Task: Journey as an educator (5mins)

Everybody here is an educator within the School of Computing, but you may not know each other.

You might also have had some teaching experiences outside of SoCo… (maybe not as a job!)

At your table groups:

1. Introduce yourselves to each other
2. Find out what classes you have previously taught and what you will teach this semester

About Charles 🤖🎶🥁📝

Charles Martin

• computer scientist, music technology researcher, performer
• teaching computing at ANU since 2019 (and before that…)
• Assistant Associate Director Education, School of Computing
• teaches HCI, music computing, systems, creative coding, etc.
• lately responsible for training tutors in our college (~90 in 2025, more in 2026…)
• goal: make sure teaching in our school is ✨✨awesome✨✨

What work have you been doing as a tutor?

• Teaching labs: standing at the front speaking to a whole class, helping individuals with work, answering questions, listening to problems and issues, helping students learn!
• Marking assessments: evaluating work (what have students learned?), explaining evaluations, writing feedback, explaining reasoning
• Meeting with course convenors and other tutors: going to meetings, understanding duties and tasks, providing ideas/info, incorporating feedback
• Filling in timesheets, doing admin: navigating ANU websites, understanding rights/responsibilities at work, asking for help

Qualifications for teaching (new✨)

Why did I have to fill in a docx form?

HESF (Higher Education Standards Framework) expects universities to have teachers with one degree higher than the taught curriculum. Some level of professional equivalency allowed given they have supervision and professional development (PD), e.g.,

• PhD students allowed to teach master students
• undergrads may teach undergrads provided they have achieved excellent results in the subject
• Other examples, see ANUP_016608 S28 Table 2

These rules are not new, but CSS is coming into compliance.

This semester, we learned that the .docx form is unhelpful, ongoing process to replace this.

Professional development: training at the start 😇, refresher session every year 👩🏽‍🏫

Timesheets, hours, and earnings codes

Every two weeks you will need to fill in a timesheet on HORUS (the ANU HR website). Tricky because of way ANU accounts for teaching hours through “earnings codes” where 1 unit of the code may include more than 1 hour of work.

• T42: Marking: 1-to-1 ratio
• T44: “Other required activity”: 1-to-1 ratio
• T21: Teaching “Supplementary / scaffolded form of delivery” (that is, tutorials or labs): 1-to-3 ratio (1 hour teaching + 2 hours of “associated working time”)
• T23: Repeat Teaching “Supplementary / scaffolded form of delivery” (1 hour teaching + 1 hour associated working time)

Source: ANU Academic Casual Sessional Rates

What work can be done in associated working time?

ANU Enterprise Agreement S2.5—S2.6

• Preparing of teaching activities
• Contemporaneous marking
• Administration directly associated with a teaching activity
• Face to face consultation immediately prior to and following a face to face teaching activity
• Online consultation (e.g. email, messages, forums) immediately prior to and following an online teaching activity
• Attendance at meetings specifically for the purpose of assisting the CSA staff member to prepare for their teaching activity

Contemporaneous marking (new✨)

ANU Enterprise Agreement 2023–2026 S2.6

S2.6:

For the purposes of this provision, ‘contemporaneous marking’ means marking that is performed during a teaching activity, or marking work that could have reasonably been performed during the teaching activity, for example, marking oral presentations delivered during class.

so what does “reasonably performed during the teaching activity” mean?

Why do we do it this way? (new✨)

• teaching to associated work time ratios are set out in the Higher Education Industry—Academic Staff—Award 2020 16.4¹
• tasks for associated working time are in the Enterprise Agreement
• provides guarantees of hours throughout the semester
• protects casual staff against unfair requests from academics (e.g., “You’ll have to attend the lecture to find out what to teach! No you don’t get paid for that!!”)
• provides an automatic allowance for preparation, Q&A and admin work.

Your manager needs to provide tasks for you to complete in Associated Working Time.

A worked example

• Charles the tutor teaches two 1.5-hour labs, 3 hours of work (preparation, marking, admin, consultation and meetings) related to those labs,
• 3 hours of marking assignments,
• and 1 hour writing test cases for the exam.

School of Computing: 1.5 + 0.5 structure

In the School of Computing, many of our classes have a 1.5 hour teaching + 0.5 hour consultation time structure.

• Computer Lab: 1.5 hours (T21/23 teaching)
• Consultation Time: 0.5 hours (taken from the associated working time)

Charles advice:

• at the end of 1.5 hours announce “the tutorial is now over, I am staying until X o’clock to answer individual questions.”
• answer questions about any aspect of the course (redirect problem questions to the forum and help the student to write and submit the post).
• don’t do any group teaching in consultation time.

Submitting your timesheet

Submit your timesheet on time. (please!!)

• suggested submit date is the last Sunday in each two-week pay period.
• actual due date can change due to public holidays.
• and double check that you get paid!
• Timesheets FAQ

Safety: What to do if something bad happens?

⚠️⚠️⚠️

Threats of harassment, bullying, violence (interpersonal, psychological, sexual or physical) or disrupting classes completely not acceptable—and not your job to resolve!

⚠️⚠️⚠️

Prioritise your safety. Just walk out.

1. You are in control of your class, if you feel unsafe walk out!
2. go to a safe place (e.g., Skaidrite Darius Front Office)
3. call ANU security: 61252249 or ANUOK App

Emergency Buttons and Phones

• Skaidrite Darius labs have a red panic button on the wall near the door: ANU Security will visit immediately if the button is pressed.
• Life threatening emergency call 000 from your phone or 0000 from an ANU Phone, then call ANU Security 61252249 (52249 from internal phone).

Link: ANU Safety Website

has anybody ever had cause to call in security or stop a class?

Where to get help

• Other tutors: course team / communication channels (varies by course)
• Course Convenor (your direct manager)
• School of Computing front desk (Skaidrite Darius Level 3 or admin.comp@anu.edu.au)
• Peter Hoefner - Associate Director (Education) in School of Computing: adir.education.comp@anu.edu.au
• me - Assistant to the above - also adir.education.comp@anu.edu.au

Talk: Admin Confusions (5mins)

Our work in the classroom and when marking assessments is usually clear, but outside of these activities, things can be a bit more hazy.

At your tables discuss:

• Are there any aspects of your job admin that are confusing?
• What kind of “associated working time” tasks have you been doing?
• How have you managed communication with your convenor and team?

After a few minutes, share some examples with the room.

How do people develop as teachers?

Kugel (1993) describes one pathway of development as university teachers:

• Self
• Subject
• Student…

As educators we also learn and are influenced by our environment, experiences, and self.

Let’s review these phases (presented in new-starter training…) and reflect on your progress as a teacher.

Phase 1: Emphasis on Teaching

1. Focus on self: Survival in front of a class! Learning how to explain, fear of not knowing the “right” answers.
2. Focus on subject: Covering the topic thoroughly (more than a student!). Preparing packaged, inspiring, and interesting content. Fear of running out of time!
3. Focus on student: Students are different! Prepare alternatives formulas and explanations. Learn about student needs, awareness of multiple valid approaches.

Phase 2: Emphasis on Learning

4. Student as active: Let students do the work! Coaching students in applied learning activities. Teaching less, but more learning occurs.
5. Student as independent: Coach students in learning how to learn. Let students independently explore. (What knowledge will be important in computing in 20 years?)
6. Tuning: Established skills in previous stages. Move between stages as necessary, updating and experimenting.

Risks

Early stages:

• Great content, students not engaging and not learning.
• Overwhelm students with explanations: answering questions not asked.
• Frustrating when student don’t find this fascinating topic interesting!

Later stages:

• Getting students to do things: tricky.
• Teaching less doesn’t mean nothing: still need telling/showing (explicit teaching).
• Need to do listening and questioning: these are hard skills.
• Students annoyed! “Just tell me what to do!!”

Task: What stages resonates for you? (10mins)

Think about the phases/stages of teaching described in Kugel (1993)

• Focus on self
• Focus on subject
• Focus on student
• Student as active
• Student as independent
• Tuning

What stages resonate for you and why? Where are you on your teaching journey?

Discuss in your groups and we will come together to hear some responses.

Task: Joys and Challenges (5mins)

Reflect on the teaching experiences that you have had and think about the highs and lows

• What do you enjoy about tutoring?
• What challenges have you faced or do you expect to face as a tutor?
• What aspects of tutoring would you most like support with?

Discuss with your group and then we’ll hear some example of each question from each table.

High Impact Teaching Strategies

Department of Education and Training, Melbourne (2017)

1. Setting Goals
2. Structuring Lessons
3. Explicit Teaching
4. Worked Examples
5. Collaborative Learning
6. Multiple Exposures
7. Questioning
8. Feedback
9. Metacognitive Strategies
10. Differentiated Teaching

1. Setting Goals

Lessons have clear learning intentions with goals that clarify what success looks like.

• Students see what they need to understand and do
• Teachers can focus on meeting the goals
• Links to explicit assessment criteria

both students and teachers need to see the goals!

2. Structuring Lessons

A lesson structure maps teaching and learning that occurs in class.

• clear expectations
• learning is sequenced and linked
• scaffolding

3. Explicit Teaching

Students are clearly shown what to do and how to do it.

• intentions and success criteria are made transparent to students
• teacher demonstrates them by modelling
• teacher checks for understanding

4. Worked Examples

A worked examples demonstrates the steps required to complete a task or solve a problem.

Teacher presents the example and explains each step. Later, students use the example during independent practice.

• scaffolds learning to support skill acquisition
• reduces cognitive load
• supports independent practice

5. Collaborative Learning

Students work in small groups and everyone participates in a learning task.

• many approaches with different kinds of organisation
• students work together applying acquired knowledge
• cooperatively solve problems
• fosters peer learning
• competition between groups

6. Multiple Exposures

Students get multiple opportunities to encounter, engage with, and elaborate on new knowledge and skills.

• deep learning needs time
• spaced-out interaction with knowledge supports learning
• space out practice with different activities to vary interaction with knowledge

7. Questioning

Questioning is a technique to help students gain cognitive tools for learning themselves rather than presenting answers (remember our intro training?)

• yields feedback on student understanding
• supports informal feedback
• engage students, stimulates interest and curiosity in the learning, and makes links to students lives
• plan questions for probing, extending, revising and reflecting
• use open questions
• cold call and strategic sampling can be used

8. Feedback

Feedback informs a student and/or teacher about the student’s performance relative to learning goals.

• redirects actions to align with learning goals
• feedback can be from teachers or peers
• can be informal or formal
• can be oral, written, formative, or summative
• always needs to be specific and actionable (remember intro training!)

9. Metacognitive Strategies

Metacognitive strategies teach students to think about their own thinking.

• students who are aware of learning process gain control over learning
• extends to self-regulation; managing one’s own motivation
• can include planning approach to tasks
• evaluating progress and monitoring comprehension

This can involve explicitly teaching problem solving, study skills, and self-questioning

10. Differentiated Teaching

Methods teachers use to extend the knowledge and skills of every student in every class, regardless of their starting point.

• lift performance of all students
• including those falling behind
• including those way ahead
• effective differentiation: lessons incorporate adjustments for content, process, and product

Summary page of the HITS

Task: Which strategies resonate? (5mins)

Task: making concrete plans (15mins)

• the task is to ideate ways to apply one HIT strategy in SoCo

we’ll do a Crazy 8s design sprint.

1. fold your piece of paper into 8 sections.
2. start the 8 minute timer
3. sketch one application of the HIT strategy in each rectangle
4. stop when the alarm goes off

After the sprint, you will analyse the sketches you have ideated and choose one to present to the group.