Sponsor/year: Faculty of Arts & Education, 2015.

Project leads: Dr Mary Dracup, Juliet Austin, Dr Tanya King, Dr Shaun Rawolle.

Aims: Identify unmet needs of diverse students and collaborate to embed resources/ techniques in the curriculum to address these - capacity building while improving curriculum.

Underpinning theories/literature:

• Universal Design for Learning in higher education: website with explanations, examples of how UDL is applied in higher education.
• The ‘academic literacies’ model: theory and applications: article explaining the concept of embedded academic literacies.
• Expansive learning at work: toward an activity theoretical reconceptualization: article explaining the basic application of Engestrom’s Cultural-Historical Activity Theory.

• Annotated readings: Richly annotated Word and PDF versions of all readings, including questions, explanations, background and parallels to other texts. These are provided from the beginning of the trimester and promoted by teaching staff (ASS234).
• Video-annotated reading: Video-annotation of a key article to demonstrate how to approach reading an academic article, with a short self-test on key points at the end. A transcript is also provided (ASS234).
• Video-annotated unit guide: This highlights and elaborates on main points, and is provided before the beginning of the trimester with a transcript (ASS234).
• Formative peer assessment: A formative peer assessment activity before submission of the first assignment, including scaffolding activities to explain how marking rubrics work, how to give good feedback, and demonstrating how to use the rubric to mark an assignment using an annotated assignment example. Students mark peers’ assignment drafts using the rubric and give written feedback (ETP102).
• Visual fact sheets: Students produce and speak to one-page visual 'fact sheets' in seminar presentations and weekly online discussions, instead of presenting written papers. Clear instructions, examples, links to infographic-making apps and a clear marking rubric are provided (ASS234).
• Visual first conceptualisation: Students make and share a picture postcard of initial conceptions of the unit and revisit this to support ongoing deconstruction of their original personal preconceptions. Clear instructions and examples are provided (ASS234).
• Assignment requirements infographic: An infographic clarifying stages and requirements of complex assignments is incorporated in assignment instructions (ETP102).
• Embedded study support: Study support videos and Q&A discussion forums provided from the beginning of the trimester on the Cloud Deakin site, along with real-time, recorded, Blackboard Collaborate sessions on study skills provided by Language and Learning Advisers (ASS234).
• Embedded Librarian support: Librarian lecture spot and annotated PowerPoint video provided on the CloudDeakin site, with transcript, demonstrating how to find resources for a particular assignment (both units).

Part of an infographic used to clarify assessment requirements

An alternative format may be downloaded here: Assessment requirements infographic (DOCX 16KB)

Student success: Where interventions were able to be embedded in curriculum documents and CloudDeakin sites early in the trimester and promoted to students, significant increases in student grades and success rates occurred for LSES and other equity groups. This applied for both units (ASS234 in Trimester 2 2015, and ETP102 in Trimester 2 2016, based on SIPU data).

• ASS234: the overall student success rate rose 19.6% in the intervention trimester; LSES achieved 100% success; remote/regional students’ rate rose 17.2%; students who were first in their family at university rate rose 15.7%; Cloud-based students’ rate rose by 30%. EVALUate responses showed minimum 93%, maximum 100% satisfaction with various aspects of the unit. Students’ results plateaued in Trimester 2 2016 but were still higher than in 2014.
• ETP102: the overall success rate rose 4.6% in the trimester following intervention (as interventions were not all provided early in the intervention trimester); LSES rate rose 5.6%; remote/regional students’ rate rose 6.3%; Indigenous students’ success rate rose 20.8%; students who were first in their family at university rate rose 5.8%. Percentages of LSES students not completing this unit also decreased from 4.6% to 0, even though the percentage of LSES students in 2016 were 13.5 % of the total cohort (higher than in 2015).
• Student comments: Student focus groups and teacher interviews across both units indicated that the interventions helped demystify academic texts and language, clarify expectations and assessment tasks, provide a variety of methods of representation and engagement (particularly visual), and help students learn with and from peers review (internal report).
• Sustainability: Staff say curriculum changes will most likely stay in place until unit/course review (internal report).
• Staff comments: Staff directly involved reported significantly improved capacity to provide inclusive curriculum, including improved technical knowledge, pedagogy, skills, confidence, professional relationships (internal report).

Grade distribution changes pre and post-intervention in ASS234, with comparison to Faculty and University averages

An alternative format may be downloaded here: ASS234 Grade distribution 2014­-2016 (DOCX 14KB)
 

Changing success rates for different groups of students in ETP102

An alternative format may be downloaded here: ETP102 Success rates 2014-2016 (DOCX 13KB)

• King, T & Dracup, M 2016, Inclusive curriculum exemplar - Annotated documents, DeakinAir video.
• Dracup, M 2016, Inclusive curriculum exemplar – Formative peer assessment, DeakinAir video.
• Dracup, M, King, T & Austin, J 2016, ‘Simple techniques for a more inclusive curriculum’, STARS Conference, 29 June-2 July, Perth.
• Dracup, M, King, T, Rawolle, S & Austin, J 2015, 'Hurdle jumping in the Cloud: Using video and annotated documents to decode academic texts and expectations (PPTX 329KB)', Deakin Learning & Teaching Conference, Burwood.