By: University of Western Australia

University of Western Australia — Fri, 02 Nov 2012 04:36:40 +0000

Thanks, Prof. Harding, for these insights that reiterate what many colleagues know and value about students, universities and their work as researchers and teachers. I recently enrolled in an undergraduate course, for my own research interests, and am completing a MOOCs course for professional reasons. Much has changed since I was a student but some things are recognizably the same. The sheer fascination with knowledge, the intrigue of how to get it, the figure of an academic teacher/mentor who offers a way into another world of knowing are all there though in new and different formulations in the students around me.
Let’s get our act together: use the technology that continues to change at breakneck speed, create the space, remind ourselves that, whatever the employer pressure groups say, time at university is valuable to students as an experience in itself as much as for what it will return to students in the form of employment. Current and future generations of students may have 3-5 jobs in a career but they will be undergraduates only once. Let’s make it count.
Assoc. Prof. Jenna Mead UWA

By: Flinders University

Flinders University — Mon, 29 Oct 2012 04:35:30 +0000

Dear Prof Harding,
A couple of implications arise from your insight. The fact that students want to learn with us – in person – as opposed to virtual learning is a powerful reason for higher employment of full-time academic staff, running more small group tutorials. Lectures can be packaged on-line freeing up time for the tutorials.The expense of recurrent funding could be offset by targeted marketing to other social actors like the mining companies (see my articles in The Punch and The Conversation). By ensuring that full-time staff rather than casual – many times stop-gap staff – are employed, the university would generate a reputation amongst students and employers for the excellence of teaching and ease of access to staff. Such a reputation would be a considerable advantage in the next ten, tumultuous, years.
Dr Jonathan Sobels

Comments on: What students want

By: University of Western Australia

By: Flinders University