Format: Birds of a Feather

Topic for discussion: The complex interplay of societal attitudes, perceptions, and practices regarding menstruation.

Background/Context: Paradoxically, menstruation, while being an essential part of women’s life, has been much shrouded in secrecy and embarrassment (Beausang & Razor, 2000; Jackson & Falmagne, 2013), particularly within schools (Bui et al., 2021) and broader societal contexts.

Description: This study endeavors to explore the attitudes, perceptions, and practices related to menstruation in Vietnam.

Intended outcome: The study finds that menstruation is a multifaceted issue, in which there are mixed attitudes, perceptions and practices towards it. Menstruation is still an embarrassing topic within school settings, despite an acceptable level of menstrual literacy. Men play a rather inactive role in providing support during menstruation. Age is identified as the most impactful socio-cultural factor to influence people’s menstruation-wise behaviors, indicating the role of early education. Moreover, taboos surrounding menstruation persist, yet they are not as omnipresent as in the past, suggesting a move towards a more open society.

Contribution to practice: The significance of this research lies in its implications for educational initiatives towards menstruation, especially through impactful endeavors taking place within schools and thus broader social settings. These can encompass promoting mixed-gender communication about menstruation inside classrooms, integrating comprehensive menstrual education into curricula, and involving both parents in educating and supporting girls with positive menstrual practices.

Engagement: A visible coffee stain on white pants can be seen as normal, while a menstrual blood stain might be greatly frowned upon.

Format: Reflective practice

Topic for discussion: This roundtable discussion invites perspectives and experiences regarding academic women in leadership. The literature identifies the “glass ceiling” and the “glass cliff” and this juxtaposition will be used to canvas the topic of courageous decision-making and transformational leadership.

Background: Recent history has seen increased rates of female enrolments and completions of higher education qualifications (OECD 2022). This ‘female advantage’ (Buchmann & DiPrete 2006) has translated to a rise in academic women in leadership (Meza-Mejia et al. 2023; Morley 2013). Yet, challenges persist for women in academic leadership, including opposition to promotion, recognised as the ‘glass ceiling’ (Ragins et al. 1998). Women are also more likely to be appointed to higher risk roles and consequently experience the ‘glass cliff’ (Peterson 2016). Beyond reaching academic leadership positions, maintaining leadership and power positions in adverse environments is also an ongoing challenge.

Description: This round table facilitates an open discussion academic on the perspectives and experience of academic women in leadership.

Intended outcome: This round table raises the question for discussion of the “glass ceiling” and the “glass cliff” to canvas the topic of academic women in leadership, courageous decision-making and transformational leadership. The intended outcome is simply to allow participants a safe place to discuss issues that are most times very difficult to discuss.

Engagement: This round table will engage the audience by inviting them to reflect on their perspectives and experiences of the glass ceiling and glass cliff and specifically, expectations of academic women in leadership.

Topic: Exploring the transformative potential of the Peer Reflection and Observation Partnerships (PROP) program at RMIT STEM.

Context/Background: PROP is a unique triadic structure promoting reflective teaching practices (Hess & Sparrow, 2008). It involves pairs of educators and an academic developer, underpinned by Self-Determination Theory and Basic Psychological Needs Theory, emphasising competence, autonomy, and relatedness (Ryan & Deci, 2000; Deci & Ryan, 2008).

Description: PROP fosters collaboration and improves outcomes through cross-disciplinary, cross-functional collaboration and perspectives (Chester, 2012; Venema et al., 2015). The triadic PRT model, exemplified by PROP, enables supportive peer teaching observed by internal partners (Charles et al., 2022; Atkinson & Bolt, 2010). The academic developer's role enhances educators' interpersonal and pedagogical knowledge and development (Hansford et al., 2004).

Intended Outcome and Contribution: PROP provides a dynamic platform for collaborative, reflective, and transformative teaching practices. It aims to foster continuous improvement in teaching practices, enhancing teaching quality outcomes (Barnard et al., 2011; Bell, 2001; Chester, 2012; Harrison et al., 2022). Its innovative approach contributes to scholarship by extending engagement with learning designers, providing a dynamic platform for collaborative, reflective, and transformative teaching practices within the RMIT STEM community.

Engagement: The roundtable will commence with introductions and an ice breaker, followed by discussions on the importance of reflection in teaching and the benefits of cross-disciplinary perspectives. Participants will be asked key questions, such as "How do you incorporate reflection into your teaching practices?" and "How do you think the involvement of an academic developer and a learning designer could influence teaching practices?" They will also anticipate potential challenges in implementing PROP and suggest solutions. The discussion will conclude with reflections on the future of PROP, fostering open dialogue and idea exchange, deepening understanding of PROP, and fostering potential inter-university PRT partnerships.

Format: Work-in-progress
Focus: The focus is threefold. First, using innovative serious games to assess Ethical Global Citizenship. Second, using dual-purpose rubrics to grade student performance and evaluate competency goal achievement as part of program assessment and assurance of learning. Third, using robotic process automation (RPA) to collect performance data to identify needs improvement and closing the loop reporting.
Context: Calls for Australian Higher Education Institutions to ‘actively engage with indigenous perspectives and participate in action towards reconciliation and self-determination of First Nations’ has proven challenging. Our experience in serious games design and development research, demonstrates that well-designed serious games, such as our Bogart Ethics Game, engages students in immersive learning while providing a safe place to experiment, even fail (Vesty & Tsahuridu, 2020). Our games are successfully used in multiple programs, including workplace training. Furthermore, our success with RPA for large scale data collection from Canvas Learning Management System rubrics, demonstrates competency goal achievement across a large number of programs, in multiple locations and delivery modes. RPA is arguably essential for our business school accreditation and proven to be successful in driving innovative assessment change.
Description: Roundtable to showcase our new RPA approach for collecting embedded rubric data across programs and locations. Wider validation of this process is sought including aligned rubric and serious game in meeting pedagogical outcomes. Question: to what extent does the aligned rubric and insights from RPA support enhanced analysis in building to a values-driven program?
Intended contribution: By sharing our innovative approach, we aim to foster wider communities of practice and engage in innovative approaches to assuring programmatic learning outcomes.
Engagement: The audience will be asked to comment on the unfolding scenario of the serious games to determine its pedagogical applicability as well as suitability of aligned rubric and RPA process to measure program performance.

This roundtable is a work-in-progress session that presents findings from a current scoping review on teaching social research in undergraduate social sciences and social work research methods programs.

The focus of this session is on the effectiveness of different teaching and learning practices in undergraduate social research methods programs. Challenges to be explored include scaling, establishing relevance to practice for students, measurement of success and undertaking authentic, applied, research.

Most social sciences degrees in Australia include at least one introductory research methods unit of study. However, academics are often reluctant to teach these units and students can be anxious about undertaking a research project. Despite these challenges, there is also a gap in understanding what constitutes best practice in teaching research methods. Our research questions and explores the ways in which these units of study can enable students to develop research capabilities relevant to academic and professional contexts.

In response to the paucity of empirical research related to teaching social research methods, a scoping review has been undertaken. Key findings have implications for pedagogies and the quality of student learning these applied research skills.

This “work in progress” session will provide an overview of key findings from a current scoping review. This work in progress session will facilitate a structured discussion of key themes emerging from this research: the importance of the integration of research units across programs; modelling, scaffolding, and practicing of research elements; the importance of “research for real” and application to practice; and the role of instructor research interests.

Engaging as a community of practice, audience members will be encouraged to contribute key strategies or ideas from their experience of teaching research methods. Participants will be invited to consider the ways in which their research methods pedagogies could be enhanced and reported with greater rigour.

Format
Birds of a Feather

Topic for discussion
How can we best support higher education teachers through teaching and learning professional development (PD)? When should we (not) use particular PD formats, and what evidence informs these decisions?

Background
Central teaching and learning units are typically responsible for facilitating academic staff's PD to enhance teaching and learning (Chalmers et al., 2012). When planning these offerings, teaching and learning units often make arbitrary and isolated decisions (Geertsema & Chng, 2017). They may facilitate workshops despite limited evidence regarding long term changes in participants' behaviour (de Grave et al., 2014), rely upon asynchronous modules although they give limited opportunities for collegial interactions and collaborative learning (Cook, 2014), or neglect the value of formative peer reviews of teaching (Johnston et al., 2022).

Description
We conducted a literature synthesis which gives collective evidence about teaching and learning PD formats - how coaching and mentoring enables demand-driven PD, how professional learning networks facilitate connections beyond traditional boundaries, how static resources can provide 'just-in-time' support, and more. It highlights which format(s) might be better suited to a given circumstance, enabling informed and strategic decisions about an institution's suite of teaching and learning PD offerings.

Intended outcome and contribution to scholarship/practice
The roundtable discussion, supported by the literature synthesis, will give insight into how teaching and learning PD can be intentionally and strategically planned. In particular, it focuses on format choices that are informed by evidence and sensitive to context and needs. The roundtable discussion will be a springboard for a future HERDSA grant, extending the reach of the conversation.

Engagement
The key prompt for discussion is: How can we best support higher education teachers through teaching and learning professional development? Participants will be encouraged to share their experiences and opinions in response to the provided literature synthesis.

Format
Work-in-Progress

Focus of the Work-In-Progress
The development of a skills ontology for HE L&T that will define the skills employed by Australian university teaching staff.

Background
Academic Capability Frameworks are common in Australian Universities and are used to define at a high level what knowledge, skills, attitudes, and understanding (Stephenson, 2013) academic staff should possess to be able to demonstrate acceptable performance in their roles. It is not uncommon for such frameworks to be integrated into performance management systems and promotion frameworks. While such capability frameworks are useful to the work of academic developers, they are often not defined at a sufficient level of detail to aid decision-making about skills development service offerings and are institution-specific, making cross-institutional collaboration problematic.

Skills ontologies are structured frameworks that categorise and define required skills and their associated characteristics in a specific domain and define their relationships and interconnections. Such ontologies can provide a common vocabulary and facilitate a rich understanding of the skill landscape.

Description

Intended outcomes and contribution to scholarship/practice
This workshop will discuss work already in progress in this area of research at Australian Universities and form a cross-institutional community of practitioners with a common interest in developing and validating a skills ontology.

Engagement
This roundtable will engage attendees through interactive activities such as presentations, group discussions, and brainstorming sessions, aimed at encouraging collaboration and knowledge sharing. Attendees will have the opportunity to network with peers and experts in the field to gain a better understanding of the skills ontology development process. By the end of the roundtable, participants will have formed valuable connections and gained insights that will inform future work in this area.

Format:
Point for debate
Point for debate:
Educational escape rooms (EERs) are increasingly popular and commonly implemented as assessments (Veldkamp et al., 2020), but with no material published to date on inclusivity or accessibility. This raises concerns whether EERs meet the institution’s responsibility to provide inclusive education that supports diverse and under-represented learners (TEQSA, 2017).
Context/background:
Despite the popularity of EERs, little attention is given to their accessibility, inclusivity, and validity as an assessment tool. Current literature encourages consideration of participant characteristics (Clarke et al., 2017), but none mention approaches to accommodate diverse participants’ needs (Clarke et al., 2017; Eukel & Morrell, 2021; Taraldsen et al., 2022).
Similarly, while EERs are being used for assessment (Molina-Torres et al., 2021; Roman et al., 2020), guidance and literature rarely addresses challenges and their mitigation strategies (Clarke et al., 2017; Eukel & Morrell, 2021; Quek et al., 2024).
In response to the scarcity of a quality pedagogical model to inform the design and delivery of EERs, the team developed a set of EER Guidelines.
Description:
The EER guidelines provide a transdisciplinary model for evidence-informed practice in creating inclusive EERs for active learning or assessment.
Intended outcome and contribution to scholarship/practice:
The guidelines aim to increase capacity for EER engagement rather than inflexible EERs requiring assessment/activity substitution for students with specific equity requirements. Universal design for learning (CAST, 2018) was applied to EER context to build-in and prioritise flexibility, choice, and alternatives.
Inclusivity suggestions in the guidelines are potentially applicable to other interactive teaching and assessment tools, such as oral assessments, immersive learning experiences and simulations.
Engagement:
Reflective question: To what extent can EERs be used as an inclusive, valid form of assessment? How can the tensions of immersive, secure, novel, scalable experiences be balanced with accessibility to produce equitable learning and assessment experiences?

Point for debate: The relevance of, and rationale for, undertaking a HERDSA Fellowship will be vigorously debated, discussed and explored

Context/background:
Despite the fact that the HERDSA Fellowship has recently celebrated it's 20 year anniversary, it is considerably less well known than the Advance HE Fellowship. In tems of the number of current Fellows, the HERDSA Fellowship with its approximately 60 members is dwafted by the more omnipresent Advance HE Fellowship which has thousands of Fellows in Australia alone, and many more globally. It could be argued that the HERDSA Fellowship does not have a place in Australian Higher Education sector, or does it?

Description:
This roundtable will deliberately employ a provocative approach to challenge and explore the relative benefits of undertaking a Learning and Teaching Fellowship generally, and in particular, a HERDSA Fellowship.

Intended outcome and contribution to scholarship/practice:
Particpants in the round table debate will leave the session with a deeper knowledge of the rationale for the existance of the HERDSA Fellowship. They will be more informed and able to make a personal ckoice as to whether the Fellowship is appropraite and relevant for them to undertake.

Engagement:
A series of provocations will be presented to the roundtable participants, by being asked to consider and express:
Why are you interested in undertaking a fellowship?
What outcomes do you set yourselves to achieve at the completion of the fellowship?
How would you like to engage in the learning process to achieve these outcomes?
These will seek to stimulate robust discussion designed to inform those who are unfamilar with the Fellowship. At the same time, they will tease out and examine the established beliefs of those who are already aware of the Fellowship.

Focus of work-in-progress roundtable
Discussion of research findings about enhancing first year student experiences and academic skills through enquiry-based learning (EBL) and use of generative Artificial Intelligence (AI). The input and feedback from participants will help to refine the project; and will provide participants with new ideas and strategies.

Background

Enhancing the first-year experience is important because getting the first years of study right means better student engagement, higher retention, and more success in future studies (Nelson & Clarke, 2014). This is ever more critical in times of current transformations in higher education through AI. Educators need to integrate AI into teaching and learning, in particular assessment, as this means more student empowerment and providing students with skills and knowledge to use AI (Lodge et al., 2023, UNESCO 2023a,b). Using AI effectively and critically can lead to higher-order thinking and more personalised learning (UNESCO, 2023, p. 37; Pelletier et al., 2023). Research shows that EBL enhances student engagement, development of critical thinking and problem-solving skills, and improves student learning (Blessinger, Carfora, & Ahmad, 2014). This needs to start at first year level.

Description
This roundtable is based on a current project in which first year students, with the guidance of the instructor (Wanner), are using AI for their academic tasks and assessment, and work collaboratively researching global poverty and sustainability.

Intended outcome/contribution to scholarship:
The roundtable provides educators the opportunity to discuss and share knowledge and experiences about how to use generative AI. The research is contributing to scholarship about how to use AI and EBL for first year student engagement and learning.

Engagement: 1. Icebreaker: short quiz (done on mobile phones) about anxiety and use of AI. 2. Sharing approaches and experiences of teaching first year courses with focus on technologies and collaborative learning. 3. Discussion 4. Networking