Matthew Riddle | La Trobe University (original) (raw)

Books by Matthew Riddle

Higher education is facing a renaissance in terms of its approaches to teaching and learning and ... more Higher education is facing a renaissance in terms of its approaches to teaching and learning and the use of physical and virtual spaces.

This book will address the question of how higher education institutions and administrators need to re-conceptualize, re-design and rethink the use of space for students entering university in the 21st Century.

Higher education institutions are no longer defined by the physical boundaries of their traditional campus but the entire student experience, whether that be negotiating the physical corridors of the campus or connecting to virtual environments.

The design of spaces to support the generation of knowledge by students themselves is an important and neglected field. With lectures and tutorials still predominant in higher education, the organization of space and time configures students as receivers of knowledge until the point of graduation, at which time they are expected to produce knowledge of their own.

Rather than lecture halls with rowed seats being the predominant physical learning space for learning and teaching in higher education, learning spaces need to include: physical/virtual, formal/informal, blended, mobile and should consider flexibility, adaptability and time.

They need to mirror contemporary learning and teaching strategies that emphasize independent and peer-based learning in both physical and virtual learning spaces, and need to account for how students perceive and utilize space in higher education settings.

In meeting these priorities, it is essential for universities to support synchronous and asynchronous, multi-disciplinary, multi-campus and inter-institutional collaboration amongst students, between students and teaching staff and amongst teaching staff.

Papers by Matthew Riddle

A film about the mediation process, The Scholarship Dispute, was incorporated into the teaching a... more A film about the mediation process, The Scholarship Dispute, was incorporated into the teaching and learning program of the first-year compulsory law subject Dispute Resolution in 2012 at La Trobe University Law School. This article describes and reports on two studies evaluating the teaching and learning effect of the film.

This paper considers the emergence of social media in university teaching and learning and the ca... more This paper considers the emergence of social media in university teaching and learning and the capacity or universities -as complex organisations with disparate interacting parts -to respond to the shift of pedagogies and practices to open networks. Institutional learning technology environments reflect a legacy of prescriptive, hierarchical arrangements associated with enterprise systems, and are a poor fit with the heterarchical and self-organised potential for learning associated with social media and open education practices. In this paper we focus on the tensions that arise from the juxtaposition of these two orientations to learning technologies, and focus on how an emerging online sociality can destabilise established boundaries of learning and connect to other domains of practice. To do this, we examined data from three separate case studies in which participants -both teaching staff and students -reported on student engagement in learning involving social networking activity. We draw on empirical data on student practices that challenge institutional arrangements for learning, and offer insights into the assembly of extended connections for networked learning, in particular the pedagogies of collaboration, knowledge coconstruction, and informal social learning. From these instances we draw attention to the interplay of competing metaphors and practices in the organisation as it encounters the potential of more open pedagogies over social and digital networks. Drawing on spatial descriptions of networked learning, we apply Callon's (1998) notions of framing and overflows to this interplay in order to ask how learning environments were assembled and ordered: what pre-existing configurations were brought to frame and set boundaries for these networks of formal learning; and what activities overflow those boundaries and destabilise these framings. We argue that the adoption of social media by students requires a challenge to the institutional metaphors of containment that implement a default bounded environment. This involves a reappraisal of established learning environments for their pedagogical metaphors and spatial orderings that frame learning, followed by different organisational approaches to account for and enact learning that emerges from the connections, mobilities and flows of social networks. We propose a less integrated, "assembly" approach to institutional learning that attends to the open, fluid connections of networked learning. A spatial articulation of networked learning that bridges both institutional and social networks can equip the university to meet the critical challenges of emerging hybrid learning environments and the potential of more open learning environments.

In 2012, La Trobe University committed to ensuring that every undergraduate student, across all d... more In 2012, La Trobe University committed to ensuring that every undergraduate student, across all disciplines, will have significant and assessed experience of three ‘Essentials’ of learning: Sustainability Thinking; Global Citizenship; and Innovation and Entrepreneurship. These broadly align with the principles promoted through the Decade of Education for Sustainable Development (ESD). This initiative by La Trobe constitutes one of the first examples of whole-of-institution embedding of sustainability education into all undergraduate courses. La Trobe Essentials are more than content; they are designed to develop students’ capacity to address our most pressing global challenges. To achieve this, action was needed so that there was alignment of policy, strategy, resourcing and regulation at all levels. Each Essential is tailored within each discipline, in partnerships between University-wide curriculum officers, Faculty education teams, and course and subject coordinators. This in turn has led to agreed approaches to the development of curriculum assessment and reporting for Sustainability Thinking and the other Essentials. Auditing methods have been developed to map the occurrence of subjects likely to contain the Essentials, and as a starting point for exploring which subjects can be developed as Essentials subjects, or be re-designed for this purpose. These approaches to curriculum development and auditing may be of assistance to other higher education institutions. Examples of how Sustainability Thinking has already been incor- porated include a core Sustainability Thinking unit across all Business Manage- ment courses, a cross-disciplinary elective subject on Climate, Sustainability and Society, and a large, high enrolment Humanities-based elective entitled Food for Thought. The Essentials are widely supported by academic staff. Their enthusiasm, along with senior management endorsement and curriculum expertise centrally and in Faculties, have helped to overcome many of the significant barriers encountered in implementing Sustainability Thinking across all courses.

Graduate capabilities are an essential aspect of undergraduate development in higher education. A... more Graduate capabilities are an essential aspect of undergraduate development in higher education. Accordingly, La Trobe University’s Design for learning has identified particular university-wide graduate capabilities and required all faculties to explicitly embed these in their curricula. The Faculty of Law and Management developed an approach to map the teaching and assessment of eight graduate capabilities across the first year of the faculty’s degree programmes, allowing staff to evaluate the embedding of graduate capabilities and identifying where they might further develop their curricula. This article describes a process designed to collect, analyse and present data on current teaching and assessment of graduate capabilities. The discursive approach supports reflective practice in curriculum design while the resulting heat maps provide diagrammatic accounts of current practices and indicators of where redesign of curriculum should centre.

Proceedings, WebNet97, Toronto, pp. 329-333, AACE, Charlottesville, Nov 1997

With the current high interest right across the education sector in the various enabling communic... more With the current high interest right across the education sector in the various enabling communication tools characteristic of the Internet and Intranets, action research has almost become an essential requirement. The diminishing shelf-life of both technology and the knowledge which must accompany it deem that this is so. This has led, however, to what could be termed a clash of culture in higher education, a 'collision of timezones'. For as durable as 'traditional' academe has been, the signs of not keeping up are all too clear. Despite the rush into using the Web for what it seems to offer, real 'practitioners' in Computer Mediated Communications (CMC) are generally fewer than all the hype would suggest. 'Dabbling' as a means of keeping up has become elevated to an art form -knowing just enough to make commentary 'just-in-time'. Perhaps the nature of Web 'browsers' themselves has contributed to this syndrome, because browsing is, after all, what could be called the 'first level' of Web awareness. The upheaval in the sector, of course, is also due to a number of other factors -such as the contraction of public funding and increased competition due to globalisation. Nonetheless, CMC has an integral role in the transformation of higher education and its rigorous usage by practitioners focused on its application to teaching and learning indicates what may be a viable and durable mode of delivery and access into the next decades.

The advantages of computer-based teaching and learning fall into the broad categories of increasi... more The advantages of computer-based teaching and learning fall into the broad categories of increasing student access, improving the quality of the educational outcomes and increasing cost effectiveness. A review of proceedings of ASCILITE meetings over the last five years demonstrates that the approach to computer-based teaching and learning is in rapid transition.

Abstract This paper discusses the design of the interface and the conceptualisation of the educat... more Abstract This paper discusses the design of the interface and the conceptualisation of the educational process behind the development of a CD-ROM, with the working title of ëMungoí. The CD-ROM has been produced by the Science Multimedia Teaching Unit and the School of Earth Sciences at the University of Melbourne and is based on nearly 30 years of research data. In describing the project we reiterate the conference theme of ëmaking new connectionsí.

Abstract This article describes the design of informal learning spaces at an Australian universit... more Abstract This article describes the design of informal learning spaces at an Australian university that support students in the generation of knowledge. Recent learning space design projects at La Trobe have been informed by a number of pre-existing projects, including a small research project on student use of technologies, a national project on learning space design, and a significant curriculum renewal process at the university.

ABSTRACT The University of Melbourne has a history of traditional teaching modes, with a strong e... more ABSTRACT The University of Melbourne has a history of traditional teaching modes, with a strong emphasis on bridging discipline-based research and teaching. A major strength of the Web at this institution is its ability to allow mounting of high quality specialised graduate teaching programs, characteristic of a research-based university. Such courses might attract only a few students at the source university, and hence be uneconomical to run.

This qualitative study examines the use of information and communications technologies from the p... more This qualitative study examines the use of information and communications technologies from the perspective of university students as co-researchers. Using methods developed for a similar study at the University of Cambridge (Riddle & Howell, 2008), students are prompted 8-10 times over a 24 hour period to fill out a diary and take photographs of technologies and techniques they are using.

It is clear that most university students make extensive use of information and communications te... more It is clear that most university students make extensive use of information and communications technologies (ICTs). Many studies have attempted to describe the extent of this use. However, gaining a clear understanding of where, how, and why students use these technologies is more elusive.

Abstract The Clinicians Health Channel (CHC) is a web-site providing online access to current, ac... more Abstract The Clinicians Health Channel (CHC) is a web-site providing online access to current, accurate and reliable sources of information to help inform and assist clinicians in decision making, research and education. Resources include an electronic health library with citation databases and full text journals, links to other clinical reference materials, such as guidelines and protocols, and provision for discussion forums on clinical topics.

Abstract The Campaign is an online simulation of an election campaign in which students role-play... more Abstract The Campaign is an online simulation of an election campaign in which students role-play as journalists and political advisers. Maintaining the momentum throughout the role-play is a challenge in an online environment. In the case of The Campaign, the momentum is maintained as a result of the tight integration of events in the role-play, student activities, assessment tasks, skills-based mini-workshops, in the lecture topics and reading tasks.

This chapter examines distributed and personal learning spaces across the spectrum of physical, b... more This chapter examines distributed and personal learning spaces across the spectrum of physical, blended and virtual learning spaces in the higher education context. We suggest that higher education is no longer defined by tangible boundaries of a ‘physical campus’ but the entire student experience, whether that involves negotiating the physical corridors of the campus, attending face-to-face classes, participating in fully online courses or a blend of both face-to-face and online courses. In addition the student experience may also involve connecting to virtual environments from home, a local cafe, on the train or participating in professional practice hundreds of kilometers from the physical campus. This chapter attempts to account for the diverse range of spaces that are enriching the learning and teaching experience for both academics and students and suggests that we need to recognize the changing nature of learning spaces in higher education.

This thesis undertakes a description and analysis of the way in which Australian higher education... more This thesis undertakes a description and analysis of the way in which Australian higher education students perform roles through the use of online role-play systems at the University of Melbourne. It includes a description of two case studies: DRALE Online, developed in 1997, and The Campaign, developed in 2003. The research undertakes a detailed study of The Campaign, using empirical data derived from classroom observations, online communications, and semi-structured interviews. It undertakes a qualitative analysis of these data using an interpretive approach informed by models drawn from social theory and sociotechnical theory. Educational authors argue that online educational role-plays engage students in authentic learning, and represent an improvement over didactic teaching strategies. According to this literature, online role-play systems afford students the opportunity of acting and doing instead of only reading and listening. Literature in social theory and social studies of technology takes a different view of certain concepts such as performance, identity and reality. Models such as actor-network theory ask us to consider all actors in the sociotechnical network in order to understand how society and technology are related. This thesis examines these concepts by addressing a series of research questions, such as how students become engaged with identities, how identities are mediated, and the extent to which roles in these role-plays are shaped by the system, the scenario, and the agency of the actors themselves.

This article undertakes a detailed case study of The Campaign, a teaching and learning innovation... more This article undertakes a detailed case study of The Campaign, a teaching and learning innovation in media and communications that uses an online educational role-play. The case study draws on the qualitative analysis of classroom observations, online communications and semi-structured interviews, employing an interpretive approach informed by models drawn from social theory and sociotechnical theory. Educational authors argue that online educational role-plays engage students in authentic learning, and represent an improvement over didactic teaching strategies. According to this literature, online role-play systems afford students the opportunity of acting and doing instead of only reading and listening. Literature in social theory and social studies of technology takes a different view of certain concepts such as performance, identity and reality. Models such as performative self constitution and actor network theory ask us to consider the constructed nature of identity and the roles of all of the actors, including the system itself. This article examines these concepts by addressing a series of research questions relating to identity formation and mediation, and suggests certain limitations of the situationist perspective in explaining the educational value of role-play systems.

The Day Experience Method was inspired by social and behavioural science methodologies including ... more The Day Experience Method was inspired by social and behavioural science methodologies including the Experience Sampling Method (Hektner et al, 2006, Intille et al, 2003), the Day Reconstruction Method (Kahneman et al, 2004) and work on Cultural Probes (Gaver et al, 1999, Arnold, 2004). These methods are all useful ways of providing a detailed view of people’s daily lives. We successfully adapted the methods for use on the Learning Landscape Project at the University of Cambridge during Easter and Michaelmas terms, 2007. The method is attempts to reduce recall distortion and the ideological biases of other sampling methods such as interviews, surveys and focus groups. It can record temporal and situational information in qualitative and quantitative detail, and may be extended to a longer period if needed. This Resource Kit focuses on the practicalities of the method, and offers useful tips and hints to anyone who is interested in using it in their own setting. It is particularly suited to those who wish to use a novel qualitative method to examine every day life situations.

Proceedings, WebNet97, Toronto, pp. 329-333, AACE, Charlottesville, Nov 1997