Higher education is infatuated with numbers. Educators assign students a mark for an assessment, combine those marks into a final unit grade, and then institutions combine grades from multiple units into a Grade Point Average (GPA). The result is a wonderfully convenient numerical value. Years of learning ultimately represented by […]
Innovation & Future of Higher Education - Leadership - Reflections & Provocations
What If Today’s Problem Was Yesterday’s Solution?
Universities are very good at adding things. A problem arises, prompting us to add a process. When we identify a risk, we introduce an approval step. If something goes wrong, we implement a policy. We also add reporting requirements, committees, systems, technologies, guidelines, and procedures, often for very legitimate reasons. […]
Innovation & Future of Higher Education - Reflections & Provocations
Where Does the University Campus End? Rethinking the Campus as an Ecosystem
Last week I spent time at Victoria University’s new India campus in Delhi, delivering professional learning for colleagues who will be teaching there. While my visit was focused on learning and teaching, being in a new university environment made me think further beyond the purpose of my time there. I […]
Assessment & Feedback - Innovation & Future of Higher Education - Student Learning & Engagement
If Assessment Ends at the Grade, What Was It For?
In higher education, students often complete an assessment, submit it, receive a grade, and then move on. Academics evaluate and mark the work, offer feedback, and focus on the next task. The assessment has effectively fulfilled its purpose: generating evidence, informing judgments, and contributing to the final results. But has […]
Academic Identity & Professional Learning - Reflections & Provocations - Student Learning & Engagement - Teaching Practice
If Every Class Looks the Same, Are We Really Teaching?
During professional learning sessions with university educators, a familiar phrase keeps coming up: “We have to deliver the content.” It often surfaces when staff describe teaching a unit designed by someone else, especially when the slides, activities, resources and weekly sequence have already been prepared. For sessional educators and less […]