WEBINAR SUMMARY:  Engaging with open educational practices (OEP) can seem daunting for staff, who may feel it represents an ‘all or nothing’ proposition for teaching and learning.  In this webinar, OEP will be contextualised and nuanced within the institutional ecology, and practical strategies supporting a transition toward openness will be explored. The underpinning rationale and purposes of open education inform these approaches, whilst also providing a measure for evaluation.

There is great satisfaction in developing engaging materials and learning environments in preparation for a new cohort of online learners. However, albeit with the best-laid plans and intentions, we often find that within the first few weeks of semester a group of students have ‘not engaged’, and others have evidenced ‘low engagement’. This presentation shares  a proactive strategy some HE teachers have embraced to increase students’ engagement by “nudging”, particularly low or non-engaged, students.

It is widely known that the activation of student learning and engagement has a positive correlation to student success, motivation, persistence, and course completion.  Yet, there is still limited guidance for academic staff seeking knowledge related to learning and teaching, pedagogical design and strategies to afford types of engagement, all of which are critical to improving students’ learning experiences and outcomes.

Student preparation for in-class practical experiences enables students to confidently and competently apply theory to practical activities. Despite developing quality preparatory resources, most students were choosing not to engage. Associate Professor Jennifer Wilson therefore repackaged the resources into a series of gamified, online, adaptive, laboratory preparatory modules (GOAL-PMs) to successfully increase student engagement, satisfaction and learning in her Biochemistry course laboratory sessions as measured by system metrics, student survey and focus groups.

Science is well known as a creative endeavour, with the generation of new ideas requiring inspiration and imaginative engagement. Activities that encourage divergent/imaginative thinking such as the creation of aesthetic/transformative materials can not only help students develop their own creativity, but also help them learn the content. Despite the well-known benefits of fostering creativity, students in the sciences rarely get the opportunity to develop or demonstrate this in assessment.

Sustainability in Learning and Teaching: Making it Happen offers three essential perspectives on why a focus on sustainability must be central for higher education institutions, and how this focus on sustainability can be embedded into learning and teaching. To be shared in the webinar will be guiding resources, practical strategies and concrete examples. The webinar will bring together insights borne of major projects and of extensive practice of effecting change at both institutional and disciplinary levels.

Presenter- Adrian Stagg, University of Southern Queensland