Kim Snepvangers, Scientia Education Academy Fellow

Title: Video Conference Reflection Tool (VCRT) named Digital Interview Reflective Activity (DIRA)

DIRA is an Art & Design peer to peer variant to OSPIA – see Silas Taylor’s report on {Online Simulated Patient Interaction and Assessment (OSPIA) platform}

Introduction 

Art & Design students need to develop professional communication skills for working with creative industry partners in the future-facing gig economy.  Working alongside A/Prof Silas Taylor (Medicine) and the team from Changineers, A/Prof Kim Snepvangers (Art & Design) has been adapting a communication tool, OSPIA from its origins in the Medicine faculty.  The OSPIA platform launched in 2016, in the first year of the Medicine program with training, FAQs and significantly an online calendar booking system where Simulated Patients (SP volunteers) enter their availability then Students (S) select an appointment time. Confirmation is via SMS/email aimed at reducing academic load.  At the appointed time, a video-telephony interaction occurs with written and emoji-style feedback (all captured on the platform to be reviewed at a later time). For further information on the OSPIA platform please see the report from A/Prof Silas Taylor.  During 2020, I have built a relationship with Changineers, which is an IT social enterprise, whom Silas has been working with to commercialise updated versions of OSPIA for the Medicine program.  With the generosity of SEA and Silas, this project was extended to Art & Design to value-add to an already successful IT platform. 

In T3, 2020 at Art & Design after developing A&D specific “Ospia-like” guidelines in collaboration with tutors, the Digital Interview Reflective Activity (DIRA) platform (dira.apps.changineersplatform.com) was trialled as a prototype with over 100 students in the course SDES2116 Design Practice.  This upper level course acts as a practice-based precursor to Professional Experience Project (PEP) which is a real-world placement in industry.  Pre-task questions and DIRA specific tasks were developed, as well as a “reflective conversation” protocol aimed at peer to peer collaboration and support, rather than the more formal requirements of an “interview”.  Given the pandemic, online scheduling and virtual interview practice means students can participate when it suits them, with no need for travel to a particular location, which is a learning functionality increasingly utilised in fast paced creative industries. 

During this time, although having a period of LSL in T2, I have also published an International Journal Publication co-authored with A/Prof Arianne Rourke.  This article documents key findings in terms of Work Integrated learning and International Students which is part of the Teaching International Students (TIS) project. The publication citation is:  

Snepvangers, K., & Rourke, A.  (2020). Creative practice as a catalyst for developing connectedness capabilities: A Community Building Framework from the Teaching International Students (TIS) project. Journal of International Students (JIS). Invited Special Issue: Reflection and Reflective Thinking. Georgina Barton & Mary Ryan – Guest Editors. Volume 10, Issue S2, pp.16-35. ISSN: 2162-3104 (Print); ISSN: 21663750 (Online); ISSN JIS 21623104 

Theoretical Background 

Building a creative digital ecology informs the design of DIRA’s peer to peer approach, as the student gradually is enculturated into creative fields of professional practice.  Developing curriculum and creating innovative learning resources is central to student mobility.  Building personalised learning frameworks, using blended learning platforms like OSPIA at scale foregrounds a mobile view of student experience with physical, virtual and intellectual benefits within a broader conception of equity, diversity and inclusion. To meet a 21st century creative workforce goals, this visual/verbal learning resource, activities and feedback loop forms part of a living digital ecosystem of students, staff and creative industry professionals.  This work was recognised with a 2018 Australian Awards for University Teaching (AAUT) Citation for Outstanding Contribution to Student Learning - “For the design, development and implementation of research-led, accessible and innovative teaching and learning resources in the field of creative professional experience in art, design and media”. In 2020, I was recognised as a Boundary Spanning Champion and will present my work on “Creative professional ecologies” at the 2020 Boundary Spanning Champions Online Forum, December 2-3 at the “University Industry Innovation Network (UIIN) forum in the Netherlands.  https://uiin.org/sbforum/.  UIIN is committed to enhancing employability and driving innovation through university-industry engagement.  UNSW is an organisational member. They are a knowledge leader on university-industry interaction, entrepreneurial universities and are dedicated to the future of higher education institutions and their impact on society. In addition, as reported in Silas Taylors submission OSPIA was based on the underlying technology named EQClinic and results reported in many publications. 

Aims 

The recently launched DIRA tool equips students with scaffolded practice opportunities to develop and enhance video interviewing skills for lifelong learning/recruitment and the gig economy job market.  The aim was to receive feedback from a likeminded peer in a conversational style prior to reaching the real world of a placement in industry (PEP). The tutorial task involved each student acting in the role of both Peer and Student (Interviewer and Interviewee), asking reflective questions that related to their experience in interviewing a designer, which provided an experiential lens on both roles. 

Progress / Outcomes / Next steps. 

To enhance peer to peer collaboration students were required to register twice, once with their UNSW student email (STUDENT) and one with their personal email (PEER). Students had previously completed a F2F/online interview with a designer/design practice in a group of three as a course assessment, so reflecting on how the interview went in terms of industry engagement was the next logical step aimed at increasing student awareness about working in a collaborative team and interview preparation skills for the future workplaces.  Next steps involved assigning each group of three students either A, B or C to allow each person to experience being a student and being a peer, based on the rule: 

A has a conversation with B; 

B has a conversation with C; 

C has a conversation with A.

Outcomes will be reported including what the student thought about the value of this activity, as well as those teaching into the course. To date feedback within the safe interviewing space of a course, has been extremely positive, although the final results of the prototype are due in early December 2020.  DIRA provides a scaffolded approach to student/industry engagement with the next step being to bring industry mentors into the virtual environment as ‘PEERS’.  Building on this iteration of student to student peer interaction, the plan is to have student/mentor interaction with acceptance from Alumni and existing PEP hosts as mentors, to support professional learning in the creative sphere.  Online training will continue to be in demand as students are further required to upgrade their industry connectedness capabilities in the digital economy. 

Teaching International Students (TIS) and the Distributed Facilitator Framework (DFF): Capturing Educators’ Career Development Learning (CDL). 

Led by: Associate Professor Arianne Rourke  & Associate Professor Kim Snepvangers 

Introduction: In 2018 Scientia Education Fellows Associate Professor Arianne Rourke (SEF 2017) and Associate Professor Kim Snepvangers (SEF 2018), initiated an ‘Inspired Learning and Teaching’ project in the Faculty of Art and Design on ‘Teaching International Students’ (TIS). This initiative included planning and facilitating Faculty-wide Forums for academic staff. At the first TIS Forum in February 2018 at the Australian Museum, Professor Georgina Barton from the University of Southern Queensland presented the keynote, the event was attended by 35 Sessional staff, 7 Educational Developers, 34 Faculty academics, academics from UNSW Faculties FASS, Science & Law and 16 International students participated as Student Ambassadors. There were seven films produced that captured the Forum 1 event, which are being edited into 5 minute short films to be used as digital resources on the TIS Moodle site. Visual and survey data from the Forum was collected and analysed and was used to inform the planning of other 2018 TIS events. TIS Forum 1 was followed by two academic Career Development Learning (CDL) workshops, where academics shared their case-base teacher knowledge and reflected on their practice of TIS, this was also visually recorded and surveys were conducted. 

At Forum 2 in September 2018, there were 17 (5 minute) presentations and workshop activities on TIS presented by academics and students from Faculties across UNSW including five SEA Fellows (Arianne Rourke, Kim Snepvangers, Jacky Cranney, Louise Lutze-Mann & Dijana Alic - Arianne mentored Dijana - ADE, FBE - in the 2018 SEA Mentoring Project). As a result of our work on TIS, we received an invitation from the Dean to present outcomes of our leadership of TIS Career Development Learning (CDL) at the Faculty Planning day. Our presentation was visually captured by the artist Vivien Sung and used in other TIS CDL initiatives. In 2018 the TIS initiative was co-presented at a UNSW Learning and Teaching Connection workshop and was presented by Arianne at a SEA meeting.  

During the year we mentored two Bachelor of Media Arts 4th year students in their Professional Experience Projects (PEP), where we collaborated as ‘Student as Partners’ producing animations for the TIS project. Kim, Arianne and artist Vivien Sung and PEP students Iain McDonald and Jason Jiang, designed and presented a poster at the ‘2018 Learning and Teaching Forum, Partners in Learning: Connecting Communities’. Arianne was on the Forum’s Planning Committee and chaired a Session on ‘Being Inclusive’. All the TIS activities were visually captured in a Distributed Facilitator Framework (DFF) that we designed, which utilises an Action Practitioner Research methodology over a one-year cycle that includes follow-up reflective practice activities. It provides a scaffold ecological system for building practice-based architecture to inform educators’ Career Development Learning (CDL).  

Theoretical Background: The theories that underpin the DFF model, includes the Iceberg Model of surface and deep culture (Kruger, 2013) and the Ecologies of Practice concepts of Kemmis and Heikkinen (2011) and Snepvangers & Rourke (2017). The DFF was created to visually capture an interconnected series of processes and events utilising the Kemmis and Heikkinen, (2011) characteristics of ‘sayings, doings and relatings’ to develop a creative ‘Ecology of Practice’.  An ‘Ecologies of Practice’ lens has been used to envisage a TIS Community of Practice (CoP) as an integral component of global outreach as expressed in the UNSW 2025 Strategy. The DFF is also underpinned by the policies of the Australian Government International Education Strategy 2025 and Leask and Carroll (2013), ‘Good Practice Principles: Teaching across Cultures’. 

Aims: The aim of the Teaching International Students (TIS) Distributed Facilitator Framework (DFF) is to enhance teacher knowledge about how to teach International students and increase engagement with their learning.  Rather than providing general advice or formulas about teaching for FT/PT and sessional staff, the aim is to impact educational quality at UNSW by focusing on place-based educator driven mentoring, and collaborative events that activate ecosystems and Students as Partners projects.  Impact can be gauged through high-level positive educator-led evidence and feedback about new insights and practical strategies that they will now be using as a result of participation in TIS activities in 2018 and 2019. 

The DFF models and portrays: 

• Educator-led ‘ecologies of practice’ that promote new transformative practice-based architectures to address gaps in quality outcomes through ‘Inspired learning through Inspired teaching’.  
• Deeper understanding of TIS through active strategies, resources, events and project based outcomes that value teacher case-based knowledge. 
• Practical application of context-driven content knowledge and pedagogy focused on the primacy of relationships as an enhanced quality measures, in the current techno-driven environment of higher education. 

This has been achieved by: 

1) Designing a non-hierarchical, generative, interconnected and inclusive Career Development Learning (CDL) model for encapsulating Action Practitioner Research (APR) and Reflective Practice of educators. 

2) Facilitating staged and scaffold professional development activities that support and encourage educators in their teaching practice and that provides a framework for documenting teacher case-based knowledge. 

3) Develop and produce creative visual learning artefacts as online teaching resources to assist educators in Teaching International Students (TIS) with the focus of improving the International student experience at UNSW. 

Progress / Outcomes / Next steps: The TIS DFF was presented at The Image 2018 Conference in Hong Kong and the 2018 Australian Association for Research in Education (AARE) at Sydney University. A paper about the TIS initiative was published and presented at the ACEN 2018 conference, which Kim and Arianne co-authored with their PhD student Meg Lomm. Papers on the TIS project have been accepted for the InSea Conference in 2019 in Canada and the Asian Conference on Education and International Development (AEID 2019) in Japan. We are currently working as a Community of Practice (CoP) designing and building a Moodle TIS DFF that will have all the learning artefacts collected so far. The TIS CDL CoP will be further built upon in 2019 by inviting editors and authors from the book series that Arianne Co-Curated on: ‘Transformative Pedagogy in the Visual Domain’, which published eight books in 2018 that included 18 Editors; 163 Authors from 25 Disciplines; 21 Countries and 98 Educational Institutions. In 2019 the Moodle TIS DFF will be built with the aim of showcasing UNSW and other invited academics worldwide, peer-reviewed innovative teaching resources that utilise visual learning artefacts. The main outcome will be to provide a variety of multi-disciplinary online creative resources to assist educators towards improving International student learning and to improve the overall learning experience of students at UNSW and beyond. 

Moral panics about dropping standards or the undue influence of foreign countries can make any discussion of international education fraught and highly contentious.
 
Most institutional responses to the challenges of global education end up reinforcing highly suspect models of deficit educational dependence. Rather than just focusing on individual student learning, the Teaching International Students (TIS) project utilises synergistic community-based approaches to develop independent case-based knowledge in academic professional learning.
 
In this lecture, A/Prof Rourke and A/Prof Snepvangers will  showcase  a range of creative ‘Ecologies of Practice’ encounters1,2 utilised within the TIS project. Visual connectivity maps, events, arts-based resources and ‘Students as Partners’ projects have been captured longitudinally in a collaborative Distributed Facilitator Framework (DFF)2.  Using Kruger’s  iceberg theory3, the TIS project prioritises interdependent practitioner case-based action research methodology. In this emergent ecosystem students and educators work iteratively to develop reciprocal relationships, making shifts in practice visible whilst simultaneously documenting educator career development.

References 
1.    Kemmis & Heikkinen, 2011.
2.    Snepvangers & Rourke, 2017.
3.    Kruger, 1996/2013.

View the lecture here