GCHE Reflective Essay

GCHE is scheduled to teach out in July 2018. As the programme coordinator, I prepared a plan to accommodate existing and new lecturers who have yet to enroll in this programme. There will be two more intakes, that is, July 2015 and July 2016 before it is teach out in 2018. This plan was approved by CEC in April 2015.

To make it more convenience for lecturers to attend this programme, units in GCHE were taught in both online and offline modes. Lecturers gained through their participations in a variety of learning activities discussed in small groups and the outcomes were presented orally with feedback from the participants and instructor. One student commented “The platforms (classroom setting and online forum) were excellent avenues for revisiting

Teaching materials for all the units were posted to Moodle.

This unit plan benefitted lecturers in two ways, one they acquired first-hand experiences in the implementation of student centred teaching and assessment from the units in GCHE. And the second benefit is through the online mode, lecturers can participate actively in the units even though they were very busy in their teaching and research (verbal feedback from lecturers).

I have initiated a plan to include the Community of Inquiry (CoI) Framework in blended learning. MUM lecturers can use this framework to facilitate meaningful online learning through three interdependent elements: Teaching Presence, Cognitive Presence and Social Presence. And through the design, facilitation and direct instruction categories of the Teaching Presence, students will develop deep and meaningful learning.

I hope this plan will contribute positively to Monash Better Teaching, Better Learning Agenda. Once blended courses are well developed and teaching and learning more in line with the three presences of CoI framework, then we can expect more buy-in to blended courses from lecturers and