1. Australian universities’ response to the priorities of the Australian Learning
and Teaching Council
Paper prepared for Higher Education Academy Conference
Theme: Designing higher education of the future
Dr Elizabeth McDonald (Australian Learning and Teaching Council)
30 June – 2 July 2009.
Context
Among the various priorities funded by the Australian Learning and Teaching Council
(ALTC) are three that relate to the framework for ‘designing higher education of the
future’: curriculum renewal/development; learning and teaching spaces, and;
addressing student diversity. The various ALTC grant programs began in 2006, so
the work discussed in this paper covers the three year period 2006-20081. Many of
the projects have yet to report. All projects are designed to be substantive in nature
and are expected to embed some aspect of change. Only a small group of projects
which were part of the strategy to address discipline needs were designed as
investigations. The majority of projects are designed with the intention of creating
some form of change or providing the resources to do so. While projects that are not
completed are referred to in this paper, only those that were completed by early May
are referenced.
Curriculum renewal/development
The definition of ‘curriculum’ can be very broad. In some definitions, curriculum
encompasses all that influences the student learning experience. In this paper, the
term ‘curriculum’ encompasses the actual content taught, how it is taught and the
assessment of the content of courses.
The ALTC has commissioned a large body of work related to curriculum renewal and
development. Some of this arose from the Discipline Based Initiatives (DBI)
discussed above and some arose from competitive funding rounds under the Grants
Scheme priorities particularly those related to benchmarking academic standards and
assessment and more recently under a priority curriculum renewal/development.
Between 2006 and 2007, 31 discipline scoping studies were commissioned as part of
the DBI. These studies provide an analysis of the environment in which the discipline
is operating and by doing so also give a context for new work and identify areas of
need in relation to the discipline. Discipline groupings covered by these studies range
in breadth from Science, Law and ICT2 to more focused investigations such as Maths
in Engineering3 and Occupational Therapy4. Some studies cover a discipline within a
broad discipline field, for example Physics. Fourteen of DBI projects had reported by
4 May, the remainder should have reported by the end of 2009.
In an unpublished article, Neridah Baker (May 2009) suggests that the variation in
approach taken by the different teams has been driven by two characteristics, the
maturity of the discipline and the type of discipline. She suggests that disciplines can
be categorised as those with a well established professional body that results in a
1
During the planning year, 2005 six projects were funded and are included in the discussion in this
paper. All six projects have been finalised.
2
Koppi et al (2009)
3
Broadbridge & Henderson (2008)
4
Rodger et al (2009)
1

2. strong professional identity and those that support graduates to go to many and
varied careers and jobs. The reports arising from the former group ‘highlight the
importance of curriculum renewal and the development of forms of assessment that
mirror professional practice’. The reports from the latter group tend to ‘emphasise the
importance of developing appropriate graduate attributes’. The latter group of
disciplines has sought to find common territory for example the arts scoping study
has looked at the characteristics of its base qualification: the Bachelor of Arts5; and
the Science study: laboratory teaching.
In 2008, with the finalisation of the Discipline-Based Initiative, the ALTC Board
approved a new Grants Scheme priority ‘Curriculum Renewal/Development’ to assist
in addressing the issues arising from the DBI studies. The criterion in the funding
guidelines specifies that the expected outcomes from projects addressing curriculum
renewal/development is to “develop and model contemporary curricula that meet
student and employer needs and provide the basis for ongoing personal and
professional development for students’ and that ‘curriculum development/renewal
proposals should integrate content focussed discipline developments with learning
and teaching innovations’ 6. In designing the new funding priority there was an
assumption that the work arising from most DBI projects would be around aspects of
curriculum renewal/ development.
The curriculum funding priority has attracted the majority of applications in the Priority
Projects Program in the last two years – 77 out of 125 in 2008; 88 out of 144
applications in 2009. At the request of the ALTC, Owen Hicks undertook an analysis
of the 2008 applications. The findings were enlightening. There was wide discipline
coverage in the applications; some 25% of which breached conventional discipline
boundaries.
None of the applications made explicit what they understood by ‘curriculum
renewal’ and few provided much contextual background in which to locate the
project….. In relation to many of the applications, the question could have been
asked: “Is this curriculum renewal?” (Hicks, 2009a)
According to Hicks, for those applications that could be considered to be developing
contemporary curricula there was little argument as to how the proposed work would
meet the needs of industry or students. Overall the applications did not demonstrate
an integrated coherent attempt at curriculum development or renewal as intended
under the funding criteria. Although many of the proposals touched on curriculum as
defined in the broadest context the majority did not comply with the criterion specified
in the guidelines.
It seems clear from the experience in this program, that even when strong
background work has been undertaken such as in the case of the DBI scoping
studies, projects seeking to achieve widespread change through curriculum renewal
are not likely to arise without very specific funding rules or briefs. It is interesting to
note that many of the teams did not elect to follow on from DBI studies with work in
wide scale curriculum renewal. Funding to follow-up work identified through DBI
scoping studies is equally likely to be sought under other program priorities as under
the curriculum priority.
5
Gannaway & Trent (2008)
6
ALTC (2008) Priority Projects Programs – Guidelines and supporting information 2009 v 1.0 p. 5
2

3. Curriculum Development
Despite the lack of applications that address the curriculum renewal priority as
described in the funding guidelines, the ALTC has funded some curriculum
development and renewal projects. A small number of projects involve new
development or renewing specific curriculum in courses. The projects cover small
disciplines such as entomology, science education for early childhood, exercise
science which results from a DBI project7 or a focused area of a large discipline such
as post graduate ICT and clinical psychology.
Curriculum related
Rather than meeting the type of project envisaged under the funding priority for
curriculum renewal/development, many projects address a curriculum issue which for
the purpose of this paper is captured as ‘curriculum related’. Many of these projects
could impact on curriculum development. This category covers a wide group of
projects from those that deal with specific curriculum issues within a discipline, to
those that are more generic in approach. The latter group are often related to the
design of teaching and learning or focus on a common issue that has importance for
many if not all disciplines.
Specific curriculum issues within a discipline often arise from dealing with
assessment as a key driver of learning. Among the topics covered in this group are
undergraduate competencies in nursing, work on threshold concepts in biology and
academic standards for Planning Practice Education8. Other projects arise out of
specific issues identified within a discipline such as gender inclusive curriculum in
engineering, professionally relevant learning in business education and quality
indicators for pharmacy experiential placements9.
Addressing issues related to Indigneous knowledges and understandings are two
current fellowship programs, that of Associate Professor Michael Christie and Dr
Sandy O’Sullivan. A recently completed project10 on the incorporation of Indigenous
content into psychology undergraduate courses has been using the lessons learnt in
psychology to provide broader advice on how to incorporate Indigenous content in
curriculum.
In the latter category of curriculum related work are those projects that address
learning design, work integrated learning and graduate attributes. While many
projects have aspects related to professional experience or work experience, a more
general approach is found in a study of work integrated learning11 and the work of
Professor Stephen Billett (2009). Considerable work is being undertaken in learning
design influenced by the work of two of the Fellows, Professor Ron Oliver (2009a, b)
and Professor Peter Goodyear. A number of projects also address this broad topic.
The topic of graduate attributes is covered by two projects: one looking at attitudes to
embedding graduate attributes and the other looking at the integration and
assessment of graduate attributes in curriculum.
7
Coombes et al (2008)
8
Jones et al (2009)
9
Owen et al (2008)
10
Ranzijn et al (2008)
11
Patrick et al (2009)
3

4. Learning and Teaching Spaces
Five projects have been funded under a discrete funding priority, learning and
teaching spaces. Only one12 of these is complete. It was funded under the learning
and teaching spaces priority in 2006. Despite being a single institution project, it has
had a major influence in Australian universities through the sponsorship of two
national colloquia to share both innovative approaches and to test the framework
developed from the project, the pedagogy-space-technology framework. Though
there were other project proposals in 2006, most targeted smaller issues and took
little account of the work that had already been done, consequently these were not
funded.
In 2007, a small amount of the funding was used to bring out an international
speaker, Les Watson as part of a program of workshops in five capital cities. The
international presentation was supported by examples of good practice from
Australian architects, learning and teaching experts, facilities managers, technology
managers and others including one vice-chancellor. An intensive week long
workshop13 sponsored by the University of Melbourne and RMIT offered a small
group of interested participants the opportunity to work on a project that involved
them in redesigning an actual teaching space. The workshop modelled bringing
different types of experts into the design process.
The applications submitted in 2008 under this priority were stronger than the previous
year and reflected the lessons explored in the national workshops and report.
Student Learning Experience
Much of the work undertaken that covers this theme addresses learning resources
for students14 15 16 17 18 meeting the needs of particular groups of students, or broader
policy issues and practices that impact on or measure student’s experience.
The types of issues addressed have varied so there is little coherent thematic work
apart from the student diversity priority where topics covered include:
• international students including issues of cultural literacy and academic
honesty for Chinese students, enhancing domestic and international student
engagement and addressing on-going language development for international
students
• refugee students
• transition and retention for different groups
• work on accessible teaching and support for students with a disability in the
project called Creating Accessible Teaching and Support (CATS) (see
www.adcet.edu.au/Cats/19)
12
Radcliffe et al (2008)
13
Jamieson (2007)
14
Adams (2008)
15
Hatsidimitris & Wolfe (2007)
16
Solomon et al (2008)
17
Lowe et al (2008)
18
Herrington et al (2009)
19
Payne et al (2006 a,b)
4

5. Policy issues around student engagement
A topic of interest both nationally and internationally is student portfolios. An excellent
project which scoped current use of portfolios in Australia with particular reference to
e-portfolios gathered a large number of interested national participants to build a
network and share practice20. This project is being followed by a project designed to
build a strong national community of practice linked to international experts. Unlike
the UK experience, in Australia portfolios are not linked to personal development
planning as this has not been part of the policy agenda in Australia.
Other policy areas are examined in projects designed to build a better understanding
of the student experience in areas like career development learning, student
grievance and discipline matters and students’ use of technology and the potential for
the use of social networking technologies with students21.
Issues around student resilience, retention and attrition are addressed in two
projects: one looking at transitions for particular groups of students during their
university study22 and the other looking at these types of issues in the discipline of
Business.
Measuring student experience and engagement
The ability to measure student satisfaction and engagement has been of interest not
only for the discrete data about these matters, but also as indicators of the quality of
learning and teaching in higher education. There has been a long history of student
evaluations and the use of the Course Experience Questionnaire (CEQ) in Australian
universities. One piece of work is looking at the relationship between student
responses on university teaching quality instruments and the data collected on
student experience in the CEQ. Another study has measured among other things,
student engagement23 and shown some interesting links between student
engagement (as measured by use of the Learning Management System) and student
results.
Priorities of the disciplines
Late in 2008 the ALTC invited about 180 discipline leaders from across Australia to a
symposium to explore the priorities for the disciplines from the perspective of learning
and teaching. The national Australian symposium sought to identify a set of cross-
disciplinary priorities to be addressed through the new ALTC initiative.
20
Hallam et al (2008)
21
Fitzgerald et al (2008)
22
Kinnear et al (2008)
23
Dawson & McWilliam (2008)
5

6. Professor Owen Hicks (2009b) provided a report on the symposium which distilled
the key messages. Hicks suggests that the issues and priorities identified through
participants at the Leading Change Symposium can be captured under three
themes24:
• Curriculum and Engagement
• Staff engagement in learning and teaching
• Student learning experience
Curriculum will be the first priority addressed with a national forum in early 2010.
Conclusion
There is substantial work funded by the ALTC in a number of areas that focus on
higher education for the future. Early lessons from the projects suggests that work of
a substantive nature in curriculum will demand a broad representation from
stakeholders and will need to bring together different expertise and interests.
Bringing industry and professional bodies together with those interested in the
advancement of learning and teaching requires a new skill from project teams and
often a new way of thinking and working, particularly if this work is for the value of the
sector at large. The Australian experience suggests curriculum work of national
interest will require a planned and facilitated process.
The work supporting student learning experience is less demanding in terms of wide
stakeholder input, though it often brings with it new ways of operating with knowledge
and technology. Sharing the resources, capacity building and understandings from
this work is a challenge yet to be fully explored in the Australian context.
24
These categories have been slightly adapted from those in Professor Hick’s report which is available
at www.altc.edu.au/system/files/learning_networks_report_leadingchangesymposium_mar09.pdf
6

7. References
(Most reports referred to here are found on the ALTC website www. altc.edu.au)
Adams P, Alcock J, Bulmer M, Grotowski J, Hong MC, Jennings M, Miller V, O’Brien
M, & Scharaschkin V (2008), A new enabling technology for learning and teaching
quantitative skills Mathematics Samples, ALTC website.
Baker, N, (2009) Unpublished paper prepared for briefing of discipline scholars.
Broadbridge P & Henderson S (2008), Mathematics Education for 21st century
engineering students - Final Report, ALTC website.
Billett S (2009), Developing agentic professionals through practice-based
pedagogies Final Report, ALTC website.
Coombes J, Groeller H, Spinks W, Leicht A, LeRossignol P, McDonald M, Otago L,
Pascoe D & Raymond J (2008), Meeting the challenges of clinical exercise science
and practice: a collaborative university-industry approach - Final Report, ALTC
website.
Dawson S & McWilliam E (2008), Investigating the application of IT generated data
as an indicator of learning and teaching performance - Final Report ALTC website.
Fitzgerald R, Steele J, Barrass S, Bruns A, Campbell J, Fitzgerald R, Hinton S,
McGuiness N, Miles A, Ryan Y & Whitelaw M (2008), Digital learning communities:
investigating the application of social software to support networked learning –
Website ALTC www.mashedlc.edu.au/ Accessed 11 May 2009.
Gannaway D & Trent F (2008), Nature and roles of arts degrees in contemporary
society: A national scoping project of Arts programs across Australia - Final Report
ALTC website.
Hallam G, Harper W, McCowan C, Hauvile K, McAllister L, Creagh T, van der Lee J,
Lambert S & Brooks C (2008), Australian ePortfolio project, ePortfolio use by
university students in Australia: Informing excellence in policy and practice - Final
Report, ALTC website.
Hatsidimitris G & Wolfe J (2007), Physclips: multi-level, multi-media resources for
teaching first year university physics - Website www.physclips.unsw.edu.au/
Accessed 12 May 2009.
Herrington J, Herrington T, Ferry B, Olney I, Mantei J, Lefoe G, Wright R, Bricknell G,
Brown I, Chinnappan M, Forrest G, Hoban G, Kervin L & Verenikina I (2009), New
technologies, new pedagogies: using mobile technologies to develop new ways of
teaching and learning - Website http://mlearning.uow.edu.au/ Accessed 12 May
2009.
Hicks O (2009a), Report on the proposals and expressions of interest from the first
call for Priority Projects Grants under the ‘Curriculum Renewal’ priority – unpublished
commissioned report ALTC.
Hicks O (2009b) Report on the Leading Change Symposium, ALTC website.
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8. Jamieson P (2007), The Carrick Institute Forum on the Design of Learning
Environments: Evaluation Report website.
Jones M, Jackson J, Coicetto E, Budge J & Coote M (2009), Generating Academic
Standards for Planning Practice Education – Final Report, ALTC website
Kinnear A, Boyce M, Sparrow H, Middleton S, & Cullity M (2008), Diversity: A
longitudinal study of how student diversity relates to resilience and successful
progression in a new generation university – Final Report, ALTC website
Koppi T, Naghdy F, Chicharo J, Sheard J, Edwards S, & Wilson D (2009), Managing
educational change in the ICT discipline at the tertiary education level - Final Report
ALTC website
Lowe D, Murray S, Li D, Lindsay E (2008), Remotely accessible laboratories -
Enhancing learning outcomes - Final Report, ALTC website
Oliver R (2009a), Promoting the Sharing and Reuse of Technology-Supported
Learning Designs. ALTC Associate Fellowship Report, ALTC website
Oliver R, (2009b), Promoting the Sharing and Reuse of Technology-Supported
Learning Designs. Website aragorn.scca.ecu.edu.au/tsldb/ Accessed 12 May 2009.
Owen S, Stupans I, Davey A, March G, Hotham L, McAteer S, Chaar B, McLachlan
A, Brien J & Ryan G (2008a), Experiential Placements in Pharmacy; Quality
indicators for best practice approaches to experiential placements in pharmacy
programs – Final Report and Appendices ALTC website.
Payne T, Kirkpatrick D, Goodacre C, & McLean P (2006), Creating Accessible
Teaching and Support for Students with Disabilities Final Report, ALTC website
Patrick C, Peach D, Pocknee C, Webb F, Fletcher M, & Pretto G (2009), The WIL
(Work Integrated Learning) Report: A national scoping study - Final Report ALTC
website.
Radcliffe D, Wilson H, Powell D & Tibbetts B (2008), Designing next generation
places of learning: collaboration at the Pedagogy-Space-Technology nexus Final
Report, ALTC website.
Ranzijn R, Nolan W, McConnachie K, Hodgson L, Spurrier W, & Passmore G (2008),
Disseminating strategies for incorporating Australian Indigenous content into
psychology undergraduate programs throughout Australia – Final Report ALTC
website.
Rodger S, Clark M, O’Brien M, Martinez K & Banks R (2009), Mapping the future of
occupational therapy education in the 21st century: review and analysis of existing
Australian competency standards for entry-level Occupational Therapists and their
impact on Occupational Therapy curricula across Australia - Final Report, ALTC
website.
Solomon A, Edwards J, Lister R, Kay J & Shepherd J (2008), LinuxGym: A
sustainable and easy-to-use automated developmental assessment tool for computer
scripting skills Website
www.linuxgym.com/linuxgym/lgwww/ Accessed 12 May 2009.
8