Challenges of Student Diversity in a Large First Year Unit

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Challenges of Student Diversity in a Large First
Year Unit

• Janine McBurnie
• Anneke Veenstra-Quah
• Andrew Bennett

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SQA101 Ecology and the Environment
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Major Challenges

• Large numbers
• Students from diverse backgrounds and from a
  number of faculties
• Majority of students are in their first semester
  of university

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Dealing with large numbers

• Challenges of building a positive relationship
  with a sea of faces
• Impact of building a positive relationship
• Administrative load
• Finding, training and managing sessional staff

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Diverse Backgrounds 20 different degree courses
in 2007

• Environmental Science
• Biological Science
• Education students
• Compulsory subject for BEd (Primary)
• An elective for Secondary Education Science
• Others including Health Sciences, Arts and
  Business and Law

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First Year - First Semester

• Many 1st year first semester units have large
  enrolments
• Easy to become lost or isolated
• Have for a number of years in the first lecture,
  given the students an introduction to university
  life that includes
• What to expect
• Where to get help
• What their rights and responsibilities are

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The First Week

• Addressing the challenge of multiple cohorts
• Staff member from the Faculty of Education comes
  to talk to the students about the importance of
  Environmental Science in education
• Important that students not studying education
  see this as relevant to them
• Students from all cohorts are encouraged to see
  education as part of all career paths

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Science is Scary!

• Many students come into this unit with the
  attitude that it is their compulsory science
  unit and are fully prepared not to like it
• SQA101 Ecology and the Environment
• Module 1 Environmental Management
• Module 2 Introductory Ecology

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Negative Expectations

• Too much work for Education students to handle
  for a relatively unimportant subject (2004)

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Changing the Unit Structure

• When the unit was first delivered the Ecology
  module was first unit evaluations indicated
  that this was the area that the students found
  the most challenging, so we swapped them around
  to see what impact that would have
• All students showed some familiarity to the case
  studies used in the EM module, which helped them
  to gain confidence
• Science was starting to appear a little less
  scary!

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Putting Science into Context

• Case study approach
• Introducing environmental management by applying
  environmental science to real life situations
• Case studies used include
• Climate change
• Freshwater management
• Wind power

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Choosing Assessment Tasks

• Feedback from early semester assessment tasks
  plays a vital role in establishing student
  confidence in a subject area
• First two assessment tasks have received very
  positive feedback from students for many years
• Both tasks provide students with tools that can
  be used throughout their university life and
  contribute to life long learning skills

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The Use of Role Play

• Group assignment
• Making new contacts
• Working with others group dynamics
• A current environmental issue is chosen
• Wind farms
• Use of recycled water for human use
• Nuclear energy

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Feedback!

• I enjoyed undertaking Ecology and the
  Environment because it was a subject that was
  different to the others that I have been studying
  and the subjects that I have completed in the
  past. The group assignment gave me a chance to
  get to know other students which is a relief as a
  first year student

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• the best out of all my units for getting help
  and understanding getting started at Deakin
  University

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Media Watch

• Students gather environmental items from all
  sources of media and report on how environmental
  issues are presented
• Gives them a broad understanding of environmental
  science
• Student feedback illustrates that this task
  provides them with an awareness of how science is
  reported in the media
• An activity that many continue after the module
  has been completed

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Feedback

• I have enjoyed this unit because it is a subject
  I would not have chosen myself however I found it
  interesting(2006)

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Ecology Module

• Introduces students to more pure science concepts
  but still in an applied manner
• More structured assessment tasks
• Students struggled with writing in a scientific
  manner
• I am not sure what is expected of me?

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Marking Schemes

• Students are provided with a very detailed
  outline of what is expected within each
  assessment task
• AND
• The marking criteria included within an online
  campus based manual

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Feedback

• Excellent unit, the assessments were diverse
  which made the subject good (2004)
• I thoroughly enjoyed this unit, made even more
  pleasurable by the passion and geniality of the
  staff. This approach was appreciated by an
  anxious 34 year old with no prior academic
  experience (2006)

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2007 Challenges

• This year was a very difficult year
• Numbers increased from 360 to 500
• Finding suitable sessional staff
• Marking!!!

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A Rethink of Assessment

• Some assessment tasks suitable for large numbers
• Others took so long to mark that students had to
  wait too long for feedback

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Tutorials More Like Lectures

• To cope with the numbers of students and
  timetable limitations many tutorials had between
  35-40 students
• No longer a tutorial!
• Students did come and see me to see if we could
  have more tutorials or smaller classes

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2008

• Currently rethinking our approach
• Plan to work with an education design academic to
  assist with possible different, more appropriate
  assessment tasks

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Final Thoughts

• Teaching environmental science is too important
  to give up on
• If numbers continue at current levels it is time
  to think outside of the box!