The Response - UWA Staff - The University of Western Australia

‘UWA seems to be slow in picking up the sort of things I saw at Harvard Business school with the “learning hub”
and students from cross-disciplinary areas working together on innovation, for example.’
‘There is a need to keep practical laboratory classes in science subjects to provide core skills to students and to
engage with them in a positive learning environment.’
‘The research/teaching focus of [the UWA Centre for Sleep Science] makes it quite unique worldwide and
has already been used to obtain a successful NHMRC Grant…and attract Honours, Masters and PhD
students from several Schools across the campus…. The new facility has also allowed me to develop a novel
postgraduate teaching program with a gradually growing number of local, national and international students.
Key to designing this programme was a structure that minimised face-to-face teaching time (in order to permit
the research activities to continue) yet provide efficient, high-quality knowledge transfer. To this end the Sleep
Science Postgraduate Educational Model is based on a combination of intensive block training (run in the first
2 weeks of the mid-year and summer vacation periods) and flexible distance education units (online only, using
WebCT and now LMS). A continuous education model is applied whereby there are multiple exit strategies for
individuals (Certificate, Diploma, Masters) as well as the opportunity to build towards a PhD…. The educational
model is equally suited to local and international students, who may wish to take the course on a full-time or parttime
basis.
I was recently approached by the University of Adelaide to develop a joint Graduate Diploma in Dental Sleep
Medicine. This is now underway, with Sleep expertise being provided by the UWA online units, and the Dental
expertise provided by UA via online units and a 3-day residency in Adelaide.
Development costs for this type of online teaching programme are predominantly ‘up front’ and relate to
development of the online lectures and assessments. Ideally, the University should provide a clear pathway for
those seeking financial support to pursue the development of potentially productive teaching programs that
support research activities.
Inadequate IT support represents the death-knell for this type of online-heavy programme. In my view UWA’s
transition from WebCT to LMS was handled very poorly. Ideally, the University should develop a mechanism to
provide such specialised IT administrative support. Perhaps it could consider having IT (LMS) staff who could be
temporarily co-opted to specific projects to help with their development.
The intensive block teaching has been well received and is also very cost-effective. Accommodating students
for this type of short-term visit is always challenging. Ideally, residential college accommodation could be made
preferentially available to students participating in such intensive UWA-based block teaching periods which are
held outside of the standard semesters.’
‘Some of the innovations being trialled in the Accelerated Learning Lab have the potential to improve student
experience. Recorded role-plays, interactive case studies and on-line exercises for small groups of students,
combined with the ability to give immediate, accurate feedback on performance has great potential. We intend
having our MBA students spend significant amounts of time in the Lab. This could be a good differentiator for us.’
‘I teach a very large undergraduate marketing unit (1000+ students per year) and am moving towards a model
of lecture/workshop/tutorial. The lectures will eventually be all online. A large workshop in the lecture theatre
replaces the existing lecture….The workshops are not recorded and the activities I run in the workshop are
examinable at the end of the year. The workshops are a clarification of the lecture content (that the students
are expected to have already covered), and then predominantly activities that enhance their understanding of
the content. I get very good turnout to the workshop. I would propose that a model like this gives an online
presence yet still focuses the on-campus experience. Another interesting aspect I am developing is having senior
academics from the UWA marketing discipline give ‘state-of-the-art’ guest lectures during the workshop time,
that are recorded. Ultimately, these UWA-content guest lectures would form the main basis of the online lectures,
to emphasis the research content from UWA. This adds real value that the students can’t get from the text. So
07 | www.uwa.edu.au