What's going on at STARLab?

I visited Caulfield's STARLab (Simulated Teaching and Research Laboratories) to observe the BFX5260 Treasury and Financial Markets teaching team in action, and I was in for a treat. The morning started out with great energy. Students were lining up to get their ID card scanned for attendance, and looking eager to get started. 

This semester, the BFX5260 teaching team have implemented co-teaching, the flipped-class model, trading simulation, and digital in-class assessment all at once. How do they do it? Let’s dive in. 

Co-teaching

Wayne Huf, Amale Scally, Simon Yap, Long Pham and Linh Nguyen make a great teaching team. They did a fantastic job collaborating to facilitate two classrooms simultaneously. One of the goals was to keep the two classes going at the same pace, and timing of in-class assessments to be in sync. 

In order to achieve that, responsibilities are shared among the teaching team. Everyone takes turn to instruct, facilitate activities and provide technical support to students every week.  

The co-teaching model got everyone in the team on their feet, and actively attending to every group in the class. It was great to see how much attention and support students received throughout the session. 

Flipped-classroom model

The concept of a flipped-classroom model has been around for some time, and has earned its place in the current landscape of higher education. Exploration and familiarisation with the new weekly topic happens prior to class time, and that's what has been implemented in BFX5260.

'Pre-load' materials including short videos, reading and exercise files have been provided for students to engage in independent learning every week. Moodle resources were referenced frequently during the session, which was a fantastic way to reemphasise the significance of the Moodle site as a one-stop-shop to assist students with their study. Workshop times are dedicated to hands-on activities and peer-learning where students exchange ideas and consolidate new knowledge. What's more, is that students are incentivised to complete pre-class work by a weekly test at the beginning of class. Even though questions are randomised, students were allowed to discuss and work collaboratively through this assessment.

An important note to take here is that the link between pre-class and in-class work has been well illustrated. Without having done their work prior to coming to the session, students' learning experience would not have received the same benefits and impact.

Excel classes were offered to students to help them
become more confident with using the software

Trading simulations

Throughout the session, students went through a range of simulated trading scenarios. Pre-programmed prompts were scheduled during some of the activities to increase interactiveness and sophistication of the exercise. This was a fantastic illustration of how complex and fast-paced a real trading environment could be.

The design of these workshops has thoughtfully taken into account valuable opportunities for students to apply what they have learned, and go from knowing to doing. What's more, is that students go to practice making decisions promptly and effectively, to respond to the dynamic nature of their future employment context.

To guide students through these simulations, procedural knowledge was demonstrated on Excel by the facilitator, followed by time for repetition on students' computer.

Students working on their Excel sheet

Learning is then solidified by peer learning. The trading simulations happened as individual exercises as well as group activities. Conversations were buzzing among students in the room to discuss the process and results of their practice. 

Students discussed during the exercises

By closely watching and assisting students while the simulations occurred, the facilitator was able to recognise and showcase outstanding work from individual student for the whole class. The students were also rewarded with very encouraging comments from the instructor and their peers, adding even more energy to the atmosphere. 

In-class assessment

In-class assessment was conducted at the end to solidify everything new students have learned throughout the session. To ensure the integrity and authenticity of students' attempt during the assessment, a software called AB Tutor was run in the control room. Excel files containing students' work were pulled from their Monash computer and deleted once the transfer has been completed.

The control room - where the "magic" happens

The vision

The learning activities in STARLab do not only provide an opportunity for students to gain simulated trading experience, but also expose students to ethic considerations, encourage them to be professional and understand the value of their human inputs behind machines. Click the video below to hear from the teaching team and a unit alumnus themselves. 

A closing thought

It was inspiring to see the amount of thought and effort that went into designing and delivering the unit. Perhaps it took trial-and-error to continuously improving their teaching practice, but the team have been rewarded with the level of participation and engagement among students.

We look forward to observing more active learning strategies in your classroom.

Become an effective workshop facilitator

This month, the Department of Econometrics and Business Statistics (EBS) welcomed Paul White, the Associate Dean Education at the Faculty of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences at their departmental welcome for new teaching associates. Paul ran a fantastic session on workshop facilitation and active learning for our colleagues at EBS, and we hope you will enjoy reading about some of the highlights from this session.

Paul and a group of participants

Whether you are a seasoned educator, or new to teaching, facilitating a workshop effectively can be a challenging task. The active dynamic and demanding nature of a workshop may mean that the facilitator needs to acquire many skill sets to engage and guide students. Throughout the training session at EBS, the whole group had a great dialogue and took home great insights into effective practices. We saw small and large-group discussion, mini role-play activity and many opportunities for colleagues to reflect.

Role-play activity to re-enact different student behaviours

Key takeaways

Here are a few key takeaways on how to effectively run workshops. We hope this can be your food-for-thought:

1. Establish a culture of effective learning

As the facilitator, you have the opportunity to lead by example. By modelling being well prepared, you will have a great chance of establishing a good culture of effective learning among your students. Planning and preparation is the key to facilitating a workshop effectively, and it is also the key to successfully participating in and contributing to a workshop.

2. Use the Socratic method

Depending on your disciplines, the facilitator may have the ‘right’ answers to questions most of the time. However, such questions often address the lower order thinking skills such as recalling information, understanding basic concepts or applying concepts to simple examples. On the other hand, the Socratic method of asking thoughtful guiding questions to stimulate discussion among students, without giving them one absolute answer, is the best way to help students develop higher order thinking skills such as evaluating and critical thinking.

3. Know the key characteristics of an effective facilitator

• Exercising good body language, patience and empathy, and showing enthusiasm from the facilitator, just to name a few, are great characteristics that a facilitator could have. How do you achieve these? Unsurprisingly, practice makes progress.
• Involving all participants. Try ‘tracking your heat-map’, i.e. how you move around in the room and address each group of participants. It is also advisable to keep some distance and not to be too intimidating to students.
• Communicating with a personal touch. For example, a great idea a participant shared was to get in touch with students prior to the semester and connect with them personally during the first session. This got students to keep coming to the following sessions. It is also good to get to know students on a first name/ preferred name basis.

4. Build and maintain a positive students’ perception of you

A facilitator’s energy can be contagious, and students can be influenced by how you carry yourself throughout your workshop. Enthusiasm and attentiveness can help facilitators go a long way in making and keeping a good impression to students.

5. Gather feedback from students

No teacher is perfect, and there is always room for improvement and enhancement in your facilitation practice. Gathering quick formative feedback from students, whether by verbal or written mean, may help you uncover great potential for your practice.

A closing thought

Throughout the session, our colleagues at EBS were very enthusiastic in sharing about their own teaching and facilitating experiences, and it was rewarding to hear the buzz from many great conversations about the ‘dos’ and ‘don’ts’ in running a workshop. We look forward to having more inter-faculty collaborations like this, in which we share knowledge, learn from each other and feel inspired to try new things.

Group discussion