VC’s corner
campusreview.
We need to be cognisant of the
tendency to chase the prestige of research
at the cost of effort and resource being put
into teaching quality and into teachers.
SHARING KNOWLEDGE
MORE EFFECTIVELY
Many education providers may be hesitant
to move away from traditional modes
of learning and teaching. Institutional
culture, an undervaluing of teaching
compared to research, and the effort
and resources required to make a major
transformational change, all probably play
a part in the Australian sector’s reluctance
to significantly change teaching practices.
There are many alternatives to didactic,
PowerPoint-driven lecturing that are
used across the sector to great effect by
individual teachers and teaching teams,
including:
• Blended learning, incorporating the
integration of modern and interactive
eLearning
• Flipped classrooms
• Problem-based learning
• Work-integrated and work-based learning
of a wide range of types
• Simulations and other opportunities to
develop practical skills
• Collaborative approaches to constructing
and sharing knowledge, incorporating
multidisciplinary contributions from:
internal colleagues (‘peeragogy’);
external MOOCs; industry educational
offerings; and formal recognition of prior
and concurrent student real-life learning
outside the classroom.
Much of what I have listed in this
incomplete list will be familiar to many.
There is, of course, significant innovation
and outstanding teaching practice going
on in pockets of the Australian sector by
individuals and small and larger teams.
However, VU is the only tertiary institution
to completely throw out the old way –
including lectures – and truly transform
university teaching and learning.
The VU Way won’t suit all institutions,
and for those who would benefit from
using it, the change may simply be too
hard (it is certainly very hard). What is
important is that the approaches to
teaching used in universities must align and
keep pace with the disrupted and changing
contexts in which university education
takes place.
The lecture has never been recognised
as the best way for the modern university
student cohorts to learn. As the global,
digital and societal upheavals we are
experiencing continue, and we begin
to see more examples of ‘the student-
free lecture’ where no-one turns up, the
lecture as the staple approach to university
teaching should probably start to go the
way of the once ubiquitous handwritten
overhead transparency. Both have probably
had their day. ■
Professor Marcia Devlin is senior deputy
vice-chancellor at Victoria University.
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