Reflections from the Chairs

A compilation of emergent themes from the Teaching and Learning Forum sessions submitted by the Forum session Chairs is given below:

• The influences and impact of life experiences on student learning.
• Thesis writing is an evolving process and it can be influenced by the relationships within and external to a university.
• Issues related to mature aged students returning to an academic environment that has mainly young school leavers.
• Culture and linguistic diversity may ... influence what constitues knowledge and how it is acquired. 
• The need to support undergraduate and postgraduate students both academically and practically and highlighted the importance of bridging the gap between life at university and life in the workforce.
• Impressed with the enthusiasm and desire of Forum participants to learn from their peers about improving their teaching and enhancing the learning experience for students.
• Several presenters seemed to suggest that they encounter resistance to change from colleagues, students and the ‘system’ ... Are the multiple calls for accountability, and many judgments of teachers (often public) leading to a lost of confidence and a lack of a sense of authority in our professional work?
• Reflections on the complexity of, and confusion about the role of the university. 
• Themes of creativity and fun in teaching & learning were apparent
• The conceptualization of student as customer, and courses as products, is being seen as a barrier to deep engagement of people in the ‘higher goals’ of education.
• Concern about what a degree really means, and what standards can and should be applied in the context of mass higher education.
• How does prior experience affect students’ learning? How does instructional technology affect students’ learning? Should we focus on our course, or on the graduates it produces? How do we go about rigorously answering these questions?
• The need to provide contextual, integrated learning opportunities for students to enable the development of professional skills such as reasoning.
• Data that brought into question assertions by the Federal Government about low research productivity ... Federal Government was perhaps using faulty data/methodology to make such assertions.
• The synergy for me was the parallel with the Learning and Teaching Performance Fund and the faulty use of ordinal data to make judgements about the quality of teaching and learning in Australian universities, or does the fault really lie with Australian universities which are producing graduates who do such analyses!
• Impressed the interactivity featured in the presentations and the passion for teaching and learning demonstrated by the presenters at this conference.