AUSTRALIAN LEARNING AND TEACHING COUNCIL  

Three innovative learning and teaching programs involving more than 20 universities and 40 community organisations will soon be recognised by the Australian Learning and Teaching Council (ALTC).

The Australian University Teaching Awards will recognise 22 of Australia's top teachers and 10 programs that have tangibly enhanced the student experience at a ceremony at Parliament House Canberra next week.

A program providing unique opportunities for studying Indonesian, another involving at risk school students and one that has produced a national workplace-based competency assessment will be acknowledged for creating educational partnerships and collaborations with other organisations. Along with work integrated learning, creating collaborative partnerships is one of the ALTC priorities for 2008 and 2009.

Flinders University Inspire Mentor Program involves working with students at risk of disengaging from school including those for whom English is a second language, refugees, low socio-economic status and Indigenous students. Since 2003 Inspire has placed more than 500 Flinders students alongside young people as co-learners both inside and outside the traditional classroom.

Murdoch University's Australian Consortium for 'In-Country' Indonesian Studies (ACICIS) has opened opportunities for Australian students to undertake credited semester study in Indonesian universities. Until ACICIS existed virtually no Australian student had undertaken such study due to considerable linguistic, academic, bureaucratic and immigration impediments. 

ACICIS involves a collaboration of 21 universities in Australia, the United Kingdom and the Netherlands working with a broad range of partner universities in Indonesia.

The COMPASS project involves the University of Sydney, Newcastle University and Charles Sturt with the collaboration successfully implementing a national workplace based competency assessment for speech pathology  - the first health discipline to do so in Australia.

The project team addressed the need for every final-year student in speech pathology in Australia to meet the same standards of clinical competency. The standards are reliably and validly assessed with the tools and resources developed by the COMPASS team.

The recent evaluation of the effectiveness of the Australian Learning and Teaching Council, commissioned by the Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations, offers strong support for the strategies and activities of the ALTC.

The evaluation, carried out by Professor Kwong Lee Dow AC, the former Vice-Chancellor of the University of Melbourne, was intended to coincide with and provide input to the Bradley Review of Higher Education.

ALTC Executive Director Professor Richard Johnstone said he welcomed the wide-ranging feedback and that ALTC has actively responded to the recommendations in the report.

"This report provides a comprehensive endorsement of the ALTC and its programs and activities. It shows that the ALTC already occupies an important place on the higher education landscape, having made a significant impact upon the sector in a relatively short time," Professor Johnstone said.

Professor Johnstone said he was grateful to Professor Lee Dow for the thorough evaluation and to the many people who made submissions to the review.

"We welcome his suggestions for further action and are well advanced in implementing the report's recommendations."

ePortfolios for students have the potential to bring together educational technologies and quality learning processes, and to provide evidence of individual achievement and employability skills, according to a report released today.

ePortfolios, digital repositories combining evidence of an individual's achievements and qualifications with narrative self-reflection, are already in use in a number of institutions.

The new report from the Australian ePortfolio Project has emphasised the need for a cohesive national framework for ePortfolio use to support the exchange of information and data across institutional, sectoral and international boundaries.

The Australian Learning and Teaching Council-funded project is led by Queensland University of Technology involves three other Australian universities: University of New England, University of Wollongong and the University of Melbourne.

The primary aim of the research was to investigate the current levels of ePortfolio practice in Australian higher education and identify strategies to support and foster ePortfolio practice in four areas:

• government policy;
• technical standards;
• academic policy; and
• learning and teaching.

"Creating an ePortfolio enables the learner to develop skills in critical reflection and establish connections between the different phases of their life, learning and work," project leader Associate Professor Gillian Hallam said.

ePortfolios offer an effective means of supporting student mobility as they move not only between sectors, but across institutions and even faculties within an institution, the study also found.

ALTC Executive Director, Professor Richard Johnstone said the report highlights the potential for ePortfolio use to support the exchange of information and data across institutional, sectoral and jurisdictional boundaries.

"Pathways through education are increasingly flexible. Students no longer move directly from school to university and often study while with working. ePortfolios make it possible to link school, vocational education and training, higher education and work experience, increasing employability and improving graduate outcomes," Professor Johnstone said.

The report recommends that the Federal Government support the development of national strategies and policies to facilitate growth in ePortfolio practice; and the adoption of Australian technical standards to eliminate interoperability issues and facilitate data and information exchange.

Professor Richard Johnstone, Executive Director of the Australian Learning and Teaching Council today congratulated the nation's most outstanding university teachers when he announced the 2008 Australian Awards for University Teaching.

Twenty-two university teachers from across Australia will receive awards this year while a further 10 Awards for Programs that Enhance Learning will be presented at a ceremony at Parliament House Canberra on 25 November.

"The Australian Awards for University Teaching acknowledge the vital contribution made by individuals and teams to the quality of student learning, from undergraduate teaching to research supervision," Professor Johnstone said.

"The Awards provide recognition and support to a range of teachers acknowledged by their colleagues as making an outstanding difference to the learning experiences of their students."

The premier university teaching award, The Prime Minister's Award for the Australian University Teacher of the Year, will be announced at the November ceremony.

This award is reserved for university teachers with an exceptional record of advancing student learning, educational leadership and scholarly contribution to teaching and learning with the recipient receiving $50,000.

An innovative program pioneered by the Australian Learning and Teaching Council will strengthen the learning and teaching agenda nationally by connecting with and across disciplines.

The ALTC is calling for expressions of interest from leading academics to work as Discipline Scholars with the first appointments expected to begin in January 2009.

ALTC Discipline Scholars will be responsible for progressing the learning and teaching agenda in the realm of their own discipline and across disciplines nationally.

Initially three Discipline Scholars will be appointed in each of the following broad clusters: Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences; Business, Management and Economics and in Engineering and Technology.

Professor Richard Johnstone, ALTC Executive Director, anticipates that Discipline Scholars will have a major impact directly connecting with the disciplines.

The ALTC Discipline Scholars will support the engagement of bodies, such as councils of deans, with a change agenda for the discipline," Professor Johnstone said.

"It is vital that learning and teaching is supported at a discipline level because that is where some of the strongest links are made, and where we can really bring about change."

Discipline Scholars will tap into reports stemming from ALTC projects that specifically address critical learning and teaching issues within their discipline. Examples include addressing the low participation of women in engineering programs, and the reduction in the number of students studying advanced maths and science in high school.

EOIs for the 2009 Discipline Scholar program will close on 31 October.

An innovative teaching method for singing students at Charles Darwin University is combining singers of rock, pop, blues and classical music in the same room to inspire their learning.

Ms Kathy Banks is responsible for the program and was recently recognised by an Australian Learning and Teaching Council citation for her contributions to student learning.

Previous methods of teaching singing frequently relied solely on one-to-one teacher-student lessons, but Ms Banks noticed students often made progress during a lesson only to have regressed the following week because they were not self reliant during home practice.

To counter this, Ms Banks introduced a group model of teaching using a seminar of approximately 10 students supplemented by individual one-on-one tuition.

During the course of seminars, students learn how to control their bodies and larynxes to improve their singing skills.

"Students become more independent and they know how to practice on their own. They come to one-on-one sessions with questions related to their immediate needs and challenges they are facing. They are actively involved in their own progress," Ms Banks said.

Students begin each seminar with group vocal warm-ups and later in the session sing a solo for the other students gaining feedback from one another.

"Some people can be shy and nervous at the beginning, but it doesn't last. Everyone is so supportive because they understand each other's goals and challenges," she said.

"I really enjoy this style of teaching, there is so much variety and it's great to be able to see the students develop and nurture their talent and support each other".

Many academic leaders feel hamstrung by changing expectations of what it means to be a leader in higher education with surprisingly little valid empirical evidence available on academic leadership.

The Carrick Institute-funded national leadership project "Learning Leaders in Times of Change" has generated preliminary findings revealing that a range of different pressures may be inhibiting the capacity of Australia's academic leaders to lead.

The joint University of Western Sydney (UWS)/Australian Council of Educational Research project has included a survey of more than 1200 academics at 20 Australian universities, a comprehensive literature review and a series of analyses.

The study was carried out because so little is known and understood about academic leaders and their leadership, according to project leader, Professor Geoff Scott, Pro Vice-Chancellor (Quality) at UWS. Professor Scott said the survey of academics made it clear that people are only able to exercise leadership to the extent that organisational conditions configure and allow for that to happen.

The project team heard a range of analogies from all leadership roles which provided insights into the daily experience of the leader's work and into the continuously shifting environment they must navigate.

Recurring themes included having to content with forces both within and beyond ones control; the challenge of having to work productively with a diverse range of people; the frustration of dealing with the bureaucracy and unresponsiveness in some quarters; and having to handle the impact of limited resources. Analogies that indicate more control, being an orchestra conductor or gardener for example, tended to be identified by the more senior leaders, deputy vice-chancellors and executive deans.

Those who indicated much less perceived capacity to influence came from individuals with a local leadership role such as a program coordinator. The leadership project, which will conclude in mid-2008, will produce an empirically validated leadership capability framework for learning and teaching.

An evidence-based profile of effective leaders in higher education learning and teaching roles and targeted resources and strategies for using the outcomes of the study will also be produced.

An Australian Learning and Teaching Council-funded project, Physclips, has won an international award for science communication.

Physclips, developed by George Hatsidimitris and Professor Joe Wolfe of the University of NSW's School of Physics, has taken out the physics division of the 2007 Pirelli Prizes for Science Communication valued at 15,000 euros.

Physclips is a set of learning and teaching resources for introductory physics. A series of multimedia tutorials give brief overviews using film clips and animations.  Hyperlinks take the user to broader and deeper treatments.

ALTC Executive Director Professor Richard Johnstone said that Physclips is an example of an innovative teaching approach that is enriching the student experience.

"The Physclips site has generated great interest judging by the number of regular visitors," he said.

"My congratulations to the developers for taking this successful project into the international arena."

Professor Wolf said Physclips doesn't aim to replace a class or textbook, "it's something that could only work in multimedia, with features such as animated diagrams superimposed on slow motion video".

Physclips received about 1500 unique visitors a day with each visitor downloading typically 30 files and with an overall hit rate per day of 40,000.

The Pirelli Prizes for Science Communication are part of the Pirelli International Award - the world's first and most prestigious internet multimedia award aimed at the diffusion of scientific and technological culture worldwide.

Two Flinders University academics who have both received the prestigious Prime Minister's award for University Teacher of the Year are "astonished" to be appointed Senior Fellows by the United Kingdom's Higher Education Academy.

Professor Iain Hay (pictured left) and Professor Mark Israel (pictured right) are two of just six Senior Fellows appointed and the only academics from outside the United Kingdom.

"The Senior Fellowships are recognition of work that was given added impetus by our Prime Minister's Awards for Australian University Teacher of the Year in 2004 and 2006. We are really grateful for the opportunities those awards provided. We hope the Senior Fellowships will allow us to continue to engage with colleagues around the world to promote better ways of learning and teaching," said Professors Hay and Israel.

Professor Richard Johnstone, Executive Director of the Australian Learning and Teaching Council congratulated both academics saying: "This is a splendid achievement and a well-deserved acknowledgement of the major contributions both men have made to teaching and learning at the international as well as the national level."

The Academy's senior fellow status "recognises outstanding achievement in teaching and enhancing the student learning experience, combined with scholarship and academic leadership" and is awarded to leaders who are champions of learning and teaching in higher education and who have had a positive impact at the national or international level.

Professor Israel was also recently named an ALTC Associate Fellow, an honour that carries with it $90,000 which he will use to research the use of teaching excellence awards to develop new generations of leadership in learning and teaching.

The Carrick Institute, the country's national body for learning and teaching in higher education, has been renamed the Australian Learning and Teaching Council.

Council Executive Director, Professor Richard Johnstone said the new name explicitly reflects the organisation's core mission while highlighting the way in which it complements the activities of other national bodies, such as the Australian Research Council.

Professor Johnstone said the Carrick Institute had provided a strong foundation for the ALTC and he paid tribute to Sir John Carrick AC, a former Federal Education Minister after whom the national body was named in 2005.

"We are greatly indebted to Sir John, a much admired national figure who has been recognised for his distinguished service in educational reform from early childhood through to developing and supporting new initiatives in higher education," Professor Johnstone said.

"We truly appreciate Sir John's generosity and his tireless support and regret that his name will no longer be formally associated with us."

The decision has been taken in order to avoid continuing confusion with a registered higher education provider with a nearly identical name and in accordance with Sir John's wishes.

"The new name provides clear differentiation and marks us internationally as Australia's national body for enhancing learning and teaching," Professor Johnstone said.

The ALTC's tagline 'promoting excellence in higher education', emphasises what we do, he said.

Carrick Programs Director Dr Elizabeth McDonald shared insights into learning and teaching during a recent visit to the University of Southern Queensland (USQ) which captured her perspectives on video.

Dr McDonald was interviewed by Carrick citation recipients Dr Lorelle Burton and Dr Jill Lawrence.  The interviews covered leadership development for learning and teaching in higher education as well as tips for application writing.

USQ warmly welcomed Dr McDonald who was impressed by the professionalism and dedication of staff.

"Visiting USQ provided an opportunity to meet people, share information and discuss perspectives on learning and teaching.  The energy and enthusiasm of people displayed was incredibly encouraging," Dr McDonald said.

The USQ visit was organised by the Professor Lynne Hunt, Pro Vice-Chancellor (Learning and Teaching) and Director of the university's Learning and Teaching Support Unit.  Professor Hunt won the prestigious Prime Minister's Award for Australian University Teacher of the Year in 2002.

The forum provided a platform for sharing and examining models of collaboration for short courses and gave participants the opportunity to examine issues that need resolving in supporting subjects with small enrolments. The event led to discussion about courses and discipline areas where collaborations are being explored.

Presenters also shared ideas about how to create networks and programs of practical benefit to universities. Presentations at the two-day forum covered a range of topics from Writing Networks to Mining Engineering and involved universities from across Australia.

Professor Richard Johnstone, Carrick Institute Executive Director, said it was important for institutions to look at ways of managing diversity across the system and ensure that students have access to the widest range of choices possible.

"There are numerous examples of innovative arrangements between universities that ensure high quality programs can continue to be offered even when the enrolments in a single institution fall below the critical level," Professor Johnstone said.

Some of the examples presented at the forum included the Biostatistics Collaboration of Australia (BCA) formed in 2001 in response to a growing need for well qualified statisticians and recognition that a single university was unable to offer a world-class graduate program on its own.

This collaboration involves eight universities working together to develop and deliver a single specialist program.  The BCA has established a successful working model for collaborative development of a postgraduate program delivered nationally and to a limited degree, internationally.

BCA Executive Officer Erica Jobling from the University of Sydney said key indicators pointing to the success of the collaboration include government support, a rise in student numbers and commendation from external reviews, including the Public Health and Education research Program review.

Forum participants also heard about the success of the Australian Law Postgraduate Network (ALPN) set up in 2006 by UNE, funded by a Leadership Program Grant from the Carrick Institute, to improve the quality of postgraduate research and supervision in law.

The project now has the support of 22 law schools and has experienced great success with its online Academic Directory.  ALPN is hoping to expand the usability of the database to encompass information not only about legal academics and their areas of expertise but also examiners.