John Willison

University of Adelaide

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Fizza Sabir

University of Adelaide

Jean‐Pierre Magnin

Laboratoire d’Electrochimie et de Physico-chimie des Matériaux et des Interfaces

Muriel Raveton

Laboratoire d'Écologie Alpine

Suniti Bandaranaike

James Cook University

Eleanor Peirce

University of Adelaide

Mário Ricci

National Institute for Space Research

Ricky Fernandes

University of Adelaide

Nicolas Gondrexon

Laboratoire Rhéologie et Procédés

Christopher Boyle

University of Adelaide

Kerry O’Regan

University of Adelaide

Cooperative Institutions

University of Adelaide

Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique

Université Grenoble Alpes

Université Joseph Fourier

Laboratoire d'Écologie Alpine

Institut polytechnique de Grenoble

Commissariat à l'Énergie Atomique et aux Énergies Alternatives

CEA Grenoble

VetAgro Sup

Translational Innovation in Medicine and Complexity

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First-year Human Biology students in the ivory tower

Proceedings of The Australian Conference on Science and Mathematics Education (formerly UniServe Science Conference) (2009)

Eleanor Peirce Mário Ricci Irene Lee John Willison

University academics have frequently been characterised as having esoteric, blue-sky research agendas that are unconnected with the real world. Moreover, these same agendas are said to frequently clash with and impede quality teaching, impacting negatively on undergraduate students’ learning of science content and skills. But what happens when the skills associated with research in a science academic’s discipline are explicitly identified, fostered and assessed in large first-year science courses? And what are students’ long-term, well-considered perspectives of the benefits and downsides of these research-skill-building experiences? This paper presents findings from interviews with 3 cohorts of students that were conducted 1 year after completion of 2 consecutive first-year human biology courses that were designed to explicitly develop student research skills. Students from 2005 and 2006, interviewed in 2006 and 2007 respectively, provided a perspective that the academics coordinating the courses needed to make the purpose and process of developing student research skills more obvious to students. The changes to the curriculum were then gauged through the interviews with the 2007 cohort of students, conducted in 2008. Findings include that the majority of students perceived that the research skills they developed in first year human biology were very useful for their subsequent study, but also in their proposed or realised employment. These findings have been fed back into the course, to motivate present students about the benefits of a focus on their research skill development.

Ivory tower

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Citations (6)

Characteristics, prevalence and tensions of critical thinking in Indonesian high school English language classes resulting from policy-driven teaching

Thinking Skills and Creativity (2024)

Ricky Fernandes John Willison Christopher Boyle

Language Policy

10.1016/j.tsc.2024.101605

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Citations (1)

Student engineers optimising problem solving and research skills

Journal of University Teaching and Learning Practice (2018)

Dorothy Missingham Siddarth Shah Fizza Sabir John Willison

Problem solving and researching are connected activities in the engineering profession and across education. The empirical research presented in this paper considered the effectiveness for teaching and learning of a model that was based on this connection and derived from the parameters of the Research Skill Development framework. The model, devised by students for students, is called the Optimising Problem Solving (OPS) pentagon, and was piloted in a large first-year engineering course in 2014-2015 and in another university in the first half of 2016. This article presents data from formal research conducted on the 2016 offering of the course gathered from pre (n=221) and post (n=169) surveys, and semi-structured interviews of students (n=5) and student/tutors (n=5) sixteen months after course completion. Statistically significant (p < 0.01) changes from pre to post in items with medium to large effect sizes provided student perspectives on which problem-solving skills improved, and the interview data provided rich detail on the nature of changes and how these changes were effected. For the 2016 cohort studied, our evidence suggests that use of the OPS pentagon was associated with improved student problem-solving skills, and tutors’ capacity to teach problem solving.

Pentagon

Problem-Based Learning

10.53761/1.15.4.8

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Citations (13)

Long-term performance measures of Research Skill Development with First Year Human Biology students

Proceedings of The Australian Conference on Science and Mathematics Education (formerly UniServe Science Conference) (2011)

John Willison Mário Ricci Eleanor Peirce

This presentation provides an analysis and insights from nine years of data on the performance of First Year Human Biology students when they experienced a curriculum that explicitly developed and assessed their research skills. Performance was determined by academics’ direct measures of student research skills, student pre- and post- self assessment of their research skills, student written statements about research skills and interviews with students conducted at the end of Second Year. A rich array of benefits of explicit research skill development were found from the variety of perspectives given by the data, whereas students declared very few downsides of this focus. Students were more circumspect when it came to identifying factors that helped them improve their research skills and factors that hindered this development; interviews and written comments highlighted numerous problems for the processes used, even though the overall trend was positive about the teaching methods. In addition, correlations trends were determined for student progression through their degrees when related to their final research skill measures from open-ended research conducted near the end of first year, as well as trends for correlations of marks over time.

Presentation (obstetrics)

Study skills

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Research Thinking for Responsive Teaching

Springer briefs in education (2024)

John Willison

Facilitation

10.1007/978-981-99-6679-0

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Citations (1)

Engaging students in Work Integrated Learning: drives and outcomes

Suniti Bandaranaike John Willison

Whilst there are numerous methods of assessing Work Integrated Learning (WIL), finding one which delivers effective feedback is critical to motivate students. Much current WIL assessment is textual and does not permit dialogue between student and assessor. The aim of this paper is to present a technique that will facilitate a two way discourse on performance and learning experiences and create awareness to adaptation, in the workplace. The drive or motivation to engage in WIL was trialled in this study from formative feedback received via face-to-face interviewing. The Work Skills Development Framework (Bandaranaike & Willison) was used to model the interview content, and feedback gathered from a total of 84 students and employers over a period of 10 months. Based on the results of the interviews, the paper articulates the need for lifelong learning outcomes beyond the immediate work-based experience through a practice based learning model of WIL designed on the Prochaska and DiClemente's five stage Model of Change (1982). The study noted the value of face-to-face assessment in achieving validity, reliability and contextual authenticity in work-based learning research. The research also demonstrates the need for students to reflect beyond the work-based learning experience and project towards future challenges thus bridging the gap between tacit and explicit learning.

Interview

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Citations (7)

A combination of linear and nonlinear activation functions in neural networks for modeling a de-superheater

Simulation Modelling Practice and Theory (2008)

Morteza Mohammadzaheri Lei Chen Ali Ghaffari John Willison

Superheater

10.1016/j.simpat.2008.09.015

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Citations (36)

The efficiency of energy conservation in cytochrome c-deficient mutants of Paracoccus denitrificans

FEMS Microbiology Letters (1981)

John Willison

Paracoccus denitrificans

10.1016/0378-1097(81)90198-1

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Citations (0)

Analog Circuit Design

Elsevier eBooks (1998)

John Willison

Current conveyor

Intuition

10.1016/b978-075067062-3/50021-2

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Citations (2)

Factors that influence cognitive presence: A scoping review

Australasian Journal of Educational Technology (2022)

Sandhya Maranna John Willison Srécko Joksimovíc Nayana Parange Maurizio Costabile

The gradual shift to online modes of learning in higher education institutions over the past 2 decades accelerated drastically on a global scale between 2020 and 2022. Students and educators, who have initially grappled with the shift, have now become accustomed to online teaching; however, there are concerns about the quality of learning that has resulted. To enable a sustainable and effective online pedagogy, educators may need to learn about fostering higher-order thinking skills, which can be challenging even for experienced educators. To conceptualise effective online pedagogy, the community of inquiry (CoI) framework emphasises cognitive presence (CP), which focuses on the higher-order thinking process. The CoI is the most widely researched framework in online pedagogy, yet contemporary CoI literature lacks collective evidence of factors that influence CP. This scoping review of the CoI literature explores the factors that influence the higher-order thinking that is indicative of CP. Inclusion criteria included evidence of CP in online learning contexts and published between January 2000 and March 2022, providing a total of 121 studies. Results suggest that teaching presence, structure of learning activities and student characteristics all influence CP. Implications for practice or policy: Higher education students enrolled in online courses should be taught how to learn effectively in an online mode. Online course educators must embed learning tasks that foster self-regulation and higher-order skills in students. Online course design should include authentic tasks for students to apply new knowledge to real-life scenarios. Educators must be offered ample professional development activities to build their skills in online pedagogy. Institutions should encourage translation of online educational research to practice.

Higher-Order Thinking

Community of Inquiry

Online discussion

Online Community

10.14742/ajet.7878

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Citations (7)