A curriculum defined by quality and relevance
Addressing the next generation of global challenges will require creative leaders who thrive in complexity. With specialisation and exploration woven into the fabric of the Melbourne Curriculum, our students are uniquely equipped to meet this brief and become collaborative and impactful change makers. We are committed to this distinctive curriculum that encourages students to explore their passions, new ways of knowing and their strengths. We will build on this approach to ensure all undergraduate students have opportunities to undertake experiences that prepare them for their next steps, whether that is in research, employment or further study. In addition to developing deep disciplinary knowledge, all our programs will incorporate understanding and exploration of four essential contemporary ideas and knowledges, termed touchstones. The touchstones will ensure that all students leave the University with an appreciation of Indigenous knowledges and the existential challenges of living sustainably, have an understanding of the enduring value of art and culture and have developed a critical digital sensibility.
Our ambition
- To offer educational programs comprised of outstanding teaching and learning experiences
- To evolve the Melbourne Curriculum so students explore the touchstones, move through clearly defined study pathways, and engage with research, industry and community in their learning
- To privilege genuine interaction and inquiry-based learning in our teaching practices and learning environments, supported by leading technologies
- To systematically transform assessment practices, exploring and embracing approaches that deepen students’ learning
- To tailor graduate program delivery to the unique needs of these cohorts, bringing together the best of on-campus and online in new ways.
Touchstones: essential contemporary ideas and knowledges
Indigenous knowledges
Graduates will have an appreciation of Indigenous ways of knowing and an understanding of the critical importance Indigenous knowledges play in our communities, through explicit links to our Indigenous Strategy.
Sustainability
Drawing on the University’s Sustainability plan our students, as graduates for a sustainable future, will develop an understanding of the impact of and interplay between biodiversity, environmental, and human systems.
Arts and culture
Harnessing the Cultural Commons initiative, our students, through curriculum and co-curriculum activities, will develop an understanding of how the Arts can spark deep inquiry and are essential in helping us understand what it means to be human.
Digital sensibility
As a digital and networked society, through their education at Melbourne, students will develop a critical understanding of the complex role technologies play in our everyday lived experience.
Advancements
Our majors and the pathways that lead to them are the heart of our undergraduate programs. This evolution of the Melbourne Curriculum will resolve the sometimes competing objectives of flexibility and simplicity while amplifying the quality, relevance and rigor for which our majors are known.
We will:
- Support our students to navigate to their major of choice by reducing the complexity of undergraduate study pathways
- Embed the touchstones into courses and majors
- Provide all undergraduate students with final-year subjects that offer them industry, community or research-based learning experiences.
We will offer our graduate students significant flexibility and choice in their study.
We will:
- Adopt the strategic use of dual and hybrid teaching modes to provide both flexibility and choice to graduate students
- Expand the use of high-quality online graduate education, and adopt complementary models of face-to-face study, such as campus-based intensives, offshore study, and industry and community-based experiences
- With industry and community partners, explore innovative models of graduate study that combine student employment in industry with a program of study.
Careers preparation will be woven into and around the curriculum through a renewed focus on experiential learning and careers advising, building on the professional preparation already embedded in the Melbourne Curriculum.
We will:
- Expand experiential learning opportunities available inside and alongside the curriculum
- Scale up the Students@Work program to expand opportunities for on-campus internship placements and employment to current students
- Provide career advising services to students that are contextualised by their discipline or professional education, and connect more explicitly to their available study choices and co-curricular activities
- Draw upon the University’s convening power and alumni network to connect students with expansive options for further study, research, and employment.
New assessment practices will emphasise continuous, authentic and digital assessment techniques that support students’ learning.
We will:
- Embed more authentic assessment in subjects and programs and explore more widespread adoption of programmatic assessment.
- Minimise the use of traditional examinations
- Harness digital technologies to boost feedback provision, improve marking efficiency, enhance academic integrity and enable student choice
- Work with students, faculties and external partners to improve academic integrity literacy, improve risk detection and management, and develop an institution-wide culture of commitment to academic integrity.
Our learning environments will be places where students experience personalised and interactive learning activities led by talented teaching staff.
We will:
- Continue to accelerate away from didactic lectures in favour of more genuinely interactive teaching and learning activities
- Build on best practice already established across the University to ensure all students can access the academic support they need for learning, regardless of subject and class size
- Identify subjects and classes that are outliers in terms of staff-student ratio and systematically address this within faculties.
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