassionate and constructive way how it is that they can improve. However, for casual staff marking assessment, where they are allocated 15 minutes per 1,000 words, this is barely possible. It is very difficult to say much that is helpful beyond general statements and advice. Also, knowing that many students will only ever look at the mark and not the feedback, it can be difficult to know how much to put into making constructive comments. Some of the ideas that others have mentioned above sound like good ways to get around this. Double marking of low-stakes assessment items, where students are given the opportunity to respond to feedback, sounds like a great way to get them to look at and make use of feedback. I may try to incorporate this into a future course.

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36. Having only learnt about M-BRAC yesterday I didn’t have it in mind when I designed the major part of my course assessment but I think it certainly ties in with some of the points mentioned. In the Vietnam Field School the major assessment is group work primary research projects where the students go out and about and conduct qualitative research with local people. This task is really at the pointy end of authentic real world learning, and given they get to choose their own topics to interview about it encourages them to build on prior learning and be relevant to their own interests. However it is the fact that this occurs in two parts that really meets the wellbeing aspects. The first research project is a practice run, compulsory but not marked in lieu of extensive feedback given from three separate assessors. The second attempt is assessable. This means we can ask students to complete a really challenging task but facilitate them to develop the skills before we assess them, essentially scaffolding their learning in a supportive way.

    How could providing quality feedback to students impact on wellbeing in relation to assessments?
    One of the reasons we don’t provide a mark for the first run only feedback is that research presented in a CHELT workshop suggested that as soon as students get a number they disengage with feedback. In the case of the field school this means we can give a variety of feedback on all the things that worked and didn’t work, and get peer input and students own reflection without any of the normative judgement that comes from a formal mark. I think this then sets students up to learn the maximum amount from the trial run and then use that learning for the second part.

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37. How might this element of good curriculum design support student wellbeing in relation to your role?
    Constructive alignment of learning objectives, syllabus, teaching methods, learning activities and assessment can provide a roadmap for student learning. If the roadmap is clear, then the destination is also clear. If these elements are poorly aligned this can create confusion. If a student is also having cognitive or emotional difficulties the course design can further impact on their self identity, efficacy, and sense of being able to master the content. I like this quote: Developing and communicating clear and explicit learning outcomes helps students set goals for their learning which can enhance their motivation and engagement in the learning process.”

    Keeping in mind the five M-BRAC elements, what types of activities could be included in curriculum design to support student wellbeing?
    -ice breakers at the beginning of the course to create a positive learning culture, clear assessment rubrics and feedback processes, ensuring consistency in (decision making) approaches and delivery, opportunities for peer learning. Students also need to know at a minimum what they did well and what they need to improve on. They need to read the feedback and act on it to see progressive improvement in achievement.

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    1. Hi Emmaline, great response! The other part of curriculum design that I think is critical — but much more difficult — is coordinating this approach across a whole degree program. As ANU has more and more flexible and double degree programs, this gets especially complicated! But for example, discussing how and when exams or major assignments are scheduled for students in a particular program and working to spread them out a bit more across the whole curriculum could help provide some additional breathing space and prevent them from bunching up all together. I’d love some suggestions on how to tackle something like this at an institutional level though!

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38. The two elements that I identify most with are close alignment of curriculum content and assessment for learning. As an undergraduate student I remember feeling far less motivated to complete assessment tasks when the purpose of the assessment was not clearly explained or when I received minimal and/or unsatisfying feedback. Some of the best learning experiences I remember during my undergraduate studies came from specific feedback on assignments that provided concrete examples of how I could improve on similar assignments in the future. This was highly motivating as I felt like I had a clear pathway to succeed. The issue of feedback seems to also relate back to the issue of ‘curriculum crowding’ and overall design. Overly frequent or poorly spaced out assessment would seem to also undermine the ability of the teacher to give timely and meaningful feedback.

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