Session 13 & 15

Session thirteen: (13C) This was an interesting session partly because it was about a great idea and initiative that hadn’t actually worked in practice. At Flinders University they have a Student Learning Centre that is a centrally-based model – not embedded in faculties. They are also a team of academic staff members. Flinders University has many students from “non-traditional backgrounds”.  The view is that students who are lacking academic skills are vulnerable – essentially they are at risk of becoming at risk…

The Student Learning Centre was asked (top down request) to work with the English department to deliver a new compulsory paper called Academic and Professional Communication, to replace the “largely focussed on grammar” compulsory paper that had been taught for years by the English Department.

What they wanted to do was a) adopt a multi-literacies framework (Traditional: spelling, grammar, Academic: structure and referencing, Institutional: “reading” their environment, and Critical: critical reasoning); b) use a “flipped” classroom model. Some information would be provided in advance online and classroom sessions were to be more interactive and engaging than the traditional lecture format; and c) they wanted students to reflect on learning.

Unfortunately though the collaboration didn’t work and the English department continued to teach the old paper…
They are also working on designing a numeracy programme as well (another one that will be compulsory for some students) and this time they have developed 12 modules that faculties can pick and choose from, depending on the focus of their paper.

I missed a session to rest my brain…

Session 15 (15F): Causes of attrition among diverse students. Research completed at Victoria University by their research arm (means that there won’t necessarily be any action or change but the report and recommendations have been passed on). They found that the reasons for leaving the university are multifaceted and include being accepted into another university, employment, the distance required to travel (not a lot currently delivered online) and work-life balance. Feedback from students on how the university could change included: flexible delivery (including online and after hours) and learning support offered over summer school (before students start).
The presenter posed some questions at the end, and I thought this one particularly interesting: “how to we as a sector reconceptualised notions of the student life-cycle from one which is linear, to one which is (possibly) circular, where students enter and leave tertiary education a number of different times?”