what we think is the future. And, in an earlier tweet, Yousef [inaudible] said ëWho's the

fortune teller here today?í And probably in a way that's been a job that I have been

trying to fulfil for the last couple of years. So, Iím just going to talk through some of

the thinking behind a lot of the activities that have been going on at UTS.

Now, Gilly mentioned the enormous interest and activity going on around the world in

terms of MOOCs, and this is a very nice summary I think, of where things are at the moment.

And, I talk about this often and there was a time about a year ago, when I could use

the same slides for a few weeks or a few months, but at the moment I have to change my slides

every day because there's always something new happening.

So, you can see here the three big MOOCs ñ Coursera, Udacity and edX, and very well-known

Khan Academy. But what this illustrates very well I think, is the enormous, not only interest

in MOOCs, but the enormous amounts of funding that are being thrown into these developments.

If you look up here, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation are pouring money into edX,

into the Khan Academy and so on. So, it's a very interesting diagram. Google has been

giving money to the Khan Academy, the University of Pennsylvania Caltech, and there are some

institutions in America such as San Jose University that are now asking their students to take

some of the MOOCs from Udacity and then count them as credit towards their degree, because

they can't arm supply education at the level that people are wanting it.

So, itís a real tipping point going on in this particular area, and politicians of course

are also extremely interested in this as a way of saving money. They won't say that,

but to a politician free online education looks like a windfall. And weíve heard that

the government is trying to find $12 billion in lost tax revenue. Tony Abbott has appointed

Alan Tudge to chair the committee to advise him on how Australia can take advantage of

what's happening in the online world. So, it's a very, very critical time to higher

education and really important that weíre having this discussion today.

So, as you know, UTS is in the middle of spending $1 billion on its campus redevelopment, right

at a time when there is enormous interest in online education. But to me a lot of the

discussion so far has been what you might call ëprovider captureí. Itís been about

what we can produce, and not enough about what students think about that. So, in order

to be a fortune teller, one of the things thatís really important in my role is to

listen to what students say, and there is no one student voice. However, having read

students feedback in a whole range of surveys in the course experience questionnaire, the

student satisfaction survey, and listen to students when they talk to me, these are the

kinds of things that they say. They say that they want really engaging, interactive face-to-face

classes, and they also want podcasts of them. They want more face-to-face time with academics.

They want more feedback and they want faster turnaround. When there are casual academics

employed to teach their tutorials, they want them to be paid more so they can go to all

the lectures. They want faster turnaround on email and questions as opposed on UTS online.

And they want more office hours. So, Iíve yet to read any more than about one or two

students asking for completely online education, and yet if you read everything thatís been

written about MOOCs, you would think that there was a great demand for it. So, it's

really, we can produce this, but our big question is really, ëWhat do students want?í The

challenge is that to implement what we do now, plus technology versions of it, would

cost enormous dollars that we just don't have. So, we have to make some hard decisions about

how we fulfil studentsí needs and ensure that they learn what it is that we want them

to learn. So, what is our approach to teaching and learning, and it's absolutely based on

the UTS model of learning which was rolled out quite a few years ago, that really basing

what we are doing on learning itself. So, there are three, in case you missed this,

when the awkward panel was about to come.

The UTS model is based on practice oriented education, to equip them for professional

practice in a global workplace, and learning that is research inspired. So, the kinds of

ways in which we can expose students to professional practice range from work based learning, internships,

practicums, volunteer activities, field trips, simulations, and so on. And so, that's what

we've been basing all our thinking on.

As you know, we're building a number of buildings, two of which are the Engineering and IT building

and the Dr Chau Chak Wing building. And this presented an unprecedented opportunity to

redesign learning through the redesign of learning spaces. And, weíre going to be moving

into those two new buildings next year, and therefore we've had a project called ëLearning

2014í, to ensure that we are changing around our approach to learning, in time to fit into

those new buildings in the way in which they were designed.

So, Gilly, in one of her early slides, had a continuum. On one side of the continuum

was completely face-to-face. On the other side was completely online - and we are in

the middle. So, weíre adopting an approach to learning, which is the seamless integration

of online and face-to-face. But the big question is, ëHow do we actually choose the best mix

of online and face-to-face?í Now, Paul started out today talking about whether this was a

farewell to learning, but I would like to call this the ëLearning Springí, because

what I'm hoping that we can do is rather than talking about how we teach, is to really get

the conversation back to the how students actually learn. ëWhat do students need to

do in order to learn?í and then base our decisions on the kinds of tools and technologies

and strategies, based on what it is that students need to do in order to learn. And thatís

what it actually looks like, but I want to unpack it and go back to back to the beginning

of what students need to do in order to learn - so bring the conversation back to learning.

So, here we have a student with particular learning goals, which is usually to get their

degree. But the first thing they need to do in order to learn is to get access to ideas

and the content of learning. And, so what might that look like in an integrated, face-to-face,

and online world? Well, students might come onto campus, they might be lucky enough to

have a class in the tower, or they might be in the new Chau Chak Wing building, or the

new Engineering and IT building, and they might also go to our physical library. They

might go to a class ñ a small class or a large class. But they will also be using a

combination of iTunes, YouTube, Ted-Ed videos and open education resources, in order to

access that content. That of itself is not enough for high-quality learning to occur.

Students also need opportunities to make sense of the ideas that theyíve accessed, test

out their ideas, and often that happens through performing some kind of action. So, what that

might be is having a conversation with a mentor in industry. It might be doing an experiment

in a laboratory, in other faculties that might be building a model ñ itís actually doing

something with the content. And it might be having work placement in industry, and it

might also be travelling, either hopefully overseas. That's a suitcase there [with a

global?] on it in case you don't recognise it. But, action without feedback is not a

very satisfactory learning experience. So, students need opportunities to gain feedback

on what their current thinking is, and that can happen via groups, which are either face-to-face

or online. It can happen with just a conversation with a tutor. It can happen on Facebook, and

it can happen on Twitter.

And then finally, students need to reflect on what they're in what theyíre initial thoughts

were, what they did, what the feedback was, and how all of that has changed their current

thinking about a particular area. So, they can do that by just sitting alone and contemplating.

It can happen via, from writing a blog, which is a reflective piece. It can happen by using

other computer tools, and it can happen in group work reflection on group activities.

So, that's the whole range of learning experiences that students might have, but again the choice

of whether it's a face-to-face experience or something that happens online, is purely

based on what it is that they need to do in order to learn. And Gilly mentioned the idea

that academics job is not necessarily to stand up and teach ñ that's a part of it, but probably

the most important role of an academic in the future is going to be the design of these

kinds of experiences. So, have we taken these ideas in the design of the interiors of the

new buildings. Much of the focus has been on the exterior of the building, but I've

been really involved in the design of the interiors of the building. So, we want to

take advantage of learning experiences like ëflipped learningí, and this is one of the

large collaborative theatres that are being rolled out. They can be used to give a lecture,

but they can also be used to get students into small groups within that large class,

so they do something to make sense of what it is that they've heard - so that's the ëflipped

learningí component. Our Faculty of Engineering is already doing quite a lot in terms of remote

laboratories, where students are able to log on and conduct an experiment online and see

the results. Our Faculty of Health is making wonderful use of quite high-tech mannequins

so that students can engage in simulations, so they try out particular patient care and

they see the outcomes. So, there's the action and the feedback all facilitated through technology.

And, weíve had enormous success with peer learning. So, those of you, and I know Georgina

is here today, our U:Pass is being rolled out across the University, and the grades

of the students who attend those is much higher than those who donít, and the failure rate

is reduced.

So, that we know that students working in teams is a very good learning outcome, and

because of that we've put enormous effort into designing rooms and spaces just for students

to undertake group work. And, it's interesting that we were alerted to the need to do this,

and provide more opportunities for that group work from the student satisfaction survey

in 2007, where students highlighted areas to do group work as being very high on importance,

but very low on performance. And Iím pleased to say that as a result of all the work was

done for the last couple of years, it still rated as high in importance, but it is now

rated as high on performance - so weíve met those student needs. And, Tim Laurence whoís

now at INSEARCH actually led the first group that worked on those.

And, finally I just wanted to talk about the graduate attributes, which I don't really

have time to go into in great detail, but we are putting an enormous investment into

ensuring that weíre rolling out graduate attributes - the kinds of soft skills that

we hear from industry all the time that are really important for students once they graduate.

It's not enough for them to have a body of knowledge - they have to also have these these

graduate attributes to go with them. And, it is very difficult for students to practice

those graduate attributes online. And, Iím just taking one example in the Faculty of

Law, and that that is the attribute of being a good communicator. And, as everyone else

is doing across the university, theyíre looking at different levels - so the basic, intermediate,

and advanced. So, to be an advance communicator in the Faculty of Law, you need to be able

to engage in mooting and oral court advocacy. Something that you really can't do easily

online, but for which we have very specialised facilities at UTS, so the students can in

a face-to-face environment, practice that in as realistic an environment as possible.

So, that's a very brief 10 to 15 minute overview of the way in which we have already been thinking

about the future of teaching and learning at UTS. Itís underpinned by the UTS model

of learning, and supported through the enormous amount of work going on in terms of graduate

attributes, and through the redesign of our teaching and learning spaces. Thank you.

[Applause]