Commissioned Strategic Projects - Office for Learning and Teaching

embedding effective policies and practices are available at http://www.olt.gov.au/resource-peer-review-ofteaching-melbourne-2009
Other relevant material
Revitalising the academic workforce
ALTC Good practice report. Southwell, D. 2011. Available at http://www.olt.gov.au/resourcelibrary/good-practice-reports.
The Australian Learning and Teaching Council (ALTC) provided awards, grants and fellowships
programs, the establishment and mobilisation of existing networks and communities and leadership
and expertise to enhance and to advocate for learning and teaching in Australian universities from
2005 until 2011. These have stimulated a noticeable engagement of academic staff in enhancing
teaching and learning in higher education, from the local and institutional level to the discipline and
national level.
Revitalising the academic workforce to enhance the teaching and learning in Australian universities
will require more than this. This report provides an overview of matters associated with the current
and anticipated future academic workforce in Australian higher education. Information is drawn from
a review of key national reports, government statistics and the literature, and an analysis of the
projects in relation to five key topics is presented. Areas of strength and opportunities for initiatives
are identified.
The second part of the report is summary of 65 completed and continuing ALTC projects and
fellowships grouped under the key topics: the academic workforce; recruitment and induction of
academics for teaching; high quality professional development for formal leaders; academic teaching
evaluation and recognition; and engaging academics in education reform.
‘The criteria of effective teaching in a changing higher education context’ (2010) Higher
Education Research & Development 29 (2), 111-124.
Marcia Devlin and Gayani Samarawickrema (Deakin University)
The criteria of effective teaching in higher education are understood to comprise particular skills and
practices applied within particular contacts. Drawing on the literature and using Australia's
understanding go effective teaching, this paper examines the notion of the effective teaching. The
paper specifically compares dimensions derived from robust research and psychometric processes
with the Australian Learning and Teaching Council's criteria for effective teaching and observes the
criteria of effective teaching in higher education to have evolved. While the paper suggests some
areas in which future considerations of the notions of effective teaching might usefully focus, it also
argues that context is critical and that it is subject to continuous and multiple changes imposed by
forces from within and outside universities. The paper maintains that our collective understanding of
competent, professional and effective teaching must continually evolve in order that it accurately
reflects and continually responds to the contexts in which learning and teaching is undertaken. The
paper also calls for an ongoing agenda that continuously investigates and articulates the meaning of
effecting teaching in a changed, and changing, context.
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