A problem-based learning approach was adopted for a unit of study in first year agricultural economics at the University of Sydney with the aim of starting development of students' research skills earlier than usual. The novel teaching approach employed a structured and guided problem activity in the first semester and progressed to a more…

The experience in developing a student-led academic journal, the Lincoln Planning Review, to provide experiential learning that links undergraduates in a small professional planning programme directly to research publication is described. A combination of circumstances, including an impending review of the programme by the external professional…

What is it about the teaching-research nexus that inspires engineering undergraduates to want more and become researchers themselves? In this study, we sought to discover more about the influences on current PhD students' choices to embark on higher degrees by research in various fields in engineering in an Australian research-intensive…

The teaching-research nexus (TRN) has become an important process in the modern University, providing both identity to university scholarship and a device for the integration of academics' work. Over the last decade many reports have identified the need to both establish institution-wide processes to embed and support TRN, and assist in academic…

Teaching and the student experience are interlocked. This paper takes a personal look at the pleasures and pressures of teaching in contemporary higher education. In doing so it adds to the definition of teachers' work in higher education, surveys some of the creative and positive sides of University teaching and shines a light upon the impact of…

This paper explores the interface between digital technologies and the teaching labour process in Australian higher education. We develop an adaptation of the seminal Clark (1983, 1994, 2001) and Kozma (1991, 1994) debate about whether technology merely delivers educational content unchanged--technology as the "delivery truck"--or whether…

This paper reflects on insights that emerged from the findings of a qualitative study conducted by the author in 2007 with third year management students from an Australian university on their perceptions in relation to business ethics. The findings revealed an attitude of cynicism with regard to the application of ethical principles beyond…

This paper reports on the experiences gathered as a result of the foundation, implementation and on-going development of an interprofessional course for undergraduate health science students in The School of Health Sciences (SHS) at The University of Newcastle. The purpose of the course was to provide commencing students (n=600) with a…

Increasingly, academic teachers are exploring the learning opportunities offered by student-centred participatory classroom and web-supported exercises. Role-play and gaming activities have been highlighted as fora which provide development of a range of personal and social skill sets in students, as well as understanding of subject content. This…

Individual oral tutorial presentations have been utilised in numerous undergraduate courses to develop and assess students' skills in organising and communicating ideas and information to a select audience. However, evidence from the literature, interviews with academics (n=5), and the author's own experiences have demonstrated that these…

This paper deals with the challenge of supervising PhD students. Any supervision is likely to constitute a challenging experience for the supervisor, even more so when they are a new academic staff member with little experience in PhD supervision in the Australasian context. This paper shows how one supervisor addressed the challenge by fostering…

Written from an auto-biographic perspective, this paper is based on reflections and insights arising from a journey of adaptation by a "sociologist-teaching-in-a-school-of-management". These reflections unveil the relevance to management studies of four interrelated conceptual tools: critical thinking, reflection, reflexivity and the sociological…

Although much has been written on the first-year experience of students at higher education institutions, less attention has been directed to the expectations of students when they enter an institution for the first time. This paper provides additional insights into the expectations of students at an Australian university and highlights areas in…

This paper describes how new roles for instructors and learners can be integrated into course design and delivery by rethinking course design as part of a process-based staff development program. The goal of incorporating online learning tasks was to engage students with course resources prior to class time through active learning. The staff…

Public relations educators delivering courses to international students find that each cohort of students interprets and understands public relations theory and its application to practice according to their respective cultures. The premise of this paper is to reflect on some of the interpretations and expectations of public relations students…