Scholarship of Teaching & Learning (SoTL) Showcase

Professor Mary Wright, Professor of Education Scholarship Educational Innovation Team, Deputy Vice Chancellor (Education), The University of Sydney, Australia

A theory of change is a hypothesis or prediction about how a desired outcome can occur. Often these are implicit or intuitional, but much research suggests that the presence of explicit and intentional theories of change is critical for achieving our goals successfully. What is our – and our institutions’ – theory of change around the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) and the Scholarship of Academic Development (SoAD)? For example, is the primary purpose to develop critically reflective educators or to promote rigorous research? In this talk, I argue that our theories of change may be muddled in ways that hinder the outcomes we can achieve. I apply four lenses – or theories of change – that emerge from the sociology of higher education (Stevens, Armstrong, and Arum, 2008, as adapted in Wright, 2023). These shed light on possibilities and chart more intentional pathways for maximizing the transformative potential of scholarly approaches to teaching and academic development in higher education.

Winn Wing-Yiu Chow, Qianyi Li, Muqing Guo (Presenting Author), Stella Peng, Marc Cheong (Presenting Author), and Julian Marx, Faculty of Engineering and Information Technology

The widespread adoption of lecture capture systems has paradoxically been linked to declining lecture attendance and inconsistent student engagement. This study moves beyond attendance metrics by using learning analytics to examine how postgraduate students navigate flexible learning. Through a mixed-methods approach, we identified four distinct engagement patterns with nearly half of participants falling into a “Disengaged” cluster that showed significantly poorer academic outcomes. Our findings highlight that unstructured flexibility functions as a “double-edged sword”: it benefits self-regulated learners but exacerbates procrastination in others. We conclude with evidence-based recommendations for implementing supportive scaffolding that mitigates procrastination while preserving student autonomy.

Mark Latham (Presenting Author), Faculty of Engineering and Information Technology
Helena Bender (Presenting Author), Faculty of Science
Franz Wohlgezogen (Presenting Author), Faculty of Business and Economics
Andrew King, Faculty of Science
Yi Huang (Presenting Author), Faculty of Science
Rose Hawkins, Chief Operating Officer

Education is one of the key ways that the University aims to make a positive impact on society, yet it has few mechanisms for understanding the impact that education has in achieving these aims. Typically, education-related sustainability reporting by Universities tends to focus on the content of the curriculum, rather than the outcomes experienced by the student.  This session reports on a multi-year, cross-faculty, multi-subject, chancellery-supported project that built and trialled a sustainability self-efficacy reflection tool (aSSERT).  The presentation will focus on the research that informed the design of aSSERT, survey results and reflections on its implementation.

Paul Fijn and Age Zanca, Faculty of Science

Designing a new university statistics course was an opportunity to create a subject founded entirely on inclusion, celebrating and valuing students’ diverse backgrounds, experiences, and neurodiversity. Content, resources, technology, classes, assessments, and learning management systems were all created and designed incorporating the principles of universal design for learning, with varying ease of implementation and time-commitment required. We summarise and reflect on our experiences in trying to design for accessibility: we will discuss which aspects were most successful, which would be simplest to implement in existing subjects with established content and resources, and the challenges we faced in developing this subject.

Andrea Pianella and Nancy Mase, Faculty of Architecture, Building and Planning

This project explores the use of an educational escape room as a playful yet purposeful revision activity to prepare students for a high-stakes oral exam. Instead of a traditional recap lecture, students collaborated in small groups to solve puzzles linked to subject content, rehearsing skills of reasoning, justification, and teamwork, in preparing them for their oral exam. Student reflections revealed that the escape room motivated earlier preparation, boosted confidence, and reduced anxiety. Tutors confirmed the activities strong alignment with exam demands. This session demonstrates how playful learning can transform revision into an engaging and effective learning experience.

Dr Kylie Fitzgerald (Presenting Author), Dr Michael Poulton (Presenting Author), Tamara Clements, Lisa Cheshire, and Brett Vaughan, Faculty of Medicine, Dentistry and Health Sciences

Our concise, interactive session demonstrates the power of microlearning in faculty development, using effective questioning strategies as an example. Participants will experience a brief microlearning snippet, engage in quick peer discussions, and participate in a short facilitated sharing session. Based on our research in medical education (presented at MDHS L&T 2024 & ANZAHPE 2025), this approach showcases how we can enhance educator skills across disciplines. We'll efficiently explore the implementation, challenges, and benefits of microlearning and Communities of Practice in faculty development, providing attendees with practical insights for their own educational contexts.

Liz Dean, Garrity Hill, Elena Balcaite and Andrea Dodo-Balu, Faculty of Arts

In today’s hyper-distracted world, engaging first-year Bachelor of Arts students with required readings can be a challenge. To address this SOCI10003 Inequalities: Future Challenges, enable students to extend reading through writing dialogues. Students work in pairs to produce a short one-page dialogue drawing on one of several readings on feminism before role-playing this the following week. Students’ dialogues transferred reading material to real-world social interactions, demonstrating the activation of critical thinking. This presentation outlines the design of this intervention, shares preliminary data from students and invites the audience to consider how similar interventions could be transferred to their teaching contexts.

Xiao Ma, Dejan Malenic (Presenting Author), Sam Holland, Leonardo Nogueira de Moraes (Presenting Author) and James Thompson, Faculty of Architecture, Building and Planning

This project addresses the increasing need for developing students’ place-based understanding while internationalising curriculum in urban planning education. We developed multimedia-enhanced Virtual Site Visits (VSVs) that enable students to explore housing issues in Melbourne and Bandung, Indonesia. Through mixed-methods analysis, we found VSVs democratise access to diverse urban fabric, amplify marginalised voices through firsthand community accounts, and enable comparative analysis across different environments. Student feedback reveals three key VSV design principles: question-led exploration, immersive self-directed learning via 360-degree video and 3D built environment scanning, and integrated stakeholder storytelling. This approach transforms traditional education by challenging expert-dominated knowledge curriculum and developing critical digital citizenship skills essential for future urban planning practice.

Sophie Paquet-Fifield (Presenting Author), Lachlan McOmish  (Presenting Author), Jessica Stander (Presenting Author), Vivienne Mak, Margaret Osborne,  Bonnie Tsai, Coral Fang, Kate Huo, and Grace Kiosoglous, Faculty of Medicine, Dentistry and Health Sciences

This presentation explores the development, implementation, and evaluation of an automated feedback system in an undergraduate Pathology course with 158 students. The system aims to enhance automated personalised feedback while reducing educator workload. We discuss the strategic educational alignment, deployment process, and effectiveness evaluation from both staff and student perspectives. The analysis covers user costs, time commitments, infrastructure requirements, and impact on student learning and experience. Our findings will inform recommendations for wider implementation, supporting innovative teaching and learning experiences in higher education.

Dr Andrew Cutting, Faculty of Science

AI has the potential to revolutionise personalised student feedback and learning, however building bespoke AI feedback tools is inaccessible for most educators, and many off-the-shelf tools give generalised feedback that doesn’t integrate with curriculums or student’s learning trajectory. Here, I show how Generative AI (GenAI) can create highly personalised feedback that is accurate, accessible, and linked to subject learning outcomes and student performance. When piloted with first-year agriculture students (n=164), 45% engaged with the feedback. Of those surveyed (n=42), 71% agreed/strongly agreed that it helped them review their engagement, and 62% agreed/strongly agreed that it helped them self-assess their strengths and weaknesses.

Participants are invited to take this personalised feedback demo quiz which is part of a demo in this presentation. It takes just a few minutes and demonstrates Andrew's approach to the personalised feedback and learning method.