Environments and systems that enable innovation
The quality and character of students’ experience of the University are inherently linked to both its environments and the systems that support and surround our students and our staff. This includes the facilities and services that most impact the student experience, including classrooms, campuses, and digital learning environments. It also includes the processes and systems through which our academic staff develop innovative curriculum structures and learning activities, and the professional staff who support them to both develop and deliver these. This is an increasingly complex ecosystem with new technologies and ways of doing things often layering on top of legacy systems and processes. Ensuring our current and future investments in environments and systems are not only fit for purpose but also actively enhance and enable our ambitions in teaching, learning and the student experience is critical to achieving our goals.
Our ambition
- Facilities and services that meet or exceed students’ expectations of the University’s world-class reputation both inside and outside of the classroom
- Exceptional digital teaching and learning environments that support staff to innovate and that significantly enhance our teaching, learning and assessment practices
- Evidence-based, data-driven approaches to identifying and resolving issues experienced by our community
- Streamlined, agile processes that allow staff to focus on what matters to students.
Advancements
Realising our ambition for more inquiry-based, interactive and authentic learning activities in large subjects requires classrooms that can support this pedagogy at scale.
We will:
- Design and build a suite of classrooms that are pedagogically flexible but will specifically accommodate large groups of students to engage in collaborative, inquiry-based project work
- Ensure classrooms have seamless technology integrations to allow students and staff to communicate, collaborate, and share their work relevant to inquiry-based projects.
We must streamline our processes and systems to better enable innovation and facilitate the swift implementation of exciting new ideas.
We will:
- Reduce the volume of documentation and approval timeframes required to establish or change programs, subjects, assessment and delivery practices
- Review timetabling and handbook data structures, data capture processes and timelines to reduce real or perceived barriers to curriculum innovation.
Our teachers will be encouraged to innovate and experiment with new teaching, learning and assessment practices through a support model that combines expertise in educational technology, learning design, and pedagogical practice.
We will:
- Develop a new model for driving and supporting innovation in curriculum and teaching and learning practice, building on the lessons of pioneering programs, faculties and centres to establish support for innovation and partnerships between staff
- Create a clear process for the discovery, development, and implementation of new digital tools
- Partner with students in new ways to trial and test our innovative ideas in teaching and learning.
Data-driven and evidence-based approaches are essential to identify key issues in services, processes and programs and resolve them.
We will:
- Make better use of our data generally, and academic and learning analytics specifically, to both understand areas of difficulty and predict areas where students require support
- Develop a process for surfacing and sharing performance indicators and ensure the impact of feedback is clear to those who provide it.
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