On Thursday, 12th October, the final stage of “The Pitch” saw three excellent teams present their project proposals to a cross-faculty panel of judges, who oversaw the allocation of a new educational innovation funding stream. However, it was much more than that. It was a landmark in a journey of educational connection, development and inspiration.
It can be challenging to maintain a collegial atmosphere in the context of competitive funding. Together, we – the applicants, judges, facilitators, audience and wider community of Monash educators – achieved this important aspiration for The Pitch.
Since its launch, earlier in 2023, the ethos of The Pitch has been one of dialogue, development and community. In designing and facilitating a “pre-Pitch” workshop, the Monash Education Academy, in combination with wonderful Educational Designers Wendy Taleo, Eliani Boton, Cath Moore and Karen Shelley, helped potential applicants to develop the focus, sustainability, scalability and potential for impact of their ideas. More importantly, we brought together interested educators from across our institution to talk about change and innovation in education, and to make lasting connections (some workshop participants ended up forming teams together).
14 teams submitted proposals for The Pitch in the form of 8 minute videos and detailed project outlines. I had the privilege of delving deep into their ideas as I joined Associate Professor Michelle Lazarus, Professor Patrick Olivier and Professor Beverley Webster on the initial selection panel responsible for deciding which teams would present on the night of The Pitch. Our focus was not just on making good choices but also on giving helpful guidance to all teams, including those not selected to present. We did not want our process to only be about the few teams who received funding. The calibre of educational thinking and of the ideas themselves was clear to us, and we wanted the feedback process to trigger further thinking, discussion and collaborative development of these innovations. I have a few meetings in my calendar to continue this dialogue with teams who did not present on the night, and look forward to working with colleagues to progress their ideas.
From the launch of The Pitch funding stream, earlier in 2023, the ethos had been one of inspiration, development and community.
As you can see, The Pitch was about much more than that one night. However, it was gratifying to experience an event so filled with energy from the teams, judges and audience. Acting Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Education), Professor Allie Clemans, opened the proceedings with an inspiring message about the need to both encourage and showcase innovative educational thinking at Monash. Each of the speakers gave a focused and polished presentation, keeping impeccably to time. The audience, themselves enthusiastic and accomplished educators, educational designers, and professional services staff, helped us to create an atmosphere of enthusiasm, positivity, and a real buzz around the event.
The judges included: Professor Sharon Pickering, Provost & Senior Vice-President; Professor Claire Palermo, Associate Dean of Education in the Faculty of Medicine, Nursing and Health Sciences; Associate Professor John Bevacqua, Associate Dean of Learning and Teaching in the Faculty of Business; and Economics and Neil Carmona-Vickery from Monash Tech School. They did an exemplary job of thinking through implications of impact, sustainability, scalability and innovation, and providing valuable guidance to teams on what to think about as they move forward with their projects.
I drew a couple of lessons from the words of the judges and from my experience of sitting on the selection panel. Firstly, innovation is about more than good new ideas. It includes careful consideration of how an educational initiative will actually be integrated into existing infrastructure, systems and workloads. Even then, there is always risk. The outcomes of innovative projects are somewhat unknowable, but exciting – one thing we can be sure of is that we will learn valuable lessons along the way. It is also worth noting that innovation is contextual: what is new in one context might not be in others. This highlights the importance of collaboration in shaping projects such that implications and changes in practice are relevant to wider groups of students or and educators.
Outcomes of The Pitch
The successful projects Pitched and awarded funding on the night were as follows. More details of these projects will be posted on The Pitch website soon.
Project Title: Project ATLAS: Authentic Teaching and Learning Application Simulations
Funding: $80,000
The Team: Dr Joel Moore (Faculty of Arts), Dr Guilherme Horst Duque (Faculty of Arts), Dr Rosemarie Herbert (Faculty of Science), Dr Tomas Zahora (Faculty of Science), Dr Helmy Cook (Faculty of Medicine, Nursing & Health Sciences), Bethany Howard (Faculty of Medicine, Nursing & Health Sciences), Dr Lisa Barker (Faculty of Medicine, Nursing & Health Sciences), Dr Joanne Blannin (Faculty of Education)
Synopsis:Synopsis: The ATLAS platform is “a revolutionary digital ecosystem that offers immersive, simulated professional experiences tailored to individual learning trajectories“ by using “Large Language Models, artificial intelligence, and intricate agent personas to simulate real-world professional environments.”
Project Title: Enhancing feedback effectiveness by scaffolding feedback literacy among students and teachers using learning analytics
Funding: $40,000
The Team: Dr Yi-Shan Tsai (Faculty of Information Technology), Guanliang Chen (Faculty of Information Technology), Philip Wing Keung Chan (Faculty of Education), Associate Professor Daniejela Gasevic (Faculty of Medicine, Nursing & Health Sciences), Dr Nicola Charwat (Faculty of Business & Economics)
Synopsis: This project “seeks to enhance the effectiveness of feedback by introducing a learning-analytics based feedback tool to support 1) teachers to develop quality feedback and track impacts of feedback on learners, and 2) students to make sense of feedback, organise feedback from multiple sources, and develop action plans.”
Project Title: MonHelp
Funding: $30,000
The Team: Associate Professor Jonathan Li (Faculty of Engineering), Dr Sanaz Nikfalazar (Faculty of Information Technology), Peter Drew (Faculty of Engineering), Prateek Talukdar (Faculty of Engineering), Cyril Chacko (Faculty of Information Technology), Joshua Lu (Faculty of Engineering), Nathan Sherburn (External: CEO – FLUX.qa)
Synopsis: “MonHelp is an online system that matches students with available teaching assistants (TAs) or peers for academic consultations, either via Zoom and/ or in-person” to reduce “barriers to attending scheduled consultation times due to cost of living, work commitments, and complex timetables.”
I would also like to acknowledge the applicants who may not have been selected to present at The Pitch but whose valuable ideas we hope will continue to develop. The selection of some teams and not others is more a reflection of strategic prioritisation than of a clear difference in quality of ideas.
From Fixed to Flourishing: Nurturing Growth Mindsets in Higher Education – Dr Zahra Aziz (MNHS), Dr Venesser Fernandes (Edu), A/Prof Carlyn Muir (MUARC), Prof Chris Thompson (MNHS), Dr Vanlal Thanzami (MNHS), Dr Charindra Keerthipala (BusEco), Prudence Perry (MHNS), Dr Swati Mujumdar (MNHS), Stavroula Zandes (MNHS)
Integrated Student Lifecycle Online Support Platform – Kat Beech (Law), Dr Craig Horton (Law) & Cathy McCormick (Law)
Establishing Trauma-Informed Teaching and Learning at Monash University – Dr Emily Berger (Education), Dr Kim Johnston (MNHS), A/Prof Sean Cowlishaw (MNHS), Dr Siobhan Hardiman (MNHS), Dr Heather Morris (MNHS), Dr Claire Blewitt (MNHS)
The Climate and AI Futures Program – Dr Bronwyn Cumbo (IT), Prof Bernd Meyer (IT), Yolande Strengers (IT), Matt Chen, Prof Neil Selwyn (Edu), Dr Scarlett Howard (Sci)
Integrating behavioural and personality traits and machine-learning textual analysis to enhance decision- making skills among students – Dr Sandip Dhole (BusEco), A/Prof Mukesh Garg (BusEco)
The Monash Innovation Insight Learning Design Canvas – Dr Andrea Fenton (BusEco), A/Prof Jonathan Matheny (BusEco), Dr Hendrika Duivenvoorde (Sci), Nisha Gupta (BusEco)
Supporting the collaborative fight against antimicrobial resistance (AMR) – Dr Angelina Lim (Pharm), Dr Betty Exintaris (Pharm),A/Prof Julia Harrison (MNHS), Vanessa Clothier (MNHS), A/Prof Fiona Kent (MNHS), Dr Mahbub Sarkar (MNHS)
Building an expert consensus on competences of psychologically literate students – An international Delphi study – Prof Judith Gullifer (Edu), Chang Liu (MNHS), Dr Karen Marangio (Edu), A/Prof Louise Jenkins (Edu), Prof Richard Reina (Sci), Prof Claire Palermo (MNHS)
Game On: Professional readiness through immersive learning in a climate-changed world – Dr David Reser (MNHS), A/Prof Margaret Simmons (MNHS), Stathi Paxinos (MSDI), A/Prof Djuke Veldhuis (Sci), Dr Filia Garivaldis (MSDI)
The Conscious Learner: Engendering evaluative judgement – Dr Kirsten Schilephake (MNHS), Jimena de Mello Heredia (Edu), Prof Michael Henderson (Edu), Dr Irene Lichtwark (MNHS)
Teams@Monash – Dr Martijn Van Der Kamp (BusEco), Caroline Sanz-Veitch (BusEco), A/Prof Annette Bos (MSDI), Prof Nicoleta Maynard (Eng), Dr Nadine Normand-Marconnet (Arts), Adriana Ortega (MNHS), Dr Danielle Ramirez (BusEco), A/Prof Scott Wordley (Eng)
Moving forward
The event was not so much the culmination of months of work, by teams, administrators (huge credit to Rachel Woodford and Danilla Tcha from the MEA), judges, educational designers and others – but the start of something exciting. From the conversations I had with teams and audience members, to Sharon Pickering’s enthusiastic summing up of the judges’ deliberations, it was clear that The Pitch has sparked a newly energised funding initiative and tapped into (and, hopefully, contributed to) an energised community of innovation.
We look forward to seeing the impact of this year’s funded projects and hope that, next year, there will be even more.
Associate Professor Tim Fawns
Tim Fawns is Associate Professor (Education Focused) at the Monash Education Academy. His role involves contributing to the development of initiatives and resources that help educators across Monash to improve their knowledge and practice, and to be recognised for that improvement and effort. Tim’s research interests are at the intersection between digital, professional and higher education, with a particular focus on the relationship between technology and educational practice.
Thanks for running this, Tim! Your goal of stimulating dialogue, development and community was definitely met. It precipitated the coming together of our diverse team, which I’m very happy to be a part of! It was energising meeting other groups and seeing the cool things they were doing. A great event.
Thanks, Helmy – it was definitely a team effort to run the event and the broader initiative. It’s really pleasing to see how your project team has formed and how the ideas have developed. I’m very much looking forward to seeing your work unfold.
Leave a Reply