Ed/Tech must-reads

Accessibility, authenticity, teaching and cheating

September 04, 2023

Girl in white dress looking at man sitting at a computer on a dock. In the background is a large island with many boxes erupting from it and some tentacles. It is night at the moon is out

Is ‘teaching’ a dirty word in higher education? from Needed Now in Learning and Teaching

Marcia Langton, from the Victorian Academy of Teaching and Leadership, a state government body working in K-12, highlights some vital differences between attitudes to teaching in Higher Ed and schools. She touches on several known issues around career advancement still being tied more to research and the challenges of voluntary professional development related to teaching and contrasts HE with the vitality of the teaching focus in schools. I would possibly add that many institutional initiatives relating to educational quality in HE don’t yet seem to find the sweet spot between supporting learners and supporting educators.

“Legitimate study help website” Chegg, which includes a feature allowing students to upload a photo of assessment questions and get an answer within 30 mins, is using social media influencers to recruit customers according to this article which is very careful about saying that it is not officially a cheating platform. In spite of being sued by Pearson publishing in 2021 for copyright violations and the US Federal Trade Commission in 2022 for data breaches, as well as being linked to most of the cases of contract cheating at UNSW in recent years, there is clearly still big money to be made.

Accessibility myths debunked from Sergei Kriger

Have you ever said “I don’t have any disabled students in my class so I don’t need to worry about designing for accessibility”? (Don’t worry, I have heard these words from people on accessibility committees). Firstly - how can you be sure and secondly, even if you don’t, employing accessibility principles provides a better learning experience for everyone. This simple website from accessibility consultant Sergei Kriger provides some of the clearest debunking of common misconceptions that I’ve seen. It’s a great way to sense-check your thinking and consider new approaches.

I have been reading a lot about authentic assessment in terms of GenAI in recent days, so this call for papers for a special issue from a number of CRADLE (Deakin) and Keele Uni (UK) people seems particularly timely. Even if you aren’t thinking about writing something, the questions they pose about how well and if we are using the idea of authenticity in assessment are thought-provoking.