Principles of Teaching, Learning and the Student Experience
Staff
Learning environments may be an amalgam of physical and virtual facilities, services and resources depending on the nature of the course, its offering, student type, location etc. The online environment sits as a nested set of virtual learning resources and communication avenues within the broader learning environment of the course. Learning environments should enable effective, efficient, satisfying and accessible learning by all in the target group.
Coates (2006, p.4) citing Hu and Kuh (2001) define engagement as 'the quality of effort students themselves devote to educationally purposeful activities that contribute directly to desired outcomes'.
The USA National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE, 2003) divides student engagement into five benchmarks:
Level of academic challenge
- Students pushing frontiers of their knowledge
- Learning new materials
- Doing increasingly difficult activities
- Efforts and intentions to move learning forward
Active and collaborative learning
- How often students ask questions in class
- Make class presentations
- Work with peers inside and outside of class
- Participate in course-related community projects
- Discuss curricula materials outside of class
Student-faculty interaction
- Frequency with which students discuss assessment processes & outcomes with instructors
- Meet with faculty beyond class to talk about class materials
- Receive prompt diagnostic performance feedback
- Engage broad forms of interaction with staff, e.g. research, careers advice, non-coursework activities
Enriching educational experiences
- Extent students interact with people from other backgrounds
- Participated in study abroad and exchange opportunities
- Studied a foreign language
- Used technology to communicate with institution
- Participated in cocurricular activities such as internships, volunteer work or beyond-class communities
Supportive campus environment
- Extent to which students see environment helping them cope with non-educational responsibilities, or support to prosper in their studies
(as cited by Coates, 2006, pp.54-57).
The NSSE is being adapted and trialled in Australian higher education. A sixth benchmark, Work Integrated Learning, has been developed specifically for the AUSSE.
Provides a perspective on all aspects of students learning:
Coates (2006, p.128) describes a learning community: 'Broadly conceived, learning communities, or communities of practice, are groups of individuals with shared knowledge creation interests. Contemporary theories of learning suggest that learning results from participation in such communities.'
Coates (2006, p.128) citing the work of Little (1975) highlights the importance of the campus environment for learning. Learning communities are important in addressing student engagement benchmarks relating to Enriching educational experiences and Supportive campus environment (see NSSE, 2003). Little identified four types of university learning climates organised along two dimensions:
The four climates are:
Coates, H. (2006). Student Engagement in Campus-based and Online Education. New York: Routledge.
Hu, S. & Kuh, G.D. (2001) Being (Dis)engaged in Educationally Purposeful Activities: The Influence of Student and Institutional Characteristics. Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association Annual Conference.
Little, G. (1975). Faces on the campus: a psycho-social study. Carlton, Vic.: Melbourne University Press.
National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE) (2003). Converting Data into Action: Expanding the Boundaries of Institutional Improvement: National Survey of Student Engagement 2003 Annual Report. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University.
