TeachWell Digital: 2024 retrospective
Photo credit: Marek Piwnicki on Pexels
Kia ora koutou,
It’s a great privilege to lead, along with Stephanie Reid and her Senior Leadership Team, such talented learning designers, learning technologists and multimedia specialists. We occupy a unique space as service professionals and relish the opportunities to partner with colleagues to drive forward a program of excellence in learning and teaching practice.
As you’ll see from this year’s retrospective, it’s been a year in which the remit of Ranga Auaho Ako, Learning Design Team has widened, as my responsibilities have widened with academic capability coming under me. It’s also been a year in which we continue to refine our service model to ensure that colleagues have access to ‘just in time’ support, alongside our other models and programmes. This has included work towards a refreshed TeachWell Digital 2.0, the maturing of our TeachWell Consult service, and a pilot of co-locating learning designers within faculties. All will continue to be refined through 2025.
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Enhancing academic capability
Professional Learning Series
A revised Academic Standard saw the resurgence of the University’s TeachWell Framework in 2024. The Framework defines standards of educational practice articulated through five domains of practice: teach, design, assess, reflect and contribute. To ensure that colleagues are well supported to meet the new requirements, the Director of Learning and Teaching, in partnership with RAA, developed a suite of self-paced sessions, as part of the Professional Learning Series, in additional to in-person or synchronous professional learning workshops aligned to the framework. These sessions enable academics, new to teaching, to develop their TeachWell core competencies. Planned work to mature the suite is underway ahead of early 2025, including a dedicated site to support our many graduate teaching assistants.
Teaching Catalyst Programme
Teaching Catalyst has undergone a formal programme review, with recommendations due to the Education Committee early in 2025.
Designing impactful learning experiences
Enabling the Curriculum Framework Transformation (CFT)
Ranga Auaha Ako, Learning and Teaching Design Team have worked hand-in-hand with colleagues across the institution to help embed the Signature Pedagogical Practices into teaching. This has taken shape through strengthening relational learning practices within courses, through assessment redesign, and in consultation with the teams delivering the transdisciplinary and Waipapa Taumata Rau courses.
Below is an timeline of the various workstreams.
2023
2024
2025
Signature Pedagogical Practices
~5000 students across undergraduate and postgraduate, the majority at year one and year two, are benefiting from enhanced pedagogical practices
Hallmark experiences
Involves ~6000 students, 25% of year one courses. All first-year students have two ‘hallmark’ relational learning experiences
Canvas Baseline Practices
(30 courses)
(284 courses)
(399 courses)
(67 courses)
(59 courses)
839 courses are lifted to Canvas Baseline Standards (all Stages I and II)
Enablers
Enabling ongoing professional learning and alignment
2023
Signature Pedagogical Practices
~5000 students across undergraduate and postgraduate, the majority at year one and year two, are benefiting from enhanced pedagogical practices
Hallmark experiences
Involves ~6000 students, 25% of year one courses. All first-year students have two ‘hallmark’ relational learning experiences
Canvas Baseline Practices
839 courses in total are lifted to Canvas Baseline Standards (all Stages I and II)
Enablers
Enabling ongoing professional learning and alignment
2024
Signature Pedagogical Practices
Hallmark experiences
Involves ~6000 students, 25% of year one courses. All first-year students have two ‘hallmark’ relational learning experiences
Canvas Baseline Practices
Stage I (284 courses)
Stage II (399 courses)
839 courses in total are lifted to Canvas Baseline Standards (all Stages I and II)
Enablers
Enabling ongoing professional learning and alignment
2025
Signature Pedagogical Practices
Hallmark experiences
Involves ~6000 students, 25% of year one courses. All first-year students have two ‘hallmark’ relational learning experiences
Canvas Baseline Practices
Stage III (67 courses)
Stage 6/7 (59 courses)
839 courses in total are lifted to Canvas Baseline Standards (all Stages I and II)
Enablers
Enabling ongoing professional learning and alignment
Award recipients, 2024
‘Change One Thing’ grants celebrate the power of small changes
Congratulations to the eighteen recipients of the Change One Thing Challenge for 2024. The Challenge awards each applicant $1,000 towards their professional development for demonstrating how they have improved their teaching practice.
Scholarship of Teaching and Learning Grants
The growing demand for SoTL Grants received 39 applications this year, 28 of which were successful. Comparing the numbers over the last three years, almost 3/4 of all applicants are awarded funding to bring their enhancement of student learning aspirations to life.
Teaching Excellence Awards
In this year’s TEA round, we congratulate five recipients of the prestigious award. The categories were: Early Career Excellence in Teaching, Sustained Excellence in Teaching, and Informal Leadership in Teaching and Learning. Find out who the recipients were.
Canvas Baseline Practices
Focused on accessibility and engagement
In 2024, the Canvas Baseline Practices (CBP) project has transformed online learning at the University of Auckland, enhancing accessibility and engagement across 839 courses, the vast majority being at Stage I and II. Our dedicated Ranga Auaha Ako team of learning technologists has worked closely with faculty to ensure a consistent and user-friendly experience, grounded in Universal Design for Learning (UDL) principles. As we hand over the project to faculties this December, we’re proud of the positive feedback from both students and staff, highlighting significant improvements in course design and student performance.
While faculties will now lead the ongoing enhancement of course quality and accessibility, the RAA team remains available for guidance and support to ensure a continued focus on inclusivity in online learning environments.
A screenshot of course tiles from Canvas Commons. Eight tiles, one for each faculty.
Key statistics
- 839 courses redesigned, including all Stage I and II courses, as well as additional Stage 0, 3, and 6/7 courses.
- 400+ academics provided with one-on-one support.
CBP work continuing in 2025
- Faculty-led uplifting of all remaining courses.
CBP goal
- All courses, including postgraduate, aligned by 2026.
“I found the use of Canvas was a great system, it was easy to get my head around and is consistently good to use.”
“[…] as I mentioned in class, I think the way you have laid out Canvas is fantastic and supports us students very well.”
“The assignment rubrics were made very clear on Canvas.”
– Feedback from students
“This has been a great project and hopefully BAU state will see us embedding ongoing continuous improvements.”
– Douglas Carrie, Associate Dean Learning and Teaching, Faculty of Business and Economics
“In my view, the CBP project has been a tremendous success.”
– Lindsay Diggelmann, Deputy Dean, Faculty of Arts
“All of our TFC Canvas courses are now looking fantastic and the student experience [has] improved.”
– Andrew Dawson, Director, Tertiary Foundation Certificate
“Can I just thank you and the wider team for the fabulous work you have all done. We are very fortunate to have such amazing learning designers, project managers, and elearning experts.”
– Gail Ledger, Assoc Dean Learning and Teaching, EDSW
TeachWell Consult Portal Your personalised support space
If you would like support in the areas of
- assessment and course design
- teaching technologies
- relational learning strategies
- writing learning outcomes
- accessibility or Canvas baseline practices
- other aspects of your teaching practice
please get in touch.
The TeachWell Consult service has answered your call no fewer than 194 times during 2024 (January – November 18). Nearly two thirds of all requests are from those seeking advice on the use of digital technologies for teaching and learning. Other significant themes are in support of course and assessment (re)design, Canvas Baseline Practices, relational learning, writing effective intended learning outcomes (ILOs), and inclusive design for learning.
This year we trialled co-locating learning designers in faculties every week to encourage teaching staff to drop in with their teaching- and learning-related queries. While the service is new, initial feedback has been positive.
What makes these sessions valuable is the collaborative thinking and occasional moments of insight. Hearing teachers say,
– which highlights the practical impact of these discussions.
The TeachWell Consult service continues to enable excellence in teaching and learning, growing in demand as word has spread.
In 2024, the number of consultations requested through the Teach Well Consult service were as follows: Faculty of Arts 39, Education and Social Work 34, Business School 34, Engineering 31, Science 19, Medical and Health Sciences 14, Auckland Law School 5, all other areas of the University 5. Data is accurate as of 18 November 2024.
Transdisciplinary Futures
Introducing transdisciplinarity across programmes
Ranga Auaha Ako staff provided ongoing support to the transdisciplinary (TD) course projects with much of the team involved in at least one TD course project. As with the Waipapa Taumata Rau courses, the compulsory nature of the TD course offers a chance to ensure good learning design reaches a wider audience, impacting more students.
Log in to SharePoint to learn more about the programme.
Waipapa Taumata Rau courses
Locating learning
Rangua Auaha Ako continued to provide significant learning design support for the Waipapa Taumata Rau faculty courses as well as the central Taumata completion. The team also provided ongoing professional development support to teaching staff. The faculty courses will be offered in 2025, with all first-year students required to complete one. The large cohort of new students presents an opportunity to model good academic practice as they transition to life at the University. It also affords an opportunity to showcase the University’s Signature Pedagogical Practices.
Our audience
TeachWell Digital is community-driven, providing resources that teachers require. This year we have published a further 19 new teaching cases, taking the total to 56 examples of pedagogical practice. In the teaching technologies stack we have introduced guides for the use of FeedbackFruits, Ed Discussion, Lucid for Education, and the Library Resources app.
With 40K active users between 1 January – 19 November 2024, our audience has grown 54% since 2023.
Looking ahead: Your feedback matters
The TeachWell team continues to improve the opportunities for teachers to enhance their practice through self-paced sessions, aka the Professional Learning Series. Still in development are sessions targeting teaching assistants (TAs) and graduate teaching assistants (GTAs), and a module providing an introduction to the use of generative AI in education.
We hear you
Additional work is underway to relaunch TeachWell Digital within a new website platform. This is in response to your feedback and offers us an opportunity to introduce navigational, search, and visual improvements aimed at enhancing your user experience.
… per week
USERS
… per week
PAGES VIEWED
… to date
SUBSCRIBERS
Top content that you are engaging with (active users):
- Canvas
- Inspera
- Professional learning for teaching
- Relational learning
- Generative AI
- TeachWell Framework
Feedback and feed forward (1,271), Turnitin (1,182), writing short answer and essay questions (1,055), MS Copilot (1,031), academic honesty declaration (922), TeachWell Consult (915), Signature Pedagogical Practices (814), Canvas Baseline Practices (770), Gen-AI Usage Standard (601).
I wish to thank the UoA community, in particular senior leadership, the Deans, the Associate Deans Learning and Teaching, and Academic, Assessment Services, product owners, and the Curriculum Development Managers. Without their support, we simply could not do what we do.
I look forward to what 2025 brings and, as the year comes to a close, wish you a wonderful festive season.
Ngā mihi,