University of Melbourne

The Teaching and Learning Unit at School of Business and Economics, University of Melbourne hosted me today. Quite an interesting model in that each school has their own TLU supporting staff development and student support. Melbourne is a Go8/sandstone university, the second oldest only (by two years) to the University of Sydney, very research intensive and each course can have anything from 60-90 per cent international students.

I first met with Kim Watty (Associate Professor, former director of the TLU), who talked about some of the feedback initiatives she has been involved in and the resources developed and pointed me in the direction of the Australia Learning and Teaching Council (ALTC) feedback resources – similar body to the HEA and not to be confused with ALT-C.

I then had lunch with Kim, Gregor Kennedy (Associate Professor, Health Informatics & Virtual Environments), Martin Davies (acting head of the TLU). Martin talked about the development of student support ‘writing centres’ across Melbourne in which students visit the TLUs and get support on a group basis, rather than one-to-one. Gregor showed me around the campus, pointing out some of the different school libraries, including the biosciences library (that has been decked out liked a nightclub - all pink and black), the listed southern underground carpark where Mad Max scenes were filmed, and how their learning environments team are trying to focus effort on improving the areas where students flow/congregate between buildings – replacing concrete with grass, sand and seating areas, and opening cafes all over the place.

I met with Jon Pearce (Deputy Head, Teaching and Learning, Dept. of Information Systems), who developed the PRAZE peer-assessment system. Very interesting chat about peer-feedback, and Celia Thomson (Lecturer, School of Languages and Linguistics) who shared with me her work around developing a framework for assessing students’ use of web 2.0 tools, through researching practice across the five universities in Victoria. Celia also has an interest in sorting out the current issues with referencing the vast array of sources we now have available to us and fixing the holes that currently exist.

The final part of the day saw me give a TFA! presentation. T’was well received. Exhausted, but a few photos to illustrate my post…

School of Business and Economics. The 'Spot':

View from the top floor of the Psychology building. Looking across the Melbourne suburbs:

View from the top floor of the Psychology building. Looking across the University and the city:

A student learning space:

Mel Gibson has tread this tarmac. The Underground Garage aka the University's listed underground southern carpark:

The Bioscience library. You either love it or hate it, apparently. Funky lighting:

Great colour scheme:

Love the ceiling: