Unit rationale, description and aim
To be professionally capable and progressive as a tertiary educator, students need to ensure their practice is informed by an understanding of scholarship in learning and teaching. This micro-credential is designed to engage with and build on the knowledge and skills developed in preceding micro-credentials of the Graduate Certificate in Higher Education through the completion of a personalised SoTL project. Throughout the project, Students will learn the key principles of research design appropriate to the higher education context and properly reflect on the ethical considerations and constraints involved in researching with humans as defined and regulated by the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC). As part of the project, students will develop a research question that seeks to investigate an innovative, interesting, or troublesome aspect of their practice that is theorised by adult learning and teaching principles. Students will plan and justify a research approach that is founded on relevant literature and contributes to their own professional learning as well as the understanding of other practitioners in their field. Completing this micro-credential will develop the knowledge and skills students need to complete an application for ethics approval to implement their planned research. Therefore, the aim of this micro-credential is to develop foundational knowledge and skills in SoTL and prepare students for applied research of their practice in teaching and learning in higher education.
Learning outcomes
To successfully complete this unit you will be able to demonstrate you have achieved the learning outcomes (LO) detailed in the below table.
Each outcome is informed by a number of graduate capabilities (GC) to ensure your work in this, and every unit, is part of a larger goal of graduating from ACU with the attributes of insight, empathy, imagination and impact.
Explore the graduate capabilities.
Communicate knowledge of research ethics in the sc...
Learning Outcome 01
Apply sophisticated knowledge and deep understandi...
Learning Outcome 02
Demonstrate basic skills in scholarship by critica...
Learning Outcome 03
Content
Topics will include:
Module 1 – Research Ethics in SoTL
- Research ethics, including in Australian, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander, and international contexts and in the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning.
Module 2 – Research Design in SoTL
- Scholarship in Learning and Teaching research including Indigenous research methodologies and the ACU mission
- Teaching and professional practice as a scholarly activity
Assessment strategy and rationale
The assessment for this micro-credential is designed for students to demonstrate their achievement of each learning outcome. Assessment for each learning outcome allows students to demonstrate knowledge acquisition, assimilation, and application. This is done using a formative assessment task which links to a summative assessment task. In the formative task, students will present the acquired knowledge of ethics in learning and teaching research practice by relating ethical principles to their planning for a suitable research method (assimilation). Students will find the learning they achieve through this task is a necessary scaffold for the completion of the summative task. In the summative task, students will develop an ethically appropriate research proposal that reflects their existing knowledge of their discipline as well as adult learning theories and applies to developing their knowledge of research methods in SoTL to the design and justification of a planned research process.
This micro-credential is graded. In order to pass this micro-credential, students are required to demonstrate a passing standard or better for the summative assessment task.
Overview of assessments
Assessment Task 1: Formative assessment The kin...
Assessment Task 1: Formative assessment
The kind of assessment task needed is one that requires you to explain how ethical tenets for research with humans relate to your developing research question and planning.
In this micro-credential, the task is for you to present the key ethical challenges for your SoTL project and possible strategies for addressing and overcoming ethical risks associated with your research question and planned research method.
For feedback
Assessment Task 2: Summative assessment The kin...
Assessment Task 2: Summative assessment
The kind of assessment task needed is one that requires you to relate and apply the concepts, principles and theories you are learning from SoTL literature about ethical research, scholarly literature including theories of adult learning and research design and planning in higher education.
In this micro-credential, the task is for you to present a research plan that poses a question relevant to SoTL practice accompanied by relevant scholarly literature and an appropriate and ethically informed research method.
The assessment must reference adult learning and teaching theories and principles as well as SoTL and discipline-related literature.
This task uses Turnitin
100%
Learning and teaching strategy and rationale
To maximise flexibility and engagement for all students and therefore foster learning opportunity, student-centered self-paced learning is an underpinning strategy adopted for this micro-credential. It follows that students will be expected to interact with their peers, contribute to online discussions and contribute to a pool of shared resources including LMS posts. Students are also encouraged to keep a reflective journal in the students’ LMS profile to develop their ability to engage in critical self-reflection. Engagement with teaching staff in this fully online micro-credential will be facilitated primarily through online forums and meetings. Individualised textual feedback on formative and summative assessment tasks is provided to support continuing development and refinement of the research project as it is prepared for dissemination.