Annual Report 2005 - Publications Unit - The University of Western ...

Teaching and LearningIn 2005 UWA focused particularly on new measures designed to improveteaching through staff development and on improving the ways in which thequality of learning can be measured.In 2005 the Postgraduate Teaching Internship Scheme [commended by theAustralian Universities Quality Agency (AUQA)] was significantly expanded anda complementary scheme for postgraduate students, Introduction to UniversityTeaching, was introduced. In 2006 these schemes will be further expanded so thatall postgraduate teachers have access to high quality staff development for teaching.In addition, a new Teaching Fellowship Scheme, open to all academic staff, wasintroduced in 2005.Using international benchmarking as a tool to measure teaching and learning,excellence was further developed with the implementation in 2005 of the NationalSurvey of Student Engagement which gathers data about staff and student practices.This will allow UWA to work closely with the University of New South Wales andQueen’s University, Canada, to compare data and develop appropriate improvementstrategies. It also provides benchmarking possibilities with hundreds of NorthAmerican universities.The University’s strong performance on a number of measures of quality of teachingand learning was confirmed when it was one of 14 universities to receive extrafunding from the Commonwealth’s Learning and Teaching Performance Fund in2006.The University’s pricing policy for its educational programmes is consistent withthe Commonwealth Government’s policies on Australian domestic undergraduateand postgraduate coursework students and international fee-paying students.Details of the University’s prices are available both on the University web site and theCommonwealth web site at http://www.goingtouni.gov.au/.16