Ko wai tātou? Who are we?

The vision for this course was to build a cohort community through whanaungatanga, and to introduce students to university academic skills that would lay the foundation for the rest of their studies at Waipapa Taumata Rau.

Whanaungatanga is to encourage the development of close connection between people, to create a sense of belonging.¹

The mantra, “What is the whanaungatanga response?” became the key question the design team asked themselves every time they hit a roadblock, whether that was scaffolding of teaching and learning, assessment design, or whose voice was needed in design meetings. This idea of “connection” whether it be peer-peer, student-teacher, or student-subject and Arts context, or connection to oneself (through self-reflection) was the considered approach to both design and facilitation elements of this course.

Image: Visual element of a course timeline in the assessment page so students can see how all the elements weave together.

All elements of the final group project were designed to be scaffolded throughout the entire course through, skills development, and reflection of the process of group dynamics. Getting to know you activities were built in as low stakes (1%) assessments that students could complete during workshop times, i.e., data analysis (survey of cohort) and performance (“I am” poem). This design helped to build relational learning by connecting students to each other, as well as the teacher. It also helped give them a connection to potential outputs used across a range of Arts subjects so they could explore the area that interested them the most for the final project. This connection to the context of subjects in Arts is an important part of relational learning, so that students can be exposed to potential career and study pathways.

Annotated bibliography 10%

Purpose

Finding, selecting and recording reliable sources is a key aspect of writing in an academic way. It honours the whakapapa of the published knowledge in your Arts subject and the people who have gone before you. It also recognises your place within the continuing conversation.

This assessment is designed to help you:

• Find and select reliable and relevant sources in your selected Arts subject.
• Practice accurately recording your sources in the Chicago reference style.
• Collaborate with your group to co-construct a bibliography.
• Explain how and why you selected a particular source.

Audience

Your final co-constructed bibliography may be shared with your wider cohort and can be used to inform your next essay assignment.

Instructions for setting up groups

You will be working in groups of 2-3 for this assignment. You can choose your own groups by going to People on the left side menu and clicking on the groups tab. From there you and your group must self-select one of the annotated bibliography groups to be part of.

As this is a general Arts paper, there are many different subject areas to cover to give students a sampling of future study paths. Aroha framed the learning through the themed conceptual lenses, e.g., Race, Gender, Justice etc. There was a unit module leader assigned to each. Each lecturer then set the overall tone for the module, and guest lecturers attended lectures in a TED Talk panel-type manner, and each spoke to their area of expertise. These panel discussions were highlighted as being a favourite amongst staff, and students. (Connection student to subject. Connection student to teacher. Connection teacher to their peers.)

To teach on this course lecturers put in an Expression of Interest; from there the Unit leaders were selected and the collaborative teaching teams were formed. A development team from Ranga Auaha Ako | Learning and Teaching Design Team (RAA) worked closely with the module leaders to frame the learning, and to keep the assessment framework top of mind. Weekly meetings were held with RAA, Unit leaders, course coordinators, teaching team members, and the Tutorial Assistant, which allowed for iterative changes as the course commenced. This level of collegiality flowed through the teaching practices of the team and created a vibrant community of collaboration for the students to experience in class (Connection teacher to peer. Connection teacher to student.)

Aroha also invited her Professional Teaching Fellow (PTF) into the design conversations. This helped the development of the course immensely as the PTF was responsible for weaving the tutorials into the lecture content, and scaffolding into the assessment work. This also allowed the RAA learning designers to have reflective conversations with the PTF to evaluate whether the assessments were working as designed and fit for purpose. (Connection PTF to rest of teaching team). This impacted relational learning for students, as they were able to participate in a  holistic learning experience, rather than piecemeal learning with different lecturers adding their own unique flair.

A smaller cohort of students (less than 15), meant that the mechanics of the group work and assessment were not able to be rigorously tested for scalability. However, for those students that did collaborate with their group, there was a noticeable difference in their confidence in the delivery of the final project, spoken word poem, and a podcast. The vision for creating community through whanaungatanga was realised in these smaller groups. For the next iteration, more attention is planned to give focus to building successful group dynamics, and how to take personal responsibility for dealing with conflict and miscommunication. (Connection student to group).