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Do you think there is going to be a huge rise in the popularity of micro-credential courses ? You ’ ve got global powerhouses like Arizona State University releasing digital wallets and portfolios . I see this as an opportunity to brand , to benchmark and to , in a sense , provide an informal warrant on the quality of micro-credentials . I see microcredentialing as something which is very much on the rise , it will become much more mainstream in terms of the way in which we think about and recognise the skills that have been developed within our employees or within our students .
I think the missing piece is we don ’ t have a clear scaffold yet as to how we can take those micro-credentials and link them back in the workplace , or into more formal education spaces in a way that we can attribute the value of the learning against the more traditional degree accreditations .
The lack of a nationally recognised Australian qualifications framework must be a concern for these courses . Queensland Tech is having a fair crack at this . They ’ re actually partnering with the Foundation for Young Australians and building a set of micro-credentials based around future skill clusters that they ’ re seeing in their market research , and they ’ re loosely aligning those to the Australian Standards .
Can you explain block models of learning and whether you think they will become more popular in the future ? The block model was something that Victoria University decided to move to . They were having significant struggles with first year students . They needed to provide a way to better support them , to have better insight into what was happening with those learners through those early phases of their undergrad degree . They found the traditional approach – three starts per year , semester one , semester two , maybe a third term – was really difficult for those students who have lots of competing pressures on them . And the complexity of the standard undergraduate program was really challenging .
They changed the model to a series of blocks . So , eight to 10 blocks per year , each block is one subject . So instead of having to confront a large timetable and multiple subjects , students now could focus on just the one subject for four weeks .
In that four weeks they would do the intensive work and complete the volume of learning required for that subject . They would do the formative , summative assessment , all the assessment task assignments and cycle . The flip side of that is the university would have to turn around those results and authorise the learning and the assessment in two days . There were clear benefits for the students . There were pressures on the university in terms of work processes , but at the core of all of this was a focus on better outcomes for students .
Three things occurred for the university over that period of time . First of all , they found in the early periods of COVID , there was no discernible impact across the various cohorts who were engaged in the block model . In fact , for some of the higher achieving cohorts , they actually did better . Secondly , the way in which the block model was architected by VU meant that when the regulatory body , TEQSA , looked at the program of work the students were engaged in , and the robustness of the assessment , they actually got a tick .
That was a huge win because it proved the value of the block model from a regulatory perspective . All the data points that were required were clearly in place . The third thing it meant was that irrelevant of the mode , whether it was on campus face to face , through to online or remote , the learning program was the same , so the students went through less change .
There was an additional benefit that I heard from one of the academic leadership team , who said they ’ re now able to move away from three starts or two starts per year into a rolling enrollment model . That much more closely aligned with the work habits and the work life pressures on students . Students could pick up a subject as and when they needed to , as opposed to , ‘ I have to start in March . I have to start in June , July ’. There was a lot of flexibility provided to learners and their enrolments actually went up .
What are your thoughts on whether some universities should be teaching-only institutions , and do you think it could lead to better experiences for staff and students ? The concept of teaching-only universities or teaching-focused universities is not that new . What it says to me is that there are a couple of things we need to deconstruct . We need to think about the link between research and university rankings . How does research impact on reputation , standing ? These are important questions . But we also have to think about the flip side of this . How do we improve teaching within universities ?
Universities Australia is very clear that the quality teaching awards are going ahead this year , and I think it ’ s important that we recognise teaching at that strategic level on the importance of good teaching and learning . But I think there ’ s been a longer term conversation probably going on in the background and you get terms like ‘ bundled learning services ’, ‘ bundled teaching services ’ or ‘ bundled education services ’.
At some point , universities thought about the cost of the assessment and about the cost of tuition . And I knew that this was a major cost centre for them . So we ’ ve talked , and thought about ways in which we could casualise the tutorial and economic workforce . We needed to bring flexibility and the options of funnelling services or providing services to students in different ways .
I think teaching-only universities is an extension of that , really and has a lot of merit , particularly when we ’ re thinking about the way in which regional universities have to focus on specific bands of research , but do play very strongly to the teaching and upskilling of a regional community .
So , I think we need to be able to deconstruct that notion of universities in some way , and then reconstruct it in a way which is better aligned to the changing needs of communities . Particularly as we go through those changes in the workforce we spoke about upfront . If the research base isn ’ t there , how do we still provide the skills at a tertiary level to those communities ? A teaching cohort within a university makes a lot of sense .
I think the last point to be considered there is the changes to international versus domestic student mixes in universities . We have to be more cognisant of the rise of domestic populations in those university mixes , the decrease of international , and consider what is in the best national interest in terms of skills , building knowledge , economies , and regions , or specific research hubs within various areas .
If we actually think about that , and then from that decision , think about teaching and research , universities will have a better understanding of the way in which we can go forward successfully . ■
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