Enacting Authentic Learning and Assessment: How Structure and Agency in Higher Education is Mediated by Teaching Perspectives (75813)
Session Chair: Aaron Bruhn
Friday, 24 November 2023 15:10
Session: Session 4
Room: Room 604
Presentation Type: Oral Presentation
This paper investigates how University educators perceive and enact authentic learning and assessment positioned as a strategic University directive. Employing Giddens's Structuration Theory and Sannino's model of Transformative Agency, the paper illustrates the intricate constituents of agency and how agency is mediated by personal teaching perspectives.
The study investigates 14 educators in an international university who are responding to a strategic directive to employ authentic learning and assessment methods in undergraduate courses. The study utilises interviews, classroom observations, the Teaching Perspective Inventory, and different definitions of authenticity to delve into how educators negotiate authenticity through their pedagogical dispositions.
The analysis reveals that the directive for authenticity has neoliberalist and utilitarian overtones. The study observed educators creatively adapting and reinterpreting authenticity in learning and assessment using their own complex milieu of teaching perspectives. They did this by reflexively responding to the demands of authentic learning and assessment using “generative rules” that are reimagined and enacted through the individual’s teaching perspectives leading to “transformative agency” where the focus is not only on what authentic learning and assessment is, but also what it can become.
The research highlights the role of agency with respect to pedagogical initiatives, wherein educators engage in strategies of resistance and adaptation, informed by teaching perspectives to balance the interests of the University and the pursuit of academic autonomy. The findings underscore the dynamic nature of the relationship between educators and the University, shedding light on the nuanced way agency can be both generative and transformative.
Authors:
Glen OGrady, RMIT University Vietnam, Vietnam
Catherine Earl, RMIT University Vietnam, Vietnam
Hanh Nguyen Thi My, RMIT University Vietnam, Vietnam
Greenie Maheshwari, RMIT University Vietnam, Vietnam
About the Presenter(s)
Mr Glen OGrady is a School Administrator at RMIT in Vietnam
See this presentation on the full schedule – Friday Schedule
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