Becoming flexible: Changing academic staff development

During the first semester of 1999, the Centre for Higher Education Development offered its Graduate Certificate in Higher Education to academic staff at Monash University for the first time. The course provided us with the opportunity to put into practice many of the ideas concerning flexible learning that we have been espousing to our Monash colleagues. We worked as teams to develop the four subjects, with the support of a graphic artist, a programmer and administrative resources staff.

As the course is undertaken by typically busy academics with little opportunity to attend scheduled classes, it was decided to design a learning environment that provided a mix of study approaches, including an online activity and discussion component, printed study materials (a short Study Guide and a book of readings) and face to face workshops and tutorials.

One of our greatest challenges was that we were determined to include, in the online environment, some of the workshop activities that we would use in typical face to face workshop sessions. We were keen for participants to share their experience and understanding of key concepts within a framework of 'student centred flexible learning', a phrase commonly used in recent Monash University plans and strategic documents. As stated in the Monash Strategic Innovations Fund Guidelines, 'student centred flexible learning places particular emphasis on interaction between learner and teacher and between learner and learner as a means of facilitating a shared, social construction of knowledge and understanding'. How this notion was built into the course will be covered in the paper.

Finally, the issue of our own development will be addressed, as the process of creating the course provided us with an opportunity to learn from each other and grow professionally. In this way we wish to model the idea of teaching as reflective practice that we espouse to our colleagues.