Studio for Teaching and Learning
About
The Studio for Teaching and Learning, or STL, is an initiative that attempts to break the traditional boundaries between Disciplines, Faculties, teachers and students, study and work, and institutions. It also hopes to provide a place to experiment with ideas, and for students to trial their business concepts.
STL provides a co-working space for small groups of students hoping to start a business on completion of their studies. By providing basic infrastructure (desk, phone, access to computers and printing, meeting facilities, whiteboards) for a fixed period of time, and mentoring where needed, it is hoped that the students will begin to acquire the business skills they need in the workplace. Participants are also expected to feed their knowedge back into the current cohorts of students.
A variety of computers and equipment including tablets, imaging devices, a 3D printer, and relevant software enables teachers to try new approaches to their delivery - a space to play.
STL drives conversations with Faculties, and actively encourages cross-disciplinary collaboration involving both teachers and students, in the hope that new approaches to teaching the same material will emerge.
Projects
A number of initiatives promoted by STL are listed below. Please tap or click on the heading to view a description.
Student have been invited to submit their business proposals for nomination to share co-working space in the Studio. The advantage for the students is that they get basic office infrastructure (desk, phone, access to computers and printing, meeting spaces) and mentoring if required. In return, they engage with existing students and share the knowledge they are accumulating.
Interested students can submit their proposals via this Google Form
Successful participants are notified when space is available
Part of the philosophy of STL comes from both Columbia University's Center for New Media Teaching and Learning (CNMTL), and Macquarie University's Education Studio.
The Education Studio and STL have joined forces in a research study, with the University gaining funding under their Innovation and Scholarship program. Matchmaking: Development of a professional practice and research framework for seeding cross-institutional, work integrated learning projects will investigate the creation of a framework for Cross-Silo collaboration and initiation.
A joint session was held with students from both the Gaming and Marketing courses
The purpose of the session was to get the students working outside their disciplines, and to understand the approaches taken by other professionals, when ultimately it is likely that they will be working together in the real world
Following an initial description of each course and how it is taught, they were given an industry problem and broken into cross-disciplinary teams to come up with innovative solutions, in the form of a mobile game design.
At the conclusion of the session, each team presented their design to the group
The next step involves the marketing students resarching the target market, and finally the teams will come together to design and hopefully build the games
The general feeling was that working in this way gave a different perspective to where and how they may be working in the future.
STL is working with Horticulture to design new ways of engaging students
Many of the resources are paper-based, and Horticulture are hoping to use mobile technologies to create richer student experiences.
One approach will involve the use of scannable QR codes on plant bases to enable rapid download of relevant information such as plant details, history, care and maintenance.
Health are working with STL to review some of the approaches to teaching and learning, and to see if more use of digital techologies can help with delivery.
Discussions have included:
Northern Sydney Institute is trialling Echo360 Enterprise software during 2014-2015.
This system allows for the recording and review of classroom material, and NSI is trialling it in various arrangements to see how it fits with our delivery models.
Additional functions include detailed analytics on usage, plus an interactive classroom delivery model for mobile devices.
STL can liaise with faculties to arrange industry meetups via the meetup.com portal
Meetups are a great way for students, staff and industry to gather together and discuss latest trends and to network.
Contact
The Studio is situated in room J4.22 on level 4 of the Cameraygal building at Northern Sydney Institute's St Leonards Learning and Innovation Campus.
You can email the Studio at nsi.stl@det.nsw.edu.au, or phone (02) 9942 0493