POLICY & REFORM campusreview. com. au
Voices are beacons
With a tumultuous year coming up, it’ s more important than ever that students’ needs and desires guide the way.
By Jim Nyland
In Queensland universities, leaders are looking to a‘ cliff year’ on the horizon, and considering how best to chart a course for their organisations to avoid troubled waters.
The cliff year is 2019, when 40 per cent fewer students will graduate Year 12 in Queensland, due to the full-time preparatory program introduced in 2007 and commencement of a half cohort of‘ prep’ to align with the shift in the compulsory school starting age from 2008.
It seems timely, then, to listen intently to what students want to learn and know. Sometimes this is called the student voice and this article relays the findings of a project that listened to this voice in order to understand how choices and experiences can help shape the future of learning in universities.
We called the project‘ real learning’ because it was about what could be called really useful knowledge. Australian Catholic University’ s Brisbane campus was chosen for the site because it has a strong commitment to professional and vocationally relevant courses and a distinctive values base that draws on the Catholic intellectual and caring tradition. The Brisbane campus also has a history of listening, and responding effectively, to the student voice – it has experienced annual double-digit growth over the last five years, resulting in a headcount of 5400 students at the time of writing and a trajectory that would allow it to exceed 7000 students when the cliff year arrives.
We started the research from the point of view that many old certainties are rapidly disappearing along with the old forms of knowledge and learning. What will replace these older certainties? Our starting point was that whatever it is, it must be rooted in knowledge and learning that is relevant and useful. We were as well mindful of the fact that authentic learning in this generation has to be personal. It is about the self, where individuals may choose their learning subjects and learning styles as well as the campuses they attend, especially if they are paying for it.
We identified four key themes to help us frame questions and issues to be put to students. First, we considered the growth of digital technologies. Learning is being transformed by the devices and apps of the information age. A fast-changing reality is accompanied by an equally fast-changing knowledge base. However, there can be no doubt that while technology has opened up access to learning, some of the cherished values to do with faceto-face encounters have been lost. Can there be any doubt that there are dangers in the mass psychology of contemporary experience and what has been called the neural addiction to the screen?
Second, we considered how a more devolved and fragmented market-led system allows a more rapid and individualised response to changing demands from learners who are now thought of as consumers. Education is seen as a commodity to be bought, sold and traded across the world and available to those who can pay for it as an aspect of their lifestyle.
The third context we wanted to explore was that of the campus itself. Buildings, and the arrangement of space and its accessibility shape patterns of behaviour and thinking. At ACU Brisbane, the campus has a distinctive quality; some suggest it has a feel as a special place. This may derive from its cloistered buildings and walkways on top of a beautiful hill outside the city of Brisbane. There is also a significant Aboriginal site on the campus, which is respected and revered. The most
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