Mainstreaming Digital Learning to Improve the Quality of Student Learning Experiences
Bob Fox and Mark King
University of New South Wales
Sydney, Australia
The research- and teaching-intensive University of New South Wales, as a central component of its ten-year UNSW2025 strategy, has placed an additional AUD $500 million (HK$3 billion) to support education projects focused on improving the quality of student learning experiences. As part of this initiative, academic staff have been given the option of transferring their contracts from research and teaching to education-focussed positions. Also, courses and programmes are being reviewed and rationalized to ensure faculties can concentrate on providing fewer but higher-quality learning and teaching experiences (without reducing student choice); and courses are being revised to include increased digital, blended and fully online components to innovate and transform the curriculum.
This paper outlines the various educational initiatives embedded within the UNSW2025 strategy. These focus on curriculum, course and programme design and the associated capacity-building for staff; the University curriculum framework; and learning design models and tools to enable UNSW educators to be able to provide an inspired educational experience that is suitable for a research- and education-intensive university. In particular, the paper reviews the:
• | various digital uplift initiatives; |
• | institution-wide curriculum framework and course design models and tools; |
• | capacity-building initiatives for staff; |
• | students as partners initiatives; and |
• | lesson learned to date. |