​Teaching and learning innovation is used widely at Te Herenga Waka - Victoria University of Wellington. The Case Studies below showcase this innovative practice. These cases profile the use of technology as a vehicle to more effective and efficient teaching. The examples are intended to stimulate others to consider how technology-mediated teaching can be applied in their courses.

Enhancing Teaching Materials

​Whiteboard Teaching on Camera Using a Lightboard
Richard Arnold
​A whiteboard is an integral tool for teaching in many disciplines, especially the sciences. The Lightboard allows the key aspects of a whiteboard – the ability to write and draw – to be replicated on video, without the need for extensive post-production editing. Richard Arnold was the first lecturer to use the new Lightboard at Victoria.
Digital Notetaking with Kami
Stuart Brock
​Stuart worked with the software developers of Kami (was called Notable) to have a tool that allowed pdf editing, simple annotation and sharing capabilities for use with his class notes. He is now able to control the access students have to his teaching material and give students a more effective and guided notetaking capability.
Whakawhitinga kōrero: Dialogues on sustainability
Tonya Sweet and Dr Andrea Milligan
​The development of a media-based learning and teaching resource that introduces and explores the interconnections among the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDG’s) as they relate to pressing global and local issues through an interdisciplinary lens.

​Improving Lecture Experiences

Increasing Student Engagement with GoSoapBox
Rob Keyzers
Rob has used GoSoapBox as a way to interact with his students during large lectures for several years. Rob finds it useful for several reasons, such as being able to check student understanding, quickly correct misconceptions and to engage with students who would otherwise be too uncomfortable to speak out.

Developing Creative Assessment

Blackboard Tests for Formative Assessment 
Sasha Calhoun and Evan Hazenberg
​Sasha Calhoun and Evan Hazenberg recently transformed the printed exercises provided in their course notes into online quizzes in Blackboard. These were helpful for not only students in allowing them get practical experience using linguistic skills while gaining course credit, but also for teaching staff, allowing them to obtain feedback on student progress and reducing their test marking load.

Adopting Teaching Technology

Finding the Value of Readings with Talis
Melissa Fiu and Teresia Teaiwa
​Melissa Fiu and Dr Teresia Teaiwa found the process of adopting a new system, needed for copyright compliance (Talis Aspire), allowed them to evaluate and confirm the value of their course reading materials. They also started exploring the abilities it afforded them in understanding how students were actually engaging with their course materials.
Designing interactive online chemistry labs
​​Suzanne Boniface
Is it possible to teach students chemistry laboratory skills online? Suzanne set out to design an inquiry-based, online electrochemistry lab which fulfills the same learning objectives to a real face-to-face lab. Qualtrics will be used to host and collect student responses in guided activities online. The activities include videos of actual chemistry experiments, interactive simulations, and macros which enable students to balance equations in real-time. This case explored the development process including the use of existing resources. Though these labs are high resource to build, students can work at their own pace, complete them from off campus, and revisit the materials for study purposes.

Rethinking Course Design

​Remote Teaching with Zoom
David Johnstone
David was the first to try simultaneous teaching between Wellington and Auckland for the SIMs program using video conferencing tools. These tools enable him to be present in class in one location while teaching more students in another. David has an interactive lecturing style, but despite initial reservations, he was able to make adjustments to make the most of the remote layout.
Flipped Teaching
Matthias Lein
​Matthias is using several different technological tools that we have available at Victoria, in order to make space and time for more meaningful student-teacher interactions in his classrooms. The most important change he has made for one of his second-year chemistry classes, was the introduction of the flipped classroom approach.

Encouraging Student Interaction

Maximising Engagement in Online Discussions
Rhian Salmon
​Discussion boards have a vital role in improving both student learning and wellbeing for the fully online courses of the Science in Context programme. Over the course of several years, Rhian has fine-tuned the way that the discussion boards are used in these courses.  The most successful approach so far has been the use of peer-level tutors as 'chatters' and to reward participation with bonus marks.
Using Office 365 to foster student collaboration
Ken Ryan
Ken Ryan wanted a way for his students to enter experimental results directly into a spreadsheet rather than onto a whiteboard. Using the online version of Excel in the lab allowed the students to enter their results on a shared spreadsheet that they could access outside of class. This saved time in the lab Ken was able to extend the student's learning.

Resilience in Teaching

Research – Resilience to Disruption
Jacqueline Dohaney
​In this study, Jacqueline worked with members of the academic resilience steering committee to explore academics’ perceptions of how learning and teaching might respond to a long term disruption (i.e., an earthquake or pandemic).
Online Tutorials with Zoom
David Cox
​How would you run face-to-face tutorials in the event of a disaster? David used Zoom to host online statistics tutorials which mimicked the face-to-face experience. He used the same materials, questions, style of teaching that he normally employs. Students found the sessions helpful, noting that the major advantages included “taking tutorials from home”, scheduling flexibility, and getting more one-on-one feedback.

Innovative Pedagogies Project

The role and quality of teaching in higher education has become a focus in recent years in universities internationally. At Victoria University of Wellington, the development and implementation of a new Learning and Teaching Strategy reflects the increased emphasis on teaching, and a desire to enhance student experiences. In a strategic initiative, the Faculty of Education and CAD are investigating innovative approaches to teaching and learning across the university, with a view to determining how best to support and facilitate pedagogical innovations that contribute to student engagement and learning.
​The case studies presented here report the first stage of the initiative, where award winning staff were interviewed about their teaching practices and ideas about innovative teaching. Without fail, the participants said that they didn’t think what they do in their teaching is especially innovative; however, their efforts and strategies to keep their teaching fresh, interesting, and responsive to students provide us with ideas and inspiration for our own teaching.

Case Studies
Constructive Alignment in Course Design​
Michael Dudding and Kevin Sweet
Kaupapa Māori and Authentic Assessment​
Nicola Hyland and James McKinnon
​If you would like to explore the ideas raised by these case studies or share your own innovative practice please talk to one of our learning and teaching team.
It is intended that future case studies will span a wide range of educational innovation, and you can suggest an idea for a new case using the feedback form .