Learning and Teaching Plan 2003-2005

Preamble

Many staff and students have been involved in the development of the Plan. Extensive consultation then took place across faculties and campuses and with staff and students generally. I would like to thank all of those who participated for their enthusiasm and commitment.

The Plan provides a 'blueprint' to guide all areas of the university in addressing the challenges identified.

The successful implementation of the Plan will depend on the support and active engagement of all areas of the university and all members of the university community. Working together will enable us to strengthen and maintain high academic standards, the nexus between teaching research, and high quality learning and teaching at Monash.

The implementation process will involve a number of university committees and working parties, and all organisational units of the university. However, the primary locus of implementation, in the sense of directly impacting upon and improving learning and teaching at Monash, will be the faculties and their courses.

Thus faculty planning and budget allocation processes will be a key mechanism for implementation. As an additional measure, the funds in the Teaching and Learning Pool will be distributed to faculties to support special LTP initiatives.

- Professor Alan Lindsay

Introduction

Monash University has reaffirmed in Leading the Way Monash 2020 that its key, defining themes are Innovation , Engagement and Internationalisation . The overarching aim of the strategic planning process is to ensure that we maintain and improve our competitive position in the volatile, global environment of higher education and that we continue to improve both our reputation and the quality of our academic programs. The Learning and Teaching Plan is the university's major planning activity to achieve these aims in learning and teaching. In this overview of the Learning and Teaching Plan, a series of objectives and strategies are presented to guide the development of learning and teaching policies and practices at Monash.

Monash values in learning and teaching

The fundamental ideal of excellence in scholarship [1]   must be the underpinning value of all of our educational programs. Whilst the university values and takes great pride in the excellence of the teaching of its staff it is a key responsibility of all university staff to act as positive role models by embracing the highest standards of scholarship and academic excellence: 'We need scholars who not only skillfully explore the frontiers of knowledge, but who integrate ideas, connect thought to action, and inspire students' [2].  The Monash experience will foster a love of learning and an inquiring mind in each of its students. We expect our students to challenge accepted wisdom and to engage fully with an aspiration to excellence and a commitment to life long learning. We expect and encourage our students to be active learners and to participate in the design and improvement of our academic programs.

We have a social obligation to produce graduates who are able to make a positive contribution to the communities in which they live and work. Although much of what a university teaches is often directed to producing employable graduates, we must encourage students to broaden their education through elective subjects that can be drawn from a broad range of faculties and discipline areas.

High quality learning and teaching

Monash has a long-established, well-deserved reputation for high quality learning and teaching. The report from the university's recent Institutional Self Review "Still Learning" provided spirited and insightful comment and advice on the university's strategic planning directions that relate to the Learning and Teaching Plan. It reiterated the need for us to be able to define and identify high quality teaching and learning (Objective A: Strategy A1). We must also be able to measure progress and improvements in the quality of our educational programs (Objective C).

Assessment

Monash has a commitment to maintaining high academic standards sustained by quality learning and teaching. In order to be assured that we are achieving these commitments, it is vital that we have assessment processes that are reliable, appropriate, valid and practical. Approaches to assessment must aspire to measure the learning outcomes that units and courses expound. Monash has developed a clearly articulated Assessment Policy as part of the Academic Policy Bank, as well as a set of related policies and procedures. The time has now come to review and update our assessment related policies and practices, with a view to ensuring that assessment helps us to set the appropriate standards that will ensure high quality learning (Strategy A2). Monash has an extensive array of assessment practices that operate across different discipline areas. We will implement those updated policies to ensure that a consistent approach to assessment policies and practices is embraced (Strategy B2).

Monash graduate attributes

All Monash educational programs are guided by, and structured to satisfy, a set of learning objectives that will be in part specific to the particular discipline or discipline areas that are the underpinning of each particular educational program. Monash has defined a set of Monash Graduate Attributes, which encompass more generic aspects of knowledge, skills and attitudes. We will update and expand the Monash Graduate Attributes, and we will identify ways to improve the achievement of those Graduate Attributes (Strategy A3).

Faculties will develop plans to ensure that the Monash Graduate Attributes can be demonstrably taught and assessed within each of their award courses. It is to be expected that many courses will also have discipline-specific Graduate Attributes that will be defined within their course objectives. We will ensure that a Monash context can be brought to bear on those specific requirements.

Teaching-research nexus

It is axiomatic that the twin core activities of the university, teaching and research must be the cornerstone of policy development and direction within the university. We are a university only because we are engaged in teaching and research. The nexus between teaching and research is often cited, but rarely well defined. Our research activities will both inform and enrich our curriculum and our teaching approach. This can only be achieved when there is strong linkage between the research and teaching of the university. We will define and identify the relationships between research and teaching, particularly as they inform and affect teaching (Strategies A4 and A5).

Quality cycle

Monash reaffirms its ongoing commitment to quality learning and teaching. We will further develop our strategies to systematically improve the quality of learning and teaching (Objective B). This outcome will be attained by identifying and implementing measures of quality and performance in order to facilitate the quality process (Strategy B1) . We will also further develop robust, reliable and valid instruments for assessing high quality teaching and learning.

The adoption of appropriate performance indicators and benchmarks will become an increasingly important part of learning and teaching. Developing ways of using that information to inform the necessary feedback process required for quality improvement will be a major priority (Strategy B4). We will also provide support and rewards to our staff to encourage an improvement in learning and teaching (Strategy B3), and at the university level, we will share the information about successes and good practice across the institution (Strategy B5).

Student-centredness

Monash reaffirms its on-going commitment to student-centred learning. The dimension of student-centredness has been defined as "emphasizing the importance of students' active participation in their learning: building on previous learning in developing new skills and understandings: fostering the desire and skills to continue learning: and taking responsibility for self-directed learning". [3] Student centredness also implies that approaches to curriculum design and delivery will be informed by students' learning needs rather than the convenience and preferences of academics. Nonetheless, student-centredness can only be effectively achieved when staff are fully committed to the idea, and are prepared to take a leadership role in changing the educational environment to one that is more student-centred.

High quality student centred learning can be difficult to measure, since it requires some established and accepted standards of quality. The diverse learning programs of the university may mean that quality is defined differently in different cognate areas. We will assess our progress in achieving high quality student-centred teaching and learning (Objective C) by developing indicators of quality in student centredness and in the quality of teaching. More importantly, we will develop a culture of use of those indicators in implementing improvements (Strategy C1).

Flexibility

Flexibility has become a more important aspect of learning and teaching policy as the diversity within the student population at Monash continues to increase. The 'flexible' dimension of learning can be defined as "seek(ing) to increase the learners' choices of: methods and timing of interaction with teachers and other students without diminishing the quality of that interaction; place and time of learning; course modules (award structures and pathways); entry and exit conditions; and access to administrative and student learning support. " [4]

Monash is committed to continuing to increase flexibility in its approaches to learning and teaching (Objective D) . We particularly need to consider flexibility in entry points into the university and its offerings, in the types of awards that are available, in different pathways through courses, in multiple exit points, and in different forms of course delivery (Strategy D1) . By moving towards a more flexible learning environment in these ways, the needs of students may be better served and educational outcomes may be improved.

We will consider how flexible delivery of programs can be further developed to include an increase in the delivery of programs where appropriate by distributed learning and multi-modal learning (Strategy D2) . Flexibility is not without cost. We will develop a strategic plan for distributed and multi-modal learning that includes a financial dimension. DEST defines multi-modal learning as where ' at least one unit of study is undertaken on an internal mode of attendance and at least one unit of study is undertaken on an external mode of attendance'. [5] We will provide student support services at the university, campus, faculty, school and department level that address the issues that affect all aspects of student life at Monash. (Strategy D2).

We will assess progress in achieving improved levels of flexibility (Objective E) . This can be achieved by creating a standard reporting process so that flexibility in courses and units can be reported across the university in a consistent way (Strategy E1). Faculties will then be asked to report on how they have engaged with flexibility in their course and units (Strategy E2).

Technology supported learning and teaching

The use of technology in education, including information and communication technologies (ICT), has become both one of the largest changes and one of the key agents of change in the university environment. We will continuously monitor developments in the use of technology to support learning (Objective F) and review the progress and quality of the use of technology to achieve better learning outcomes (Strategy F1).

We must also expect more changes in the use of technology to support learning and teaching, as new technologies emerge and as yet unexpected opportunities to enhance learning by the use of technology become apparent. Monash will be well positioned to make rational, well informed strategic decisions (Strategy F2) to adopt or reject new technologies related to learning and teaching.

The desirable outcomes of technologically supported learning can only be achieved if the staff of the university are supported and rewarded for participating in the introduction and establishment of best practice innovation in ICT-supported learning. We will support and offer appropriate professional development for staff in technology supported learning and we will develop appropriate recognition and rewards for staff who engage in innovations in the development or implementation of technology supported learning (Strategy F3).

Internationalisation

A truly international perspective is now called for to fully understand and appreciate the complexities of the modern world, with its richness of cultural, linguistic and religious diversity. We will ensure that we develop approaches to learning and teaching that demonstrate an awareness and sensitivity to cultural diversity (Objective I). Monash acknowledges the wide range of definitions of internationalisation, but will arrive at its own definitions and determine practical ways to apply its definitions of internationalisation (Objective G: Strategy G1). Monash will prepare its students appropriately for the new world environment, where international perspectives and the ability to work with and in a range of different cultures, will be highly desirable graduate attributes (Strategy A3).

We will continue to foster and develop international partnerships to support our teaching and learning activities and to maximize the opportunities for international understanding and experiences for our staff and students. We will improve the opportunities for physical exchanges of staff and students by facilitating interactions with international partners (Objective J).

We will ensure that internationalisation is incorporated into curriculum design and delivery processes (Objective H) . Internationalising the curriculum will go further than incorporating international comparisons into a standard Australian curriculum, or substituting local for Australian examples in one of Monash's trans-national programs. We will embrace the development of curricula that are appropriate to each individual local environment in which we operate, particularly when considering the delivery of programs off-shore. Curriculum content will not arise out of a singular cultural base, but will recognize and engage with the global plurality of sources of knowledge. Students will be encouraged to explore how knowledge is produced, distributed and used globally.

The way forward

The strategies and actions identified in this Plan will be implemented between 2003 and 2005, although clearly some of the outcomes of the plan will be ongoing activities. The University Education Committee will have a central role in the coordination and monitoring of the implementation of the Plan. Faculties will be expected to include strategies in their own operational plans that will allow them to achieve the relevant objectives from the Learning and Teaching Plan. The Academic Support Network and other organisational units within the university will also need to respond to the Learning and Teaching Plan in their own planning processes.

Objectives, strategies and actions

A:  To define and recognise high quality learning and teaching at Monash.

B:  To improve the quality of learning, teaching and assessment at Monash.

C: To continuously review progress in achieving high quality learning, teaching and assessment, ensuring that feedback occurs to improve practice in these areas.

D:  To develop additional forms of flexibility in courses.

E:  To assess progress in achieving improved levels of flexibility in courses.

F:  To monitor developments and continuously review the progress, quality and learning outcomes of Technology Supported Learning.

G:  To develop understandings of Internationalisation of the Curriculum.

H: To ensure that Internationalisation of the Curriculum is incorporated in curriculum design, delivery and assessment practices.

I: To ensure that the development and delivery of learning, teaching and assessment demonstrates an awareness of and sensitivity towards cultural diversity.

J: To provide opportunities for students to study and for staff to work in other countries.

Footnotes

1 In this context 'scholarship is given its broader more capacious meaning, one that brings legitimacy to the full scope of academic work...specifically [including these] four functions : the scholarship of discovery, the scholarship of integration; the scholarship of application and the scholarship of teaching' Boyer Ernest L (1990) Scholarship Reconsidered, The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, Princeton. p.16.
2 Ibid, p.77.
3 Monash University (1999) Learning and Teaching Plan: 2000-2002 , p.4
4 Monash University (1999) Learning and Teaching Plan: 2000-2002 , p.4
5 DEST (2001) Students 2001: Selected Higher Education Statistics Appendix 3 Definitions, p.48.