Benchmarking as a type of knowledge-sharing around good practice within and between institutions is increasingly common in the higher education sector. More recently, benchmarking as a process that can contribute to quality enhancement has been deployed across numerous institutions with a view to systematising frameworks to assure and enhance the…

Scholarship parameters, in relation to postgraduate coursework studies, are developed against the expectations of the Boyer classifications of scholarship (Boyer, 1990) with particular emphasis on the role of minor thesis development. An example is presented in which postgraduate coursework students are required to undertake a three semester minor…

The University of Tasmania established a project in 2009 to investigate the particular needs of casual teaching staff, identify strategies to improve access to information, and facilitate a consistent approach to employment, induction, development and recognition. The project was managed by the university learning and teaching centre, and…

Across the Australian Higher Education sector a focus on quality is driving a new paradigm for learning and teaching: quality standards. One challenge is to engage all academics with this progress towards systematic quality enhancement and assurance. Sessional staff, who provide most of the face-to-face teaching in Australian universities, remain…

Advancing the development of good practice around the teaching team has been the focus of a recently completed, nationally funded Australian grant entitled Coordinators Leading Advancement of Sessional Staff (CLASS). The project focused on developing leadership capacity of subject coordinators to provide supportive contexts for sessional staff to…

International medical graduates (IMGs) comprise 26% of the U.S. physician work force. While IMGs bring all their knowledge and expertise, their pronunciation and intonation patterns often become a barrier in their ability to be understood. This breakdown in communication can affect physician-patient or physician-staff understanding and hence…

In New Zealand, as in many other western societies, the higher education system has become an increasingly less secure place in which to work, and over 40 per cent of those teaching in New Zealand higher education are sessional staff of some kind. Our university in New Zealand has long relied on part-time paid tutors, many of whom are students…

With approximately half of Australian university teaching now performed by Sessional Academics, there has been growing recognition of the contribution they make to student learning. At the same time, sector-wide research and institutional audits continue to raise concerns about academic development, quality assurance, recognition and belonging…

This paper reports how one Australian university and the Queensland Department of Education and Training (DET) are working together to increase the number of school students from low socio-economic backgrounds enrolling in undergraduate university degrees. This innovative program involves university lecturers and school teachers working together…

Language use changes over time. In Indigenous contexts, language alters to suit the shifting nature of cultural expression as this might fit with Indigenous peoples' preference or as a consequence of changes to outdated and colonial modes of expression. For students studying in the discipline of Indigenous Studies, learning to use appropriate…

This article describes a collaborative self-study undertaken to identify the source of academic writing difficulties among graduate students and find ways to address them. Ten faculty members in a college of education came together to define the problem and to analyze data gleaned from faculty and student surveys, course documents, course…

This paper contributes to the debate on what constitutes good teaching in early 21st Century higher education, through an examination of the experience of five outstanding lecturers from a business school in an Australian university. It is based on a qualitative study that explored their perceptions on what constitutes "good teaching". Resonating…

Social networking offers teachers and learners exciting opportunities to communicate. Web 2.0 and its synchronous communications platforms provide new avenues for teachers to deliver curriculum and facilitate learning. Further, they provide new avenues for students to engage and intensify their own learning. Being able to chat in real-time with a…

Many faculty interpret student responses to faculty questions as evidence of an actively engaged classroom. Because of this conviction, class participation, whether graded or ungraded, appears in many course syllabi in colleges and universities and is often promoted as the responsibility of students to contribute to the learning environment. Class…

This study examined students' perspectives on the use of assessment criteria and rubrics in graphic design studio at Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Ghana. This assessment strategy was introduced with the desire to improve students' participation and involvement in studio-based learning programme. At the end of the semester, a…