Page 4 - ASC Highlights

10 Minutes Chat with ...…

Dr. Philip Anthony Hamill
Associate Provost, Student Success,
Office of the Provost

1. How do you think e-learning and teaching has affected students’ and faculty life at ADU?

Such an unprecedented swift transition from a traditional face-to-face delivery to distance learning has had positive
and negative effects for students, faculty and staff. Students signed up for face-to-face courses and are having to
grapple with online delivery and, probably more challenging, assessment. A significant amount of effort was put into
preparing students for distance delivery and training faculty to prepare and deliver courses. We were fortunate that
we had faculty with e-learning/distance learning expertise who were able to train faculty, and staff quickly. Feedback
from students indicates that the overall quality of our distance learning provision is very good and students understand
and appreciate the efforts of ADU to provide quality distance learning courses. It was also evident that students were
anxious about having to engage in distance learning within the wider context of Covid19- with personal isolation. Our
approach to distance learning was not to simply substitute planned assessments for online assessment. We approached
distance learning from the perspective of developing courses and program assessment in terms of what you would
develop for a distance learning course/program. Distance learning typically relies more on individual assignments,
group projects, case studies, open book exams: assessment instruments that promote deep learning, as opposed to
surface learning which research indicates is common with cramming for end-of-term exams. Assessment strategies
for distance learning tend to be persistent throughout the courses, whereas most universities have the big bang at the
end using traditional end-of-term proctored examinations. One of the major benefits of the distance learning delivery
is the focus on a wider variety of assessment instruments which incentivize student engagement and improve the
quality of learning. The major benefit of moving to distance learning has been that students, and faculty, have acquired
a raft of new technical and pedagogical skills which are transferable and make them more employable.

2. What are some of the steps ADU has taken to ensure that all needs of the students are met through the
virtual space?

Student experience encompasses academic and non-academic aspects of personal development. It is important that
students have the opportunity to learn, grow and develop supported by multiple activities and services provided by
their university. This includes clubs and societies, counselling services, career support and additional academic support
for students experience academic challenges. ADU has worked hard to migrate services to a virtual environment to
offer the support students need. This includes creating a virtual academic success center, introducing a raft of initiatives
to support students across all years, but with a specific focus on freshman students who are starting their academic
journey, and a host of online activities ranging from online sporting challenges, art and cooking along with online
counselling.

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