Abstract: At the ISANA Victorian Branch State Conference in October, 2005, Heather and Mary, together with our esteemed colleague, Lila Kemlo, presented our ‘students at risk’ project, designed to identify and provide an holistic, integrated program to enable Business Portfolio students to gain essential skills for academic and social success. A major feature of this program was the collaboration between members of academic staff of the Business Portfolio, the Learning Skills Unit, the Business Library, Student Services Group and the Student Union. United by a common goal – the empowerment of students – investigation of skills needed to succeed in assessment tasks in a number of business courses (subjects) was undertaken through co-operation between lecturers and learning skills advisors. Members of the project team also undertook to examine reasons students with whom they worked on an individual basis gave for finding themselves ‘at risk’ of academic failure and possible exclusion from their program of study. The object was to determine skills which, if they could be taught, might assist students to improve their rate of success in the future. What started out as a ‘remedial’ exercise, during the course of the first semester of the project, changed focus to that of a ‘preventive’ measure for current and future students. Dissemination of the current findings and changes to timing and methods of delivery of essential skills throughout this project form the basis of this presentation.
Key Words: Empowerment of students, Learning Skills, Social Skills, Students ‘at risk’ project
Abstract: Student academic literacy and learning support at Victoria University is an integral part of the educational experience offered to students by Student Learning Unit (SLU) lecturers. Good practice in student language and learning support includes a shift from prevailing ‘remedial’ approaches that imply service provision from outside the curriculum towards systemic approaches involving embedding support material in curriculum through collaboration with mainstream staff (Skillen et al., 1998).
The compulsory first-year undergraduate management subject Management and Organisation Behaviour (MOB) is taught across three campuses in Melbourne, and at partner institutions in Kuala Lumpur and Hong Kong. Seventeen staff, including 10 sessional staff, are involved in the delivery of the subject. Students in MOB come from a diverse range of degree specialisations including Applied Economics, Accounting, Tourism and Hospitality and Management.
The team, which consists of the SLU lecturer and the subject lecturers, has developed a model to foster academic skills and deep learning (Biggs, 2003, Biggs and Telfer, 1987) within the very diverse student cohort enrolled in MOB. This partnership is innovative in that it involves the skills of both discipline and SLU staff onshore, and of offshore discipline staff in a way rarely seen in Australian tertiary institutions. The offshore lecturers are guiding the team to understand issues unique to their environments, and, with the team, building a response to offshore students’ needs which is culturally appropriate. The inclusion of offshore partner staff in such teams acknowledges the expertise of staff from partner institutions and was one of the key recommendations in Victoria University’s Australian Vice Chancellors’ Committee (AVCC) project report entitled Improving Language and Learning Support for Offshore Students (Dixon, 2005).
Assessment, central in forming students’ perceptions of learning, has been restructured and redesigned to include learning materials using Biggs’ concept of constructive alignment; two of Victoria University’s Core Graduate Attributes (CGAs – written and oral communication and group work); the unpacking and scaffolding of assessment tasks and the provision of flexibly accessible multimedia learning materials including linguistic models. There are practical, operational and cultural differences between the different locations which have led to the current developments.
Abstract: As traditional international mono-markets decline, our knowledge of other cultures is being challenged by the influx from a more variable market. We need to question if, on the basis of our past cultural encounters, it is now possible to deal effectively, realistically and empathetically with the increasing range of factors presented by this cultural variety.
This is an issue confronting support areas, such as the International Office at the Gippsland campus of Monash University, where, at any one time, over 30 different, and often distinct national groups require perceptive support. Profiling individual students via one-on-one interviews, as representatives of disparate cultures, is a one approach that facilitates and creates opportunities for empathetic understanding.
A number of benefits to the international office accrue from this: increasing cross-cultural knowledge, broadening of perceptions, identifying service gaps, building of individual relationships, creating insights into student needs, generating contextualization of students’ actions, constructing student experiences and strategies, and encouraging acceptance of difference. The student also benefits in that the opportunity enables them to take the role of an expert authority, to be a deliverer rather than a receiver of knowledge, to share their culture, to make cultural comparisons that provide personal insights and to connect their home experiences with their study experiences.
This paper discusses one strategy used in a multi-focused approach to improving the experience of international students at university.
Key words: international student support; cultural profiling; professional development; cultural awareness; student experience; narrative research
Abstract: International students invest large sums of money when choosing to study in English speaking Universities. They are hoping for opportunities to immerse themselves in English language and Western style culture. Local students attending the same university have completely different expectations. Frequently a cultural divide occurs between the two groups typified by awkward silences, unmet expectations and stereotyping. This widely documented phenomenon has inspired Academic staff to devise clever strategies as desperate attempts to create more inclusive working environments with their students. But the gap still exists. An essential link is missing in these attempts to bridge the cross cultural communicationdivide. This is the addition of a psychosocial perspective. Including this perspective helps everyone develop an understanding of what is really happening when a cultural divide occurs.
This presentation will explore the theory and practice of a psychosocial perspective by explaining methods which actively involve students. Change occurs through focusing on the personal thoughts and experiences always present in interactions and allowing participants to explore their own actions and reactions. Practical exercises will provide opportunities for participants to build their own understanding and capacities for bridging this communication gap.
By demystifying intercultural communication dynamics both staff and students at UniSA are gaining insight and skills necessary for effective communication which enhance learning opportunities and cultural understanding for all.
Abstract: Learning and practising basic skills in aromatherapy and gentle yoga stretches proved to be a promising venue for both International and Domestic Australians Students to get together in a safe and positive environment. Within International Student Services at QUT, this activity is usually offered from the third week of each semester. It is a one hour program for four weeks where participants gather in a circle and are welcomed to express how they are feeling at the time. The session is followed by a demonstration and instructional self massage on the head, face, arms, palms and feet areas.
The participants are provided and encouraged to use sweet almond oil with very thin drops of lavender oil to assist their self massage. Gentle Yoga routine then proceeds starting with “warm up” stretches; followed by a “workout”; then finishes with a “cool down moves and relaxation”. Towards the end of the session, the par ticipants are encouraged to say a positive word or two that they feel will help them manage their hectic day better. It was quite phenomenal how the student participant seemed to encourage each other in being positive and speaking with energy after the session.
Keywords: Aromatherapy, International students, Stress management, domestic students, intergration.
